Of Canines and Cavies
“There are two dogs in a cage in this room.”
My mother tried not to laugh. “Acorn, your preschool does not keep dogs in a cage.”
“Yes, they do!” He seemed not to notice her disbelief, so preoccupied was he with the troubling notion of dogs being kept in a cage. “Weird-looking dogs. Come see.”
So she came and saw.
“Acorn, those are guinea pigs!”
He frowned. “No, Gran-Gran. Pigs don’t look like that,” he explained patiently.
Later, I asked Acorn to show me the guinea pigs. “Oops, we got too close,” he said, as one skittered inside their enclosure. “That one went in their castle. Look, this one’s eating grass. And there —”
He pointed to their hayrack, a round contraption mounted on the side of the cage.
“—there is their spinning wheel. So they can knit.”