A different VIEW

Would Zoe ever meet someone who saw things the way she did?

I don’t remember much about my early years, but my mother told me it all started when I was a toddler.

Apparently, she’d strapped me into my highchair one day while she prepared a meal when I suddenly got excited and shouted out the word ‘cat’.

‘Where?’ she gasped, looking around the kitchen.

‘Cat!’ I yelled again, waving my rusk in the air.

‘Where?’ She put the knife she was using down and walked over to me. ‘I can’t see a cat anywhere, Zoe.’

‘Cat!’ I shrieked as I thrust the rusk in her face.

Her eyes lit up. ‘Oh, I see. Your rusk looks like a cat!’

I grinned, inspecting the soggy biscuit in my hand… ‘Cat.’

‘Yes, I can see,’ Mum said. ‘You’ve nibbled round the edges, and now the rusk looks like a cat with a great, big, bushy tail!’

I nodded at her. Mum smiled. ‘It’s lovely,

Zoe, but you’d better eat it now.’

‘No! Cat!’ I shrieked.

‘Oh, OK. We’ll keep it for Daddy to see,’ Mum said as she went to get some kitchen rolls. ‘He’s going to think you’re clever, isn’t he?’

‘Uh-huh!’ I beamed, not knowing then that my father wouldn’t be able to see the cat or any of the other things I was always spotting in random objects.

He really tried, but his mind just didn’t work like that.