The brush of soft fur against my forehead. Small teeth pulling at the threads in my sleeve. ‘Morning, Furball,’ I say sleepily. When I open my eyes, her two pink ones are staring at me intently. ‘What’s up?’ Furball turns and hops out of my bedroom, heading towards the front door. I crawl off my mattress to see where she is scampering to and I’m surprised to find her balancing on her hind legs and scratching at the plyboard barrier with her front claws. I’m happy to see that her injured paw is mending nicely – that’s good news after only five days. ‘Waay, Flufty, what’s the rush?’ I glance back at my alarm clock shaped like a chicken – one of my newest acquisitions. ‘It’s only eight o’clock.’ Her scrabbling is getting more frenetic. ‘OK, OK. I’m coming.’ It’s a cold morning. I can see my breath rising like spirals of candy floss round a stick. I wrap the big travel rug from my bed round my shoulders, shove my feet into the bear slippers which are two sizes too big and pad to join Furball.
