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‘Oh. My. God. What the fu—’ Callum caught himself in time from uttering an expletive that, he had no doubt, would be repeated ad nauseum by Fergus as soon as he walked in the farmhouse.
Callum scrambled over the front seat into the back of the van, his first thought to get as far away from whatever that was, forgetting that he could just as easily have opened the passenger door and scrambled out of the van instead.
He grabbed Fergus and pulled him out of his seat. He stood stooped in the back of the van, holding Fergus under an arm.
‘Let go!’
Callum looked at him hanging there lopsided. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Sorry.’ Callum put him down.
‘I’m going to investigate,’ said Fergus, holding up his light sabre.
‘Investigate?’ He thought it was a big word for a small child. ‘No, come here!’ Callum wanted them to leave by the sliding side doors.
‘Hey, I know what that is.’
Callum couldn’t believe he was almost hiding behind a child dressed as a character from Star Wars. If only his fans could see him now, the great Laird MacGregor crouching behind a child, hiding from some little creature in his van.
‘What is it?’ he asked, peeking from behind Fergus.
‘It’s a cat.’
‘A cat?’ Callum heard it hiss. ‘So it is.’ He stood up to take a closer look. ‘What is a cat doing in the—?’ Callum stopped short. ‘Oh, no.’
Fergus turned around, brushed his blond hair out of his eyes, and cast his big brown eyes up at Callum. ‘Is it your cat?’ Fergus asked. ‘Can I stroke it?’
‘No, it’s not my cat.’ But Callum knew whose it was.
‘Whose cat is it?’
Callum sighed. He hadn’t recognised the cat at first – but he should have. He’d grown up with that cat. It was his dad’s. He was quite shocked to discover that it was still alive. It must be the oldest cat on the planet. Dickens had obviously lived an awful lot longer than the average cat’s life expectancy.
Callum’s dad had always taken the cat with him in the campervan on his business trips. Dickens had been his dad’s little travelling companion. His mum had never complained because for some reason, she had hated the cat. But she’d obviously been left with it when her husband moved into the care home.
Callum answered Fergus’s question. ‘It’s my dad’s cat.’ He stared at the scared little black cat with white paws and a white patch of fur around one eye. Wherever he’d been hiding for the whole trip down from Scotland – curled up fast asleep, no doubt, on the comfy sofa in the back of the van – he’d been well and truly jolted awake by the sound of Fergus furiously honking the horn.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Dickens.’
‘What’s he doing in the van?’
That was a good question. Callum glanced at the split windows in the passenger and driver door. The little window beside the main one that rolled down, opened out. One of them had been left open a crack, and the wily black and white cat staring at them from the footwell had obviously squeezed in and made himself at home for the day – or as it happened, on a journey all the way from Scotland to Suffolk.
And there was a reason he hadn’t come out of his hiding place and made his presence known. The silly cat probably thought he was going on a trip with Callum’s dad.
Callum stared at the cat. If only he could speak, what stories might he tell about their trips together?
‘Can I stroke him?’
Callum didn’t even get a chance to say no before Fergus squeezed between the front seats and reached for the cat.
‘No, wait!’ The last thing he needed was for Fergus to run crying from the van after been scratched or bitten by the cat – or both – when he’d promised his mum that her son would be fine.
‘It’s okay, Callum, he’s friendly – look.’ Fergus had already crouched down in the footwell and picked up the little cat. He sat him on his lap and stroked him.
To Callum’s surprise, the cat actually purred.
‘Oh, okay.’
