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Hardie Grant acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Countryon which we work, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation and theGadigal People of the Eora Nation, and recognises their continuingconnection to the land, waters and culture. We pay our respectsto their Elders past and present.Bright Lightan imprint of Hardie Grant Children’s PublishingWurundjeri CountryGround Floor, Building 1, 658 Church StreetRichmond, Victoria 3121, AustraliaMelbourne | Sydney | San Franciscowww.hardiegrantchildrens.comISBN: 9781761212291First published 2024Publishers Chren Byng and Rebecca McRitchie Design Pooja DesaiEditorial Luna Soo with Johanna Gogos Production Sally DavisWith thanks to sensitivity consultant Renee HarlestonPrinted in China by Leo Paper GroupText copyright © 2024 Deborah FrenkelIllustration copyright © 2024 Danny SnellDesign copyright © 2024 Hardie Grant Children’s PublishingThe moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without theprior written permission of the publishers and copyright holdersThe paper this book is printed on is from FSC®-certified forests and othersources. FSC® promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficialand economically viable management of the world’s forests.2 4 5 3 1For Tonka, who adopted us. – DF For Poncho. – DSSome cats are house cats. Some are apartment cats. Some cats live on farms. Some live in the city.But Tinka was a truck cat. Tinka lived everywhere.

In rest-stop huts with rats in the rafters.He lived in brick motels with beetles in the bathtub. In depots dancing with dragonflies.But mostly, home was the cabin of Yacoub’s B-double tri-axle truck.

Yacoub drove thetruck to make a living. Tinka sat on the passengerseat, keeping an eye out for interlopers.He drove it all around thecountry, learning the strange new landscape on the way.NOtES

In the truck there were different things, depending on the day. Sometimes apples, sometimes pears. Sometimes lots and lots of eggs.Yacoub had to drive carefully, because otherwise those eggs would all get scrambled.

Other humans didn’t always understand Yacoub: his jokes, his words. His silences.

But Tinka knew that when Yacoub was quiet, he was busy remembering.And that when Yacoub was done, he would switch off the radio and hum tunes from his home country, or tell Tinka about the food his nena used to make, way back.Tinka also had an old home, full of mewling siblings.There was a mama cat, way back, and a warm basket.So Tinka and Yacoub remembered their memories together.

Then at night, when the truck stopped to rest under the Milky Way, Tinka sat on Yacoub’s lap and purred into the sky.

But one morning, someone else arrived.A little white flutter,asking Tinka to play tag.He did his best.He leapt. He lunged.But butterflies are tricky for even the daintiest of truck cats.

Here. There.Over. Here there over under Under.here-there-over –– under.BEEEEEEEEP!

but Tinka lay still.Wheels whooshed and flashed,Until cool hands lifted him from the road,held him gently,and carried him to a car.The hands belonged to Mari.

At Mari’s bakery, there was yogurt, which Tinka didn’t like,and a fish head, which he did. So Mari gave him another the next day, and the next.But Tinka worried about Yacoub, alone in the truck with just eggs to talk to.He worried about Yacoub all summer long.

Yacoub worried too, from town to town to town, and back again.Then one day, he smelled something familiar …

The warm spices of home,leading him to a bakery window,where someone familiar purred against the glass.Yacoub ordered everything on Mari’s menu, to celebrate.He said it was just like Nena’s cooking – maybe even better, because it came with company.

Lorikeets landed in the lemon tree, and pigeons peckedin the petunias, but Yacoub and Mari kept talking.In the same language. Understanding each other. Tinka waited at the door to be let out.He was not impatient whatsoever.

sometimes, a sofa cat.Sometimes he’s a bakery cat,Now, Tinka isn’t always a truck cat.Sometimes he’s a picnic cat,and sometimes, a train cat.But wherever he goes,Tinka is certain of one thing –

home is everywhere.