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the street café, the lady who’d let me sit in the pansy pot, the young man who’d risked his life to get me off the road. In
my search for TammyLee, I planned to return to that shopping mall, and see my new friends. A cat who is alone and searching needs the support of friends.
    It turned out that I
had
got a ‘microchip’, and the police took me home to Gretel, even though I didn’t want to go.
    Since the Christmas tree disaster, Gretel had changed her mind and decided she did want to keep me. She still shut me in the shed, usually with the window open to give me
access to the garden. I used those times of freedom to roam the streets looking for TammyLee. I sat on the wall and waited for her to walk past, but she never did. I followed groups of children to
school and sat watching the playground, but TammyLee was never there, and no one spoke her name. She seemed to have vanished.
    Living with Gretel wasn’t working. I tried to love her, but it wasn’t easy. She loved me only when I was good and boring, not when I ran up the curtains or swung from the birch tree
in the garden, or caught the orange fish from the lily pond. But she did teach me stuff that turned out to be useful, like going in the car. Instead of shutting me in the shed, she took to putting
me in the car and taking me with her. At first I was petrified. But I soon got used to it. The car was warm and comfortable, and Gretel had set it up with a wire grill to stop me going into the
front while she was driving, a cosy cat igloo where I could hide, and even some toys for me to play with. She talked to me a lot while we were going along, and sang me songs and played the radio.
The trips were interesting. I learned to recognise places. Corners and buildings and parks. Even the shopping mall and the river bridge where TammyLee had stood with baby Rocky. I glimpsed the
elder tree where I’d spent the night guarding him, and I sensed the wild country beyond the town, which I longed to explore.
    So I became a car cat. I quite enjoyed it. Until one terrible day that changed my life.
    It was a summer day, many weeks after I’d found the abandoned baby. The weather was so hot that it hurt my paws to walk on the patio. I was rolling on my back on the lawn, enjoying the sun
on my belly and dabbing at passing flies.
    ‘Come on, Fuzzball.’ Gretel appeared in a flimsy blue dress, twiddling her car keys. ‘We’ll go to the supermarket. At least they’ve got air conditioning in
there.’
    If I’d known what was going to happen, I’d never have let her pick me up, tuck me under her arm and put me in the car. It was hot in there, but she drove along with the window open.
Lovely, except for the smell of a crowded town, the exhaust fumes, lawns being mown, the bakeries and the pubs. Far away was the briny tang of the river and the heather-covered moorland beyond the
town, a scent on the wind that stirred a deep ancestral longing in me. Being a domestic cat was OK, but I had a wild streak in me that wasn’t satisfied with fluffy cat beds and cat-nip
mice.
    There was a bad atmosphere in town. A sense of something simmering, about to erupt. People looked knocked out by the heat. Children were crying and dogs were being dragged along on leads on the
hot pavements.
    ‘I’ll bring you an ice cream,’ said Gretel, turning into the supermarket car park. She found a parking space, shut the windows and got out. ‘I won’t be long,
Fuzzball.’
    I sighed and settled down for a snooze. Used to being left in the car, I curled up, wrapped my tail around myself and closed my eyes.
    Within minutes I was too hot. It wasn’t like lying by the fire and having to move away from the heat. I was trapped in it, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Alarmed, I climbed up onto
the back of the seats, but it was worse up there near the roof of the car. Outside, the car roofs shimmered in the heat, dazzling me. I wanted to shut my eyes, but I was frightened. I clawed at