Grade 2-5-Topher, a young boy still grieving over the death of his mother, an Egyptologist, is entranced when a stray cat (who happens to bear a remarkable resemblance to the cat figurine his mother gave him before her death) adopts him as her owner. The cat, whom Topher names Ka (Egyptian for “double”), disappears for days at a time, and only when he uncovers her secret and follows her back through time does he find the key to her loyalty. In the meantime, Topher comes to terms with his mother’s death and makes a new friend, a deaf girl named Ellie. Though David Collins’ straightforward narration brings Julia Jarman’s characters to life, particularly through his sensitive reading of Topher’s inner thoughts, his attempts to render Ellie’s deaf accent make her dialogue nearly unintelligible. The story’s climax is more of an anticlimax, with Topher’s trip to ancient Egypt providing no surprises, and a sub-plot involving Ellie’s operation to receive a cochlear implant feels tacked on. The time travel element of the story is never fully developed; the connections hinted at between past and present, between Ka and Topher’s mother, are never fully fleshed out. This is a very good reading of a flawed story.