During the recent heatwave I did what any mature and refined modern woman would do: I took myself off to my local park to bask in the sun with a good book and take a hundred selfies in the hope one might look sexy enough for Instagram (it didn’t).
I am lying on the grass with my phone camera above me – the book coincidentally in shot (how else am I meant to show refinement than by impressing people with my pretentious book?) – when some small faces appear. A cluster of children, probably about 10 years old, have gathered around. “Miss!” they say. “Please help us, this cat is hurt.”
“Me?” I think, sitting up. “They can’t possibly mean me.”
But they do. That’s the thing about small people: they assume that big people know what they’re doing, when big people are equally amazed and baffled by life – they just happen to have an overdraft.
I look around for a more adult adult. There is no one, just me. Suddenly I’m being hurried by the children to a bush and cowering beneath the branches is a cat, shivering. Its paw is red and bloodied. I wonder if it can walk.
“This is your moment, Coco,” my internal voice says. “This is where you graduate to grownup.” Telling the tykes to wait, I dart back to my house to find a box and a blanket, wondering if I’ll win a medal for bravery and if it would be appropriate to wear a cape to the ceremony.
“Stand back, small humans!” I think to myself, practising my superhero voice. “I shall save you, furry one!”
Back at the park, I approach the cat cautiously as it begins to hiss. Dropping to my knees, I begin the obligatory kissy sound that humans make at cats. “Sssshhhh,” I say. “It’s OK, love, I’m here to rescue you.”
I hold my hand out slowly. The cat’s nose twitches as it familiarises itself with my scent. Slowly I get closer until I am softly touching its head when – bang! – fangs in the hand, teeth into flesh, it’s biting me. I howl in expletives. Now claws are scraping down my forearm and… is that blood?
Before I know it the cat has bounded off. The children watch it race up a tree before their eyes return to me clutching my arm. One looks at me and – with what seems like genuine care and understanding – says, “Should I go and get a grownup?”
“Well,” I reply. “I certainly don’t see one here.”
