I woke suddenly, laid in a puddle of sticky urine.

I leapt to my feet in disgust, wondering what on earth had happened.

It took me a couple of minutes of thinking and sniffing around before I realised that it was a puddle of my own making.

As the wind howled through the trees, I laid in my bed, shivering. I really wasn’t happy with the way things had gone, but obviously there was nothing that I could do about it at the moment. Every evening was the same

Ever since arriving here, I’d been alone. The two-legs wouldn’t put anybody else in my house of bars.

The locals all seemed to have two - or, in some cases, three - friends with them to keep them company, but the only person I could speak to was myself.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mind my own company. I can quite happily sit quietly by myself, lost in my own deep world of thoughts.

But occasionally it’d be nice to have people to chat with. Friends.

With a deep sigh, I turned my back on the world and curled up in my bed, cold and alone. I cried myself to sleep, wondering what it must be like to be loved.

The next morning was much like every morning in that place. I was rudely awoken at 6am by the day staff letting themselves in, noisily chatting and joking without a care in the world. At 7am they began to bring breakfast round.

Would it be too much to be asked occasionally what I wanted to eat? I’m sure you don’t eat the same thing every day at the same time with absolutely no variation, so why should I?

But no. The usual brown slop was pushed through the bars of my house, and if I didn’t eat it by the time the twolegs came back, I got nothing to eat later in the day. I’d learnt that the hard way when I first arrived. I’d been totally exhausted and fell back to sleep after my breakfast arrived. I heard her shouting when she came back an hour later and she scribbled something on the paper on the bars. I noticed that she was collecting empty bowls from everybody else so I quickly gobbled my food and shouted over to her that I’d finished. She ignored me though and didn’t come back.

When it came to teatime it was a different staff member handing out the food. She read what was scribbled on my notes, shook her head and said “sorry, Cuckoo. None for you. You’ve been a bad girl. You’ll have to wait till breakfast now” and with that she walked away to my neighbour’s house.

Seriously? Nothing until breakfast tomorrow? She must be mistaken. I’d eaten everything in my bowl within a minute of the other lady leaving. I’d had nothing else to eat all day. I couldn’t last all night as well. That was barbaric. I shouted at her to come back. I said I was really really sorry and it wouldn’t happen again, but she just ignored me. I looked down at my empty bowl, still where I’d left it after breakfast all those hours ago, and feebly checked it again for any remaining morsels. No luck.

This must be a test, surely. They aren’t really going to let me starve all day and night, surely?

But, they had.

That was the longest night of my life, and I’d had some terrible nights. I tried to sleep, reasoning that if I was asleep  then I wouldn’t realise just how hungry I was. Sleep? No chance. My stomach had kept me awake all that night, making some of the strangest grumbling noises I’d ever heard. I was in so much pain I thought my stomach was folding in on itself. So, no sleep for me that night.

The next morning at 7 when breakfast was served, I really really wanted to eat it, but it felt like my stomach had shrivelled to the size of a pea, and I could only manage half a bowlful.