Poppy: A Cats of Charnwood Story.

Poppy

The sun shone hot and bright. Far too hot and far too bright, as it has done the day before, the week before that and the year before that. Every day it shone hotter and hotter.
A cat stood on the top of a bare rock looking northwards. Once this place had been covered in snow and ice, but that was long ago. This world’s sun had been growing and growing now for hundreds of years. At first the cats of that far of world had ignored the danger, believing everything would be all right. By the time they woke up to the problem, it was too late.
They had tried to shield their cities. But the sun got too hot and the shields had failed. Now only one family remained and they were heading to the north pole of their world in a last desperate bid for survival.
The father of this family was an explorer. He spent most of his time away from the family looking for safe places for them to live. But there were none left.
The mother of the family was a scientist. She had studied the ancient books which told how the cats had come to this world through Kapol-Tok, but now the pools had dried up; there was no escape that way. But the mother had worked out a way to use their world’s magnetic field to open a portal to one of the possible worlds their ancestors had colonised, Earth.
The family tried to stay hidden by day and move by night. In the early morning, they would lick the tiny drops of dew which clung to the rocks. They hadn’t eaten in days, their baby was small and quiet and very very hungry. Eventually, they reached the North Pole and there in the dead of night they prepared and small bowl containing the last of their water and some equipment. Don’t ask me what this equipment was, I don’t know, but there they worked and eventually space tore itself apart and a hole appeared in the air. The other side was a vision of green. Grass and trees. But... the hole was too small, and the water in the bowl began to evaporate.
‘My baby girl’ the mother said. ‘You must jump through the hole, it’s the only way’.
‘But I don’t want to go without you mama’ the little kitten cried.
‘You have to,’ said Mama, ‘The hole is too small for us. And it will close soon as the water runs out.‘
The little kitten wouldn’t move. Her dad came up behind her and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. He spun around three times and let go; the little kitten flew straight through the hole. Just in time as it closed behind her.

***

In the south of London, far away from the Charnwood forest, A little girl was walking down a road. She was very sad, for her cat had passed into memory, as all things must. She heard, or thought she heard a tiny pop and then the sound of a little kitten mewing. Looking behind a bush, she found a little bundle of fluff looking scared and lonely and crying. She picked up the kitten and at first it was scared but no sooner had it smelt the girl it curled up in her arms and fell into a lovely sleep.
‘I will look after you,' the young girl said. “I will call you Poppy and we will be the best of friends forever."
And you know what? 
They were.

To read the full Cats of Charnwood series. please visit : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08TX3TFKG