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window and instructed Saska likewise. Where was Tani? Was I taking her out Without Him? he bawled, standing on the window sill with his tail raised threateningly against the curtain.
    Â Â 'Oh no!' I wailed aloud. 'Don't let him do that!' Saska had an unfortunate habit of spraying when he was upset about anything. I hadn't any idea whom I was asking. I didn't suppose the Almighty would be greatly concerned at my being locked out of the cottage through my own stupidity or the prospect of Saska spraying up the curtains. I often asked Charles for help when I couldn't find things or was in a predicament and it was surprising – sometimes to the point of being uncanny – how often the situation resolved itself. But I couldn't expect Charles to help me over this. And judging by Saska's tail the matter was urgent.
    Â Â I ran down the lane to the Reasons'. Father Adams wasn't on the phone. Janet Reason had already gone off to her job at the nearby airport. Peter was just getting ready to leave himself. Could I use their phone to ring the police? I asked, explaining what had happened. When I rang the local police station, however, an answering machine informed me that it wasn't manned, and I should dial 999 if there was an emergency.
    Â Â It was an emergency as far as I was concerned, I told the voice that answered when I did, explaining that if someone could come and open the car for me I could get the key of the cottage. I was given the number of Taunton police station, where they said they only had a few car keys. I'd better try the AA; they'd give me the number. There a female voice said I'd got their Travel Bureau, which didn't open until nine o'clock. What did I want? I told her, including the urgency about the cats' litter boxes. She was most sympathetic. Wouldn't they hold on? she asked, passing me swiftly to Emergency, who said someone would be me within an hour.
    Â Â An hour! I tottered back up the lane, imagining the mayhem Tani might commit in the kitchen, and Saska against the sitting-room curtains, in that time. When Peter drove past a few minutes later, leaning out of his car window to ask was I all right, because I'd told him I was going back to wait for the AA, I was once more up on the hall roof, tapping away hammer and screwdriver.
    Â Â 'Fine,' I answered, more brightly than I felt. 'Had a sudden idea. Almost in. Any minute now.' It was something I'd seen Charles do on odd occasions when we'd been locked out­ – and sure enough, even as I spoke somehow I'd tapped the window frame enough for me to jolt the catch loose, insert the screwdriver, lift it up… and I was in again, downstairs, giving the cats clean litter boxes. In the Nick of Time, Tani announced, jumping into hers with evident relief, while I put the key in the outside lock so it couldn't happen again.
    Â Â Now I just had to ring the AA and say there was no need for them to come. In my agitation I couldn't find their number in the phone directory. I decided to open the car now that the car keys were available, get the number from the AA book, which was in the door pocket, and retrieve the other back door key that had been the cause of all the trouble. I couldn't believe it when I couldn't find the key on the car floor. I phoned the AA, turned out my handbag once more in desperation and there, after all the panic, it was. Hidden in a corner, where it must have been all the time.
    Â Â The next silly thing I did was get in a muddle over Tani's spaying. She should have the operation at six months, the vet had told me when he treated her for her nervous stomach. She'd been born at the end of January... six months from January was June, I calculated. I booked her in for the end of June and had driven her almost the twenty-five miles to the vet's on the appointed day when it dawned on me that six months from January was July. Tani was only five months old.
    Â Â I drove on to the surgery to explain. Some cats were