She stretched and smiled, a mild day, that was good.

Tall for a woman, with the kind of body people watch (or lust after, or envy), she dressed carefully without washing. Water did not feature widely in her toilet routine, it tended to be too rapidly absorbed into her skin.

Observant people are thin on the ground, truly observant people. Like noticing that when she walked out into the snow three weeks ago. An inch of snow and each step simply melted as she walked barefoot across the garden. The neighbour watched and smiled “My, she must be tough as nails; I couldn’t walk barefoot in the snow.” But didn’t notice the slight steam from each step. The neighbour didn’t count the toes either.

The snow went as fast as it came, this was Britain, not Canada.

Coated with one of the ridiculous anti perspirant smelling sprays and then a Chanel on top – she had a reputation of smelling like an English Garden in summer, some said cruelly ‘like a Chinese Brothel’ but they were jealous – she waved goodbye to her pet and went downstairs.

A raw egg, a glass of olive oil, and then a wee snack perhaps. She took the hamster out of its cage and stroked it, then placed it on the kitchen work surface. The small brown hamster wasn’t keen to be in the middle of an open area, looked around and headed towards the microwave to hide behind. Maddy laughed and then, with a hunter’s quick reactions her hand came down open and vertical. The hamster’s head rolled a little; the body let out a little red puddle.

Maddy swore, she’d made another dent in the worksurface with her stroke. So annoying that this world was so soft. She picked up the body and happily crunched it down. That would do, mustn’t over eat. Like every other woman in this town, she was watching her weight. Half an hour later, a pellet, like an owl pellet, of fur and small bones would regurgitate and she would spit it directly into the bin. Had she been a biologist, or even interested in evolution, she would have been interested in the concept of convergent evolution even extending to other worlds. But she wasn’t and didn’t, she was just on an extended holiday on this pointless little planet that nevertheless offered room for fun.

The nails that so easily cut off the head were another clue. Unlike the apes (including humans) where finger and toenails grow thin and flat; observation of her fingers, close observation, would have shown that the nail was more rounded as it grew, more like a claw. Careful filing of the clawnail made them appear more similar to human nails, but left the edges sharp like chisels. Chisels attached to elegant fingers that were, nevertheless, extremely strong. Her internal bones did not easily break like weak humans did.

Her sandwiches were beetroot and beef. The beetroot red disguised the fact that the beef was raw. She would eat cooked food, but raw was clearly better for you.

She shut the doors, ensuring the locks were all set. The house seemed to have more security than most single young people had in their houses, but then she didn’t want things to get out either.

Walking elegantly down to get the bus, aware that her upper boobs drew admiring looks as they raised and lowered the dress and her legs swung the skirt in ways that these shallow earthlings found attractive. For humans, it was as much about the desire as the act. They were odd. She had had to practice to walk in heels in a way that did not suggest a monkey at a tea party, but she never did things by halves and now she could draw admiring looks from all.

The job she had was as meaningless, pointless as much of human activity was. Again, if she had had an academic mind she might have contemplated whether it was the pressure of numbers of the population that found it necessary to create all this worthless activity of shifting information around from one place to another. But she had little analytical interest in the people around her. She joined Claude for lunch. Claude was her latest companion. She liked him. She was fascinated that he had black skin, she’d asked him once, several weeks ago when she was more innocent, if it was a fashion choice. He’d looked at her and laughed and laughed. Still, they were ‘going out’ now, so he hadn’t taken offence. “So, I thought we could try La Gormand?” he said. And she did the expected female thing of saying that would be lovely, but it was very expensive, was he sure? He nodded, he was still hoping to get more than a kiss this time. That was humans all over, it was as much about the chase.

Then it all went wrong. Just like that. He was pulled into the main office, an hour later he was packing his few things under the watchful eye of security. How had they realised he was fiddling his expenses? He had been really careful. Not for the first time, Maddy thought how stupid this world was. They ran so much on trust and then got uptight and upset when someone did the obvious thing and broke that trust.

La Gormand was off then. Just as well really. It specialised in small plates, beautifully displayed. She was actually more of a steak pie person. Steak pie and chips. Yes, the one thing this world did right. Spend several months growing a round white tuber (not a tuber, but she didn’t care about biological exactitude, we know that), then clean it, scrape it, cut it and dip it into hot fat so it absorbs lots of it and becomes crispy. The oddest idea in the world (or other worlds), but this was one thing she might take back if she was ever allowed back.

Claude had been described as a ‘red-blooded male’, meaning he was a macho man. She smiled at the thought; her piss was red, her blood was yellow. People would be horrified and she always made sure she flushed thoroughly, not realising that women did leak blood at times too.

Nice Pete came over. “That was a surprise! I thought he was going places. You okay?” He was actually concerned that she might be upset. Why did he care? Oh, she suddenly realised, of course. He had the hots for her too.