When they got to the goat pen, Zsa-Zsa jumped gracefully up and sat on the edge of the fence. Malcolm followed her. It was so easy to land there – it was amazing. Trotsky made more of a meal of it, scrabbling up with his tongue hanging out, and then he wasn’t able to perch on the fence, so just fell off on to the earth on the other side, which made most of the goats back away.

Malcolm looked at Trotsky, and felt … superior. Which was odd. When he was a boy he wouldn’t have felt that a cat was better than a dog or any other animal. He wouldn’t have cared either way. But as a cat, he definitely felt he was better than a dog. Or any other animal.

“So,” said Zsa-Zsa, “which one is K-Pax?”

Malcolm looked at the goats, still all backing away from Trotsky, who was just wagging his tail at them. Then, behind all the others, he saw: those eyes, those amber, staring eyes.

“That one,” he said. “The really old-looking one at the back.”

“OK. Well, go to sleep.”

“Right … just like that.”

“Well, if you’re right, you’ll turn into a goat. Then you can talk to K-Pax.”

“Yes …” Malcolm was suddenly a bit frightened about this. He had felt, at some level, quite at home with being a cat. Being a goat: that seemed more alien.

Then again, he had already been a tortoise.

So he jumped down into the pen. The ground was muddy, covered in hay and straw. The goats were all staring at him. It didn’t feel like the easiest place to sleep, even if he was a cat, the best animal at sleeping in the world.

But then Trotsky came over and said:

“Perhapzzzz zis will help???”

He curled his body round Malcolm, like a warm, furry, all-over body-pillow. And within seconds, Malcolm felt himself falling asleep.

Just before Malcolm actually dropped off, however, he heard the gate of the goat pen open.

And some voices.

“Gav!”

“Yes, Mav?”

“They’ll be all right in here, won’t they? Then they’ll be in place already for the show tomorrow morning …”

“Yuh! Oh look, here’s Trotsky!”

“Cuddling some cat.”

“Who is that cat?”

“Don’t know. Looks really like Zsa-Zsa. But she’s back at the farmhouse, eating. Hey, Trot! Hey, boy! Where have you been? We needed you to help move all the sh—”

But by then Malcolm was asleep.