I led the way into the house, Stella stopped and turned, “I don’t know if I can cope with this.”

“Course you can, you have to. C’mon, I’ll stay with you.” I put my arm around her, but she turned out of it.

“I really can’t, Cathy. You speak with him, I’ll be out in the garden.” Before I could say anything she’d fled to the garden.

I walked slowly towards the front door, the doorbell rang and I practically jumped out of my skin. I don’t ever remember it sounding so loud before. My nerves were fraying faster than an old sweater.

I opened the door with clammy hands, barely able to get a grip on the handle. Then had an enormous shock, before me stood, grinning like a chimpanzee on ecstasy, was a man from DHL, “Hi, luvvie, package for you, can you sign here?”

I signed, and accepted the package, closing the door with my back as I leant against it. I carried the package through into the kitchen, opened the door and called out to Stella, “It’s okay, false alarm.”

“I opened the box, cutting through the tape on the top of it. Inside was another box. I hoped it wasn’t going to be like Russian dolls, with the final one being the size of a matchbox and containing a mummified corpse of some poor little rodent and a letter asking if I know what it is.

Inside the second box, wrapped carefully in bubble wrap were some objects which I soon identified as my image intensifying equipment and infrared viewer. The note was short but said:

’Dear Cathy,
If you’re chasing dormeece, these may be useful.
Love,
Tom.’

I nearly wept when I saw it. I’d not had any room in the car to carry anything else. It was also officially property of the university, which I just happened to keep with me. I’d thought I’d have to ask if I could rent or borrow such stuff, possibly through Des. Now I wouldn’t have to, I needed to go and see Tom as soon as the summer school was over and thank him for his thoughtfulness. I had so misjudged him.

He was probably old enough to be my grandfather, but part of me did enjoy pretending he was my dad. I think he enjoyed the illusion as well. I was probably too old to be adopted now anyway.

I put the stuff away carefully in the cupboard under the stairs, hoping I’d remember where I’d stowed it when I wanted it. I wandered out to the garden, Stella was mowing my grass.

“It needed doing,” she said and I nodded.

“I’ll make some tea,” I said but she indicated she’d prefer a cold drink. I went in and put some ginger beer in the fridge, I’d nearly forgot I’d bought it. I only did because it was on special offer at half price in the supermarket. I enjoyed the odd glass, doubly odd because ginger was not a flavour I normally liked. But an occasional vodka and dry ginger ale did spice one up for a few minutes.

I watched Stella working the mower up and down my lawn. A frog jumped in front of the mower and she went all girly and came screaming into the house.

I’d seen what had happened but said nothing. “What’s the problem?”

“There was a frog.”

“Yeah, you get them in gardens, especially one with a pond.”

“I don’t like frogs.”

“Well you usually have to kiss a few before you find a…”

“I mean it, I don’t like frogs–they just make me want to throw up.”

“Don’t tell me, Simon did something nasty with one when you were a kid.”

“If he did I can’t remember it.”

“Shoots my theory down then, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“Never mind. Do you want a drink now or when you finish the mowing?”

“Ooh, I can’t go out there if the frog is still about.”

“What? Scared of a frog?”

“Yes, can you go and–like, remove it?”

“I doubt I’ll be able to find it, it could be anywhere.”

“Please, because I can’t like, go out there again unless you do.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes, what do I have to do to convince you, swoon or throw a hissy fit?”

“No, I’ll go and look. There’s some ginger beer in the fridge if you’d like it.”

“In a minute. The frog, ugh–please.”

“Alright, I’m going.” I went out into the garden. The artful amphibian had legged it, there was no sign of it anywhere on the grass. I looked in the pond but apart from the goldfish, I couldn’t see anything else swimming in there.

I started the mower and finished the rest of the grass. It was warming up as the sun broke through the clouds. It had been a poor summer so far, so today was something to be enjoyed.

I emptied the basket and cleaned off the underside of the mower and put it back in the shed, locking the door after me. Stella was sitting in the kitchen drinking her ginger ale. “Sorry about that, but I can’t stand those slimy things, they make my flesh creep.”

“That’s okay, we all have something that we don’t like.”

“What is it you don’t like?”

“Erm, I don’t like spiders very much.”

“How girly of you,” she said laughing.

“Yeah, so? I’m allowed to be girly, aren’t I?”

“Course you are.” She stood up and hugged me, “even if it must be embarrassing for a biologist.”

“I can cope with them, but I don’t like the big hairy ones that move the furniture as they cross the room.”

“Oh yeuch, you don’t have any of those do you?”

“What the big Tegenaria?”

“I don’t know how old they are, nor do I care…”

“Stella, that’s the family name, Tegenaria

“It sounded like you were telling me how old they were.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Like, octogenarian.”

“The only octo about arachnids is the number of legs they have.”

“So would that make an octopus an arachnid?”

“No.”

“Well they’ve got eight legs.”

“No they haven’t, they’ve got eight tentacles.”

“Testicles?”

At this, the mouthful of ginger beer I had taken, got coughed up my nose and sprayed all over the kitchen. It took me several minutes before I could breathe without my nose and nasal passages burning, and my eyes were running like mad. Stella was sitting down laughing like a drain — the cow.

After cleaning up, it had got practically everywhere, I sat down at the table. “Octopus are cephalopod molluscs. They don’t have limbs.”

“Molluscs, you mean like snails and things?”

“The phylum Mollusca, is quite large and contains a number of things, including slugs and snails.”

“And octopus.”

“Yeah, them too.”

“What about squid?”

“Them as well, another cephalopod.”

“What head foot, isn’t that what cephalopod means?”

“Literally yes.”

“I wonder what they call us?”

“They can’t,” I said sniggering.

“Why because they don’t have a larynx?”

“They don’t, but I was going to say, they can’t call us because they don’t have our number, it’s ex-directory.”

“Oh, geez, Cathy, that was pathetic.” That was her opinion but I wasn’t sure about it because she laughed as she said it. I put my ginger beer down safely before I spoke.