Chapter 1

THE TALKING CAT

Rusty Mulligan first heard a cat talk at four-past-seven on a wintry Monday morning, while sitting at his kitchen table, idly watching the morning news as he poured milk over his cereal.

‘Good evening, humans,’ said the talking cat from the other side of the world, purring with satisfaction on the TV screen.

Needless to say, Rusty spilled quite a lot of milk. It dripped from the table to puddle on the floor.

Normally, such behaviour would result in stern words from his father, a gruff man who couldn’t remember what it was like to be a clumsy twelve-year-old boy. But instead, on this occasion, Rusty’s father dropped the knife he’d been using to butter his toast. It clattered to the linoleum to rest in the milk like a silver ship in a shallow milky sea.

‘Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,’ said Mr Mulligan with more expression in his voice than Rusty had heard for a very long time.

It was a white fluffball of a Persian cat with a squished-in, cute-but-also-a-little-bit-ugly face.

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