Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I waited for Patrick to answer and, as the seconds passed, I began to question the sense of my plan. What if I ruined the mask and Ted got mad and fired me? What if my sweat ran into my eyes and mixed with my mascara and blinded me and I couldn’t produce the podcast and I lost my job? Or even worse, what if Patrick didn’t open the door at all because he clearly wasn’t home? And then I tried to take the tiger mask off and realized it was stuck on my bloody stupid head?

‘Oh shit,’ I muttered, trying to work my fingers into the opening around the neck, tugging and pulling and twisting and wiggling. It was no good, the thing was stuck on, the fur matting against my skin, and the more I struggled, the tighter it seemed to squeeze.

‘You’re not going to pass out in a tiger mask,’ I told myself sternly, desperately trying not to panic even as the mask got tighter and the world outside got darker and my breathing became more and more erratic. Abandoning the safety of Patrick’s front step, I walked back out onto the street, searching for help, but of course there was no one around. I’d have taken any kind of human contact, even the youths my nana was so worried about, anyone who had the strength to yank this bloody thing off my head. And then, I saw them at the end of the road, two men walking towards me. Just as I was about to shout out for help, one of the two men came into focus. One of the two men was Patrick.

It really didn’t matter who the second man was, I knew, with every fibre of my being, that Patrick would not feel like introducing me to a friend, colleague or family member while I was wearing a giant tiger’s head. I had two options: I could run in the other direction even though I couldn’t see very well, end up on the main road, get run over and find myself on the six o’clock news as ‘Local Mad Woman Wearing Tiger Mask Causes Ten-Car Pile-Up’. Or, I could hide in his garden. I opted for the latter.

The garden was sparse in the middle, just a small patch of lawn, lined by tall privet hedges. Without any other options, I clambered up onto his wheelie bin, trying to hoist myself over the locked gate and into the neighbour’s yard before I could be caught. It was only once I was halfway over the gate, the sharp wooden slats cutting into my soft middle, I realized I was stuck. Hanging in midair, my legs kicking the air in Patrick’s garden, my tiger head and human arms flailing wildly in the neighbour’s garden.

‘What the hell …’

Shit. It was Patrick.