“How’s the gremlin?” I say
My daughter sighs
“He’s turned evil again.”
“Has he? What’s he done now?”
She holds up her hand to reveal an angry-looking score, a small droplet of blood beading up at one end.
“Oh dear,” I say.
The gremlin is nine weeks old. Technically he’s not actually a gremlin at all. Because technically gremlins don’t actually exist, either in the form shown in the 1984 film of the same name, or in any other form. But people put too much store by technicalities, I sometimes think, and I sometimes think they don’t put enough store by practicalities. Because to all practical intents and purposes gremlin is what he is; and so who is there to say that he isn’t one?
There is the Kennel Club, I suppose. They have him down as a cocker spaniel, working variety; and their records show that he goes by the name of Pilot, which we named him after Mr Rochester’s dog in Jane Eyre.
I enter the room. The gremlin squeaks with pleasure and wags so much that he falls over. Then he rolls around on his back waving his legs in the air. He also wets himself a little in his happiness, on the Persian rug.
And I am powerless to resist.
Our older dog, Alfie, he has the gremlin’s measure.
When he sees him coming, he turns on his heel and disappears off to somewhere he won’t be pestered or yelped at.
Me, though, I can’t do that. The girls knew they were pushing at an open door when they asked for a new puppy, even though I fought against it for months.
But I know that later, quite unexpectedly…. well, I just know.
And indeed later that night it happens. We are sitting on the sofa watching the television, and the gremlin is sitting by my side, nuzzled up against me. I move my hand to stroke him. He turns and licks the hand, and then he thinks about it a bit while he’s licking, and then he gives it a nip with his little sharp needle-teeth.
I pull my hand away and he looks up at me.
Then, without any warning, he shoots through the air, straight for my face, teeth bared. I let out a cry of alarm and dive backwards, but he manages to headbutt my cheek before falling back to where he had been sitting.
And then he does it again.
I let out the same surprised cry and move back in the same way, and he headbutts me in the same place.
And then I sit up again.
And then he does it again.
And again.
And again.
I think I have seen something similar in The Simpsons, although I cannot be absolutely sure.
Finally, after about eight repetitions, he seems satisfied, and resumes his place by my side, and I return to stroking his fur.
My other daughter pokes her head round the door.
“How’s the gremlin?” she says.
“He’s fine,” I say, “Just fine.”
Warwick Cairns lives in Windsor, Berkshire, and is the author of About The Size Of It, a serious, but seriously funny book about measuring things.
and How To Live Dangerously
More about Warwick Cairns can be found here
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