Other Alice Read Online Free PDF

A black paw shot out of the tangled contents to
swipe playfully at my hand.
    ‘Ouch!’ I pulled my fingers back. A bead of blood swelled on my thumb. The box on the table rustled, and then a mischievous black face popped out of it with ribbon looped over one
ear.
    ‘Oh, no,’ I muttered. This was Twitch.
    I went into the living room and had a quick look around. We’d had problems before, with other cats coming in through the cat flap and stealing Twitch’s food, but there was no sign of
any intruder now. Perhaps it had sneaked out again. I went back into the kitchen and was about to sit down when I heard a distinctive bleep , and something buzzed next to the toaster.
    Alice’s phone.
    It had been left to charge, but, typical of Alice, she had forgotten to switch on the plug. The bleep was the warning tone for low battery. I went over to it and turned on the
power.
    I frowned. Alice never left her phone behind – but she hadn’t been in bed, either. Or had she? Suddenly, I doubted myself. Could she have been still asleep under the covers when I
got up and I just hadn’t noticed? It would explain the heaters not being on. I decided to go and check.
    I took the stairs two at a time, then scrambled up the ladder into the attic. I hadn’t been mistaken. The covers were thrown back as I’d left them, and Alice’s single bed
definitely had no Alice in it. It wasn’t empty, though.
    ‘How did you get up here?’ I said, puzzled. ‘You were in the kitchen a minute ago.’
    Twitch blinked at me from within the folds of the rumpled bedclothes, then deliberately turned her back on me and started to lick her sleek, black coat. I turned away, ready to go back down the
ladder, but noticed something.
    The skylight in the roof was open, just a crack.
    ‘No wonder it’s so cold in here.’ I climbed on the bed and pulled it closed, then looked round the room and back to Twitch. Something glinted within the cat’s fur: a
golden pendant on a deep purple velvet collar. Twitch didn’t have a collar as posh as that; hers was green and tatty.
    ‘Wait,’ I said, stepping towards the cat. ‘You’re not Twitch, are you?’
    The cat stopped licking itself and leaped on to Alice’s desk, sprawling across her notebooks. It regarded me lazily as I approached.
    ‘Who are you then?’ I said. ‘We’d better get you out before Mum gets back.’ I kept my voice soft so as not to scare it, but the cat seemed at home. I reached out
and gently ran my hand along its back. It purred and lifted its tail. Up close, I could see that there were small differences between this cat and ours. Its coat was longer and sleeker than
Twitch’s, its tail less bushy and, where Twitch’s eyes were a very feline shade of green, this cat’s were golden.
    I scratched its neck, my fingers finding the small, jewelled pendant on the collar. I turned it over, looking for an address or a phone number on the other side. There was none, although three
letters were engraved in the surface.
    T. E. A.
    I frowned. T. E .A. ?
    ‘Come on,’ I said, sighing. I moved my hand under the cat’s chest to try to lift it up. The cat rolled on to its back and swatted me away playfully. The undersides of its paws
were black, too, and its nose. Twitch’s were pink. This was the blackest cat ever.
    ‘You really are beautiful,’ I said, stroking it again. ‘But you can’t stay here.’ I had a quick look round the attic, sniffing. A tomcat had got in once and peed
upstairs, but I couldn’t smell any evidence of that. ‘At least you haven’t done anything.’
    ‘ Done anything?’ the cat enquired. ‘Do you take me for a common alley cat? I know the difference between inside and outside, you know!’
    I staggered backwards in shock, colliding with Alice’s bedframe.
    ‘Huh?’ I whispered.
    I squeezed my eyes shut, shook my head and opened my eyes again. The cat was still there.
    ‘Did you just . . . what did you say?’
    ‘I said I do know the