cane toddler

I was lying on my bed reading in the stifling heat today and a cane toad went hopping past my door. I found him in the hallway looking inscrutably lumpy, there followed a prolonged episode in which I tried and failed to persuade him out of the house using squirts of water, squeamish jabs with a flyswat, cunningly angled opened doors, loud noises. Finally I forgot him and feel asleep with all the doors open and I woke up and he was gone. Down into the garden where he can go on destroying native creatures. Also today it was so hot I drove my car (parked under cover) five minutes down the road and already the roof was too heated to touch. You couldn’t have fried an egg because it would have evaporated. As I backed into the shade once more I spied a curling yellow tail hanging out of the rafters, belonging to a possum who evidently sleeps there during the day, and none of my door-slamming perturbed her.