Solomon’s Tale. Sheila Jeffries

      ‘I’ll be your angel for this lifetime, Solomon,’ she said. ‘It will be a tough assignment, but I will be there to advise you about the choices you make. Of course you will make mistakes, but that is part of your learning, and I will still be there for you. My light is so bright that I become almost invisible on earth, but if you remember to look at sparkles whenever you can, you will see me, especially if you study the sunlight glittering on water.’

      ‘I’ll remember,’ I said, and hoped that I would.

      ‘There will be times when you are upset or lost or hungry,’ said my angel as she covered me in stardust. ‘That’s when you might forget me, but I’ll be there, and from time to time other angels will come to help the humans in your life. But don’t expect it to be easy.’

      It didn’t sound difficult to me, since I already loved Ellen. My mind was buzzing with excitement at the prospect of going to earth again. There would be tins of Kitekat, and cosy fires, and all those mice. I couldn’t wait.

      ‘You’ll have to be born as a kitten in the usual way,’ said the Angel of the Silver Stars. ‘I’ll help you, but you must help yourself too. It’s not just about Ellen. You’ve still got stuff to learn.’

      ‘I’d like to be a majestic tomcat,’ I said, ‘with a really powerful purr. Black and glossy, with white paws and a white chest. And please will you send me to the right address? Last time it involved being dumped at the RSPCA before Ellen found me.’

      ‘This time you will have to find her,’ said the angel. ‘You must learn to use your psi sense.’

      ‘Psi sense?’ I asked.

      ‘Humans call it Sat Nav,’ said the angel with a smile. ‘Are you sure you want to go, Solomon?’

      Nostalgically I gazed around at my beautiful home in the spirit world. I loved being a shining cat. Here, you could just be. No one would chuck you out in the rain, or cover you in flea powder.

      Then I remembered Ellen’s house, with its sunny windows. My favourite cushion was there, made of amber velvet. And the stairs were my best ever playground. Ellen had a cosy kitchen and a cherry tree in the garden.

      I’d been Ellen’s cat when she was a child, and she’d loved me more than anyone else in her life. She wouldn’t go to sleep unless I was there, purring on her bed, and when her mum had turned out the light and gone downstairs, Ellen would turn it on again and play with me. When we were tired, Ellen showed me her secret diary, and read it to me. She had a lovely musical voice, and I was the only one who heard it because Ellen wouldn’t talk to people very much. She wouldn’t do her homework or tidy her bedroom. All she wanted to do was dance, and play the piano.

      The best memory I had of Ellen was the way she shared her musical gifts with me. Early in the morning she sat down at the piano, on the velvet stool, and she was so small that her feet didn’t reach the floor.

      ‘Come on, Solomon,’ she’d say, and smile as I jumped up to lie on top of the shiny piano. I liked to be there and see the light in her eyes as she played, and watch her come to life. She played on and on, with her tiny hands dancing over the keys, her blonde hair bouncing. The music gave me a buzz, up my spine and along my whiskers. At those times there were always angels shimmering around us.

      Her mum would come in with Ellen’s school bag and coat over her arm. ‘It’s time for school.’

      ‘I don’t want to go there, Mummy.’

      ‘You’re going.’

      ‘But I want to finish playing this tune, Mummy. I made it up and Solomon loves it.’

      ‘Ellen, it’s TIME FOR SCHOOL.’

      I had to watch helplessly as the light drained away from Ellen. Her small face tightened, her skin paled and her eyes clouded as she closed the lid of the piano.

      ‘Listen to me, Solomon,’ my angel said, and I focused on her again.

      ‘Ellen is grown up now. She’s not the child you remember.’

      ‘So what’s the problem?’ I asked.

      ‘I must warn you that Ellen is in such a state that she may not be able to look after you properly,’ said my angel. ‘She has a little boy who is just toddling, and a husband who shouts at her, and they are in desperate trouble.’

      ‘I want to go,’ I said firmly.

      My angel hesitated, as if she wanted to tell me something else.

      ‘And,’ she whispered, ‘there’s Jessica.’

      ‘Jessica?’

      My angel was silent. She looked at me lovingly with her silver eyes.

      ‘I’m sure Solomon will be fine,’ said Ellen’s mum. ‘He’s a healing cat. And he’s brave and cheeky too. He’ll be OK.’

      When the time came for me to be born, I watched my angel dissolve into a kaleidoscope of sparks. The silver stars turned hazy, and suddenly I was whizzing through space. The light crackled like fire, and I burst through the great golden web which separates the spirit world from the earth. It was a brilliant ride.

      Then everything changed.

      I was no longer a shining spirit cat. I had to be compacted to fit inside this tiny sausage of a kitten, which had just been born. All I could do was wriggle and squeak. My eyes wouldn’t open. My legs wouldn’t walk. I couldn’t see what colour my fur was. It was devastating. Why did I agree to do this? I wasn’t a proper cat. I was a sausage.

      But I wasn’t alone. Four of us lay there in a purring heap, all silky and rhythmic. The power of the mother cat enveloped my whole being as she licked and suckled me.

      Nine days later, my eyes opened to see the edge of a basket close to a warm stove. I saw my paws and they were glossy black with white toes, just as I’d requested. Big feet were walking around, two in slippers and two in boots, and hands kept coming down to gently stroke our tiny heads. It wasn’t Ellen, but I kept faith that she would come and choose me.

      My early kittenhood was happy. Right from the start I was picked up and held tenderly against massive chests, with hearts beating so slowly I thought those humans would die between beats.

      ‘He’ll be the last to go, that little black one with the white paws. They always choose the pretty ones first.’

      ‘Yes well he’s the runt of the litter. He’s so small.’

      The runt of the litter! Me?! That couldn’t be true.

      Soon we had turned into proper little cats, bouncing like tennis balls, climbing up curtains and under chair covers, with the humans laughing at us. But I was impatient to grow up and get to Ellen.

      ‘He’s got a wistful look, that little black one.’

      Looking out of the window was my obsession, waiting for Ellen to come down the road. People began to arrive to choose kittens, and each time my whiskers stiffened to attention.

      ‘Hide!’ said my angel sharply one afternoon. It was the first time she had spoken to me since my birth, so my reaction was fast. Through a hole in the fabric, I shot into the dusty innards of the armchair to listen to the latest arrivals.

      ‘I would have loved a black one.’

      It wasn’t Ellen’s voice.

      ‘We have got a black one somewhere.’

      ‘Try under the chair.’

      They slid the chair back, with me clinging well concealed inside, but they didn’t find me.

      Finally the visitors took both the remaining kittens, and when I emerged there was no one to play with. I was eight weeks old, and about to grow up in a hurry.

      Ellen didn’t come.