A few years back this young cat came up to me in a kitten shelter and climbed onto my lap. I didn’t want her, the others were all fluffy, rolypoly babies winsome with whiskers and she was an awkward teenager with a big splotch on her nose. Whenever I visited the shelter there were kittens cutely gambolling all over and sucking on my toes (“they like the sweat” explained the cat breeder, who loved animals and had bred so many the Council were compelling her to give some away)… then I looked down and this skinny, weird-looking animal had stowed her sharp chin on my hip. Every time. I put her in a banana box and took her home. Her name is Tisch, I miss her sometimes but she is a lousy correspondent.
