Intruder

 

Saturday afternoon. I have just come home from the fruit and vegetable shop. Two heavy shopping bags are strapped to my scooter. I untie the stretchers and drag them one by one to the front door. I unlock the door and kick off my shoes. Whew, now to carry the bags to the kitchen. I walk through the living room and see that Staf the Giraffe has fallen over. Staf is a South African giraffe made of iron wire and beads. Three of those giraffes stand in a row. Staf is the smallest and sometimes a bit unstable. He sometimes falls over when I bump into him.

My brain registers it as I walk past it. Staff is on the floor. But he wasn't on the floor when I left. Did I bump into him on my way out? I enter the kitchen. There are two objects on the floor there. The first is a dish of cockroach poison that is otherwise neatly shoved under a rack. It now lies a meter from that spot. There is also a crocheted coaster on the floor. This one is normally lying on my coffee table, in the living room. Something is wrong here. This can’t be due to my clumsiness nor a storm wind.

Someone has been in the house! Not a nice thought. A fortnight ago, during the night, all the electronics were stolen from my colleague's house. They didn't hear anything of the burglary, but a window was broken and the door was left open. All the doors of my house were still locked when I arrived home. I check quickly: my TV is still there, so is my laptop. Who engages in moving cotton coasters?

And then I get an inkling. I walk to my bedroom and lift the mosquito net hanging down to the floor. I get down on my knees, looking under the bed. There is my hand puppet Monkey. He normally sits on the sofa in the living room. Behind Monkey lurks a black, young cat. Someone has been having a lot of fun here while I was away. He (she?) has the good sense to run off.

Mystery solved.