Boris Johnson was eaten by the foxes.
It all started when we decided to go to Ninety Three Feet East to book Zac's birthday party. Zac needs a birthday party because he is eighteen and he has lots of friends, so John and Zac and me decided to go and have a look at it before we made a decision and because Maisie is small we decided that she should come too.
"Go and get dressed." I told her.
"I can't get dressed," said Maisie, "because I haven't got any special clothes."
"You don't need party clothes to look at a party venue," I told her. " You just need to sling any old thing on and sit in the car for twenty minutes."
"Oh." said Maisie "I'll just go upstairs then, and I'll find any old thing in Abigail's room and I'll sling it on."
Half an hour later Maisie came downstairs wearing a little white mini skirt, a T shirt with stars all up the arms and a pair of green high heels.
"It's just like going to a shop," she said. "Only I didn't have to pay."
Later we are standing in Brick Lane. Brick Lane is very trendy and everyone is twenty two or similar. John and me and Maisie are not twenty two or similar but we notice that everyone else is. Then John and me notice that Maisie looks about twenty two and then we realise that it's because she is wearing all of Abigail's clothes.
Maisie is very cold. "Can we go into Feet East now?" she says. "I should have borrowed one of Abigail's jumpers as well."
We can't get into Ninety Three feet east to check it out because it is having a party. Lots of big black men are frisking lots of twenty two year olds and pushing them through a big black door into the pulsing darkness beyond.
It's all very urban.
John asks one of the men if he can speak to the manager.
The men look at him angrily, they shout into walkie talkies, they frisk John and run a metal detector up and down his trouser legs. Finally they shove him through the big black door.
"Oh my god," says Maisie "I forgot to put Boris away. Boris is still in his run, all by himself."
"He'll be fine," says Zac.
"It's not even dark." I tell her. "Foxes don't rush about in the daylight, they're nocturnal."
Maisie shivers. "We must get home before dark." She says "We must get Dad back. Where's he gone?" she asks.
Later John comes back.
"What was it like?" asks Zac. "Was it cool?"
"It was too dark to tell." says John. "The manager was a bit weird though. Shall we go down the road and get an Indian?"
"Boris is in his run." says Maisie. "He needs to be put away before dark."
"It's only four o'clock." says John "Let's have an early supper and then we'll go home. Come on, there's a really good Indian just down here."
We follow John to the really good Indian.
"Come in." says the Indian. "Table for four?" he asks.
Maisie eats very fast. She wolfs down her onion bhaji and drinks her diet coke. The diet coke goes up her nose and makes her eyes water.
"Can we go now?" she asks.
"Boris will be fine." I tell her. "Remember that time when we left him out all night?"
Maisie is very worried, but she is also very nice so she doesn't make a fuss, she just sits and crumbles a poppadom miserably onto her plate.
Much later we go home.
It is dark.
Boris is not in his run.
We search the garden for Boris.
We send our dog, Evil, into the bamboo thicket to sniff him out. We look behind his hutch.
"Stupid rabbit." says Zac.
"He must have escaped," I tell Maisie. "He's probably in the neighbour's garden." I stand on the wall and peer into the neighbour's garden. It is too dark to see anything. I wonder where Abigail's Glastonbury torch is.
We all go inside. We sit in the kitchen and try to think where the torch might be.
Suddenly, two foxes are in the garden. The kitchen door is open and before we can stop her Evil is through it and she runs at the foxes. They stand their ground. They snap and Evil shrieks and turns tail.
Maisie and me run into the garden. The foxes flee over the back fence and we hear the rabbit scream.
I jump over the fence into the neighbour's garden. I can see Boris. He is lying down on the grass, the foxes are gone. Boris looks as though he is having a nap. I crouch next to him and I stroke his little pink head and it rolls right off his shoulders. Boris has been decapitated.
"Is he alright?" calls Maisie.
"No." I call back. "I'm going to leave him." I say.
I stoke Boris's little body, he is warm.
I jump back over the fence. "I had to leave him." I tell Maisie. "His head was off. The foxes will take him."
"Well... he was prey." says Maisie, then she bursts into tears.
I am never going to an Indian restaurant, ever again.
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