“Claire!” Tina said.<\/p>\n
“What?” <\/p>\n
“You can’t do that!”<\/p>\n
“Can’t do what?”<\/p>\n
“Climb in through the window like that!” Tina said. <\/p>\n
“I can,” said Claire, and proved it by slithering in through the ever so slightly open kitchen window. Then a few seconds later she slithered back out again. “See! And anyway, if Mum didn’t want me to climb through the window she shouldn’t have locked us all out.”<\/p>\n
“How do you know Mum’s locked us out? She might have locked herself in.”<\/p>\n
“That doesn’t make any sense, Daniel,” Claire said. “And if it did, I’d still have to climb in through the window.”<\/p>\n
“But it’s dangerous, Claire,” said Tina. <\/p>\n
“Dangerous how?” Claire said. “It’s just a hole. It’s no different from using the door.”<\/p>\n
“You don’t go through the door head first, Claire,” Tina said. “What if you fell?”<\/p>\n
“I simply wouldn’t fall,” said Claire. “Anyway, I could just as easily go in feet first. Look.”<\/p>\n
They all looked as this time she somehow slithered in through the window backwards. Then a few seconds later she slithered back out backwards too.<\/p>\n
“See?”<\/p>\n
“You better not have knocked Mum’s plants off into the sink,” said Ethel. <\/p>\n
“You’re just making things up to complain about now,” Claire said. “Now unless you’ve got any sensible complaints – ” Daniel put his hand up at this point. ” – I’m going to go back inside and let you idiots in and then maybe you can thank me.” Daniel still had his hand up. “Urgh, okay, what is it Daniel?” <\/p>\n
“What if…” Daniel said, slowly.<\/p>\n
“This better be good, Daniel.”<\/p>\n
“What if… a dog bites you on the bum,” Daniel said. <\/p>\n
“Why would a dog bite me on the bum?” said Claire. “We don’t even have a dog, for one thing.”<\/p>\n
“The cat might bite you on the bum then,” said Daniel. <\/p>\n
“Why would the cat bite anyone?<\/em>” Claire asked. “She’s got claws. She doesn’t need to bite my bum.”<\/p>\n “She might scratch you, then,” said Daniel. “On the knee!<\/em>”<\/p>\n “Shut up, Daniel,” Claire said, having already disappeared three quarters of the way through the window, only her face visible through the gap as she gave Daniel one last glare.<\/p>\n “Wait, what if…” Daniel said slowly, but this time he was interrupted by a scream and a crash and a splash and what sounded sort of like an explosion and then what was perhaps an implosion, which was quickly followed by several more crashes and then a thud and then two more thuds and maybe even a meow before finally there was a heavy dense unmoving silence.<\/p>\n Then inevitably after a short pause there was considerably less silence for a very long loud time and Daniel, Tina and Ethel didn’t know whether to be relieved or not.<\/p>\n ___________<\/p>\n Notes: <\/p>\n 1. Written on January 30th, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n__________<\/br> “Claire!” Tina said. “What?” “You can’t do that!” “Can’t do what?” “Climb in through the window like that!” Tina said. “I can,” said Claire, and proved it by slithering in through the ever so slightly open kitchen window. Then a few seconds later she slithered back out again. “See! And anyway, if Mum didn’t want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208],"tags":[1646,1647,1209,364],"class_list":["post-6101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tales-from-the-town","tag-breakages","tag-falls","tag-tales-from-the-town","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6103,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6101\/revisions\/6103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Support An Accumulation Of Things<\/a><\/h3>If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon<\/a> or my ko-fi<\/a>. <\/br><\/br>Patreon subscribers<\/a> get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.<\/br><\/br>(Ko-fi contributors<\/a> probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). <\/br><\/br>Thank you!<\/i><\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"