We were all desperate for a report. Anne King rang me on Wednesday night, and I was allowed to take the call because she was a King girl. I told her I hadn’t heard anything, of course, and she should ring Ruthy.

She rang back an hour later to say that Ruthy couldn’t say much because she was being overheard, but she sounded very happy and said ‘the cat has had kittens’. We tried to work out a way to tell Caleb, but even Anne King was scared to ring because Aunty Maisie would answer. She came up with the brilliant idea that she could ring and ask Aunty Maisie if she would like a kitten because they had a spare one from a new litter. We knew Aunty Maisie hated cats, but with a bit of luck Caleb would hear about the call and know that things were going to plan.

We all met behind the shed as soon as possible the following Sunday, and Ruthy was ecstatic. She said the first thing that happened was that Sister Hodgeson asked her what she’d meant when she said the cat had kittens. This confirmed her theory that they were always listening to her on the phone. She said Anne King’s cat had given birth and they were all very excited about the dear little babies.

The next thing that happened was that all the money she had saved disappeared from her purse. She guessed this was so she didn’t have the bus fare on Friday morning. The third thing that happened was that the Hodgesons asked if there was anyone she hadn’t heard from for a time she would like them to call, and Ruthy said she would make a list for them. Finally, Mr Hodgeson stayed home from bowls on Friday morning, and when Ruthy decided to try opening the back door to see what happened, she found it locked for the very first time.

At first we were jubilant. We had proved that the scheming Hodgesons were untrustworthy, just as we expected. But after the excitement wore off, Anne King asked what would happen next.

Ruthy said one thing that would happen is she would have to be careful what she wrote even in her hidden book and would keep looking for new hiding places for it. But she admitted that the cost of being right was that her guardians now never let her out of their sight and were even more smothering than ever. We decided she had better write something about wondering why she had been so silly as to think she would run away when the Hodgesons were the best people ever, and hope this would create some ease. She agreed and later told us that after she’d done this there was a noticeable sense of relief about the house, but that they remained watchful.

The only other tricky thing about our campaign was that Aunty Maisie stomped up to Sister King the following Sunday asking what all this nonsense was about kittens. Anne’s mum asked Anne afterwards why she had rung Aunty Maisie and offered her a non-existent cat. Anne said none of the kids at Sunday school liked Aunty Maisie, and knew she was allergic to cats, and she did it as a dare. Anne’s mum said, ‘Well. I’m not sure that’s a nice thing to do, Anne, and I’d rather you didn’t do it again,’ but Anne said her mum gave her father a look that said, ‘Isn’t that a hoot?’ and that night when Anne listened at their door she heard them laughing about it. They said it was a brilliant idea and perhaps they’d sneak a couple of big cats into Aunty Maisie’s old Holden and let them piss all over it because nothing, absolutely nothing, gets that smell out of a car.