But when I realized that Lucja and Lara would be coming along, too, that made things different. Going to China with my whole family, that was something else entirely.
A chance to let go of the past, perhaps. To chase away those nightmares and replace them with new dreams. Happier ones.
Besides, as long as we were all together, I knew nothing bad could happen to me.
Not this time. Not with my sister there to protect me.
Except now I was very afraid she wouldn’t be.
It was all the fault of that other cat, I knew it. Cleo, that was her name. She’d been whispering things in Lara’s ear all the previous evening, and while I didn’t know what they were talking about, I knew I didn’t like it. It had made Lara all secretive and aloof, the way she got sometimes when she was cross with me for something.
It made her act not like my sister.
Still, I didn’t understand how dangerous Cleo was until we were at the airport, and the two of them made such a scene, winding around each other until …
No. Oh no!
That was when I realized.
When Lucja picked up Cleo instead of my Lara and put her in the carrier.
Why couldn’t they see what was happening? That awful cat had stolen Lara’s place!
I didn’t want another cat, I wanted Lara. And I knew Dion and Lucja would too, when they realized what had happened.
If only they’d listen to me …
I watched Cleo carefully through the bars of Lara’s carrier. She looked very pleased with herself; she knew exactly what she’d done. Poor Lara, tricked by a fellow feline!
I kept trying to tell Dion what was going on, all the way to the gate. I’ve been through a lot of airports over the last year or two, and I know the drill. Normally, I sit quietly beside Dion, unless someone wants to make a fuss of me, when I stand up and let them pet me for a while.
Not today.
Today, I barked at Cleo, I ran circles around Dion’s legs, trying to get his attention by tangling him up in my lead. I even jumped up onto Lucja’s lap to try and get her to just look at the cat in the carrier, but she just thought I was after the snack she was eating, and ordered me back down.
Skulking around the carrier, I tried to figure out my next move.
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with her today!’ Dion said, reaching down to pat my head as I quivered with anger and fear at his feet.
Where was Lara? Would she ever come home again? What if she needed me?
‘Maybe she just wants to be with Lara,’ Lucja suggested, more spot on than she knew. ‘Come on, we can probably let her out on the harness again now Cleo isn’t here.’
She bent down and unfastened the door to Lara’s carrier, the cat harness already in her hands. But before she had a chance to even slip it over the cat’s head, Cleo shot past her, across the airport gate, weaving through the metal chair legs fixed to the ground.
I didn’t think, I just chased.
If Lara was gone, I couldn’t risk losing Cleo too. Not when she might be the only clue we had to help get Lara home, where she belonged.
I had to catch her.
I chased Cleo through the gate, back out into the main airport halls, weaving through people’s legs and dodging suitcases as I went. As long as I kept her in my sight, I still had hope – hope that she would lead me back to the real Lara again.
I closed in on her as she approached a large group of travellers with huge suitcases on wheels. Finally, I thought I had her trapped. I added a last burst of extra speed to catch her – only for her to dodge away to the right at the last moment, leaving me barrelling into the middle of the suitcases, people cursing at me as I flailed, trying to find my paws.
The ground felt like it was moving beneath me – and it took me a moment to realize that it really was! Cleo had tricked me onto the travelator – the one Dion never let me walk on normally when we went through airports. Some of these things went on for miles, I remembered. I’d have lost that cat for sure by the time I got to the other end!
Determined, I fought my way out of the suitcases, and back towards the way I’d come from, racing against the moving floor with every step, and finally collapsing onto the smooth tiles at the far end.
‘Did Gobi find her?’ I heard Lucja’s voice calling, and when I looked up, Dion was standing over me. At least they’d realized, then, what I was trying to do.
My heart sank as I realized the full implications of that.
They’d know that I’d failed.
That I had lost Lara. Even if it wasn’t really her to begin with.
I rested my head on my paws and whined.
How could Dion and Lucja forgive me?
And how would we ever get Lara back now? Who would keep me safe in China, without my sister there to protect me?
Cleo hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that Jennifer was a terrible flyer. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to fly all the way to Australia with her.
Not having been on a plane before, I didn’t have too many expectations of what flying would be like. And, to be honest, I’d been too busy focussing on how Cleo and I would effect our switch to concentrate on what would happen next. Even the flight to China with Mum and Dad and Gobi had been too far away to think about, when there were ferries and other adventures to experience first.
But now it was time to fly. And suddenly I realized that maybe I should have given a little more thought to this part of the plan earlier in the proceedings.
After sitting for ages in a row of chairs around many other rows of chairs somewhere that was called a ‘gate’ (but didn’t have any metal doors, unlike the gate to our garden back home), there was some sort of tinny announcement that rang out around the area. I couldn’t see who was talking, and it was hard to even make out the words that they were saying, but Jennifer leapt to her feet, the handle of my carrier in her hand. I lurched upwards too as she moved.
She joined a queue of other people, and I tried to look around me and take in my surroundings. There were plenty of windows here at the gate, too. Glass seemed to make up an entire wall of the building, at least on this level, and I could see out over a field of concrete – with large, white crafts with wings dotted around it.
Planes. Airplanes. That I’d be flying on. Very soon.
Birds flew, I knew that much. I’d seen them in the sky back home, and even chased one or two when I was exploring the garden – although I always had to give up when they escaped over the garden wall.
But now it was my turn. I wondered if there’d be any birds up there to catch …
Flying was an adventure, I was sure of that. But it was one Gobi had done lots of