OK, humans, I’ve just about had enough sleep now to recover from telling you the first part of my story. Now, where was I? Oh yes – still locked up in what I now think of as the hotel for homeless cats. Well, it wasn’t long before those two new humans came back again, looking very pleased with themselves.

‘You’re off to your Forever Home now!’ said the human who’d been caring for us at the hotel – and with that, she came into our enclosure and grabbed me. ‘I’ll take you first,’ she said, quite gently. ‘You’re easier than your sister.’

Needless to say, we were both meowing our heads off. To my horror, I saw the male human opening one of those horrible going-to-the-vet cages, and before I could struggle, I’d been put inside and the lid was locked.

‘Let me out!’ I meowed. ‘I don’t want go to a Forever Home! I want to stay with Maddie!’

What was a Forever Home, anyway? Did she mean we were going back to the house we used to live in? Who were these smiley old humans? The female was crouching down close to me now, talking to me quietly through the cage, but I didn’t want to trust her.

‘Help!’ Maddie was yowling. ‘Let me go! Put me down!’ I looked up, to see her wriggling frantically, kicking out with all four paws, as the carer put her firmly into the other cage, next to me. ‘What’s going on?’ she cried.

‘I don’t know,’ I meowed back. ‘But they promised we’d stay together – remember?’

I’d like to say I stayed calm, for Maddie’s sake, as we were carried outside and put into the back of a car. But I was worried that this ‘Forever Home’ thing was just another name for a vet, and I don’t think any cat can stay calm in such circumstances. We both howled at the top of our lungs as the car took us away. The female human was leaning over, talking to us gently, saying it was all right, but why should we believe her? Who was she anyway?

Suddenly the car stopped and the male human said : ‘Here we are! Home!’

‘Er, excuse me, this is not our home,’ I meowed, trying to sound assertive – which is quite difficult to do when you’re trapped in a little cage.

‘It’s all right, babies,’ said the female as we were carried into the house. Maddie was still yowling her head off. Our cages were put down on the floor of a room I recognised as a kitchen. I remembered the kitchen of our other house – the place where we’d grown up – how warm and comforting and familiar it had felt. I started to cry again, and then remembered I needed to be the brave one.

‘Out you come, then,’ said the male – and suddenly we were both set free from the cages. Needless to say, instinct took over at that point. I didn’t care how many times they said everything was all right – I needed to be as high as possible so that I could see what was going on from a safe vantage point. If either of these humans were vets, I did not want them getting hold of me and jabbing their needles into me. Maddie had already jumped up onto the nearest worktop, watching me with terrified eyes, and by the time I’d joined her up there, she’d sussed out an even higher place by climbing over the cooker and leaping up onto the top of the kitchen cupboards.

‘Good plan,’ I meowed to her as we sat up there, watching the humans take the hated cages away. ‘We’ll be safe here. Don’t worry, they can’t reach us. You know how rubbish humans are – especially old ones like these – at climbing and jumping.’ Then I hesitated, watching the female human dishing up some food and putting it down on the kitchen floor. It smelt the same as our favourite brand. My mouth watered. ‘Although . . . they do seem quite kind,’ I added.

‘Why are we here, though?’ Maddie mewed anxiously. ‘Are they going to stick needles in us?’

‘I don’t think so. They don’t look like vets,’ I said. ‘They said this was a Forever Home. What do you think that means?’

‘Something scary,’ Maddie said, shivering.

But I wasn’t so sure, now. I was actually beginning to think it sounded . . . quite nice . . . after all.