Still, it wasn’t all bad. Whenever they go away, we get human number 3 staying with us instead. She’s brilliant. She has all these things that she likes to do things with. Pencils – beautifully crunchy. Bits of knitting – beautifully chewy. Even purses – beautifully portable.
Playing with them is such fun. So I take them to my little house where I can keep them safe and come back to play with them a bit more later. Once they’re in that house, no one can see them. But I don’t know what it is about human number 3, because she finds them each time anyway. Maybe she can smell them, which is odd, because generally humans don’t seem to have any sense of smell to speak of at all.
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| I really like my little house It’s a great place to keep things |
It was all a bit odd. First she did all the things she does when she’s going out. Then she went and stood by the couch. Then she bent down and felt around on the surface a bit, even behind the cushions and down the cracks. As she kept looking, I could feel all these waves of disappointment coming from her. And then something else, something more like anxiety.
So I went over and stood by her. She seemed to need a bit of comfort, and I know I’m good at that. I wagged my tail and tried to look helpful.
“Oh, hello, Toffee,” she said, bending down to pat me absent-mindedly. “Do you know where I left my purse? I thought it was on the couch, but I can’t see it.”
I wagged my tail because of course I knew where she’d left it, but she didn’t get the message. Instead she wandered over to the dining table.
“No, not here. Did I leave it in the kitchen?”
It wasn’t there any more than it was in the bathroom, on the mantelpieces, on the bookshelves, or anywhere upstairs either. I was trailing around after her to see if I could help at all, and in the hope that she’d hand out some more stroking, but all I got was an occasional tap on the head and some running commentary.
“Oh, dear, what have I done? Where on earth could I have left it? Sometimes I can be so absent-minded.”
I’ll say. A little tap behind the ears? Call that stroking?
Luci had joined us by then and was following us looking as bemused as the human.
“What’s she doing?” Luci asked.
“Looking for her purse. She thinks she left in on the couch and when she went back, it wasn’t there any more.”
“Ah,” said Luci, “but it was once, wasn’t it?”
I felt my stomach sinking a bit. I mean, I’ve been in trouble before, and the way Luci’s voice sounded made me feel I might be again. Still, it wasn’t worth trying to deny it.
“Yes,” I said in a small voice.
“And has she looked in your little house yet?”
“No,” I said in an even smaller voice.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the human, “I don’t understand it. Where can my purse be?”
She turned towards me, a bit distraught.
“Do you know, Toffee? Do you know where my purse is?”
And then she went all quiet for a bit, giving me one of those serious looks that lasts too long. I could see how an idea was beginning to form in her mind. “Perhaps you do know,” she said eventually and shot downstairs to look in my house.
She stood up holding the purse and sounding strained.
“Oh, Toffee. You can be so naughty sometimes.”
“So bloody silly, if you ask me,” said Luci. “I mean, human number 3’s nice to us. Why would you do that to her?”
“Silly?” I said, “it seems a good place to keep things if you want to play with them later. Sensible, actually, not silly at all. I don’t know why she wasn’t sensible enough to think of looking there.”
Ah, well. It would have been fun playing with that purse a bit more. But I mustn’t begrudge human number 3 her little pleasures, and she did seem happy to find the purse again. After all, like Luci says, she is very nice to us.
We had a good time with her while she was here. And now the other humans are back from wherever they went, so life’s all good and normal again.
“Yes,” says Luci, “and you’re as silly and naughty as ever.”
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| I don’t really mind if Luci thinks I’m silly and naughty She’s my friend |
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