Chapter Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Eight
Pets
When I go back into the living room, Nemo is still on the bookcase, freshly groomed, limbs folded in like a sticky gingerbread loaf. He hasn’t even ventured down to use his litter tray. He must be bursting at the seams, poor cat.
Ted trots up behind me, gives a baleful look at the bookcase, and a tiny whine, as if he just wants to make friends and is deeply hurt that Nemo won’t give him a chance.
Whereupon Nemo does something so completely unexpected, so entirely stupid, that it catches me off guard. He leaps off the bookcase and lands right in front of Ted’s nose.
All hell breaks loose. A number of items come crashing to the ground, including a ceramic wall-plate featuring a trio of brightly painted lighthouses, a metal mackerel that looks as if it’s had enough of life and is ready to die, and a key-tidy that says in five wildly different fonts, ‘Sandy Toes and Salty Kisses’.
I notice this in a low-level way as Nemo yowls bloody murder and Ted snaps at his tail in a volley of excited barks, which cannot possibly be good for his heart condition. After who-even-knows-how-long, Nemo climbs one of the window blinds and perches precariously on the roller, somehow managing to look smug in the process. Both Ted and Nemo have their mouths open and appear to be waiting for the other to make their next move.
‘This,’ I say, looking at first one and then the other, ‘is not going to work.’