Alfie and George: A heart-warming tale about how one cat and his kitten brought a street together
The Sunday Times bestseller is back, with his biggest adventure yet. The perfect read for fans of A Street Cat Named Bob.As the residents of Edgar Road know, Alfie is no ordinary cat. Since his arrival in the street, he's made every house his home, helping this group of neighbours to become friends for life.But now there's a new cat on Alfie's turf – a tiny ball of fur called George. With no home to call his own, this little kitten is in desperate need. And little does Alfie know that they’ve got quite an adventure ahead of them to get him through this most difficult of times…A heart-warming story that's impossible not to love – Alfie is back and more adventurous than ever!
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Alfie & George
Rachel Wells
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016
Copyright © Rachel Wells 2016
Cover photographs © Shutterstock
Cover design © Head Design 2016
Rachel Wells asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008181642
Ebook Edition © November 2016 ISBN: 9780008181659
Version: 2016-10-27
To Jo with love
Contents
‘What on earth is THAT?’ I looked at Snowball, my cat girlfriend, then at the creature. We were standing by the wooden fence that surrounded the garden of our holiday home, staring at the strange creature roaming around on the other side. It was quite plump, had a very sharp beak, spiky fur, which looked feathery, and small, mean eyes. It made a funny, high-pitched noise as it eyeballed us, pecking in our direction. I backed away nervously.
‘Oh, Alfie, it’s just a hen! You must have seen one before?’ Snowball laughed.
I took offence, though in actual fact I hadn’t seen a real-life chicken before. But I was supposed to be the man in the relationship so I tried to square up.
‘Hiss,’ I said. There, that’d show him who was boss. But then the hen rushed towards me, wobbling its tiny head and flapping its wings. I jumped back.
Snowball laughed again and tickled me with her tail. ‘It’s harmless, Alfie, honestly.’ I certainly wasn’t convinced. ‘Well, you don’t get many hens in London,’ I huffed, stalking away.
We were somewhere called ‘the country’, and very nice it was too. We were staying in a house in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around for miles except fields. My family – Jonathan, Claire and Summer – and Snowball’s family, the Snells – Karen, Tim, Daisy and Christopher – had rented a house for a week, and they had brought both me and Snowball with them. Cats don’t normally go on holiday so we felt very lucky. When I told my friends, the neighbourhood cats, they were shocked, but we were having a lovely time so far and I thought that perhaps us cats should holiday more often. A change is as good as a rest, my first owner, Margaret, used to say, and she was right – it was just what the vet ordered.
The house itself was large, with five bedrooms, and there was a lovely open fire in the living room, which Snowball and I curled up in front of in the evenings. It was very romantic – although we had to be careful as sparks jumped out every now and then, once nearly singeing Snowball’s beautiful white tail.
We had been told that, if we went out, we mustn’t leave the garden. Our humans were worried about us getting lost – as if that would happen – but so far we had obediently stuck to exploring said garden and doing as we were told. It was a good size; pretty, with lots of interesting bushes and flowerbeds. There was enough to keep us occupied, as it was much bigger than the small back garden I had to put up with in London. However, beyond the garden, where the chickens lived, was the lure of some very lush fields. It was a big temptation for an inquisitive cat like me.
Snowball was less impressed. She’d been a rich cat before she moved to Edgar Road (my street in London), and her family had had an enormous garden in their old house in the country. She didn’t boast about it anymore, but when we first met (a time when she had done her best to be rude to me) she did a bit. But anyway, I had won her over and captured her heart and we’d been together for two years now. The best two years of my cat life.
