The Time Spell Read online

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say to this.

  Where was Tilly when I needed her?

  Then the woman said, ‘My name is Betsy.’

  She was edging closer to me on the bench. I wasn’t scared any more – just a bit embarrassed.

  She leaned over and pointed at my charm bracelet. I held my breath.

  Was she going to try to steal it? Was I going to have to wrestle with this old woman to save my all-time favourite piece of jewellery?

  ‘That’s very pretty,’ she said.

  I nodded, wondering how offended she’d be if I pulled my arm away.

  Then she stretched out one skinny finger and touched the cat charm that Amy had given me for my last birthday.

  ‘And I see you’re a cat lover.’

  I nodded again and wondered where this conversation was going.

  ‘And you seem like a very sweet, kind little girl,’ she said. ‘Am I right?’

  I smiled. This woman was totally weird, but let’s face it, who doesn’t like hearing good stuff about themselves?

  ‘I suppose I’m not the worst girl in the world,’ I said.

  Betsy slowly got to her feet. ‘That’s settled then,’ she said.

  Hang on a minute. What’s settled?

  ‘No … I …’ I began.

  She patted my arm with her wrinkly old hand. ‘He’s very affectionate when you get to know him. And he likes lots of cuddles. Brush his fur twice a week – he likes that. And be kind to him. Please.’

  She was walking away.

  ‘No,’ I called after her. ‘You don’t understand. I’m not …’

  She moved very quickly for such an old lady, and while I was still talking, she had left the park and was on the road leading towards town.

  Just then Tilly was beside me. She threw herself on to the bench in the space where Betsy had been sitting only moments before.

  ‘I see you made a new friend,’ she said. ‘Bet she’s not as good at climbing as I am.’

  ‘She was the strangest woman, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her,’ I began. And then I went on to tell Tilly the whole story.

  ‘That’s totally weird,’ she said when I was finished. ‘But look on the bright side – at least she didn’t actually try to give you her cat.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said. ‘That would have been totally, totally weird. Now if you’ve spent enough time climbing your own miniature Mount Everest, do you think we can get out of here? Mum will be starting to worry about us.’

  She laughed, and we both stood up.

  Then Tilly grabbed my arm. ‘Er, Lauren, there’s just one thing,’ she said, pointing to the ground near the bench.

  ‘What do you think could be inside that basket?’

  There was a long silence as Tilly and I looked at the basket that was on the grass just near the bench.

  It was an innocent-enough-looking basket – the kind Little Red Riding Hood might have taken on her walk through the forest to see her grandmother. It was made of some kind of straw, and there was a pink and mauve flowery cloth covering whatever was inside. It wasn’t a big basket, so I knew it couldn’t contain a wolf or a tiger or anything totally scary like that. Still, though, something about it was making me very nervous.

  ‘Open it,’ said Tilly.

  ‘No way,’ I whispered. ‘You open it, since you’re so brave.’

  ‘But it isn’t mine,’ she protested.

  ‘It isn’t mine, either,’ I said. ‘It’s …’

  I looked up to see if there was any trace of the strange old woman, but she had long since vanished.

  ‘It’s not really anything to do with us,’ said Tilly after another long silence. ‘We could just go home and leave it there.’

  Could we really just walk away?

  Before I could decide what to do, the flowery cloth moved slightly. Tilly shrieked and grabbed my arm. ‘There’s something alive in there,’ she said.

  ‘Clever of you to notice,’ I said, trying not to sound as scared as I felt.

  ‘It’s probably just –’

  Before I could finish my sentence, the flowery cloth moved again and a faint sound came from the basket. It was a weird sound – like whatever was in the basket had something caught in its throat.

  ‘I’m out of here,’ said Tilly, without moving.

  I didn’t move, either.

  I so didn’t want to look in the basket, but at the same time, I had to know what was in there.

  ‘How about we look in together?’ I suggested. ‘On the count of three.’

  Tilly nodded, and I began to count slowly.

  ‘One … two … three.’

  Again, neither of us moved.

  We both giggled nervously.

  Just then, the cloth stirred one more time. It moved slowly at first, and then with a sudden flurry that made Tilly and me jump, the cloth was flung aside and something was sitting up in the basket, staring at us.

  There was a very, very long silence.

  ‘It’s a cat,’ said Tilly helpfully.

  She was right, it was a cat.

  But it was nothing like any cat I’d ever seen before.

  It had long white hair and huge pointy ears. Strangest of all, though, were its eyes. One eye was pure bright blue, while the other was a deep, dark green colour.

  Round its neck was a narrow leather collar, studded with shiny green and blue stones – exactly matching its eyes.

  Tilly was still squeezing my arm, but now she relaxed her grip slightly so that it only hurt a lot, instead of an awful, awful lot.

  The cat was blinking its odd eyes. It yawned, and then licked its lips with its long pink tongue.

  ‘Omigod,’ I said again. ‘It’s going to eat us.’

  Tilly actually laughed.

  How dare she laugh, when I was so scared that I was actually thinking of racing to the top of the climbing wall to get away from this thing?

  ‘Don’t be such a baby, Lauren,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to eat us. It’s just a cat.’

  ‘Well, it’s a weird cat,’ I muttered, as I took a step away from it.

  Tilly released my arm and took a step closer to the creature.

  ‘Hello, Saturn,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen?’

  Cute isn’t the word I’d have used.

  Freaky or weird were the ones that came to my mind first. But then Saturn bent his head and rubbed it against Tilly’s hand. He made a soft purring sound and, for one tiny second, he did seem … well, maybe not cute, but not quite as weird as before.

  Seconds later, Saturn was being cuddled in Tilly’s arms.

  ‘He’s adorable,’ she said. ‘And it doesn’t look as if your new best friend Betsy is going to come back, so …’

  I was fairly sure where this was leading, but I waited for her to finish.

  ‘… can I keep him?’

  ‘Weren’t you listening, Tilly?’ I protested. ‘I told you the whole story. Betsy spent ages talking to me before she made up her mind. She said I was kind. She said I was the perfect person to take care of Saturn.’

  ‘But you said he was weird. You don’t want him.’

  She was half right.

  When Saturn was an alien creature in the basket, I didn’t want him. But now that Tilly seemed so interested, I was afraid of losing something special. Suddenly I very much wanted to keep this cat.

  I leaned over and stroked his head. His fur was soft and silky. He blinked and stared at me with his bright odd eyes. I had a sudden, strange feeling that he was checking me out.

  ‘He’s not weird,’ I said quickly. ‘He’s beautiful. He just frightened me for a minute, the way he popped up so suddenly. That’s all. I’m over it now. And I have to follow Betsy’s wishes. I promised.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.�
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  ‘Well, I would have, if she hadn’t rushed off like that. Anyway, I think that cat is mine.’

  Tilly didn’t answer at first. She rubbed Saturn’s back and he rewarded her with a loud miaow.

  She sighed. ‘It wouldn’t work, anyway,’ she said. ‘My dad’s totally allergic to cats. There’s no way I could ever have kept him.’

  She held her hands out and gingerly I took the cat from her. He snuggled into my arms. I could feel his heart beating against my skin.

  ‘Luckily my mum loves cats,’ I said.

  This was true. Mum loves normal cats. I wondered if she could find it in her heart to love this beautiful but strange, odd-eyed cat.

  Tilly was still stroking Saturn’s head. It was time for me to be generous.

  ‘You can help me to feed and take care of him,’ I said. ‘And you can play with him whenever you come to my house. He can sort of belong to both of us.’

  ‘Thanks, Lauren,’ she said.

  Then she hesitated. ‘There’s just one thing, though. Didn’t the old woman say that strange things happen whenever Saturn is around?’

  She was right. I had forgotten that.

  Should we be afraid of this creature?

  But then I looked around the park. The sun was still shining. People were still hanging out enjoying themselves. Everything was normal, just like it should be.

  Saturn snuggled deeper into my arms. He gazed up at me with his wide, peculiar eyes.

  How could a cat make strange things happen?

  ‘Betsy clearly had a lot of issues,’ I said in the end. ‘She didn’t know what she was talking about.’

  Tilly nodded. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. ‘Saturn is just a poor cat who has been abandoned by his owner. It’s lucky you were here to take care of him.’

  I stroked Saturn’s soft, smooth fur. ‘See, kitty,’ I said. ‘Today is your lucky day. Let’s go home and you can live happily ever after with me.’

  We put Saturn back into his basket and tucked the cloth round him to keep him warm. He popped his head up and looked very happy as Tilly and I took turns to carry him back to my place.

  ‘You were gone for ages,’ called Mum from the living room, as Tilly and I let ourselves in the front door. ‘Did you get lost?’

  I smiled to myself as I put Saturn’s basket on the floor in the hallway.

  ‘No, Mum,’ I said, ‘we didn’t get lost. But you know how you said that you never get any presents?’

  There’s something I should make absolutely clear right now.

  I’m just an ordinary girl.

  I’m not some freak who wears weird clothes and smells of mouldy cabbage. I’m not the kid you wouldn’t want to sit next to at school.

  I’m not the kind of girl who hangs around park benches chatting to strange, sad old ladies.

  I’m certainly not the kind of girl who ends up adopting cats from strange, sad old ladies.

  Even though that’s exactly what I did.

  *

  Tilly went on the Internet to research cats.

  ‘Saturn’s a Turkish Angora cat,’ she said when she called round the next morning.

  ‘Sounds fancy,’ I said.

  ‘It is. It’s a real posh breed, and lots of them have odd eyes – it’s like their speciality.’

  I giggled. ‘So Saturn is a designer cat.’

  She nodded. ‘He’s probably worth a lot of money.’

  That gave me a horrible thought. ‘Do you think Betsy will change her mind and want him back?’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘Not the way you described it. Sounds like she didn’t want any more to do with him. Ever.’

  I stroked Saturn’s silky fur. ‘Don’t worry, kitty,’ I said. ‘I won’t be like Betsy. I’ll love you forever, I promise.’

  After the first day with my family, Saturn’s odd eyes only looked a bit freaky.

  After the second day, they hardly looked freaky at all.

  On the third day, I looked out of my bedroom window and saw a cat with perfectly matched green eyes and I thought it looked totally weird. I even felt a little bit sorry for it.

  That’s the day I knew that Saturn had changed my way of looking at cats.

  By this time, Saturn had become part of our family and none of us could imagine life without him.

  We’d had cats in our family before, but Saturn was the cuddliest creature who had ever shared our house with us. He slept on my bed, and I often woke up to find him curled up in my arms. Mum pretended to be cross about this, but I knew she wasn’t really. In a way, I think she might have been jealous.

  Stephen, who’s usually afraid of cats, (and almost everything else) was brave enough to stroke Saturn, and I heard Amy telling her best friend that our new pet is ‘totally cool’.

  ‘That cat loves us all so much,’ said Mum one day as she sat down – and had to duck as Saturn launched himself at her from halfway across the room.

  Dad just laughed. ‘Cats only love themselves,’ he said. ‘Saturn’s just looking for a nice warm pair of arms to cuddle him.’

  Maybe Dad was right, but it really didn’t matter. Even he loved Saturn, and Saturn seemed to love us, so everything was perfect.

  One damp, horrible day, I was hanging around the house, feeling totally bored.

  One of Amy’s friends had joined a band, and she was playing their music at full blast. (She could lie on her bed for hours, listening, like it was actually good.)

  Stephen was playing some pointless war game on the computer.

  Mum was just putting a cake into the oven when I wandered into the kitchen for what felt like the fiftieth time. I used my finger to scrape some of the cake mixture from the inside of the bowl. It was chocolate cake, which is usually my favourite, but I couldn’t make myself get excited about it.

  ‘Where’s Tilly today?’ asked Mum.

  ‘She’s visiting her cousins. She’s going to be gone for ages.’

  ‘Why don’t you clean out your bedroom?’ suggested Mum. ‘It hasn’t been tidied properly for weeks.’

  Didn’t she think I felt bad enough already?

  ‘It’s OK, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll just go hang out in the living room and play with Saturn. He’s acting a bit strangely today.’

  Mum smiled. ‘It’s probably just the damp weather. Would you like something to drink? There’s some lemonade in the fridge.’

  I nodded.

  Mum gave me a full glass of lemonade, which I emptied in seconds.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said. ‘But I’m still totally bored.’

  Mum smiled again. ‘Your life is too soft, young lady,’ she said. ‘What you need is a big dose of reality.’

  I didn’t feel like a lecture, so I put the glass into the dishwasher and went back into the living room. I picked up Saturn’s brush and sat on the floor.

  ‘Come on, Saturn,’ I said. ‘You haven’t been brushed in days. What would Betsy say if she knew?’

  Saturn saw the brush, jumped off the couch and ran towards me.

  I smiled. ‘That’s a good boy,’ I said. ‘Sit there nicely and I’ll make you the most beautiful cat in all of Ireland.’

  Saturn blinked his eyes as I started to brush the long fur on his neck, next to his collar. It was kind of relaxing, running the brush through his silky coat, listening to his soft, satisfied purring.

  Then suddenly Saturn’s purr changed to a harsh growling sound. His body went tense and his eyes became wide and staring.

  I put down the brush and stroked his head.

  ‘Hey, Saturn,’ I whispered. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He didn’t answer of course. He jumped into my arms and gazed at a patch of carpet near the window, like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

  I followed Saturn’s gaze across the room, but there was nothing unusual there – no mouse, no butterfly, not eve
n a single lazy buzzing bluebottle.

  Even through my fleece, I could feel Saturn’s claws pressing into my arms. He looked fierce and wild and a bit scary. I could see that he was ready to pounce. I wasn’t very happy to be his springboard, but boy was I glad I wasn’t his intended victim.

  ‘It’s OK, Saturn,’ I said softly. ‘There’s nothing –’

  Before I could finish, Saturn hissed loudly and then flung himself across the room like a sleek, white bullet.

  He landed on the patch of carpet that he had been staring at, and seemed puzzled that it was just a plain, empty space.

  I started to laugh. ‘Silly Saturn,’ I said. ‘If you want to hunt, first you have to make sure that there’s something there. Hunting is no fun without a target.’

  Saturn looked at me with wide, staring eyes, and then he gave a small, strangled howl and leapt back into my arms, landing heavily.

  ‘Hey, that hurt,’ I said, as I struggled to catch my breath.

  Saturn clung on to me with four rigid paws. He looked absolutely terrified. This didn’t seem funny any more.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, stroking his trembling head. ‘There’s nothing there. You don’t have to –’

  But I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  I felt suddenly dizzy and the room was spinning.

  There was a strange whirring noise, like a helicopter revving up for take-off.

  ‘Mum?’ I tried to say, but the word didn’t make it out of my mouth.

  All of a sudden there was a white, blinding light.

  I tried to hold Saturn, block my ears and cover my eyes, but discovered that two hands aren’t quite enough to do all of these things.

  And then everything went blank.

  At last the whirring noise stopped. I still felt slightly dizzy and my head hurt. Saturn was still in my arms, but he seemed to have relaxed a bit. (Or maybe I was just getting used to the feeling of his claws embedded in my skin.)

  My eyes were tightly shut and I was too afraid to open them.