CHAPTER 1 Straight from the Jungle I’m Tabitha Catarina Tabby Cat for short I’m crazy about cats I’ve loved them my whole life L-O-V-E-D loved them I even own a beautiful Himalayan cat named Bootsie Last spring my parents decided to let me spend the summer at my grandparents farm Being with Grandma Kit and Grandpa Tom is great But here’s the best part They run a cat
hotel on their farm It’s called Tabby Towers I get to play with all kinds of cats and kittens seven days a week I truly am the luckiest girl alive There’s only one problem A big one And her name is Alfreeda Wolfe Alfreeda is a girl my age who lives on the farm next door to my grandparents place She wants to be good friends with me but some days that seems impossible Here’s why She’s crazy about dogs That’s fine except she brags about them She always puts down cats too It makes me so mad Sometimes Alfreeda says things about cats that are total lies Last month she said some
stuff that was completely wrong about a cat named Frankie Frankie was a guest at Tabby Towers then Alfreeda made my hair stand on end just like the fur on an angry cat I wanted to yell at her Please stop talking about cats You don’t know anything about them And it’s really really annoying Maybe you’re wondering if I really did yell at Alfreeda Well here’s the whole story It was early in the morning in the middle of July I had set my alarm extra early because I couldn’t wait to meet a new guest A Bengal cat named Frankie had arrived at Tabby Towers late
the night before I’d already gone to bed I knew a lot about Bengal cats but I’d never seen one in real life I sprang out of bed and tugged on my leopard-print leggings I put on a clean Tabby Towers T-shirt and my cat-frame glasses Then I brushed my hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail I always wear it sticking up high the way a happy cat holds its tail I hurried down the hallway tiptoeing past my grandparents bedroom Grandma Kit is an early riser like me But Grandpa Tom always sleeps until about lunchtime That’s because he’s nocturnal like cats See cats hunt by instinct at night So Grandpa Tom always stays up very late
