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me.
    ‘It’s just – you don’t think she’ll freak, being shut up in the dark in this box, do you?’ I asked anxiously, glancing at Dad.
    He’d reversed out of the drive now and was concentrating on turning out of our road, but he smiled and said, ‘She’ll be OK. It’s not far to the vet’s. She needs to
be contained, though; I don’t want her doing her James Bond act while I’m driving, shinning up the back of the seat and walking on the ceiling.’
    I couldn’t help letting slip a giggle at that image.
    ‘Secret Agent Double-0 Supercat reporting for duty, sir!’ Dad said, putting on a serious spy-type voice which made me giggle even more. ‘Claws sharpened and ready for
action!’
    I glanced down at the box and wondered what the little cat was thinking. ‘What a pair of loonies,’ probably.
    Dad changed gear and sped up as we joined the main road. I felt a stab of alarm as Jaffa began sliding about inside the box, and I could hear her claws scrabbling desperately to try and get a
hold on the cardboard.
    ‘Dad! Dad! Slow down!’ I cried, trying to steady her.
    ‘What do you mean? I’m only going at about twenty miles an hour!’ he protested. ‘The way this traffic is going—’
    ‘Well, it’s too fast for Jaffa,’ I told him. ‘She’s in a right state!’
    ‘We might as well walk then,’ he said impatiently.
    I knew that wasn’t an option: I wouldn’t be able to keep Jaffa in the box if we walked. Reluctantly I held on even more firmly, glad for the second time that morning that the little
cat couldn’t tell me exactly what she thought of me.
    We got to the vet’s to find there was a huge crowd of people in the waiting room. At least the smaller animals were kept separate from the larger ones, I thought, as we were shepherded
away from a room full of dogs of every colour, shape and size, all straining at their leashes and drooling and yapping at each other.
    ‘Looks like you were right about the lid,’ I said to Dad grudgingly.
    ‘Mmm,’ he nodded, eyeing the seething horde of dogs.
    I cautiously placed the box down on a seat. Jaffa had been hurtling around in a frenzy during the journey, and now she was bashing the top of the box so hard, it felt like she was trying to
headbutt her way out of there. I held on tighter than ever and sighed as I looked at the large group of people waiting to be seen with their cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters and – urgh! I
shuddered as a sudden movement in a glass tank caught my eye. It was – it couldn’t be, could it—?
    ‘Oh my— Did you see that?’ Dad whispered, horror consuming his features. He was staring at the glass tank too, his eyes boggling out of their sockets.
    I gulped and nodded. ‘A snake!’ I mouthed.
    Dad and I exchanged incredulous looks and then stared resolutely at the floor. Every time the receptionist called for someone to go in to the vet, I prayed hard that it would be the
snake’s turn so that I didn’t have to sit there, knowing I was sharing a room with it. But it seemed it had arrived far too early for its appointment, as a stream of other animals were
called in first. I sneaked a peek at it only to look away again quickly. It had reared its head up and stared right at me, its forked tongue quivering, as though sizing me up for its dinner. I
shivered. Did snakes eat kittens? I pushed the horrifying thought away and clutched the box closer to my chest.
    As I forced myself to look at the cuter animals in the waiting room, it suddenly struck me as odd that Jaffa had not uttered a single sound the whole time she’d been ricocheting around
inside the box. I mean, you would have thought that being frightened and shut in like that might have wrenched at least a little mew out of her. Weird.
    I watched the hands move round on the clock and felt my head nod forward sleepily.
    ‘Jaffa Fletcher!’
    Dad jabbed me in the ribs, jolting me wide awake.
    ‘That’s us,’ he said out of the side of his mouth.