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Fluff was enjoying herself so much that she didn’t notice how heavy the snow was becoming. The pigeons and the other birds had disappeared, and it was terribly quiet. Fluff opened her mouth and tried to catch a particularly plump and dizzy snowflake, and then looked around in surprise. She couldn’t see! The whole garden was a mass of whirling white and grey, and Fluff couldn’t see anything beyond two whisker-lengths away. She shuddered. This was too much like her scary journey a couple of months before. She needed to get home at once. But – where was home? Fluff gulped. She couldn’t even see the fence.

A gust of icy wind rushed at Fluff, and she felt as though it had blown right through her. Her ears were laid back against her head, and the snowflakes felt like stabbing needles as they blew into her fur.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_18]

Worriedly, she peered around her. She could just about see the tree that the pigeon had flown into, so the fence must be over there somewhere. Leaning into the wind, she ploughed forward. It was so cold now! Oh, at last, there was the fence. Fluff’s panicky feeling eased a little. She only had to get across next-door’s garden and she would be home. She wriggled under the fence, and then followed her nose straight across. She was nearly there – and once she was back home, she wasnot coming out again. Not till it stopped snowing, anyway.

Fluff almost bumped into the next fence, but she didn’t mind, she was just so glad to see it. She popped out from underneath; she was back in her garden!

[Êàðòèíêà: img_19]

Except– this didn’t look like her garden. Even with the snow everywhere, it didn’t feel right. Ella’s garden had lots of little walls and hedges and things, but this garden was big and flat. Had she miscounted the number of fences? Fluff didn’t think she’d gone into another garden after next-door-but-one, but perhaps in the excitement of exploring, she had…?

Feeling frightened, she scurried across this strange garden to the next fence, hoping desperately that this time she would see somewhere she knew. The snow was drifting up against the fences now, and she had to half-burrow through. Hopefully, she pushed the snow out of the way with her nose, and stared around. This garden was full of play equipment, a slide and a little wooden house, half covered in snow.

Fluff had never been here before. Fluff had gone the wrong way in the storm– and now she was completely lost!

Chapter Four

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

Fluff stood still for a while, sniffing the air, hoping to catch a familiar scent that would lead her home. But the snow deadened the smells as well as the noises, and Fluff felt completely blind. What should she do? Had she gone past Ella’s house in the storm somehow? Should she be going back or forwards?

One thing was certain. Shehad to move somewhere. Sitting still wouldn’t keep her warm. She could feel the cold seeping into her bones – even her whiskers ached with it. The awful thing was, she might be going even further away from home! Miserably, Fluff forced her paws to keep plodding on through the deep snow. Without realizing, she slipped through a gap in a broken-down old fence at the bottom of a garden, and strayed into the old wood that ran along behind the houses on Ella’s street. It was even harder going. She was wading through drifted snow under tall and menacing trees. Fluff knew she’d never been anywhere like this before, and it made her shudder. The trees seemed to wave their dark arms at her, and their roots tripped her up. It felt as though they did it on purpose, sending her rolling into hollows of deep snow, so she had to struggle and fight her way out. Every time it happened, Fluff grew just a little bit more tired.

It was getting dark, and even harder to see. Fluff wished sadly that she had listened to Ella, and never gone out in the snow. She still didn’t quite understand how she had managed to get so lost. One minute she had known exactly where she was, and the next she’d had no idea. It had all happened so fast. Fluff shivered. There was nothing she could do about it now. She needed to rest, but where could she go? There were a few places under the trees, where the roots had made little burrows, but they didn’t look very warm. Fluff needed somewhere out of the biting wind.

Suddenly, something loomed up out of the gloom. Fluff peered forward doubtfully. It certainly wasn’t a tree. In fact, it looked more like a house.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_20]

With a fresh burst of energy, she trotted forward, picking her way carefully over the snow. It was a tumbledown old cottage, built for the gamekeeper who guarded the wood, but it had been empty now for years and years. The door was boarded up, but there were plenty of holes where a small cat could creep in. Fluff sighed with relief as she squeezed herself between the boards. Even just inside the door the difference was wonderful– no more freezing wind slicing through her fur.