Read Online Cat Kin by Nick Green - Free Book Online Page B

arm’s reach of their hiding-place.
    ‘Keep still,’ whispered Tiffany.
    ‘It’s lucky I have you to tell me what to do,’ muttered Ben.
    ‘
Quiet
.’
    The policeman’s radio crackled. He ignored it, but Tiffany, who was already tense, jumped. The leaves shook and the officer turned.
    ‘You! Stop there!’
    ‘Run?’ whispered Ben.
    ‘Yes.’
    They scarpered. In his panic Ben forgot everything he’d learned. Robbed of the agility of pashki he blundered towards the nearest path, running as if through tar or a bad dream. He could
hear the younger officer jabbering into his radio as he chased.
    Was he jinxed or something? To be caught by a copper would be the final straw. Over the past few days he and Tiffany had crept through people’s gardens, across walls and over garages,
travelling whole streets without setting foot on a pavement, and had hardly drawn a glance. Ben found that pashki let him move, if not invisibly, then unobtrusively. He could cross someone’s
field of vision and they would simply ignore him. Only rarely had they been spotted. Once a man had bellowed from his bathroom window and they’d had to hide behind his chimney-stack. And just
now a woman had yelled as they crossed her garden, forcing them to scramble over a lopsided wall and drop ten feet into the cemetery. That they did these things without thinking amazed and alarmed
them both.
    Mrs Powell had organised extra lessons for the summer holidays, and Mum had remarked, grumpily, that Ben seemed to be doing little else nowadays (though as far as she knew, it was just an
ordinary self-defence class). His mum had a point. He’d stopped playing pinball altogether. But amongst the Cat Kin, Ben found he could relax. He could forget about John Stanford’s
threats, Mum’s ever-blackening moods, Dad’s disastrous attempt to help.
    His favourite lessons were in Ten Hooks. One of the nine pashki rudiments, Ten Hooks was non-contact sparring, based on the way cats fought. Whenever he practised the dreamlike slashes, lunges
and kicks, usually with Tiffany, he could go as long as five minutes without dreading what was going to happen to his family.
    It was when he thought of Mum, working extra hours in the organics shop or sitting alone in the flat that now felt like a prison, that the guilt came, clawing at his conscience. He should be at
home comforting her, not wasting his time being taught tricks by a half-mad old woman.
    For Mrs Powell got stranger by the minute. For three lessons now she’d been talking up something called
Mau claws
. She said that, just as the Mau body could extend beyond your
head to create an effect like whiskers, it could also be forced out through your fingertips or toes, so you would actually seem to have claws for a second or two. This (she claimed) was extremely
difficult and needed energy from all the catras in sequence, blue, green, gold, copper, red and indigo, to feed the Mau body to the point where it became almost a physical presence. To Ben it all
sounded about as likely as bending spoons with telekinesis.
    Running through the cemetery, he felt a tug on his arm.
    ‘This way.’ Tiffany darted down an alley of headstones. Ben strove to keep up, trying to recapture the cat grace that had deserted him.
    ‘I didn’t think that cow would actually dial nine-nine-nine,’ he panted. ‘She must have a really boring life.’
    ‘Urk.’ Tiffany stopped so suddenly that Ben thumped into her. ‘Up ahead.’
    Alerted by his colleague, the fat policeman was running from the other direction.
    ‘Split up!’
    ‘Wait. I’ve got an idea,’ said Tiffany. She veered off into a thicket of tall graves.
    ‘That’s a dead end,’ hissed Ben. ‘Not that I’m trying to be funny or anyth—’
    ‘You don’t remember! Last lesson she showed us how to Freeze.’
    Ben shook his head. He wasn’t trusting in that mumbo-jumbo now.
    ‘We’ve got to try!’ said Tiffany. ‘Stand still. Focus on your Kelotaukhon