Night comes, but not accompanied by Real cat. Familiar midnight performance, standing outside back door banging plate with spoon and calling out cat's name in squeaky voice, you know how you do, in tones that you hope will attract cat while not waking neighbours. Fancy takes hold, fears of lorries, foxes, traps float across mind.

Answer rises with dreadful inevitability, like boiling milk. Take torch, put on dressing gown, pad through dewy grass to picture-window of neighbour's house. Cat is sitting dribbling on dining table, watching vibrating gerbil colony, which is going mad. Treadmills are squeaking frantically in the night.

Mrs Thing must have been and Real cat, always on the look out for new experiences, must have wandered into the house while the door was open.

Do what any Real cat owner does in these circumstances, but cat takes no notice of shouts and threats. Run around house looking for open window, but all has been sealed tight against burglars, ie, self.

Run back home. Wasn't listening properly to instructions, can't remember who Mrs Thing really is or where she lives. Also, how long is a day or two? Gerbils seem to live indefinitely in Spaceship Gerbil, with huge food hopper and nothing to do but make more gerbils. Whereas cat eats with knife, fork and hammer and has hair-trigger appetite. How long can it last? How long can it last on gerbil?

Run back again, try garage door, miraculously been left open, bang clong thud in the misty dawn, Neighbourhood Watchers probably already have digit poised to press the third 9, police will arrive deedabdeedah, pull the other one, chummy, it's got bells on, neighbours summoned from hotel bed in Majorca, may or may not corroborate story, will have crime record, finally, shunned in street, We Are All Guilty…

Still door from garage into house itself. Locked. Wonder if situation justifies breaking in but neighbours away for fortnight, can't leave house with broken door, will have to get carpenter, etc, in, and he won't be able to come along for probably three weeks. Look under door. See cat paws. Cat has turned up to watch entertainment. Peer through keyhole, all dark, key still in there…