Yesterday morning I made an awful transgression which, Abel decided, merited an immediate punishment. So he sent me upstairs with the words, “Choose a cane and wait for me!”

Choose a cane. Easy for him to say. We have hundreds of them, one nastier than the other. How am I supposed to pick which one I fancy being striped with?

Generally, I prefer the thick, thuddy ones. They’re cool. But they look so bloody scary, even if I know in my head that I really do like them. Then there are the whippy ones, which look, well, harmless – on account of their thinness – but I know pretty well the little bastards slice into you like a razor.

And then there are the dragon canes, which are whippy and thuddy at once, and are really not very good for anything but scaring a girl to death, but I like being scared to death.

So how can I just go and choose?

Anyway, I picked a thinnish cane we haven’t used for a while, mainly because we haven’t used it for a while. I thought it might be getting bored, and felt sorry for it.

I’m sure it felt a lot better after biting me six times in quick succession. That’s what canes like to do, I think.