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

now I was stuck with her, searching for somewhere to scatter some ashes.

      Jennifer snuggled me closer against her face. ‘Oh, Fortune, I don’t know how I’m going to cope without you on the next flight!’

       Wait. What now?

      I froze, listening intently, and hoping Jennifer would explain what she meant.

      I thought the whole point of me being there was to fly with her. That was what an Emotional Support Animal did. And if I wasn’t being squeezed almost in half on take-off, where would I be while she was flying? Cleo definitely hadn’t mentioned this part.

      ‘She can’t fly with you all the way to Australia?’ Caitlin asked.

      Jennifer shook her head, oblivious to my confusion and distress. ‘Australia will only allow in pets that travel in the hold, not in the cabin. I’ve got a two-night layover in America, because I wanted to catch up with a friend there, and the flights seemed to work best. Then, when we catch our next plane, poor Fortune will have to go back in her crate and get checked in again as freight, rather than a passenger. I’ve got it all arranged with the staff at the airport.’

      Travel in the hold?! That wasn’t the plan at all. Gobi had told me all about that when she flew across China in the hold of a plane, and it sounded terrible. She still had nightmares about it sometimes, even. Those nights, I had to wrap my tail even tighter over her.

       Who would wrap their tail over me, afterwards?

      Suddenly, Cleo’s enthusiasm for swapping places for this trip made a lot more sense.

      ‘That’s a shame,’ Caitlin said, which might have been the understatement of the century. But strangely, Jennifer wasn’t looking too disappointed. Considering her distress at take-off, I hoped that meant she had a solution to all this: like not going to Australia after all, maybe.

      ‘Actually, under the circumstances, this might all work out very well,’ she said, looking down at me again, her gaze more assessing than adoring. ‘The friend I’m staying with just happens to be a vet. One who might just be able to help me with “Cleo’s” malfunctioning microchip in time for our flight to Australia.’

      ‘Is her microchip malfunctioning?’ Caitlin asked, frowning, which was what I wanted to ask too. As far as I knew, it had been working fine at the airport.

      ‘It is now,’ Jennifer said, decisively. ‘America has some of the more relaxed pet import guidelines in the world, so getting Fortune in there as Cleo won’t be a problem – I’ll just tell them that the microchip has shifted and we can’t find it under all that fur. Happens all the time with Ragdoll cats, I’ve heard. But Australia is a whole different matter.’

      ‘They’re pretty strict down under, huh?’