A girl, Sheldon Cooper and Peter Cook

"The reason no other animals evolved like humans, is they watched what we did. Then instead of doing that, they concentrated on the important things, like their basic needs and expanding their minds, to eventually speak telepathically, all the while unbeknown to us. It was quite brilliant in its subtlety." That's not from the story which follows, but it's a good introduction and from another one I'm writing. Like that, this is about animal sentience. So I imagined the young character from my children's book, with her talking dog and cat.