Mij in London

Toys and an invented game. In London, Mij played with ping-pong balls, marbles, rubber fruit and a terrapin shell from his marshes. A damaged suitcase had a lid that sloped. Mij put a ball at the high end, raced to the low end to ambush it, hid, sprang out, grabbed it, and carried it back up. This kept him busy for up to half an hour.

Habits on walks. On a lead 'as if he had been a dog', Mij formed compulsive habits, like children who must step on the centre of every paving stone. Opposite the flat was a primary school with a low wall. On the way home only, never on the way out, Mij jumped onto it and galloped its thirty yards, 'to the hopeless distraction both of pupils and of staff'.

'What is that?' Londoners had no idea what Mij was. Otters belong to the Mustelines (the weasel family, with badgers and mongooses). Their guesses: a baby seal, a squirrel, a walrus, a hippo, a beaver, a bear cub, a leopard 'that had changed its spots', even a brontosaur. The best question came from a labourer digging a hole: 'Here, Mister — what is that supposed to be?'

How Maxwell writes. He watches Mij closely and tells us what Mij feels: joy in the bath, 'irritation and disappointment' when the tap won't turn, relief on the plane. Mij seems almost like a small, playful child.