Last night at around 2 am the cat was prowling around as usual complaining about unreachable insects and promising noises in the forbidden outdoors. The sliding glass door to the back yard was open but the screen door closed, and several times she stretched up on the screen looking yearningly at the moths bumping into the porch light.

I had stopped paying attention to these antics for a while and then, around the corner of my laptop, I saw that another party had arrived. Usually this means that Dexter, the cat next door, has showed up to be a pest and taunt poor Poussin with her presence, but this was a smaller, darker, animal.

Nope, it wasn’t Dexter. An opossum was squatting just outside the screen door peering at Pouss, who was peering back. Totally in silence, the two regarded each other without moving for three minutes or so. I was expecting a catsplosion of yowling rage or at least the predator stance, but the cat remained calmly sitting, as did her new friend.

Then, almost with a sigh, the opossum turned around and headed back out into the darkness of the yard. Pouss leaped up and leaned on the screen as the other animal toddled off in the awkward way those creatures have, like a drunk old man.

Then she curled up and slept on the couch.