Read The Kitten Hunt for Free Online

glanced hastily over my shoulder to see if she was still standing in the doorway. But I needn’t have worried.
Pinkella was at the living-room window, Kaboodle held in a firm embrace, and – oh no, dear me, no . . .
    ‘She’s making him wave his ickle-wickle paw at us!’ Jazz screamed hysterically, pointing at the insane scene in front of us.
    I nodded and smiled stiffly at Pinkella and waved back at her and Kaboodle. ‘Stop it, Jazz,’ I said out of the cor ner of my forced grin. ‘Just think of the money.’
    Jazz grinned at me, pirouetted and did a snaky dance move with her arms, singing, ‘Oh yeah!’ and flourishing the five-pound note at me.
    I grinned back and then turned to take one last careful look at Kaboodle before heading to Jazz’s house.
    And that time, he definitely did wink. No doubt about it.

 
5
Gourmet Delights
    D ad would have liked Pinkella’s note. It was in the most beautiful handwriting; the letters were perfectly even with not a crossing-out in
sight. They were also written in smart black fountain-pen ink, not scrabbly pencil or biro, which is what I would have used. Dad is always going on about how messy my writing is. ‘Messy
writing shows a messy mind, he says. He also says that I need to ‘Pay more Attention to Detail’. In fact, that’s one of his favourite sayings. That and: ‘Tone of
Voice!’
    Funnily enough, the way I tend to respond to being told to ‘Pay Attention to Detail’ often invites the comment ‘Tone of Voice!’ straightaway afterwards.
    Anyway, Pinkella would win the Attention to Detail Award no problem, and not simply because of her handwriting. This was what she had written:

    Jazz whistled long and low after reading the note through and shook her head. ‘That cat doesn’t know he’s born!’ she said. ‘I wish Mum treated
me
that well.’
    ‘What – fancy the odd sachet of Feline Good, do you?’ I teased.
    Jazz pushed me sharply on the arm and squealed, ‘GROSS!’ And she started dancing round, singing out the song they use in the ad for Feline Good on the telly:‘
Feline Good!
Der-der-der-der-der-der-der! You know that it’s good now! Feeeee-line Gooood!
’
    ‘Put a sock in it,Jazz,’I grinned. ‘It’s bad enough on the ad, without your caterwauling version.’
    She spun round and pointed at me, holding her other hand to her face as if it were a mike. ‘Ha! Cat-erwauling! I like that, babe. Hey, you know what?’ she said, dropping her hands
and fixing me with a ser ious look. ‘They do say that there are people in those pet food factories who actually have to
taste
the pet food before it goes to the shops?’
    ‘Urgh, Ja-azz!’ I protested. ‘Now who’s being gross? That stuff stinks! There’s no way in a million years that anyone would actually
taste
it.’
    Jazz stuck her chin in the air and squared her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I would – if the money was good enough,’ she said.
    ‘Now you are seriously freaking me out,’ I said, horrified. ‘Can we change the subject, please? We ’ve got work to do.’
    Jazz rolled her eyes and grinned. ‘OK, OK. Whatever you say, boss. Let’s get started on the Appointments Book.’
    We were back at her house now and I had brought my new red ring-bound notebook with me. I was going to use it to write down everything I needed to remember about which animals I was
pet-sitting.
    ‘As your assistant I’ll take care of writing down all the appointments for you!’ Jazz said, bouncing on to one of her beanbags.
    Secretly I thought I could probably manage to write them down myself, but I just said, ‘Cool. And I’ll make some notes about what Kaboodle needs.’
    ‘Hey, let’s check out cats on the We b,’ said Jazz, bouncing up from her beanbag and going over to her desk where her silver laptop was lying.
    Jazz has a lot of stuff I don’t, like a laptop and a TV in her room, and bunk beds. And a mum.
    We searched for websites that might have top tips on how to look after