Three whole days went by and no one called. I was jittery with nerves So was Jazz, which made me even more jittery as she kept asking, ‘You will tell me the moment someone calls, won’t you?’ Every time the house phone rang I jumped, thinking it was my mobile This shows just how agonizingly jittery I really was, as the two phones do not sound remotely the same: my phone has a weird ringtone on it that Jazz recorded, which is her voice shouting, Yay, Bertie! Yay, Bertie! like some kind of manic American cheerleader (She did it for a laugh one break time. I don’t know how to get rid of it, and Jazz won’t get rid of it for me.)

‘It was such a lame plan in the first place,’ I said to Jazz on Day Three, slumping into her purple beanbag with the stars on. ‘I don’t know why I thought I could change my life overnight with some stupid babyish pet-sitting idea.’

‘Hey, don’t get stressy!’ Jazz said, sounding, if I may be so bold, quite stressy herself. ‘Maybe the neighbours haven’t gone through their post yet. We get so many pizza leaflets and stuff. Mum just chucks them all on the side and goes through everything at the weekend.’

‘Oh, huge amounts of thanks for your undying support, dear friend,’ I said sarcastically. ‘So my leaflet is like junk mail, you mean?’

Jazz ignored me and carried on pacing up and down her room, ticking off possible reasons for our neighbours’ non-communicativeness. ‘Or maybe no one needs a pet-sitter right now. It’s not the holidays yet. Maybe they’ve pinned your notice up and they’ll call you when they need you.’

I huffed and puffed and took out all my grumpiness on Jazz, which was unfair, but luckily for our friendship Jazz is pretty good at putting up with my moods (i. e. ignoring them), and double-luckily I didn’t have to keep up the grumpiness for long as someone finally called the next afternoon.

Unfortunately it was at a very inconvenient time and completely took me by surprise. This was mainly because it was the one day when Dad had actually offered to pick me up from school rather than making me take the bus.

‘What the—?’ Dad leaped about a mile and a half out of his seat and the car lurched dangerously to the right, causing the traffic coming in the other direction to swerve and honk noisily at us. A man leaned out of his car window and shouted and made a sign with his hand that was definitely not a friendly kind of sign.

‘It’s just my phone,’ I said, rummaging in my bag and trying to push down the excited and flut-tery feelings in my tummy and smother them with a layer of calmness instead.

‘Your what?’ Dad snapped, glaring at me in the rear-view mirror.

‘My phone – you know, that extremely modern invention which allows humankind to converse with other members of the species from a distance while— I’d better answer it,’ I said hastily and not at all calmly. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, sweetie!’

I froze.

‘Hello?’ the voice continued. ‘That is Roberta Fletcher, isn’t it?

No,it’s BERTIE Fletcher, I screamed inside my head, all tangled up with panic and annoyance and confusion.

‘It’s Fenella Pinkington, your neighbour from over the road?’

I’d kind of guessed that, SWEETIE. Why on earth was she calling?

‘I’m ringing in response to your imaginative business idea . . . ’ She paused. ‘The Pet-Sitting Service?’

Of course – the kitten! My tummy clenched itself into a ball as tight and spiky as a baby hedgehog.

‘Ye-es?’ I said hesitantly.

‘Well, darling, I was wondering if you might like to come and meet my little kitty-cat.’ Pinkella wittered on in my ear while I was quietly freaking in my seat. How was I going to talk about my Pet-Sitting Service right that instant with Dad listening in?

‘I was wondering if you’d be free—’ Pinkella continued.

‘Oh, right, sorry . Wrong number,’ I said quickly, and cut her off.

Darnation and hell-busters! I was in a right state. Why did she have to call while I was in the car with Dad? This was my one and only call from a true and genuine client wanting my Pet-Sitting Services, and I’d just gone and put the phone down on her! Even if it was Pinkella Deville, I still wanted her custom – especially since she was the only person to bother replying to my advert and double-especially since she was the owner of that seriously cute, ink-splodge-to-die-for kitten.

‘Bit odd, you getting a call,’ said Dad, glancing at me in the mirror again, his eyebrows raised in a suspicious expression.

‘Hmm,’ I said, in a non-committal way, looking out of the window.

‘Why have you even got your phone on anyway? I’m the only person with the number and I’m right here. You should turn it off to save the batteries. Unless . . . You and Jazz haven’t been calling each other again, have you? What on earth have you two got to talk about that’s so important you need to call each other every moment of every day? You’re in school together the whole time, for heaven’s sake. I bet you’ve been texting too. I t’ll cost a fortune! You know that phone is only for emergencies.’

I slouched in my seat and rolled my eyes. ( No wonder he worked on the Daily Ranter, I thought. He was the daily ranter. No, make that the hourly ranter.)

‘Yes, Dad,’ I said wearily. ‘I mean, no, Dad. I mean . . . ’

I was not really listening to him as I was surreptitiously saving Pinkella’s number so that I could call her back later. Meanwhile my brain continued whirring into a head-spin. What would I say? I had been quite rude, cutting her off like that.

I know! I had a flash of inspiration. I’d tell Pinkella it was Jazz who had answered the call because she had taken my phone home instead of hers by mistake.

Dad parked the car, and I scuttled inside and up to my bedroom for some privacy.

‘Don’t you want a snack?’ Dad called after me.

‘In a minute – need the loo!’ I called back, and veered into the bathroom to put Dad off my scent. I needn’t have worried though – Dad was already disappearing into his study to get on with yet more work.

But for once, I didn’t care.

I shut the bathroom door and locked it just in case and then sat down on the edge of the bath. I took a deep breath and then turned my phone back on. I called up Pinkella’s number on my screen and pressed the green dial button. She answered on the second ring.

‘Hello?’

‘Er, yes, hello – erm, it’s Bertie Fletcher.’

‘Oh, hello, Roberta,’ said Pinkella, sounding puzzled. ‘That’s funny. I tried ringing you a few minutes ago and the person who answered told me I’d got the wrong number.’

‘Ye-es,’ I faltered. ‘That was my, er, my assistant, er, Jasmeena.’ I used her full name as it sounded more serious than ‘Jazz’. ‘Well, she’s more of a friend than an assistant, but she assists me, you see,’ I warbled, wincing and thinking what an utter nut-brain I sounded.

‘Oh dear, sweetie! If you take my advice, you’ll get yourself a new assistant – one who knows a thing or two about assisting! Heeeheeeheee!’ she twittered in that tinkling titter of hers. Even her voice sounds pink, I thought.

‘Yes, I – I’m thinking of doing just that,’ I said, feeling a bit of confidence return, and putting on the most professional voice I could under the circumstances. ‘So, how can I help you, Pin— Ms Pinkington? I hear that you received one of my leaflets?’ I hoped my more businesslike tone would stop her from thinking I was actually a bonkers person who could not be trusted with looking after a used tea bag, let alone her beloved cat.

‘Please, call me Fenella, sweetie,’ she tinkled. ‘Yes,I was simply thrilled to get your leaflet – it came absolutely in the nick of time. You see, I’m due to go away for a couple of weeks and I was starting to get into a teensy bit of a panic about poor little Kaboodle here. Isn’t that right, Kaboodle?’

At that point I heard a very loud purring noise right in my ear. I nearly dropped the phone.

‘There! Did you hear that, sweetie? Kaboodle agrees with me!’ said the worryingly insane woman on the other end of the phone. ‘You see,’ she continued, as I shook my head sadly, ‘my previous cat, Pusskins, God rest his soul, used to have a room at the gorgeous cat hotel in town – do you know it?’ She broke off to blow her nose.

Oh no. She’s going to start blubbing down the phone about her old dead cat, I panicked. ‘Er, no, no I don’t,’ I said, hastily adding, ‘but I’m sure it’s lovely.’

‘Yes,’ sniffed Pinkella. ‘“Purrfect Heaven” it’s called. It’s just off the high street, behind that hairdresser’s with the lovely fuchsia curtains. Of course, poor Pusskins has gone to the real purrfect heaven in the sky now . . . Anyway, I’m getting off the point,’ she sighed and blew her nose again.

We re you ever on it? I wondered.

‘I was so desperate for darling little Kaboodle here to go to the same cat hotel, where I know they would treat him most royally, but to my utter despair, when I phoned them this morning, they told me they were fully booked! Well, I simply cannot cancel this trip. I’m auditioning for the leading role in a new romantic comedy by that gorgeous man Richard Elton – Love, Don’t You Know?, I think they’re calling it – and the auditions are in Scotland of all places.’ She made a noise that sounded rather like a shudder. ‘So,’ she continued, ‘how much do you charge?’

It took me a moment to realize that Pinkella had stopped wibbling and that she had asked me a question, and then it took me another moment to realize that she was offering me actual, real money.

‘I – er . . .’ I hadn’t given one single thought to how much I would charge for this Pet-Sitting Service – what an idiot! Some Business Wo man of the Year I was turning out to be. I could just see the angry potato man saying, ‘YOU’RE FIRED!’ in a booming voice, and it was not a picture that did much for my self-confidence or ability to think clearly under pressure.

‘Erm – sort of a pound a day?’ I said.

‘My goodness, you do come cheap!’ she trilled. ‘Well, I think you’d better come round and be formally introduced to Kaboodle as soon as possible. He can’t wait to meet you, can you, little kitty-kins?’

‘I’ll have to check with my dad,’ I said, my head still spinning, even though I actually had no intention whatsoever of checking with Dad.

‘Good girl,’ said Pinkella. ‘You can pop by any time. I’ll be in – I’ve still not packed my suitcases yet and I must practise my lines. Toodle-oo!’

Toodle-what?

I said goodbye and pressed the red button on my phone.

‘Yes, yes!’ I cried, thumping the air, and doing a little victory dance. My first customer! I had to tell Jazz.

The doorbell rang, jolting me out of my cheery prancing. I jumped and dropped my phone, narrowly missing the loo.

‘Ber-tie!’ Dad was calling me.

I unlocked the bathroom door, opened it and peered out. ‘Ye-es?’ I said, feeling a bit sick. What if it was Pinkella, come round right away to talk to me in person?

‘Are you still on the loo?’ Dad yelled. This immediately made my sick feeling turn into a grumpy one. That man has made being an embarrassment into an Olympic sport, I thought.

‘Hey, Bertie!’

Phew! That didn’t sound like Pinkella.

‘Jazz?’ I said, coming down the stairs.

‘Mum thought you might like to come round to ours for tea.’

‘Yay! Dad – can I?’ I looked at him with my most pleading face. This would solve all my problems at once! I could say I was going to Jazz’s, but just pop in on Pinkella on the way. Plus I loved going for tea at Jazz’s. It was so full-on and noisy, with her little brother, Ty son, zooming round the place making aeroplane noises and the rest of the family all talking at once. Quite a lot different from my silent-as-the-tomb-type house.

Dad didn’t look as though he would even be able to say what day it was, let alone take much notice whose house I was at, I realized as I inspected his face. He had his Deadline Head on, which meant he had an article that needed to be handed in to the Daily Ranter very soon and it was stressing him out. Poor Dad. He looked terrible – as if he had not slept for more than about ten minutes all week. Why hadn’t I noticed this when he picked me up from school? I thought guiltily. I had been too wrapped up in my own thoughts about pet-sitting and money-making. I chewed my lip.

His hair (which is curly like mine, a lthough there’s not as much of it) was sticking up on end in a rather woolly sheep-type fashion, which is what it does when he runs his hands through it a lot, and his eyes had sunk further into his head than is normal for a human being. The skin around his eyes was also quite dark. Actually, he looked more like a slightly baffled owl than a sheep.

Come to think of it, I should have realized something was up that morning as he had drunk fifteen cups of coffee one after the other while muttering, ‘What am I going to write? What am I going to write?’ These are the usual signs that a deadline is on the horizon, or indeed is charging towards Dad from the horizon at about one hundred miles an hour.

‘Sure. Be back by seven,’ he said finally, distractedly running his hands through his hair.

‘What’s up?’ said Jazz, as we closed the front door behind us. ‘When I arrived you looked like you’d just won a year’s supply of chocolate and now you look as if you wish you hadn’t eaten it all in one go!’

‘Oh, yeah. Just a bit worried about Dad,’ I muttered. But I fixed a grin back on my face and said brightly, ‘But listen. This is a zillion times more interesting!’ I told her about Pinkella and Kaboodle.

‘Kaboodle? What kind of weirdo name is that?’ she said, curling her top lip in her you’ve-just-said-something-random expression.

‘I know – not the coolest—’ I agreed.

‘And you didn’t ask for a POUND a day, did you?’ Jazz interrupted.

‘Ye-es.’

‘You doofus! A poxy pound a day! No wonder she wants you to look after her dear little pussy-cat. You should have said a fiver – and you should have asked for a deposit! Don’t you know anything about business?’

‘But I don’t care about the money, Jazz!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t you get it? I’m finally going to have a pet to look after I’m going to get to feed him and cuddle him and play with him! YAY!’ I cried, dancing round and round.

‘No need to be freaky about it,’ said Jazz, but she was grinning. ‘So can I be your business partner then?’ she asked, putting on a posh voice.

‘You can be my official assistant,’ I said, hugging her ‘I told Pinkella I needed a new one.’

‘Eh?’

‘Never mind – come on, let’s go round there now Kitten-sitters R Us!’