Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Shush-shush-shush now. Go and have a nap.' I should have known they were up to
something.
When I came back outside about an hour later, still a bit groggy but with more faculties than
at any other time that day, I couldn't find anyone. I thought at first that they may have gone
for a walk, but I could hear muffled voices coming from the wood store. Well, actually not
muffled but muted, whispered, conspiratorial. Toby, who seemed to be standing guard, saw
me and slinked off. I sneaked up to the door to try and hear what was going on, but couldn't
quite make it out. Whatever it was I was obviously to be kept out of it.
'What's going on?' I demanded as I swung the door open. And there they were, the traitors,
all four of them bending over a cage, shocked by my entrance and quickly shuffling into a
line to block my view of whatever it was they were hiding. 'What is it?' I asked, 'What have
you got now?' I wasn't angry, more resigned.
Between the four of them - Thérence punctuated their explanation with the word 'tractor' -
I got a picture of what had happened. They had found three baby rabbits, but unfortunately
Vespa and Flame had found them at the same time and now there was only one left.
'We're trying to save it, Daddy,' Samuel said. 'It's all on its own now.'
'Yes, well I know how it feels,' I responded a touch dramatically. 'So, let me get this straight.
We are now rescuing animals from the clutches of the animals we've previously rescued, is
that right?'
They all looked at the floor like naughty schoolchildren, except for Thérence who said 'tract-
or'.
'We're going to release it back into the wild…' Natalie began, before I interrupted.
'What? Like the cats?' A killer blow to any logical person or argument and therefore utterly
useless in the face of these miscreants.
I'm all for rescuing animals, it's a 'good thing to do' but when you start effectively building
your own domestic food chain there is bound to be trouble. Toby, who is actually scared of
the cats, has become a disappointment in his own right. He has an excess of growth hormone
and has high cholesterol. He's like the Orson Welles of Guard Dogging, a career that started
off so promisingly has descended into mediocrity and obesity. The horses hate me. Pierrot
disgusts everyone, and the cats are silent killers without remorse. Now we have a rabbit pre-
sumably introduced just to destroy my vegetable patch. With all the secrecy I felt it was one
concession too many, and I was determined to be strong and draw a line somewhere and this,
without doubt, was it.
As I was about to make this clear, Vespa sauntered into the wood store and dropped her
latest victim. A lizard's tail; just the tail. And it was angry. Lizards' tails, like headless chick-
ens, can carry on for quite some time after being separated from the body, but this one was
practically jumping! It was like the Black Knight in
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
, seem-
ingly saying to Vespa, 'Come on then! Is that all you've got?' Vespa, bored, left the tail to it
