was wrong: I could get happier.

Also, I knew something like this would eventually happen.

First it was Barry the tiny white kitten. Then Charlie the irritated octopus, Francis the miniature pig, and a plethora of snakes (I feel bad about not giving them names).

Richard the monkey and Zahara the camel.

Every single time I work with an animal, it’s just been getting bigger and bigger. For my next photo shoot, they’re going to put me in a wetsuit and ask me to ride home on the back of a blue whale.

“We heard you have an affinity with animals,” Peter Trout says sharply. “Is affinity the right word?”

I stare at the elephant.

It’s painted all over: covered with bright patterns in paint – pink and yellow flowers, green swirls, intricate blue borders and orange spots – but it doesn’t look silly or clown-like.

Instead, the elephant gazes at me steadily from underneath its make-up with the wise, kind, infinitely knowing eyes of a huge grey wizard and flicks its enormous ears.

Elephants have the largest brain of any land animal. They understand human body language and can identify between different languages; they can even mimic human voices (one could actually speak five words in Korean).

They’re famous for their empathy: for comforting one another when stressed by stroking each other’s trunks and remembering things for up to eighty years.

They have been known to paint flowers.

And they grieve.

When the elephants they love die, they cry and stand around them for hours, mourning and trying to bury the remains. One was even photographed by National Geographic, slowly wrapping its trunk around the passed-away elephant’s trunk and standing in that position for a full day, saying goodbye.

Basically, elephants have three times as many neurons in their brains as humans, and considerably more compassion and kindness than quite a few people too.

They are the number one best animals in the world.

And I think I’m about to burst into emotional tears on a job yet again.

“Is it …” I take a few steps forward and swallow. “Has it … How is it …”

I can feel myself being drawn towards the elephant on an invisible wire. Everyone around me is slowly disappearing: it’s just the two of us.

“Her name is Manisha,” Deepika says from somewhere behind me. “It means wisdom in Sanskrit. She’s from an elephant wildlife sanctuary near Mathura, and she’s painted for Holi every year. Not just for this photo shoot. It doesn’t upset her.”

All of the tension in my stomach abruptly flows away.

She’s from a sanctuary.

They’ve rescued her already and she’s not unhappy or stressed and I don’t have to feel guilty or maybe arrange some kind of escape plan for both of us so I can go and live with her forever on the plains of India.

Although it’s kind of tempting.

“So you don’t have to purchase this one,” Peter Trout adds. “To clarify.”

I flush pink. Wilbur must have told them about Richard the macaque and the four snakes.

“Go for it,” Deepika says warmly, and I realise I’ve been standing with my hand stretched out for the last few minutes.

Slowly, I inch forward.

Not because I’m scared – I’ve never been less so – but because, just as Elizabeth the First was the queen of all queens, this is the noble leader of all animals. She deserves my respect and my humility.

Manisha gives a little huffing sound and calmly watches me approach.

Taking a deep breath, I move even nearer.

I close my eyes, unable to believe this is about to happen.

Then I hold my hand out and touch her side.

Her skin is warm and dry, wrinkled and slightly hairy, and I suddenly want to rest my cheek on it and wrap my arms round her tightly.

So I do.

Without hesitation, I start cuddling an elephant.

Manisha gives another little huff and shifts her weight slightly as I open my eyes. Then she reaches out, grabs the bottom of my vest in her trunk and starts trying to put it into her mouth.

I shout with laughter as my tummy is abruptly exposed. “Hey!”

Gently pulling my T-shirt back out again, I pat her face while her trunk searches the rest of me for something else to eat.

“You’ve got 100,000 muscles in that, you know,” I tell her as it feels its way gently up to my shoulder and starts tickling my neck. “Although as you’re an Asian elephant rather than an African elephant you have to wrap your trunk around objects to pick them up rather than pinching them with the end.”

With a little puff, Manisha flicks her ears again.

Then somebody says something in Indian from behind me and she reaches down towards the water in a large bucket behind us I hadn’t noticed.

“What are you—”

With another little huff, Manisha slowly pulls her trunk out again.

“Oh,” I say as she holds it up high above us and I finally understand why Anish was laughing. “Oh.”

And she starts spraying.