Lara The Runaway Cat: One cat’s journey to discover home is where the heart is

‘Adventures?’ My ears pricked up at that – even if Cleo did say it like it was one of those words Mum scolded Dad for using sometimes.

‘Yeah. Ever since her husband, Jeremy, died, she’s been running around all over the world.’

‘Why?’ That was the part I still didn’t fully understand about adventures – why people wanted to have them. I mean, I knew why I needed to have one, but presumably everyone else wasn’t also having them to prove superiority over a dog. So, what was so special about them? So far, it just seemed like I was looking out of a different window from normal. Nothing much else had changed, except that I had to eat one of those horrible pouches of food for my dinner instead of my usual fresh prawns.

I was certain I was missing something about adventures. If this was all there was, I really couldn’t understand why people wanted to have them at all.

‘Something about finding the perfect place to scatter his ashes.’

‘Ashes?’

‘That’s what was left of Jeremy, after he died,’ Cleo explained.

‘And now she needs to put them somewhere else? Why?’

‘I have no idea. But I heard them talking before he went into hospital the last time. She said she’d find him his ideal place to spend eternity.’ Cleo shrugged her shoulders, then stretched out her paws in front of her. ‘All I know is that she’s dragging me all over the world, and she’s a terrible flyer. That’s why she needs to take me with her. Apparently, I’m her ESA.’

‘What’s an ESA?’ Could I be one? Well, if it turned out to be a good thing, anyway.

‘Emotional Support Animal,’ Cleo explained. ‘Means she grips tight hold of me whenever a plane is taking off or landing, and talks to me constantly in between when I’m trying to nap.’

I’d never been on a plane, or any further away from home than I was right now. But I would tomorrow. I’d be flying high in the sky over to China, according to Mum. I wondered if they’d hold tight to me.

I looked over at Gobi again. Mum had one hand resting on her fur as she talked to Jennifer. And I knew, right then, that I wasn’t anyone’s ESA: Gobi was. She was the pet who had changed everything. The one who got to go on all the big adventures, because people wanted to see her wherever she went. I was just tagging along. This wasn’t my big trip at all, it was all Gobi’s.

‘And this is going to be her longest journey yet.’ Cleo was still talking, oblivious to my realization of my unimportance. ‘She’s going all the way to Australia. That’s practically a whole day on a plane, she says. And …’ Cleo’s voice dropped, lower and smaller, like she was ashamed of what she was going to say next. ‘… I’m terrified of flying. It was bad enough just jetting around Europe but a whole day on a plane? I can’t take it. All I want is to go back home, with the automatic kitty feeder they used to use when they went away for a weekend. Is that so much to ask?’

I made a vague sympathetic noise, but my brain was stuck on one word.

Australia.

I knew about Australia. Not much, but enough.

You see, that was where Dad was from, before he met Mum and me. He grew up there. He showed me on the map – and it was further away than China, even.

Dad talked about Australia sometimes. Not often, but every now and again. Because he’d not been back there in years – since long before he found Gobi in the desert.

Which meant that Gobi had never been to Australia.

That was an adventure that was too much even for Gobi.

But I was sure I could do it.

I studied Cleo carefully. Same fluffy white and dark brown fur. Same blue eyes. Same fluffy tail. We really did look very alike …

Suddenly, an idea floated into my mind. An adventurous, crazy idea. One that was more extreme than a ferry ride, or a book tour. It might even be more exciting than being lost in China, or running an ultramarathon.

The sort of idea that, if it worked, would mean that no one would be able to say that I was just an indoor, homebody cat ever again.

I’d be Lara, cat adventurer. I’d be the pet everyone wanted to talk about. Maybe they’d even write a book about me, too.

‘We should swap places,’ I said, without thinking it through any further. ‘I’ll go to Australia with Jennifer, and you can …’ Ah … For a cat who hated flying, I was pretty sure the flight to China wouldn’t be a lot of fun, either.

‘Hide out in the airport until Jennifer gives up and comes home again?’ Cleo finished for me. She sat up straighter, looking imperious and calculating. Somehow, I got the feeling that my adventure had just slipped from my paws into hers. ‘That could work.’

‘It could?’ I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought through the specifics, I’d just acted on impulse. Like Gobi did.

To my surprise, it felt kind of good.

‘We’d need to be cunning about it.’ Cleo was watching Jennifer again, sounding thoughtful. ‘But yes, I think it could work.’

‘Great,’ I said. But inside I was wondering what on earth I’d got myself into now. It had sounded exciting in my head, but now the words were out in the world, it was sort of, kind of, terrifying.

Well, I’d wanted my own adventure. One that wasn’t about Gobi at all.

It looked like I’d got one.

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Just as Dad returned to the cabin with hot chocolates, I asked Cleo, ‘Okay, so how would this work?’

We both stopped chatting to pay attention to our humans again for a moment.

‘Oh, Dion, Jennifer and Cleo are headed to the airport same as us tomorrow morning. We’ve got space to give them a lift, right?’ Mum said, taking her paper cup.

Dad shrugged. ‘Sure, happy to help.’

My dad is too nice sometimes – I reckon that’s how we ended up with Gobi. But on this occasion, it suited my plans perfectly.

‘That makes things a lot easier.’ Cleo stretched out her paws in front of her, arching her back as she thought. I could almost see the plan forming behind her calculating blue eyes. Finally, she settled back down again and said, ‘Here’s what we’ll do.’

I shuffled up closer to listen. I’d had the grand idea, but was definitely going to need help with the details.

‘The key is all in the timing,’ Cleo said. I got the feeling that she liked to pontificate – something Dad said I always did when he was watching the sport. Still, under the circumstances, I was willing to put up with a bit of fellow cat know-it-all-ness. ‘We can’t make the swap until after they check our pet passports and microchips.’

‘Of course,’ I murmured, even though I was actually thinking, I have a passport? I mean, I knew about the microchip thingy, buried under my fur, but I’d never needed a passport before. (I’d seen Dad’s, though. He looked hilarious in the photo, and Mum liked to show it around any friends who stopped by, whenever he was preparing for another trip.)

‘Once we’ve been checked, but before we go our separate ways, we need to switch places, without anyone noticing.’

‘Easy,’ I said, although actually, it sounded anything but. I tried to picture how it would work, but without ever having been to an airport before, or gone through the security things Gobi had talked about, I couldn’t imagine it. Would it be like getting on the ferry, with the man who scowled at paperwork? Or would it be totally different?

If our humans weren’t looking too closely, they might not notice if we swapped places. I hoped …

‘We’ll see,’ Cleo replied. I supposed she was right – I’d have to wait and see how it all worked.

But one thing I was certain of – it would work. It had to. This was my one chance to escape on a real adventure, not just tagging around after Gobi. I wasn’t going to miss it.

I raised my head, stretching out my neck as I sat, imperious. ‘It’ll work like clockwork, just wait and see. We’ll swap places, and I’ll go adventuring to Australia with Jennifer, and you can …’ The gap in my plan suddenly seemed obvious. ‘Wait, what are you really going to do once we’ve swapped?’ I didn’t think she’d want to fly to China with Mum and Dad, but what other choice would she have?