Becky's Problem Pet

by Holly Webb

  “Well, it sounds like it should work,” said Becky doubtfully. “But I suppose it didn’t?”

  “Nope. Feathers waltzes into the kitchen, sniffs out the sandwich, and Dad and I carefully pretend we’re not looking. He jumps up and grabs it, then settles down on the floor to gobble it up. From what the website said, practically from the first bite he should have been dashing for his water bowl like his mouth was on fire, but Feathers ate – the – whole – thing! And then he licked his lips, looked round, and jumped back up again to see if he’d missed anything. Chilli sandwiches are obviously his favourite thing.”

  Becky giggled. “Oh dear. Well, at least you know what to get Feathers for Christmas now.”

  “Yeah, chilli-flavoured dog chews, if they exist. But you see what I mean? I don’t think now is the right time to be asking Dad for any more pets. He was muttering about dog shelters again last night.”

  Becky looked shocked. “He wouldn’t!”

  Fran shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. Most of the time he really loves Feathers. We’re just not very good at training him. And it’s funny, ’cause Golden Retrievers are meant to be really easy to train. Sometimes I think Feathers is just a really strange-looking dachshund, or something.”

  Fran looked at Becky, and they both creased up at the idea of Feathers actually being a sausage dog in disguise.

  “What?” asked Annabel curiously, looking at them heaving with laughter. “What are we missing?”

  “You – you – wouldn’t think – it was all that funny,” gasped Becky. “Dog joke. Honest.”

  Annabel rolled her eyes, and she and her friend Saima went back to watching the Year Eight boys playing football – with Josh Matthews captaining one side, and looking very good indeed.

  Katie was watching too, but not for the same reason. Josh and quite a few of the other Year Eight boys were in the boys’ junior team that her team had beaten so brilliantly earlier on in the term, and she and Megan, who played in goal, were having a very critical look at their ball-skills.

  “Sloppy,” commented Megan with her head on one side, and her arms folded, in an unconscious imitation of their coach, Mrs Ross.

  “Mmmm,” agreed Katie, tutting as another of the boys completely lost control of the ball.

  “As if you could do any better,” said a sneery voice, and Katie and Megan wheeled round.

  Max Cooper, of course. The boy who’d deliberately fouled Katie in that boys v girls match, and made her miss the final of the schools league because of the torn muscle in her leg.

  Katie gave him a poisonous little smile. “Yeah, Max, we could. We proved it, and we don’t have to cheat like you. Get lost.”

  Max looked stumped for a moment, but recovered quickly. “Yeah, and what if I don’t? You going to get your mum on to me? Poor little Katie needs Mummy to look after her,” he sneered.

  After Max had deliberately injured Katie, the triplets’ mum had phoned up his dad and had a real go at him.

  Max’s dad had been very apologetic and grounded Max for ages. In fact, Mrs Ryan had got off the phone with his dad and said she felt sorry for him and Max more than anything else – Max’s mum had died two years ago, and Mr Cooper was bringing him up on his own. Unfortunately, even though the triplets knew they ought to be sympathetic, it didn’t make Max any easier to like – especially now he could call Katie a “Mummy’s girl” in every other sentence.

  Seeing that Katie was about to explode and that might get them all into trouble, Megan joined in. “Why don’t you go and ask if you can play? You certainly need the practice. Oh, I forgot, there’s no point is there? ’Cause Mr Anderson’s banned you from playing in the team for, oooh, how long was it again?”

  Max stomped off, bright scarlet by now, and the girls giggled.

  “You know,” said Annabel, “I just don’t understand why he bothers trying to pick fights with you, Katie. You always make him look a prat, so why does he come back and do it again?”

  “Bad memory.” Megan nodded wisely. “I bet in half an hour he’ll have forgotten what we said entirely, and he’ll think he was really clever. It’s a boy thing.”

  Just then the bell went, so they hauled themselves and their bags across the playground to their deliciously warm classroom, and started thawing out while they waited for Miss Fraser to come and do the register.

  Becky and Fran were trying to draw a picture of Feathers the sausage dog on a bit of scrap paper – Fran was brilliantly good at drawing, and Becky was offering advice.

  “Bigger ears, definitely.”

  “You think? Mmm, probably.”

  “That’s really good,” said a shy voice from over their shoulders.

  Becky and Fran both peered up. It was David Morley, a boy the triplets were friendly with – he’d only moved into their area that year, and Becky had felt sorry for him not knowing anybody, so she’d invited him to their birthday party during half-term. He was very sporty, and good at football without being an idiot about it like Max was, so Katie liked him too. Annabel just thought his hair needed sorting out. . .

  Becky and David got on really well, but they were both naturally shy. Becky sometimes worried whether David actually liked talking to her, or whether he was just being polite.

  “Oh, hi David. It’s cute, isn’t it? She’s so good at drawing.” Becky nudged Fran. “She’ll never admit it, though. It’s meant to be a kind of mixture between Fran’s dog and a dachshund. You remember Feathers – you met us walking down the high street with him?”

  Fran blushed. “He’s not likely to forget, Becky. It was so lucky you had some money on you, David. I thought that woman was going to drag me and Feathers to the police station.”

  David grinned at her. “It was her own fault for leaving her shopping on the pavement next to a huge dog while she was nattering to her friend. Anyone with more than two brain cells could have seen he’d have that packet of biscuits out of there in no time.”

  “We should train him and Orlando to work together,” Becky put in. “We could make a fortune.”

  Miss Fraser chose that moment to walk in and tell everybody to sit down, and David gave Becky and Fran a quick grin, and disappeared over to the other side of the room. Becky looked down very carefully at Fran’s picture, and wondered why she was feeling disappointed because they hadn’t had a chance to chat for very long.

  Saima had asked her a couple of weeks before whether she fancied David, as she seemed to spend so much time chatting with him. It had been a bit of a shock – Becky hadn’t really thought about David like that before. But once Saima had mentioned it, she’d found it difficult to get it out of her mind, even though she’d told Saima she wasn’t interested at all.

  She kept an eye out for David through the rest of the day, as she wouldn’t have minded chatting to him some more, but he seemed to be avoiding her.

  That afternoon Katie was staying for football practice with Megan, and Megan’s mum was going to run her home afterwards (Mrs Ryan didn’t mind the triplets walking to and from school in a group, but she wasn’t keen on them being on their own). So Annabel and Becky walked home with Saima and Fran, dawdling along and chatting.

  When they got to the high street and were just coming up to the pet shop, Becky suddenly interrupted Annabel and Saima’s long discussion about exactly which Hollywood actor Josh Matthews looked most like.

  “Can we pop in here, really quickly? Pleeease? I just want to ask Mr Davies if he ever has any rats.”

  “Becky! Why have you suddenly turned into a rat-freak?” asked Annabel mock-crossly. “Oh, OK, I don’t mind – if you two haven’t got to get home dead on time?”

  Saima shook her head, and Fran said, “No, and I love going in here.”

  “We’re not staying more than five minutes, though, got it?” cautioned Annabel. But she was already talking to Becky and Fran’s backs as th
ey disappeared into the shop.

  Mr Davies’s shop was a lot better than some pet shops. It wasn’t very big, but anything he didn’t have he could order for you, and he was very knowledgeable. Becky came in regularly to buy stuff for the cats and guinea pigs, and Fran’s dad had asked him about Feathers lots of times, so Fran was soon telling him the chilli sandwich story while Becky nosed around the cages.

  All the cages were spotlessly clean, and the animals looked well cared for. Becky skimmed past hamsters, gerbils and mice while waiting for Fran to finish telling her story, so she could ask about rats. Then she got to the last cage on the bottom row, and squeaked with delight.

  “Mr Davies! You’ve got some rats! Oh, look Bel, white ones!”

  Annabel wandered over and peered gingerly into the cage, and made a face. “Becky, they do not look any better in real life. Rats are horrible.” She nudged Saima. “Aren’t they?”

  Becky gave Saima a pleading look, but she shook her head.

  “Sorry Becky, I don’t like them either. Especially those – they’ve got nasty red eyes. They look spooky.”

  “Pink-eyed whites,” said Mr Davies, smiling at Annabel and Saima’s evident disgust. “You two aren’t fans, then?”

  Fran looked over his shoulder. “That’s really weird. Becky was coming in to ask if you ever sold rats, and you’ve got some. Aww, look at them playing!”

  The rats were tussling with a cardboard toilet roll tube, and as they watched, one of them shot right through the middle, giving the others a shock. Even Annabel and Saima giggled.

  Mr Davies grinned at Becky. “Do I sense a customer?”

  “Maybe – but not until Christmas. I should think these will have gone by then, won’t they?”

  “Probably, but if they’re popular, then I’ll get some more. You never know.”

  Becky sighed. “They’re so cute. I really would love some. We’d better go, though. Mum’ll be wondering where we are. See you soon, Mr Davies.”

  For the rest of the way home, anyone listening would have been very confused. It was gorgeous Josh Matthews on one side of the conversation, and gorgeous rats on the other. . .

  Chapter Three

  Becky remembered to bring Practical Pets to school the next day, but Fran had a dentist’s appointment in the morning, so it wasn’t until their history lesson that she and Becky were sitting together, and able to look at the magazine. Miss Fraser was a bit late, so they spread out the magazine on the table between them and proceeded to coo over the photos. Finally, Becky thought – it was nice to have someone to appreciate them properly!

  Miss Fraser had split the class into project groups at the beginning of term. Becky and Fran were with two boys called Jack and Robin that Fran knew from her old school.

  Jack leaned across the table and peered at the magazine. “Is that the same one you lent me? That had the lizards in? Are there any lizards this time?”

  Becky smiled at him. “No, this month it’s rats. Hopefully I’m going to get some for Christmas.”

  “Are you? I’ve got some rats, did you know?”

  Becky gazed at Jack, completely gobsmacked. “Really? Rats? I thought you just had a lizard.”

  Jack shook his head. “Nope. I’ve got two rats as well. I got them a few weeks ago, off a mate of mine’s brother, and I’m going to breed them.”

  “Wow.” Becky was impressed, though a little surprised. From all the research she’d done over the weekend, she knew that breeding rats was pretty difficult – you needed to know lots about genetics, and which rats to mate with which, if you were going to do it properly. She hadn’t really thought of Jack as the kind of person who’d want to do all of that. “Have you got space for them?”

  “Yeah, in my bedroom. I’m turning it into a rat-farm. There’ll be hundreds of them soon.”

  “But how are you going to afford all the cages and everything? And the food?”

  “Oh, I’ll manage,” said Jack vaguely. “It won’t be a problem once I start to sell them.”

  Becky started to ask Jack why he suddenly wanted to breed rats, but gave up and just looked at him worriedly. It didn’t sound to her as though Jack had a clue what he was doing. But maybe he did and he just wasn’t very good at explaining about it? She really, really didn’t want to be rude – she wasn’t like Katie, who’d happily say what she thought, quite often without stopping to wonder if it was the best thing. And it wasn’t as if it was actually any of her business! She smiled at Jack, and tried to sound as though she was just interested in a friendly sort of way. “So what are your rats like? What colours are they?”

  “Umm, one’s a sort of browny colour and one’s white with black bits. Like that one.” Jack pointed to a picture of a hooded rat in Becky’s magazine, and Becky and Fran leaned over to admire it – it was white, but with a black head and shoulders, so it looked like it was wearing a black furry hood.

  Unfortunately, neither of them had noticed that Miss Fraser had come in, and that she was now standing right next to them. Jack had noticed her out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t have time to warn the girls, and Robin had just been gormlessly staring into space – he explained later that he’d been trying to work out how to get to the next level of his current PlayStation game.

  “Becky? Fran?”

  As soon as they heard Miss Fraser’s icy voice, Becky and Fran twisted round guiltily to look up at her.

  “Would I be correct in thinking that that is not your history textbook?”

  “Umm, yes Miss Fraser,” muttered Becky apologetically.

  “You know, of course, that if I’m delayed reaching your lesson, you’re supposed to read ahead in your textbook?”

  Becky and Fran decided not to point out that absolutely no one in the classroom had been reading ahead in their textbook – everyone had been chatting. The thing was they’d all had the sense to have the textbooks out, so they could at least look as though they were reading when Miss Fraser arrived. Becky and Fran had been too interested in the magazine to remember simple safety precautions. . .

  “I will take this –” Miss Fraser picked up the magazine between finger and thumb as though it were something disgusting – “and I might let you have it back at your next lesson.”

  She glared at them both, and swept back to her desk.

  Becky stared very hard at the tabletop in front of her, and tried not to cry. She hated being told off – even though she could see that Miss Fraser had been quite nice really. If it had been Mr Hatton, their French teacher, they would probably have been in detention, writing an essay on rats in French or something. She was focusing so hard on the table that she didn’t see Katie and Annabel’s sympathetic and encouraging glances from their groups over the other side of the room. Unfortunately, though, she could still hear, and Amy Mannering and her two cronies, Cara and Emily, were at the perfect distance for nasty, hissing comments that Miss Fraser wouldn’t hear but Becky certainly would.

  “Ahhhh, poor little Becky!”

  “Look, she’s going to cry!”

  “No big sisters to look after her, so she gets in trouble.” Amy sniggered. “It must be awful to be that useless, don’t you think?”

  Becky felt Fran glaring furiously over her shoulder at her tormentors, which made her feel slightly better, but obviously Fran didn’t want to risk answering back – Miss Fraser still had her eye on them.

  She was surprised to catch another quiet voice, from the same direction. “Shut up, Amy. She’s not useless, and everyone else in the class likes Becky – they think you’re a stuck-up little princess, so just leave her alone.”

  That got Becky out of her table-obsessed trance in a second. She whisked her head round quickly, and saw David giving Amy a look that reminded her of Katie – something along the lines of “Yeah, so now what are you going to do about it?” Amy looked gobsmacked. She and Cara
and Emily just ignored David in history. Miss Fraser might have put him in their project group, but that didn’t mean they had to speak to him, and he never spoke to them unless he had to. Amy had always assumed this was because he was too in awe of her to dare, but she was now realizing that maybe that wasn’t the case. . .

  David spotted Becky watching, and flashed her a quick, embarrassed grin, which she returned before turning back and concentrating very hard on her textbook. Neither of them noticed Amy staring at them thoughtfully, or the sly, calculating expression that quickly passed over her face. So things were like that, were they? Well, David Whatever-his-name-was had better watch out – nobody spoke to her like that.

  Annabel and Katie made a beeline for Becky at the end of the lesson.

  “Are you OK?” Katie asked her, in a resigned kind of voice – Becky could be so sensitive.

  “Oh, yes.” Becky nodded.

  Her sisters looked at her, surprised – they’d been expecting Becky to be upset after being told off in front of everybody. If they’d known about Amy’s nasty comments they would have been even more confused. But Becky seemed amazingly calm – except that they didn’t know she was bubbling inside. It had been so nice of David to stick up for her like that! She was used to Katie and Annabel defending her, but they had to, they were her sisters – and they were quite likely to tell her off for being a wimp after they’d done it. She hadn’t got the impression that David thought she was silly – he’d just seemed to think that Amy was mean. She felt like giggling at the memory of Amy’s shocked face.