Biri

Biri loves The Sunshines. She loves them so much that she brought Lady Sunshine a present. Unfortunately it wasn't dead yet. Sometimes, I'm afraid, there's nothing to do but administer the coup de grace.

However, she's a great deal more civilised than Scruff, the cat we had when I was a girl. Her mother was a stray who was adopted by the curate's landlady and thanked her by having kittens. We've no idea who their father was but we think he must have been Abyssinian, or maybe a Yeti, because Scruff always looked as if she'd been blow-dried.

Scruff, as a clergy cat, should have had some standards. She did when she was very young - she'd follow us to church and parade past the choir like the Queen inspecting a regiment. Then the other cats in the street taught her bad habits.

She became calculating, cupboard loving, a thief and a ruthless murderess. More than once, we tried a collar with a bell. She'd disappear for two days and then come home without it. When she wasn't killing things she was sitting on the garden fence winding up the dog next door just by looking at it, so that the dog barked fit to waken the dead until its owner came out and hauled it into the house. Job done, thought Scruff as she primly walked away. You could almost see her dusting off her paws.

So Biri killed something. She's a cat. Compared to Scruff she has wings, a halo, and a little harp to play with her paws, if she hasn't chewed the strings off it yet.