The Midnight Foxes

Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text © Sarah Lean 2016

Illustrations © Anna Currey 2016

Cover illustration © Simon Mendes

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Sarah Lean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

Anna Currey asserts the moral right to be identified as the illustrator of the work.

A catalogue copy for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008165734

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008165741

Version: 2016-08-09

For Sophie

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Chapter 1: Where is Holly?

Chapter 2: A Strange Discovery

Chapter 3: Who is Twinkle?

Chapter 4: Case Closed

Chapter 5: Rules of Being a Fox

Chapter 6: From Up on the Roof

Chapter 7: The Real Discovery

Chapter 8: Rare Friendships

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Sarah Lean

About the Publisher

Map

Tiger Days loved tigers. She often wore tiger-print pyjamas, socks and slippers and used to spend all her time indoors drawing pictures of tigers. Ever since she’d been to stay with her grandmother, May Days, at her new house, Tiger was beginning to be more adventurous. May Days used to live on a wildlife reserve in Africa but now lived in a large old house in the countryside, called Willowgate House. Even now, she sometimes looked after animals that were in need of helping hands. There were lots of repairs to be made at Willowgate, and while the house was being fixed up, May Days and Tiger slept in a tent in the great, unexplored garden.

It was spring, warm and bright, and Tiger was on her way to visit her grandmother but there was a long journey in the car first. Tiger was eager to arrive and see May Days again, as there was still so much to find out about each other.

Excitement swirled in Tiger’s tummy with his grandfather next door. Tiger was also looking forward to seeing Holly Days – a white cat who had made her home at Willowgate even before May Days had moved in. She was the kind of cat that did as she pleased and Tiger thought of Holly as belonging to the house, rather than to anyone in particular. Holly had a mind of her own and was quite in charge of herself, but Tiger and the cat had become firm friends during Tiger’s last stay.

The car pulled up at the end of the drive, where Tiger had last seen Holly. Obviously Holly wasn’t still sitting there, but when Tiger jumped out of the car to open the gate she looked around, hoping the cat was nearby. There was no sign of Holly, but May Days was already jogging down the drive to greet them. Tiger smiled and ran to meet her grandmother, while Dad drove up the drive.

“May Days!” said Tiger as the two of them flung their arms round each other.

“I’m so happy to see you all over again,” said May Days, planting a big kiss on Tiger’s cheek. The garden smelled of new grass and warm breezes and Tiger hoped she’d find everything else just as before.

In the kitchen, Mr Days had lots to talk about with his mother over gallons of tea, which Tiger didn’t mind too much as she was now desperate to find the cat.

“Where’s Holly?” she said.

“That cat is still a bit of a mystery,” May Days said. “Why don’t you go and see if you can find her?”

Holly was not in any of the rooms downstairs, or hiding in any of the chimneys, or behind any doors. She wasn’t upstairs in the bath, or in the bedrooms, or inside the cupboard with the lift in the wall where Tiger had first discovered her. Outside, Holly was not in the porch, nor sitting on the windowsills, nor in the tent.

Tiger called and called but no blossom-white cat came padding through the garden. Tiger anxiously went to her grandmother with empty news and worrying fears.

“What if something terrible has happened to her?” Tiger said, in the comfort of her grandmother’s arms.

Every day May Days left out a bowl of food for Holly and the next day it would be empty, even though May Days didn’t always see the cat.

“You know what Holly is like,” May Days reassured Tiger. “She suddenly turns up, just like that, looking quite content. That cat certainly knows how to look after herself and I’m sure she’ll come when she’s ready.”

Before long it was time for Tiger’s dad to return home.

“What if Holly doesn’t come?” Tiger said quietly, with a tremble.

“Don’t give up so soon,” said Dad, giving her a final, final hug. “There might be a completely new adventure waiting for you.”

“Are there any poorly animals we need to look after?” Tiger sniffed, holding May Days’ hand as she waved goodbye to her dad.

“Not this time,” said May Days, and then explained that the builders were coming the next day to fix the chimneys on the roof. “In the meantime, keep your eyes wide open. You never know what else you might find.”

To help feel more at home, Tiger unpacked her case in the tent. Colourful striped rugs from Africa covered the ground and the tent smelled of dried grasses and faraway. There were two camp beds, puffy with sleeping bags and blankets, and Tiger put her pyjamas under the pillow of the one where she’d sleep. A rope was strung from one end of the tent to the other, hung with gas lamps for night-time, coat hangers for clothes, a torch for visiting the outdoor bathroom, and a pair of May Days’ shoes tied by the laces.

Tiger sat on the end of her bed where Holly used to sleep, but it only made her feel worse. A visit to Willowgate just wouldn’t be the same without Holly. Instead she crawled through the hedge and called for Tom, but nobody was home at all. May Days didn’t know if Tom was coming to stay and now Tiger wasn’t expecting to find anything good at Willowgate.

Early the next morning, the builders arrived and had already begun to put up scaffolding at the front of the house by the time Tiger was dressed. Higher and higher the poles and planks and ladders rose, so that the builders could climb up to the roof to fix the cracked chimney stacks and toppling clay pots. They propped open the conservatory door to let warm air flow through and dry out the damp that was making the bricks crumble. The scaffolding made the house look stronger and straighter, but to Tiger it now felt more skewwhiff than ever without Tom and Holly.

Tiger sighed as May Days rolled up her sleeves and helped carry planks to lay on the platforms. Children were not allowed to climb up the ladder – it was against the rules, the builders said – and Tiger soon wandered off when she felt she was getting in the way. She sat at the kitchen table and drew pictures of tigers and a cat, but the outline of the white cat on a white page wasn’t anything like the real thing.

There was a crate in the kitchen, one that May Days had brought from Africa. In the hope of finding something to distract her from waiting for Holly to appear, Tiger leaned over the crate to see what was inside. It was still packed, and there was a small red box on the top that looked interesting.

“May Days!” Tiger called up to the roof. “I found a red wooden box. Can I open it, please? I’ll be careful and won’t break anything.”

“I know you won’t,” said May Day, smiling down to Tiger. “But that little box contains my most special keepsakes, so I’d like to save showing them to you until we have lots of time to sit down together and I can tell you all about each one.”

“OK, but what can I do instead?” said Tiger, a little hurt that all the things she wanted to see were staying hidden – first Holly and now the contents of the red box. From high up, May Days could see her next-door neighbour’s car coming up the lane with an extra passenger. “Why don’t you go and call for Tom again? I think you might have a nice surprise!”

Tiger ran round to the hedge at the back of the house and called for her holiday friend through the gap underneath.

“Boo!” said Tom, appearing at the other side and Tiger was so happy to see at least one of her friends. “Who’s up on the roof?” Tom said.

“Henry and James the builders,” said Tiger. “But somebody else is missing.”

Tom crawled through the hedge tunnel to Tiger.

“A missing person?” asked Tom.

“A missing cat,” said Tiger, sighing sadly. “I can’t find Holly.”

Did Holly know that they were there, they wondered? Where could they f ind her? Tom screwed up his face, thinking hard.

“I know how we’ll find Holly!” said Tom. “This holiday we can be private-eye detectives!” He was already crawling out of the hedge in a hurry. “Come on. Let’s get started!”

“What do we need to be private-eye detectives?” said Tiger, warming to Tom’s idea.

“We need to be a bit brave and probably clever,” he said.

“We also might need notepads,” said Tiger, and then smiled, pleased that her fun friend from next door was there to help.