SPEAKER_00 0:03

The Moonbeam Cat Cafe has reached the very quiet part of evening. The cups are clean, the cushions are full of sleepy cats, the brass bell above the midnight blue door has rung its last soft ting. And now even the bell is perfectly still. Kip pads across the wooden floor, finishing the last little things before night. She nudges a teaspoon back into its saucer with her nose. She checks that the copper biscuit tin is closed. It is. The domed lid resting with its soft click already behind it. The fairy lights along the beam have dimmed to a low honeyed glow. The whole cafe smells of cinnamon and chamomile and warm wood. One by one, the cats have found their places. Muffin is on the big cushion by the window. Her nose is tucked under her paw. Her fur is puffed up with warmth. A tiny purr hums from her like a song she is singing to herself. Whiskers has arranged himself in his tall chair, chin on pause, very neat, very still. His tail hangs off one side without him knowing it. Paws has dragged his blanket into the reading corner. He turned round in it three times, making a nest so perfect he fell asleep before he could look at it. But under the big armchair by the fireplace, Toby is not settling. His wide eyes follow Kip through every small task. When she checks the midnight blue door, he watches. When she tidies the counter, he watches. And when Kip glances toward the spiral staircase in the corner, the polished wooden steps that lead up to her sleeping nook, Toby lifts his head. Do you have to go upstairs? His voice is small. Not frightened exactly, but full of a feeling he does not have a word for yet. A feeling that warmth might leave with someone when they go. Kip stops. One paw rests on the wooden floor midstep, and the board gives its gentlest creak. She does not say don't worry. She does not tell him everything is fine. Instead, her green eyes soften. Her whiskers twitch once, twice, the way they always do when she is noticing something important. She notices the way Toby looks a little smaller when she moves towards the stairs. She notices his small body pressing closer to the cushion beneath the armchair. Her tail curls around her paws while she thinks. Then her gaze falls on the wooden chest near the window. The one that holds her sewing things. Kip pads over to the chest and noses it open. Inside, little rolls of thread in soft colours, scraps of cloth, small patches saved from this and that. Her nose moves carefully among them until she finds the one she wants. A square of midnight blue velvet. No bigger than Kip's own paw, with one tiny silver star stitched into the corner. She picks it up carefully in her mouth, carries it across the cafe, and places it beside Toby on his cushion under the armchair. Then she does something quiet and sure. She rests one soft paw on the velvet patch and holds it there. Just for a moment, just long enough. There, she says. Toby stretches his nose forward and touches the patch. It is warm. The warmth of Kip's paw is right there in the velvet, pressed into the softness the way a warm cup leaves its circle on a table. Now says Kip, and she takes one step away. Still warm? Toby touches the patch again with one careful paw. It is still warm. Kip takes two more steps. She is near the middle of the room now, standing between the moon shaped tables with the fairy lights glowing softly above her. Still warm? Toby checks. His paw rests on the velvet square, and the warmth is still there. Steady, certain, exactly where it was placed. Three more steps. Kip is halfway across the wooden floor. She turns and looks back at Toby with her bright green eyes. Still warm? He touches it. Still warm. Kip looks quietly pleased. The way she looks when a biscuit has come out of the oven at just the right moment. It stays, she says simply. The warmth stays right where it is. And for a moment, neither of them moves. Kit breathes in slowly, softly, and beside her, without being asked, Toby breathes too. Just one breath. Just enough. Standing there in the middle of the room, Kip notices something. A long line of moonlight has slipped through the round windows. It stretches across the wooden floorboards in a silver ribbon, touching the little velvet patch beside Toby under the armchair, and reaching all the way to the first step of the spiral staircase. Kip and Toby both see it at the same time, the same light touching both places at once. The cushion where Toby rests and the stairs where Kip will go held in the same quiet beam, as if the moon wanted to show them they were still close. Upstairs and downstairs are both part of the same warm cafe, both held in the same gentle moonlight. Kip pads to the bottom of the staircase. She turns back. Toby can still see her, her soft white fur, her green eyes, the familiar shape of her standing in the glow. The patch is still warm under his paw. The moonlight still rests on the floorboards between them. And then, from the shelf above the counter, the old teacup gives the smallest warm sigh. Its curled handle catches the last of the lamp light, and the little rose painted on its side seems to glow just a little in the warmth. The teacup speaks so rarely that when it does, everyone listens. Even Whisker's ear twitches in his sleep. Warmth knows how to stay, the teacup murmurs, its voice is warm as steam rising from tea. The words settle over the cafe the way a blanket settles over a sleeping cat. Gently, completely, without a single fold out of place. Kip climbs the spiral staircase slowly, one soft step at a time. Toby watches, he can see her ears round and alert, then her back white and sprinkle spotted, then only the tip of her tail curling once, and then the stairs are quiet. But the cafe does not feel empty. The velvet patches beside him still warm. The moonlight is on the floor, muffins purr hums from the window cushion low and steady. A sound so small it is almost part of the room itself. Whiskers gives one sleepy ear flick from his tall chair. The clock ticks patiently above the pastry shelf, the way it has ticked all evening, the way it will tick all night. Pause shifts in his blanket near the reading corner and sighs a tiny biscuit scented sigh. The cafe is full of small steady things. Toby curls himself around the velvet patch, the tiny silver star stitched into its corner, catches the moonlight once, then rests. Upstairs Kipp circles once in her sleeping nook, settles onto her small pillows stitched with stars, and tucks her tail around her nose. Downstairs Toby's wide eyes begin very slowly, very gently to close. Kip is upstairs and Toby is downstairs, but the cafe holds them both the one who went upstairs and the one who stayed the same warmth, the same roof, the same quiet night. Perr continues If you are listening alone tonight, imagine Kip's soft paw resting beside you. You are safe. You are loved. When the sun rests we can rest too. Everything good is close to I'd like to do it.