Lulu and the Hamster in the Night

by Hilary McKay

  Lulu and the Hamster in the Night

  Hilary McKay

  Illustrated by Priscilla Lamont

  Albert Whitman & Company

  Chicago, Illinois

  Chapter One

  Ratty the Hamster

  Lulu was seven years old, and she was famous for animals. She was so famous for animals that people buying new pets for their children had begun to say, Well, if things go wrong we can always ask Lulu to take it.

  Lulu did not know they said this, and neither did her mom and dad. They might have minded, or they might not. Lulu’s parents were quite famous themselves, for letting Lulu have so many pets. They said, The more the merrier! As long as Lulu cleans up after them. Lulu did not just clean up after them. She looked after them as if they were the most important things in the world.

  And to her, they were.

  At Lulu’s school there was a big girl called Emma Pond. Emma Pond had a hamster. Emma Pond’s hamster had a hamster wheel. The hamster ran desperately on the hamster wheel, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. It ran as if it was trying to escape. Whenever it got off the wheel it would look around as if to say “Am I still in the same place?” When it saw that it was, it tried again.

  The hamster wheel made a squeaky noise that Emma Pond did not like. She used to reach through the bars with a pencil and poke the hamster off the wheel.

  One day, when Emma Pond’s hamster had the chance, it bit Emma Pond. This happened on a day when Emma had not been able to find a pencil and had used her finger to poke him instead. It was not a little bite; it was a big one. As big as the hamster could manage.

  The next day Emma Pond came up to Lulu at school and said, “I’m getting rid of my hamster.”

  “Why?” asked Lulu.

  “How?” asked Mellie, who was seven years old like Lulu and her best friend as well as her cousin.

  Emma Pond answered them each in turn. She unpeeled a sticky bandage from her finger and showed Lulu two red holes. “That’s why,” she said. She told Mellie, “I’ll just let it go if Lulu doesn’t want it.”

  “Let it go where?” asked Lulu.

  “Perhaps at my uncle’s. He’s got a big field. We let our rabbits go there.”

  “What happened to your rabbits?”

  Emma Pond shrugged to show she didn’t care. “Anyway,” she said to Lulu, “my house is on the way to yours. You could stop on your way home.”

  “Today?” asked Lulu.

  “Today, after school,” said Emma Pond. “Wait at my gate. If you’re not there, I’ll know you don’t want it.”

  “I want it! I want it!” said Lulu.

  Right after school that day Lulu and Mellie rushed to Emma Pond’s house.

  “Wait!” commanded Emma when they reached the gate. Then she went in and came back carrying a small plastic cage.

  Inside the cage was a heap of newspaper and hamster bedding and a hamster wheel. The rubbish heap twitched a little.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?” asked Lulu.

  “We never really…” began Emma Pond, and then she stopped. “It’s a boy,” she said. “Or if it’s not, it’s a girl. Obviously.”

  “What’s its name?” asked Mellie.

  Emma Pond paused. It was almost as if she didn’t want to tell them. Then she said, “Ratty!”

  “Ratty?” repeated Mellie.

  “Ratty?” echoed Lulu. “But you said it was a hamster!”

  “That’s right.”

  “Called Ratty?”

  “Are you taking him or not?” demanded Emma Pond.

  “We’re taking him,” said Lulu.

  Lulu and Mellie walked home, carrying the cage between them. With her free hand Mellie held her nose.

  “I don’t think Emma Pond has cleaned this cage for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said.

  At Lulu’s house they put the cage down on the doorstep and stretched their arms.

  “We still haven’t seen a hamster,” said Mellie, but even as she spoke, the heap of newspaper in the cage began to move. A pink nose came out. A ginger head with bulging eyes. It yawned, showing curving orange teeth. Next Lulu and Mellie saw a ginger body with a bare patch of skin in the middle and last of all, a short hairless tail.

  Then Lulu and Mellie and the ginger-colored animal all had a good stare at one another. While they were doing this, Lulu’s mother came out.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It’s a hamster,” Lulu replied, and she explained about Emma Pond and Emma Pond’s bitten finger and the field and the rabbits and the way Emma Pond had shrugged when Lulu had asked what happened to them.

  “Well,” said Lulu’s mother at the end of all this, “I don’t see what else you could do but bring the poor little animal home! What’s its name?”

  “Ratty!” said Mellie.

  “Oh,” said Lulu’s mother. “Oh!” And then she had another look in the cage and said, “Oh. I wonder what Nan will say.”

  Nan was the grandmother that Lulu and Mellie shared. She was the best nan in the world. She lived on the other side of town from Lulu and Mellie, but she came to see them often. She was little and pretty and clever and she never complained. Not when Mellie visited and her artwork overflowed from her bedroom, down the stairs, through the kitchen, and across the hall in a trail of glitter and painty splashes and chopped-up paper. Nor when Lulu visited and left wet animals on the sofa and jam jars of wandering caterpillars on the bathroom windowsill.

  But Nan didn’t like hamsters much. She didn’t like the way they moved so quickly. She didn’t like the small sharp nails on their starfish paws. She didn’t like their raindrop eyes or their twitchy noses or their strange pink tails with the skin showing through the fur.

  Hamsters made Nan shiver.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t tell Nan about Ratty,” Lulu said to her mom. “Not at first.”

  “First,” said Lulu’s mother, “before he meets anyone, he needs a clean cage.”

  Ratty seemed to agree. He grabbed the bars of his cage door with his long orange teeth and rattled them furiously.

  “I’ll do it now,” said Lulu, and she did, while Mellie watched from a safe distance and did not help. Mellie liked animals, but not enough to scrub out their cages. That was why she didn’t have any pets. She didn’t mind playing with them, though. She built Ratty a cardboard-box maze to explore while Lulu scrubbed. It had cardboard-tunnel tubes, and boxes to climb in and out of, and peanut treasure to be discovered, and Ratty seemed to enjoy it very much.

  The cage was beautifully clean by the time Lulu’s father came home from work. He laughed at the hamster’s name and said he had once known a dog called Tiger.

  “But he’s not the best-looking beast in the world, is he?” Lulu’s father asked.

  “I’m glad he’s not mine,” agreed Mellie. “I don’t like his teeth and I don’t like his tail.”

  “He needs something to gnaw,” Lulu said. “His teeth won’t look so scary when he’s worn them down a little. And soon you won’t notice his tail.”

  “If Nan sees him she will notice his tail,” said Mellie. “And she’ll scream.”

  “She won’t see him,” said Lulu.

  Chapter Two

  Taming Ratty

  Lulu wanted to put Ratty’s cage in her bedroom, but her mom and dad did not like the idea.

  “Why not the shed?” they asked. “He could make friends with the guinea pigs.”

  “They’d never let him,” said Lulu. “Gu
inea pigs are only ever friends with other guinea pigs. You let me keep my old hamster in my bedroom.”

  “He was very small,” said her mum. “And he didn’t smell.”

  “He did,” said Lulu. “He had a lovely hamster smell! It’s nice having an animal living in your bedroom. Lots of people do. I’ve got a friend at school whose big brother has three snakes and a big lizard living in his!”

  “Not really?” asked Lulu’s horrified mom.

  “Yes, and what will they do with them when they go on vacation?” asked Lulu. “That’s what they are trying to work out!”

  “Lulu, have you offered to look after three snakes and a big lizard for your friend’s brother while the family goes on vacation?” demanded her father.

  “Not yet,” said Lulu.

  “Well, don’t! Do you know what snakes and big lizards eat?”

  “What?”

  “Hamsters!” said her father. “So you’d better choose! Which do you want? Ratty or three snakes and a big lizard, one of them with a bulge!”

  “Ratty,” said Lulu, and so Ratty went to live in her bedroom with no more fuss from her parents.

  “I thought they said no,” said Mellie when she saw him there.

  “They changed their minds.”

  “What made them?”

  “Oh, some snakes and a lizard,” said Lulu.

  Ratty did not become tame very quickly. Perhaps he had been poked too many times by Emma Pond’s pencil for that. For days he tried to bite Lulu whenever she reached a hand toward him. He scuttled out of sight at every unexpected noise.

  But he stopped running on his wheel so much. Lulu let him out so often that he didn’t have to, with Lulu’s bedroom to explore. Mellie’s maze was there, and there were cushion mountains to climb and rugs to burrow under and delicious slices of carrots in unexpected places.

  Ratty loved carrots. He would grab the carrot slices, hurry back to his cage with them, and put them safely under his bed.

  Even his bed was a much cleaner bed than he had ever had before.

  And his wheel didn’t squeak because it had been oiled, and the bars on his cage did not make him furious because Lulu opened the door whenever she came in.

  Ratty began to be pleased when Lulu came in.

  He didn’t hide quite so often.

  He didn’t try to bite quite so quickly.

  “He’s getting much friendlier,” Lulu told Mellie proudly when Mellie came to visit one day after school.

  “Never mind about Ratty,” said Mellie, after one quick look. “Guess what I’ve been doing!”

  It was easy to guess what Mellie had been doing because she was dabbled all over with pink paint and glitter.

  “Making something!” said Lulu.

  “A birthday present for Nan!” said Mellie, bouncing onto Lulu’s bed. “Because guess what again? Her birthday’s on Sunday! And guess what she’s having for her birthday treat? You and me to come and stay! For all day Saturday and spending the night, and then on Sunday will be her birthday party with Mom and Dad and all of us! And that weekend the fair will be coming to the park and Nan says on Saturday we’ll go!”

  “But …” began Lulu.

  “Don’t say but!” ordered Mellie. “Why’d you want to say but? Staying at Nan’s is wonderful! It’s ten million times more interesting than staying at boring home!”

  “I know, only what …”

  “Mom’s bought Nan a new pink robe for her birthday,” said Mellie, “so I’ve been making her a pink crown to match. What if you make her a throne?”

  “Yes, I could. That’s a good idea. But I don’t know …”

  “I’ll help you. It’ll be easy. I can’t think of anything easier to make!”

  “No, listen, Mellie! That’s not the problem. It’s …”

  “If you think our moms and dads will say no, you’re wrong! They think it’s a really good idea. My mom’s downstairs now, talking about it to yours …”

  “LISTEN, MELLIE!” shouted Lulu.

  “What?”

  “It’s Ratty. He’s just getting tame at last. I can’t leave him alone for a whole weekend.”

  “Well, you can’t take him with you!” said Mellie.

  “Can’t I?”

  “To Nan’s? Take Ratty to Nan’s? Nobody would let you!”

  “They might not notice. They wouldn’t mind if they didn’t notice.”

  “Nan would notice!” said Mellie.

  “Not if she didn’t see him.”

  “How could she not see him?”

  “She wouldn’t see him because she wouldn’t know he was there. And so she wouldn’t mind. Like … like …” Lulu gazed around her bedroom, searching for something that would help her explain. “Like if there was a spider living in my curtains, and you didn’t know it was there. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

  “Yes, I would!” said Mellie, jumping up very quickly.

  “But you didn’t before I said it!”

  “Because I didn’t know,” said Mellie, beginning to walk backward to the door.

  “Well, it’s just the same,” said Lulu. “Nan doesn’t know about Ratty. She doesn’t even know there is a Ratty. She’s never seen him. So she doesn’t mind him. And if she never does see him …”

  “I’ve never seen a spider living in your curtains!” interrupted Mellie suddenly, and she looked suspiciously at Lulu.

  “I know you haven’t!” said Lulu.

  “Is there a spider living in your curtains? Is there?”

  “Go and look if you like!” said Lulu, rolling around on the floor laughing.

  “There isn’t!” said Mellie, hitting her with teddy bears. “Ha! You’re pretending! Do you really think you can take Ratty to Nan’s without her knowing?”

  “If you help.”

  “I always help,” said Mellie. “Don’t I?”

  “Yes, you do,” said Lulu.

  “So we’re all going to Nan’s,” said Mellie. “You and me and Ratty. So, presents! That’s what I came here about. Especially the throne, because I think that’s an excellent idea. Let’s start it now!”

  “But we have till Friday!” protested Lulu.

  “You know about animals,” said Mellie. “But I know about making things. I especially know how long glue takes to dry! Ages! So we’d better start now!”

  Making Nan’s throne took the rest of the day. It used all the rest of Mellie’s pink paint and all the tinsel from the Christmas decoration box, and all the foil in Lulu’s mom’s kitchen and all the beads in Lulu’s bead-threading kit and Mellie’s mom’s silver scarf. It also used all of Lulu’s mom’s patience and all of Mellie’s mom’s patience and some peacock feathers that had been hanging around for ages and the folding chair from the garden shed.

  But in the end it was done, and Mellie and her mom staggered off home to bed, and Lulu went to find hers.

  “Ni’ night!” she murmured to her tired mom and dad and the rabbits in the hutches and the guinea pigs in the shed and the tortoise and the dogs and the parrot and Ratty.

  And the spider who lived in the curtains, who nobody minded, because no one ever saw him or knew he was there.

  In the night, in her dreams, Lulu worried about something. In the morning she woke up and forgot what it was.

  Chapter Three

  Ratty in the Morning

  On Saturday morning the packing began. Lulu and Mellie piled everything they wanted to take to Nan’s in a heap by Lulu’s front door, ready to be loaded into the car.

  Lulu’s father looked at the heap and said, “I thought you were just going to Nan’s for a night.”

  “We are,” said Lulu.

  “Not an around-the-world camping trip with no shops on the way?�
�

  “Don’t be silly, Dad!” said Lulu.

  “Me? Silly?” he asked. “Is this or is this not one of the hottest days of the year?”

  “Mmm,” said Lulu.

  “Then why rain boots?”

  “In case it rains and we have to go out, of course,” said Lulu.

  “And do you really need all those books and ten thousand felt pens?”

  “They’re for in case it rains and we have to stay in,” explained Mellie.

  “What if it gets even sunnier?” asked Lulu’s father. “What about fans and sunshades and a camel or two? What if it snows, and you don’t have a sled?”

  Lulu and Mellie said that they didn’t think it would snow and continued adding things to the pile. Roller skates and swimming things. Teddy bears. Clothes and toothbrushes. Nan’s birthday cake in a tin. All the birthday presents: the robe parcel, the matching crown parcel, several other parcels, and the throne, all wrapped up.

  The last thing Lulu and Mellie added was Ratty in his cage. They wrapped the cage in birthday paper and none of the grown-ups noticed. He was just one more package among many others. Lulu held him on her knee, and Mellie held the birthday cake on hers.

  “All aboard?” asked Lulu’s father, looking over his shoulder.

  “All aboard,” said Lulu.

  Lulu’s house was small, and so was Mellie’s, but Nan’s was even smaller. Nan said it had been built in the days when people didn’t own so many things. Upstairs there was a miniature bathroom and two small bedrooms. Downstairs was a bit bigger because an extra bit of kitchen had been added onto the back. Lulu loved it because it was like a toy house. Mellie loved it because every room in it was perfect, bright and fresh as the inside of a shell.

  Nan came running out the moment they arrived, and when she saw all the parcels and other things she said, “Oh my goodness! OH MY GOODNESS! Where are you going to put them all?”