the maid screamed and dropped something heavy and then there was a banging of doors and panicked footsteps so i dashed downstairs to save the world and found her backed up into a dark corner shaking and crying so badly that, when i had run past her the first time she never called out to me, and it was only when i found no one in the kitchen and turned back that i saw her trembling by the door. i soothed her for ages before i could get out of her that there was "cat, cat" and i thought she must have been frightened by a large stray that ran into our garden and perhaps jumped out at her, and i said come on now it wouldn't have stayed around, but she kept crying and refusing to go back out into the garden to hang up the clothes, so i went back and prodded around and heard soft meowing. i removed all the boxes and baskets in the way and found a heap of newborn kittens, eyes still closed, curled around one another, one white, two black. they are so small i wasn't sure if they were not mice instead of kittens. by now my mother came down too to find out what was happening, and when i told her she refused to go look at them, and the maid was still whimpering, so i went and woke my dad from his afternoon nap and told him about the kittens. he said aiyah, take them to the spca lah. he wouldn't look at them either; i said, wanna see? offering to lift the shoebox i'd got them into, but he said, quietly but very firmly, no. nobody does. they don't mind offering me help, but no one wants to actually *see* these things. (later, when my uncle got the car out i held out the box and said "wanna see?" and he too refused and said please not to show him.) this, i suppose, has to do with seeing and knowing, i think. oida. the knowledge related to sight rather than an abstract understanding. i also suspect no one wanted to look because they all imagine the kittens are bloody and hairless but really they looked sweet and pathetic and clean. i thought they looked more like miniature panthers. i didn't want to pick them up with my fingers, but i couldn't find any gloves so in the end i got a pair of charcoal tongs and picked them up very carefully, placed them into a big nike shoebox with lots of air holes and went next door to ask for a ride to the spca. the kittens were quiet most of the way and scratched and whimpered just when we were turning into mt vernon. they let me fill out a form and had a look at the kittens and took them away. i felt sorry to let the poor things go. there was no charge for accepting strays but my dad had given me a fifty-dollar note before i left so i handed it to the spca woman. she called when i got home and asked if i wanted her to fill out a tax-deductible receipt. that's okay i said to her i don't pay tax yet. so that was that. saving kittens is a very tiring business.