Read Online Cat Kin by Nick Green - Free Book Online

What had possessed her to do that?
    Screwing the lid back on she returned the jar to its exact same place. But, as she surfed onto a chat room to kill another hour, she found herself wishing she had swallowed that pill after all.
She wasn’t exactly Miss Universe herself. With the last PE lesson of the year approaching, and Miss Fuller ominously promising the class ‘a surprise’, she needed all the help she
could get.
    ‘Ah, Rufus,’ she crooned. ‘Where’s
my
medicine, eh?’
    The ginger cat purred on her lap.

    ‘If this is Miss Fuller’s idea of a nice surprise,’ Avril whispered, ‘I pity her kids.’
    ‘If she ever has any,’ Tiffany whispered back. ‘She’ll have to catch a man first.’
    ‘And shut him in the cellar,’ sniggered Avril.
    ‘Locked in a cage.’
    Miss Fuller had set up the gym horse and springboard. Her treat was a vaulting contest. Whoever sprang highest or furthest without suffering serious injury got to take home a live tarantula. Or
something. Tiffany hadn’t really been listening.
    ‘No way are we surviving that.’ Avril watched grimly as the first boy, Jason Wilks, rocketed over the horse.
    ‘And that’s just the lowest notch,’ Tiffany muttered. ‘Look, she’s putting it up. Typical.’
    Avril went paler. ‘How high is it going to be when it’s our turn?’
    ‘She knew we’d go to the back of the line, didn’t she?’ said Tiffany. ‘Evil, muppet-haired witch.’
    ‘I’m going to be sick.’
    ‘Should’ve thought of that earlier.’
    Tiffany closed her eyes and reminded herself that, in forty minutes, Miss Fuller would be nothing but a bad memory. But the ignominy of being the class lump wouldn’t pass so easily. Week
after week she’d come here to be humiliated. How could she be good at pashki and so useless in school sports? Yusuf, she had discovered, was one of the year’s top footballers, yet at
Cat Kin she could run rings around him. Last lesson she had wowed everyone at by Eth-walking the long, winding course Mrs Powell had set for them in Clissold Park. Tiffany had done it in under a
minute, beating Ben’s time by one second and everyone else by a mile. But in PE she was like a different person. A different species.
    ‘Emma! Go,’ shouted Miss Fuller. Tiffany heard bare feet run to the springboard, judder off it and land with a wettish smack on the mat. Emma grunted, as if she had fallen badly.
Tiffany’s knees almost buckled under the weight of the butterflies in her stomach. She heard Miss Fuller raise the gym horse still higher.
    Then, in the blackness of her own eyelids, she saw cats’ eyes. Mrs Powell had encouraged them to practise their catras until they appeared at will. An indigo eye swam into view (that was
Ailur, Tiffany recalled), merging with a golden one, Parda. Why these should appear to her now, and what they meant when combined, she couldn’t think. But their presence was comforting and
she felt strength in her again.
    ‘Excuse me? Tiffany? Thank you for coming, pet, but can you wake up now?’
    Tiffany started at the sound of Miss Fuller’s voice. She opened her eyes to find herself at the front of the line. Everyone was staring at her, grinning like a pack of wolves. In her
confusion she had lost sight of the gym horse. She looked left, right, turned round and finally saw it. With no time left to be nervous, she ran at it and prayed.
    The vault turned out to be easier than it looked. She bounced up and skimmed over the frayed green padding on the crown of the horse. There was the tiniest jolt as she touched down on the wooden
floor, and that was that. She raised her hands above her head for good measure, the way gymnasts did on television, and walked to the back of the line, heart thudding with relief. She’d done
it as well as any of them.
    It took her a moment to notice how silent the gym had become.
    ‘Tiffany…’ Miss Fuller’s voice sounded different. Almost human.
    ‘What did she just do?’ one of the