On the other side of the door, lying on a tiny operating table, the chinchilla’s eyes began to open. This awakening wasn’t quite like all the others in this story, though. He’d been under an anaesthetic, which had put him really fast asleep. So as he came round he was a little confused.

Images went through his mind. Of many different animals, and of many different places. But one thing kept coming back to him. It was quite hard for his waking mind to place it – but it seemed to be a goat. And the goat seemed to be saying something about how … about how he had to make sure that he ended up next to an animal he really loved, and who loved him. That this was how he would become what he was meant to be.

Then, suddenly, he heard a noise.

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!

And then again.

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!

The chinchilla felt frightened. He looked up. He seemed to be in an operating theatre … so why … was he hearing a cockerel?

Then he thought of something, with horror:

The third crow of the cockerel.

Time had run out. This was it. He was going to be – forever – whatever animal he saw next.

But then, even through his fear, something struck him. That crow didn’t sound like any cockerel had sounded in the last few days. In the last few days, when he had been an animal, he had understood the crow; he knew the cockerel had actually been telling the other animals to wake up.

Cock-a-doodle-doo was just how humans heard it. Which must mean …

He looked round as the door opened. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion.

Then he heard a human voice – a woman’s – say: “Bert! Can you stop doing that?”

“But I’ve never pressed that one before. The big chicken with the silly rubber glove on his head!”

“Yes, I know, Bert. But not now.”

And then he saw that coming through the door was an animal he really liked; a number of animals he really liked; loved in fact; and who loved him.

Just as K-Pax had told him he had to find.

It was his family. Because humans, of course, are animals. We are just apes, who walk upright, wear clothes, and don’t throw poo around quite as much.

“Now,” said Rodney, blocking the family from coming in straight away, “I should warn you. This was a very complicated operation. It stretched me to the fullest. I had to use all my surgical talents …”

“Yes, we get that,” said Stewart, trying to squeeze past him. But Rodney wasn’t having it.

“He’ll make a full recovery, but he’ll be groggy for a while. Might not seem quite like his old self, at least to begin with.”

“No, we understand that,” said Grandpa, also trying to get past him.

“I just want you to be prepared for every eventuality.”

“We are prepared, Rodney!!” said Jackie, with some edge in her voice.

“OK,” said Rodney, stepping out of the way quickly – sounding a tiny bit frightened of Jackie – and letting them see the patient.

Who was lying quite uncomfortably now, on the tiny operating table. He was lying quite uncomfortably because he was suddenly much too big for it.

And it was true, the chinchilla did not look at all like his old self. Or rather, in a way, he did: he looked like who he actually was and always had been; an eleven-year-old boy, called Malcolm Bailey.

Everyone– including Rodney– looked astonished.

“Hello, Mum. Hello, Dad,” said Malcolm, weakly.

“Well,” said Rodney. “Even I wasn’t prepared for that eventuality.”