by Holly Webb
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Series by Holly Webb
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Back Ads
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
Becky Ryan curled up in the corner of the blue-painted garden shed, and sighed contentedly. It was Saturday afternoon, she’d finally finished her homework and she had the new issue of her favourite magazine to read. She waited for Vanilla, the calmest and most readable-with of her four guinea pigs, to snuggle herself down properly on her lap, and opened up Practical Pets. It wasn’t the only animal magazine she read – depending on how many cat toys and guinea-pig treats she’d bought that month, she got a whole load of others as well, Your Cat, Animals and You, whatever looked good. But she always, always bought Practical Pets. Becky and her best friend Fran had once tried to explain to the other two Ryan triplets why it was so much the best. Annabel had said she thought it looked boring – the other animal magazines had loads more cute pictures, and wasn’t that what they wanted?
“No,” Becky had exclaimed in disgust. “I mean, I’ve got no problem with the cute pictures—”
Here Annabel and Katie had snorted with laughter, which was fair enough, as Becky’s bit of the big cork noticeboard in their bedroom was absolutely covered in fluffy kittens and Golden Retriever pups.
Becky had grinned shamefacedly. “Ha ha. What I mean is, this one has good photos, but it actually tells you useful stuff too. Like which sort of food is best, and how to stop your cat eating too much, that kind of thing.”
Annabel had gazed pointedly at Orlando, the Ryans’ big ginger cat, who was sprawled on Becky’s bed, enjoying the attention he was getting from Fran, and Becky had sighed irritably.
“Yeah, well. It doesn’t work if the cat just goes out and nicks the next-door neighbours’ dinner, does it, Orlando?” Becky had said sternly.
Becky shuddered as she remembered the whole embarrassing episode, apologetically stroking Vanilla, who wriggled crossly as her comfy seat moved. Orlando had turned up his nose at his bowl of very expensive diet cat food, supposed to help him lose weight, and stalked out. Ten minutes later he’d sauntered back in, looking smug – and he’d been closely followed by a furious ringing at the doorbell. It was Mrs Saunders from next door, holding a packet of sausages. A half-empty packet of sausages. . .
Becky grinned. It had been quite funny really, though she hadn’t thought so at the time, and neither had Mum, who’d had to grovel to Mrs Saunders, whose Yorkshire terrier (a bad-tempered, snappy little dog, that even Becky didn’t like very much) would never have dreamed of behaving in such a terrible way, and on, and on, and on.
She picked up Practical Pets, wondering what this month’s featured pet was going to be – last month’s had been lizards, and she hadn’t been very keen. She’d shown the article to Jack, one of the boys at school, though, and he’d been gripped. He had a pet lizard that he kept in his bedroom. Becky supposed it was quite an interesting pet, but she preferred things with fur. She couldn’t imagine curling up to read a magazine cuddling a lizard. . .
Ooohhh – the huge long featured-pet article was about rats! Becky really liked the idea of a pet rat – they were so cute, and a bit more cuddly than mice or hamsters or gerbils, because they were bigger. She flicked quickly to the right page. Awww – look at this one’s gorgeous whiskers! She just had to have some!
Vanilla eeped crossly. She seemed to think that Becky was not paying her sufficient attention, which Becky wasn’t, as she was entirely absorbed in the rat article. She gave Vanilla an absent-minded stroke, and went back to looking at the recommended rat cage. It was more like a rat palace, it was so enormous! Apparently rats were very intelligent, and needed lots of things to play with, and lots of handling if you wanted them to be tame and friendly. Becky sighed. Pocket money was in short supply after splashing out on reflective collars for Orlando and their other cat, little black Pixie. A semi-detached rat bungalow was way out of her price range at the moment, let alone this one that the magazine recommended, with the tunnels and multi-gym. Although it wasn’t long until Christmas. Hmmmm. Maybe it was time to start introducing Mum to the joys of rats?
Becky had been campaigning for the Ryans to get a dog, but she was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen. Mum wasn’t showing any signs of changing her mind – she still said that their garden wasn’t big enough, and that with three children, two cats and four guinea pigs they simply didn’t have the space for a dog, especially not a big dog like the Golden Retriever Becky really wanted. She’d tried getting Fran to bring her retriever, Feathers, round, so as to show Mum how cute and gorgeous and well-behaved he was, but Feathers unfortunately had no sense of timing, and he always did something naughty just when Mrs Ryan was watching. Becky was gradually coming to the conclusion that a dog was as unlikely as the pony she’d spent months dreaming about when she was seven. She wasn’t actually giving up, of course, but she might think about transferring her attentions to rats for a bit.
Suddenly a massive thump startled her out of her daydream of unwrapping a deluxe rat-home on Christmas morning, and she bounced upright, nearly squashing Vanilla, who made a noise that was as near to swearing as a guinea pig can, and nipped Becky crossly on the thumb.
“Ow! Sorry, Vanilla baby, I know it wasn’t your fault.” Becky stroked the sulking guinea pig soothingly, and glared at the door of the shed, which was now opening to reveal her sisters. “What did you do – oh, stupid question.” Becky spotted the football under Katie’s arm, and Annabel doubled up with giggles. “For somebody who’s supposed to be brilliant at football, you ‘accidentally’ hit this shed an awful lot. Vanilla bit me, you know!”
“Sorry!” replied Katie cheerfully, and Annabel added, “It’ll make up for the millions of times that Orlando and Pixie have bitten me and Katie when they never, ever bite you. Come on, we want to go and mail Dad.”
Katie nodded. “I’ve got loads to tell him about our match last night, and we haven’t sent him a joint email for ages.”
The triplets’ parents were divorced, and their dad was currently working on an engineering project in Egypt. He came back every so often to see them, but not often enough, and Katie especially missed him, because he was really into sport like she was and understood how she felt about it. They had last seen him at half-term, and now he wouldn’t be back until after Christmas, so they were doing a lot of emailing – they talked on Skype too, but it was tricky to catch him when he was out on site so much, and with the time difference as well. Dad had bought them a digital camera back in the summer, too, so they also kept him up to date with loads of photographs.
Becky heaved herself up off the shed floor and opened the hutch that Vanilla shared with Maisy. She skilfully slipped the wriggling guinea pig inside, and shut the door carefully – Maisy and Vanilla had been known to make escape bids before now. Then the triplets headed off through the garden to the house, and raced up the stairs to the converted loft where the computer lived. Katie got the proper chair, simply because she’d run fastest, and the other two dragged up a huge beanbag that Mum had invested in recently for this very purpose – three computer chairs was an extravagance, she’d said.
“Ooof!” said Becky, as Annabel flumped down half on top of her. “What is this? Let’s cripple Becky day? Watch it, Bel!”
“S
hut up, you two,” said Katie bossily, turning on the computer. “Start thinking about what you want to say to Dad.”
“No point,” Annabel shrugged. “It’ll be ages before you’ve finished telling him boring football stuff, won’t it? Besides, I’m best just – letting it all out. It’s more creative that way.” She smiled with all the smugness of someone whose English teacher had told her she had a brilliant imagination. Annabel had chosen to take it entirely as a compliment, but Katie and Becky were pretty sure that Mr Marshall had meant it just a little bit sarcastically as well. She had just told him a very long and involved story about why it was absolutely necessary for her to talk to Saima during their English comprehension session.
Katie shook her head disgustedly and started to type a detailed account of her first practice with the County Under Thirteens squad, which she’d just been picked to join.
It’s brilliant, Dad! Mrs Ross is a really good coach, but it’s just her, and the county squad have got loads of coaches and assistants and people, so it’s like there’s somebody watching your every move (scary!) and telling you how to make it even better. I’m one of the youngest (though there is one girl who’s only ten, she’s like some kind of genius) so I won’t get to play in a proper match for a while (specially with my leg still not being right yet), but the training is going to be brilliant, and you never know, I might get to be a sub.
She went on to describe the exact exercises and warm-ups she’d been shown to strengthen her leg – she’d been injured in a girls versus boys match at school a few weeks earlier. She knew that Dad would be interested – Mum and Becky and Annabel did their best, but even Mum’s eyes glazed over sometimes, and Bel had recently put a two-minute limit on any football conversation. Katie’s section of the email was pretty long, and she only stopped because Annabel’s fake snoring was getting too annoying to bear.
“Shut up, Bel! OK, it’s your turn. Honestly, you’re so impatient.”
“Well, this was meant to be an email from all of us, not just you writing a book.” Annabel flounced up from the beanbag and seated herself on the chair with exaggerated care – just because she knew it would annoy Katie. She smoothed out her pink denim skirt, and shook her long hair over her shoulders so it wouldn’t get in her way. She’d curled it on bendy rollers the night before and it was being a bit mad today. In a very cool way, of course – somehow Annabel didn’t have bad hair days.
It was another ten minutes before Becky got anywhere near the computer, but she didn’t mind. Mailing Dad every week was a very them thing to do, and even if they were telling him about all the stuff that made them so different to each other, somehow it was important that they did it together. She stayed curled on the beanbag, deep in her magazine, while Katie did stretches and Annabel typed frantically.
Eventually, Katie gave herself a little shake all over, and decided she was done with exercising. She wandered up to Annabel and peered over her shoulder at the screen.
“Oh, Bel! Not again!”
“What?” demanded Annabel indignantly.
“Josh Matthews from Year Eight – you’re obsessed!”
Annabel had been typing a description of Josh for Dad. He was her and Saima’s latest pick for most gorgeous boy in school, and Katie was sick to death of the sound of his name.
“Don’t worry, Katie,” Becky called from the beanbag. “She’ll have forgotten him by next week. It’ll be Kieran, or Tom or Matt. You know.”
“Kieran!” screeched Annabel in disgust. “I don’t think so! Did you not see what he was wearing when we saw them in town last week? Urrrgh. Anyway, Josh is really nice, and clever, and he just happens to be incredibly good-looking as well. But that’s not what’s important.”
Katie snorted in disbelief. “Whatever. Hurry up, it’s Becky’s turn.”
Becky extracted herself from the depths of the beanbag, and went over to the computer to read Annabel’s contribution.
“Katie’s right, Bel. You and Saima are obsessed. I don’t even think he’s that nice-looking.”
“And what would you know about it?” Annabel sounded sulky. She didn’t like having her judgement questioned. In the short time the triplets had been at Manor Hill, she’d shown herself to be the fashion guru of their year (although one of the other girls in their class, Amy Mannering, who completely couldn’t stand the triplets, wouldn’t have agreed) and she tended to predict who all the Year Seven girls would be mooning over that week – it was whoever she’d been admiring the week before. “If it doesn’t have fur and a tail you aren’t interested, so you’re not exactly worth listening to on the subject!”
She rattled off a last sentence with a bad-tempered flourish, and got up. “There you go – tell Dad about the last nice dog you met in the park.”
Becky flushed and looked hurt, and Katie folded her arms, glaring at her sister. “Bel! That’s really mean – just because Becky and me aren’t as mad about boys as you and Saima, you don’t have to be so horrible.”
Annabel flushed as pink as Becky and scowled. “Well, Becky was horrible first.”
“Oh, stop it!” Becky broke in. “It doesn’t matter – no, Katie, leave it!” She could see that Katie was about to lay into Annabel again. “Anyway,” she grinned, “I’m not going to email Dad about dogs, I’ve got loads of stuff about rats to tell him.” As she’d expected, that completely distracted Katie and Annabel.
“Rats?”
“Urrgh!”
“They’re not urrgh, they’re gorgeous, look!” And Becky stood up and thrust the magazine under Annabel’s nose. “Look how cute this black and white one is!”
Annabel shuddered. “Becky, it’s a rat! It’s, it’s . . . vermin. They’re all dirty, and smelly!”
Becky grinned and shook her head. “Oh, you’re hopeless!” She sat down at the computer. “What do you think, Katie?”
Katie looked over Becky’s shoulder at the magazine that she’d put down next to the keyboard.
“Ummm. I suppose it’s OK. I don’t much like that long pink tail, though, Sort of – wormy. But its fur’s quite pretty.”
“Good, ’cause what I’m telling Dad now is that I’d like rats for Christmas, so you two are just going to have to get used to the idea!” Becky turned back to the keyboard decisively and went on typing:
There’s a big article in Practical Pets this month about rats. They’re really clever, and friendly, if you look after them properly and handle them lots. Did you know that the pet kind are called fancy rats, and there are loads of different colours and types you can get? Even a Siamese one, like cats! I’d like a blue rat. The one in the magazine is a really gorgeous dark greyish-blue with lovely black eyes. Annabel says they’re all horrible – she’s looking at the magazine right now and making sick noises.
Becky rolled her eyes at her sister as she typed this, and tried to ignore Annabel’s disgusted comments. She finished off her section of the email and clicked on send, then grabbed back her magazine.
Katie grinned at her. “You’ll have to be careful, you know – Pixie and Orlando and the guinea pigs are going to get really jealous if all you talk about is rats. They’ll think you don’t love them any more!”
Becky made a “don’t be so stupid” face, but clattered down the stairs at high speed to find Orlando and Pixie and make a big fuss over them. . .
Chapter Two
Becky spent the rest of the weekend daydreaming about pet rats, and doing more research about them on the internet. Everything she read made her more and more keen to have her own.
Mum didn’t seem to think the idea of rats for Christmas was too silly, although she did go a bit pale when Becky showed her the price of a really good rat cage (on some pages she’d printed off from a fancy rats website). And she made a similar comment to Katie’s – that she wasn’t sure Becky would have enough time to look after all the animals. Becky was convinced it
would be OK, though, even if she did have to get up an hour earlier to fit in all the playtime the rats needed. Mum seemed pretty impressed when she said that.
Becky was keen to get to school on Monday morning and tell Fran about her rat plan – so keen that she managed to leave Practical Pets sitting on the kitchen table next to her toast plate, rather than sticking it in her rucksack as she’d meant to. But it didn’t stop her reciting the article practically word-perfect to Fran as they sat hunched up by the chestnut tree in the playground. Being November it was fairly cold, and the triplets and their friends were muffled up in scarves and gloves, and huddling together.
“I’ll bring it in tomorrow – I can’t believe I left it at home. You need to see the pictures, they’re so lovely. Rats look really cuddly. Do you remember when we went to that big pet shop in town a while ago and they had some?”
Fran sighed. “Oh yes. I’d love to have one.”
“I thought that too, but apparently you shouldn’t ever have just one – they’re too friendly for that, so you’ve got to have at least two or they get lonely – isn’t that sweet?”
This time Fran’s sigh was even louder. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not going to get any more pets ever, I don’t think.”
Becky looked surprised. “Why? I thought your dad liked animals. Wouldn’t he like rats?”
“It’s not rats, it’s anything. He reckons he’s got enough on his plate with Feathers.”
Becky grinned. She knew Feathers, and Fran’s woebegone face could mean only one thing. “OK. What did he do? Did he chew through another electric wire?” she asked, with interest. Feathers was a gorgeous dog, and Becky was hugely envious of Fran having him, but she could see that he didn’t exactly make life easy.
“Dad’s trying to train him not to jump up at the table,” Fran explained. “We’ve tried gently pushing him down, and spraying him with a plant-mister, and all the normal kinds of things, and nothing was working, so Dad emailed a “pet problems” website for advice. They said there was an absolutely foolproof way to stop him – Dad was over the moon. So we tried it yesterday. Dad made this huge sandwich” – Fran took her hands out of her sleeves (she’d forgotten her gloves) and indicated a really massive sandwich – “two big slabs of bread, a really thick layer of that strong horseradish sauce he likes, and some mustard, and he’d even gone to the supermarket and got some extra hot chilli sauce, and he put that in too.” Fran sighed. “According to the guy on this website, the dog jumps up, sees this yummy-looking sandwich, gulps it down, and gets a massive shock ’cause it tastes horrible. So afterwards it thinks that anything it gets off the table might taste the same, and it stops doing it.”