And then there was nothing but sky and clouds, for miles and miles.
Somehow, this wasn’t as terrifying as the never-ending ocean we’d crossed on the ferry. This wasn’t water, but air.
I was up where the birds flew – where they escaped from me to, when I chased them in our garden. I was conquering their world as well as mine. I was up, so far over the garden wall, I could go anywhere.
Now, this, this was adventure! This had to be why people went on them, to feel this way. Like they’d escaped their normal life, their normal world, even. To have no idea what happened next, but to be desperate to find out.
This window wasn’t like any of the others, after all. Because this window was taking me somewhere new. Somewhere my days wouldn’t just be measured in meals and naps and the same view from the same window. Somewhere I could discover who I was, outside of the house. Where I could be Lara the outdoor cat, the adventurous cat.
I was having the biggest adventure ever, and I was unstoppable.
It was enough to even make me forget Jennifer, and her vice-like grip on my stomach. For a moment, anyway.
Eventually the plane levelled out, and Jennifer’s grip started to loosen. Freed, I shifted closer to the window, placing my paws against it as I looked out at the sky. The world looked incredibly big from here, like it might never end at all.
‘Well, that doesn’t get any better with practice,’ Jennifer joked. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, her hands felt clammy.
‘Are you okay?’ Caitlin asked again, somewhat redundantly I felt, since Jennifer was clearly anything but okay. In truth, she was totally batty. Who wouldn’t love flying?
Why on earth would Cleo give up the chance to experience all this? She said that she’d had enough adventures, but how could anyone ever get enough of feeling this way? I understood now why Gobi and Dad were always flying off somewhere new. There were so many places to go, too! I remembered the list Dad had given of places he’d been with Gobi, and all those pins in the map on the wall. Maybe, after Australia, I could fly to all of those places too!
Now I’d started, I never wanted to stop adventuring.
Jennifer was still breathing heavily, but she waved away Caitlin’s question with a flap of her hand. ‘Oh, I’ll be fine,’ she insisted, between pants. ‘I usually am once we get going. At least, until the landing. But I have Cleo here to help me with that – don’t I, Cleo?’
She nuzzled down into my fur, holding me tight against her again. I sighed, resigned to this sort of treatment for the rest of the journey.
But then Jennifer stopped, and held me out at arm’s length – well, as much as the cramped airplane seating would allow.
‘Cleo?’
I risked a look at her: she was frowning.
Oh. Drat!
I had a horrible feeling that the jig might be up. Cleo and I looked almost identical, but apparently, it was that almost that was about to get us caught.
Jennifer knew her own cat better, it seemed, than my humans knew me.
‘What’s the matter?’ Caitlin asked. ‘Is she ill? Or has she, you know, had an accident?’ She pulled a face, and I gave her an indignant look.
Jennifer shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. It’s just …’ she ruffled the fur at my neck to look for my collar: my bright pink with neon flowers on collar, to match my harness. The one normally completely hidden under my fluffy fur. But if a person knew to look for it …
I froze in her grasp. There was nowhere to run inside a plane. I could hide in any one of the small places I’d identified when I got on, but it didn’t make any difference – they had a long, long flight to find me, after all. And then what? All the doors had been locked once we were all on board, and none of the windows even opened. I was trapped with Jennifer until we landed, at least.
Maybe she wouldn’t find the collar. Or maybe it had fallen off somewhere, or something.
Or …
Hot, pudgy fingers gripped my collar, and pulled it a little way out from my neck, through my fur. I braced myself.
‘This isn’t my cat!’ Jennifer declared, sounding outraged.
Oops. Busted!
‘What on earth do you mean?’ Caitlin asked. ‘I thought you said she was your ESA?’
‘She is!’ Jennifer replied, indignant. ‘At least, she should be. But this isn’t my Cleo!’
I tried very hard to disappear back into my carrier, but Jennifer held on tight – tighter than she had even on take-off.
There was definitely no escaping now.
‘How is that even possible?’ Caitlin asked. ‘Surely the security people checked her microchip and her pet passport? They don’t just let any animals fly, you know.’
‘I know! Believe me, she was Cleo when I put her in her carrier to get on the plane. But now, she isn’t!’
‘You know that’s impossible, right?’ Caitlin was looking at Jennifer like she was a crazy person. I actually felt a little sorry for Jennifer. I mean, she was pretty batty, but in this case, she was also totally correct.
‘But it’s happened.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Oh my word, if this isn’t Cleo, how can I fly? How can I land?!’ Jennifer’s voice got louder with every word, and higher and shriller too.
I knew what that meant. It meant she was freaking out, like our neighbour in Edinburgh did when she found a spider in her house. (The first few times, they’d tried to get me to go round and eat it, except I have rather higher standards than that, thank you! After that, Mum or Dad went round with a glass and a piece of card that they somehow used to de-spider the house.)
I started to panic, too, as I realized how bad this could be.
If Jennifer freaked out and told the airplane people she’d brought the wrong cat on board, I had a feeling that things could go very wrong, very quickly. Why hadn’t I thought about what would happen when Jennifer realized about the swap? It was all right for Cleo, safely back in the airport, waiting for someone to check her microchip and send her to a pet hotel. But what about me? Gobi had told me plenty of times how strict humans were about where and when animals could travel. There were all sorts of rules and regulations. What would they do to me when they realized I was on the wrong plane, or, worse, in the wrong country?
No, me freaking out, too, wasn’t going to help anybody. I had to calm down.
I thought about blossom outside my window, floating on the breeze, and tried to slow my breathing down. Otherwise I was going to start panting like a dog, and that was just undignified.
The thought of engaging in dog-like behaviour was enough to distract me from my panic. And as my breathing slowed, so did my mind – enough to figure out what to do next, anyway.
I needed to calm Jennifer down too, I realized. Once she was calm, she’d figure out that she’d be in at least as much trouble as me if I was found out. Humans always blamed other humans for this sort of thing. They hadn’t figured out that we animals could make our own decisions, thank you very much! She wouldn’t want to get into trouble with the authorities either.
Once she realized that, she’d have no choice but to go along with the switch, right?