The next afternoon, while Nonna Rosa isn’t looking, Zola and Alessandro take the knitting into their secret business tent at the back of Zola’s garden. Zola has watched Nonna knit for long enough to know what to do. She makes sure Alessandro is paying attention.

‘Knit. Pearl. Knit. Pearl,’ she says, repeating the pattern.

‘It doesn’t look right,’ Alessandro says, holding up the scarf.

It looks even worse than when Nonna was knitting it.

Before Zola can agree, she hears Monty barking.

It’s not a woof woof woof, but a woof woof woof.

Zola and Alessandro crawl out to see what’s going on.

For once, Monty isn’t trying to have a conversation with Gigi through the back fence. Instead, he’s barking at the side fence that separates Zola’s house from number ten.

‘Sshh,’ Zola says, putting the knitting down on their trestle table. Monty listens, of course, and stops.

‘There’s something in the tree,’ Zola says.

They hear a rustle come from the branches overhanging the side fence. Suddenly a bundle of fluff the colour of honey leaps out at them.

‘Of course,’ Zola says. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Tim Tam is a cat!’

She reaches out and picks up the cat, stroking its fur.

‘She’s ours,’ a girl’s voice says from behind the fence.

Zola’s heart is beating with excitement. Finally!

‘My name is Bianca,’ the girl says.

‘I know,’ Zola says. ‘I can hear your family all the time. They’re very loud.’

‘So is yours,’ Bianca says.

‘Not as loud as yours,’ Zola says.

‘Yes, they are!’ a boy says. ‘We know that your name is Zola.’

Zola thinks the voice must belong to Omar.

‘We know that your cousin Alessandro has to go inside at 5.30 every night,’ Omar says.

‘That’s me,’ Alessandro says.

‘We know that your teta doesn’t want you to poke twigs where she’s planted the tomato seeds,’ Omar says.

‘She’s not our teta. She’s our nonna,’ Zola says.

‘She’s your grandmother,’ Bianca says. ‘That’s the same thing.’

Zola strokes the cat in her arms and it purrs.

‘Why haven’t you come over to play?’ she asks.

‘Teta says we need to be invited,’ Omar says.

Zola wishes that Teta and Nonna Rosa would introduce themselves to each other.

‘Does your cat really get into your grandmother’s knitting?’ Alessandro wants to know.

‘All the t–’ Before Bianca can finish, Tim Tam leaps out of Zola’s arms onto the trestle table, close to where Monty is watching on.

There’s hissing and barking and barking and hissing. Tim Tam’s tail looks like a fan of ferocious fury. Monty charges towards her. Tim Tam’s paw catches the wool of Nonna’s knitting, and then she’s racing after Monty.

The scarf begins to disappear. Right before Zola and Alessandro’s eyes. Slowly at first, and then faster.

One stitch, two stitches, three, four, five! More! Then one row after the other.

Tim Tam, still tangled in Nonna’s wool, continues to race after Monty.

She leaps up onto the clothesline, down under the table, over the chair, through the laundry window, out the door. Monty can’t catch up. Tim Tam races across the garden to the back fence and disappears into Alessandro’s backyard.

Where Gigi is waiting!

It’s so loud that even Monty is lying down with his paws over his ears.

But Zola and Alessandro aren’t listening. They can only stare at the wool zigzagged across the backyard.

‘Zola!’ Nonna calls out from the back door.

‘Oh no,’ Alessandro says.

‘Bella, do you know where my knitting is?’ Nonna asks.