Free Callie's World by Anna Pescardot Page B

with me but I feel so tired; perhaps I'm coming down with
something. Anyway, I went to see lottery girl yesterday and she was
actually really believable. She showed me her lottery tickets from
the past seven Saturdays and she'd won £10 on all of them. I asked
her what her secret was (so I could use it myself, lol) but it
wasn't so much her secret as her cat's. I saw her in action. Her
name's Molly and she's a ginger tabby.  There's nothing
special about her; she looks like any other cat but when Claire
(lottery girl) puts down her number mat, which is a large piece of
paper with numbers from 1 to 49 on it Molly's eyes go all weird,
like she is spaced out and she literally wobbles over to the mat
and first she rolls onto her back as if she's collapsed but then
she gets up and starts to walk to a number.  She sits down on
it and starts to lick her paw. At this point, Claire writes down
the number and then she does it two more times. If I hadn't seen
the proof (the winning tickets) beforehand, then I would have
probably burst out laughing but I was so impressed I memorized the
numbers so I could use them too. Anyway, I took a photo of the two
of them together, which turned out great and my boss was very
pleased with it too.  I really don't know how that cat does it
but if I win on Saturday I might consider catnapping, (is that what
they call kidnapping a cat?) lol.
    I know you weren't really that interested in
hearing about lottery girl, though, were you? You want to know more
about PC Ainsworth, right? Ok then. He picked me up outside my
office and he wasn't wearing uniform so I didn't recognize him at
first (not that I'd have recognized him in uniform either for that
matter).  I wasn't entirely right when I said he might be
ugly. He wasn't gorgeous but he wasn't ugly either. He had short
mousey-brown hair which was quite a boring style but I guess you
have to have it like that in the police and he had small, quite
squinty brown eyes.  His nose was a little thin and pointy but
it went with the rest of his face somehow.  He was taller than
I'd remembered so at least I could wear my high heels when I went
out with him. My last boyfriend was the same height as me and when
I wore my heels it felt all wrong and so I had to wear flats, which
make my legs look like tree trunks.
    He took me to our local salad bar, probably
thinking that a girl as slim as me (I'm being sarcastic here,
guys!) would probably only eat salad (wrong!) I was really starving
too, so I ordered the largest salad bowl I could find and I asked
for lots of ham. I felt a little embarrassed when he only ordered a
small one and then told me he was a vegetarian. I swore he was
looking at me as if I was a murderer when I was munching on the ham
chunks. I found out his first name. It's Andrew. Andy Ainsworth.
Boring name, boring person as it turns out. All he wanted to talk
about was work. I mean, I know people say policeman are married to
the job but this was ridiculous. Not only was he married to it but
he'd had children with it and had given it an eternity ring.
Usually when I'm on a date and I know it is a non-starter I at
least console myself with the fact that I'm getting a free night
out (fine wine and a nice steak etc.) but I was stuck in a tiny
salad bar eating leaves. He did ask me if I wanted to go onto a
wine bar but I didn't want to lead him on and if I started drinking
without lining my stomach with a proper meal first he would have to
arrest me for drunk and disorderly for the second time in my life,
lol.
    I'm looking forward to Lila's visit this
weekend. (Notice how she got the cool name?) It turns out that she
isn't bringing her hubby. I bet she's back to stay.  I hope
she is. I would be able to get so many stories for my column if she
comes back for good. Oh, I forgot; Erin's love life has gotten more
complicated again. Remember I told you she left the boyfriend she'd
lived with for four years just because he went ugly? Well she
recently met a