The sour-faced teenager behind the till gave me a disapproving glance in the way only teenagers can, then pointed to the back of the shop.

‘Grazie,’ I said, my mouth watering at the sight of orange fizzy sweets hanging in long strips from a hook on the wall, as she went back to staring at her phone.

I moved through a hodgepodge of wooden shelving units that looked so old, I was afraid the entire place would collapse if I so much as sneezed on them, until I came to a line of fridges backed up against the wall. I saw Fanta, Orangina, Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, 7-Up and every possible variation on a Red Bull, but there was no orange San Pellegrino.

‘It’s got to be here somewhere,’ I whispered to a small black cat who was curled up underneath a rickety shelving tower, crammed full of over-priced Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. It opened one eye, hissed, and went back to sleep. Even the cats of Panarea weren’t having a bar of me.

‘Where the fuck is the fucking San Pellegrino?’ I said aloud as I searched the fridges again. Pressing my fingertips into my temples, I rolled my head from side to side, front to back, trying to ease the crick in my neck as I regrouped.

And there it was.

An entire case of San Pellegrino Aranciata sat right there above me, on top of the tallest fridge.

‘You weren’t going to tell me?’ I asked the cat, who sat up, glared at me, and began lazily licking its front paw. ‘Typical.’

Rising up onto my tiptoes, the case was just out of reach, my fingertips brushing against the edge of the outer plastic packaging. Even when I strained as far as I could, I could only just manage to tap the underneath of the cardboard box. I stuck my head back around the shelves to ask for help, but the girl at the till had vanished.

‘Ladder,’ I said to the cat. ‘I need a ladder.’

But there was no ladder, no step-stool, absolutely no climbing apparatus to speak of. Ever the resourceful assistant, I dragged a heavy, solid box of cat food across the floor and positioned it in front of the fridge, pressed on it lightly with my left foot to see if it would take my weight. It gave a little, my foot pressing through the cardboard and onto the cans inside, but it didn’t cave in and it didn’t collapse. So far, so good. Shifting my full weight onto the box, I eased the case of orange pop off the top of the fridge and into my arms. Below me, the little black cat sat and watched, waiting for something terrible to happen.

‘Sorry to disappoint,’ I told it, pulling the case towards me. It was heavier than I’d anticipated and not an easy thing to manoeuvre. ‘But I’m not planning to break my neck today.’