As I sit here in a quiet corner of the reception I am calmed by the rise and fall of the cats’ belly. She is completely knocked out and oblivious to the world around her. She’s stripy, like a proper tiger, the markings on her face elongating her eyes and highlighting the shape of her beautiful head. Everybody talks to her. She’s well used to the attention. She feeds outside in the morning and evening, food is laid out for her just outside the door. She only has two notches lopped off her ears, one maybe by a human for identification, the other possibly a tom who fancied his chances. She doesn’t seem the type to rough it. Why would she? It’s just nice and peaceful. People come and go, some stopping at the reception to ask for advice, others lazing out and in like slow motion is in vogue and they never ran out of the house late for work on a Monday morning. Such is holidays.
Then I see him. Oh, very quick. Hardly there really. No, I’m paranoid. Again. A wee green head flashing out from behind the reception desk. The manager is in his office. It’s the same one from two years ago who we had to induce to a comatose state in fear of him remembering anything. That was the year of them being stuck in a lift shaft. Ralphie jumped on the desk and flew over to bounce on me. I tried to wrap him in my cardigan but he was so excited, I couldn’t calm him down. I stuffed him down my t shirt, I had put on quite a bit of weight recently so it looked like my boobs were wriggling about like two puppies in a sack. It’s not a good look. Next thing I know is the puppies are gone from my boobs and all hell lets loose.
Windows collapsed from the ceiling into a rainbow of hail stones, cutting and flicking into the bare skin of hotel guests from all parts of Europe. The place descended into madness. The manager shouted for everyone to get out but a few of us were unable to. We were trapped in a horror film of ice and glass. I knew it was them. The manager shouted something in rapid Spanish down the phone. Within five minutes a dozen police stood outside in full riot gear. Bloody hell, they think it’s a terrorist attack. I couldn’t say anything. Nobody would believe me anyway. How often can things like this go on without alerting government officials from all over the world? If this mayhem was down to our aliens as I suspected, all our lives were going to shatter before our eyes with nobody knowing what to do. What do you do?
The lightning gradually subsided, I don’t know how or why, but it just went away, I don’t know where. The riot police smashed in what was left of the doors, shouting in Spanish, waving some scary warfare that frightened everyone. These rottweillers were scarier than the lightning. A straw poll would have uncovered this fact. The world’s press was baying for blood outside, we could see them on the telly. Black blinds hung in front of the broken windows allowing them no point of interest for the six o’clock news. No one was allowed in or out of the apartment complex. I don’t know of anyone else who would want to come in, the place looked like downtown Syria on a Sunday morning. Even the sleepy hotel cat looked disgruntled, slowly squeezing himself into a secluded corner behind the desk. The big scary men ran about what was left of the reception, they too calmed down. Apart from the carnage the only evidence our little friends left was green slime hanging from the metal struts where the windows had been. I can’t describe this to you very well, but if you imagine a few hundred people with a head cold and no hankie, then imagine all that snot, hang it from your lights and lampshades, then that gives you an idea.
Bureaucrats the world over have to operate in bureaucratic mode and this they did with gusto, relishing the prospect of some proper governmental business of some vague merit. The proverbial I and t had to be crossed and dotted. They soon had a handle on every person in the hotel and confiscated a few passports. The manager asked John and I to join him in his office. We were glad to be of help, of course. We couldn’t have made this up though, what happened next. You know how in the movies there are men in black who sort out aliens from other planets? You think it’s only in the movies? It’s all true. Two big men in black suits sat behind a desk and asked us to sit down. We did. Something told us not to argue. Anyway, they had our names and address clearly written in giant letters on a thick folder of what we knew was not The Famous Five go their holidays. I got a bit nervous. John looked at me and gave me the blue-eyed stare that said say nothing.