A Kitten Called Cat

Chapter Two - Mr Bossy's Apartment

I slept and slept and slept until I couldn't sleep any more. At one point I did wake up and noticed it was light... and I did vaguely wonder where Mr Bossy was... but he wasn't giving me grief about sleeping for too long so I didn't really care!

So I rolled over and went back to sleep.

At last my rumbling tummy woke me up so I wandered along to the kitchen. There was a note waiting for me on the kitchen island.

'Good morning, Kitten,' it read.

I glanced up at a clock on the wall. It was still morning but only just.

"I have to go into work but should be back by about six. Please don't leave before then.

"Help yourself to any of the food in the kitchen. If you're bored, you may play with the home entertainment system in the living room. Use the red button on the remote to turn it on and the blue 'H' button for help.

"If you're a curious kitten, you may explore downstairs but you are not to go upstairs."

The word 'not' was underlined twice so it looked like he probably meant it.

I had a look in the fridge and there was a lot more in there than there had been the night before with plenty of breakfast and lunchy type stuff. There was also a selection of snacks on the counter; they were all healthy things like fruit and cereal bars but I wasn't complaining. It was food and I hadn't seen enough of that in ages.

I mean... I was a bit puzzled by it for a moment - had he really gone out shopping for me last night. But then I remembered that phone call he'd made, casually ordering people to stay up all night for security and stuff. He'd probably just phoned someone else up and told them to sort it all out for him.

I tried to work out what I thought about that but then gave up and started hunting around in the cupboards for any sort of chocolatey breakfast cereal instead. But, unfortunately, I could only find healthy-looking Müesli. At least there was that space-age coffee machine. I nervously pressed the button marked 'cappuccino' and it whirred and steamed and chugged for a short time and then produced a delicious mugful.

I grabbed the coffee and a small heap of the healthy snacks and went through to the living room where I curled up on the sofa and started experimenting with the home entertainment system which, I quickly realised, was probably cleverer than me! After a couple of minutes of prodding buttons pretty much at random, I persuaded the thing to bring me up to date with the episodes of a soap opera that I'd missed since I'd been living without a television and, indeed, without any sort of home to keep it in.

By the time Mr Bossy arrived home from work, I'd made myself a little nest on one of the sofas with the duvet from my bed. A pile of crockery - mostly coffee cups - and a small mountain of rubbish seemed to have magically appeared around it.

As he stepped out of the lift, I was struck by how stupidly handsome he was in that dark suit. I knew nothing about suits but it was obvious that that one had been made to measure for him.

But I was also struck by a slightly withering look. He was talking on the phone but had no problem letting me know what he thought about the mess that I'd made in his lovely room.

So, as he went upstairs, I jabbed at the remote control to turn the television thing off then carefully tidied the place up. I carried the dirty cups and stuff back into the kitchen and dumped my duvet back on my bed. I didn't need him to use words to tell me that he would officially be Mr Grumpy if I ever made a mess like that in his lovely flat again.

When I was done, I went upstairs to join him. He was in this snazzy office type thing at the top of the stairs. The whole back wall was made of glass so you could look down onto the living area below... or out through the main windows to a little valley with woods and then to the city and countryside beyond. He was lounging back on a huge, throne-like office chair with his feet up on his vast desk... and he was still talking on the phone.