An Unsuitable Woman. Kat Gordon

voice changed. ‘What’s that?’

      ‘Oh this? I picked it up today – MacDonald said every household needs one.’

      ‘I don’t want it indoors.’

      ‘It’s for the leopards.’

      ‘What if the children see it?’

      ‘They won’t know what to do with it.’

      ‘I don’t want it indoors.’

      ‘It’s for our own protection, my love.’

      ‘It’s asking for trouble,’ my mother said. ‘Hide it.’

      ‘As you wish.’ My father must have recognised the danger in my mother’s voice, as I did, because he changed the subject. I silently thanked him for whatever purchase had distracted my mother from deciding to end my new friendship, and went back to bed.