Next thing she knew, Jackie Bailey was having a dream. It was a dream in which there were lots of animals and lots of children, some of which were her children and some of which weren’t, and the children and the animals kept on getting mixed up, and the children were chasing the animals, but then the animals were chasing the children, and all she could hear was quacking and mooing and barking and meowing and …

… then she woke up and realised that Bert was not sleeping any more. He had got hold of Stewart’s phone and was pressing all the icons on AnimalSFX over and over again.

“Bert …” she said, sleepily, “can you stop that, please.”

But before Bert did stop it, Rodney Braden came out of the surgery.

“Hello, Jackie,” he said, quietly.

“Oh, Mr B,” said Jackie. “Sorry, I must have fallen asleep. What time is it?”

Mr Braden looked up at the clock.

“Just turned five am.”

“Oh, thank you so much for working this late. It’s so good of you.”

“It is good of me, yes.”

“So …?” said Jackie, after an awkward pause. “How is he?”

As Jackie said this – slightly louder and more insistently than perhaps she meant to – all the others began to stir.

“Well,” said Rodney, smiling – his special ‘what-a-great-vet-I-am’ smile – “perhaps you all should come and see.”

He took the Bailey family over to the surgery.

“OK. Here we go.”

And he began to open the door.