Seven-year-old Maddison Oakes thought it was her cat's tail. Instead it was a deadly Eastern Brown snake.
After realising it wasn't her cat Georgia's tail, Maddison stood still while it went into a bedroom, not far from a handful of cousins who were at her suburban Jimboomba home in Queensland.
She ran to tell parents Kirsty Johnson and Josh Oakes, who searched for the snake before ... finding it in their bed.
"It was in our bed, across the pillows," Ms Johnson said. "It was the whole width of the king-sized bed, and a bit more curled over the side.
"It was quite lucky she spotted it, otherwise we would have gone to bed with a brown snake."
Such was Maddison's calm nature, her parents doubted there was a snake in the house.
"We didn't even believe her at first, as they had been playing with toy snakes," Ms Johnson said. "We're glad it was her who found it and not one of the little ones."
It isn't the first time Maddison has come across a snake.
Ms Johnson said she had to be trained from an early age that snakes were not a good mix with kids.
It came after Maddison tried to chase baby black snakes when they hatched in the yard.
"She used to chase after them. She thought they were friendly," Ms Johnson said.
Snake catcher Tanzen Lilith, who was called into wrangle the bedroom brown, praised Maddison for her cool head in alerting her parents.
"She did great. Kept her cool and told the adults," Ms Lilith said.
"She was awesome. An absolute sweetheart."
