A Kitten Called Cat

Chapter Forty Four - Beware the Small Crocodiles

The next morning, Master tried to sneak away without waking me; he even went into the middle bedroom to shower. But he failed - I hadn't managed to sleep all that much. So I scurried downstairs to make him a proper cappuccino and sent him on his way with a kiss and a coffee. "Give my love to everybody," I called as the lift doors closed behind him.

But then I stood and stared at those doors for a long time. Kitten knew Master was worried.

And, if Master was worried, Kitten needed to be worried too.

So I went back to bed and spent a couple of hours worrying and completely failing to sleep.

And when I got bored of the whole 'not sleeping' thing, I gave a sigh and sloped off down to the kitchen to find breakfast.

Unfortunately, Caroline was lying in wait. "Good morning!" she said when she saw me. She sounded disgustingly cheerful. "It's time for your workout."

I gave her a look that told her that I wasn't terribly keen on the idea.

She replied with a look that told me she didn't care!

"Would you like a drink of water before you start?" she asked.

"Not even a coffee first?" I said, almost in a wail. I thought that was completely unfair.

"With what I have in store for you, you don't want that in your stomach. Anthony told me to give you a solid workout."

"Uh! Oh!"

So I stomped up to my room to get changed. That's one small difference between Mr Grumpy and Caroline... he'd get grumpy about that sort of thing; she just didn't care!

Up until that point, I'd always assumed that my workouts with Master were just about as bad as they could get.

It turns out I was wrong.

At least he had the good taste to concentrate on his own exercises when he was supervising mine. Caroline told me she'd finished hers, 'hours ago!'

So I got to enjoy her undivided attention! She was a fan of the whole 'multiple reps with light weights' thing.

I wasn't that keen!

At last I was released from purgatory and Caroline was quite pleased with herself as she lugged me across to the lift. When she left me to go up to shower, I had to sit on the bottom step for about ten minutes before I could make it up the stairs.

But at least there was a cappuccino waiting for me when I made it back down.

And when I'd finished my breakfast, she phoned down to Elroy and he joined us in Master's study for a two hour debriefing on yesterday's ambush. It was really strange. The whole incident couldn't have lasted more than about twenty seconds from beginning to end but Caroline and I could remember quite amazing amounts of stuff when we set our minds to it.

After lunch, I couldn't settle but I didn't want Caroline to notice because, knowing her, she'd get me doing another workout or something. So I snoozed, curled up on the sofa, with a couple of economics books in front of me.

Towards the end of the afternoon, Elroy popped up to warn me that Master wouldn't be home that evening. I guess the two had a secure way of communicating. I wasn't all that surprised - I'd pretty much resigned myself to being on my own for the night and, in a way, it was a relief to finally know.

So I got him to order a couple of pizzas for tea - including a ham and pineapple one for me - comfort food for a worried kitten. And I even persuaded him to join Caroline and me to eat.