Hammy the Wonder Hamster
Page 5
I’LL HAVE 1 2, texted Hamilton. AND PL CALL ME HMLTN. It was all right for other people and animals to call him Hammy, but Bethany was different.
The next evening, after tea, Bethany carried Hamilton into Sam’s room. She held him very gently in both hands.
‘You can hold Hammy if you like,’ she said. ‘Take care, mind.’
Sam took Hamilton, who looked up at him, twitching his nose. Sam stroked his fur.
‘He’s very nice,’ said Sam. ‘Rabbits are more fun, but he’s not bad for a hamster.’
Hamilton turned to Bethany with his eyes wide in indignation, looking very shocked and very lovable at the same time. Bethany smiled to reassure him.
‘About Bobby,’ she said to Sam, ‘I was just reading somewhere – I think it was at school – something about how rabbits get very unhappy if they’re not kept clean.’
Sam’s expression hardened in a way she’d often seen. It was the way he looked when he was ready to argue all evening, if necessary, that he was right and she was wrong. She went on hastily.
‘The way you cleaned out his cage yesterday, when he came back,’ she said, ‘it looked really good. Really comfortable.’
The anger left Sam’s face. ‘When I found him last night he’d scraped the old bedding out,’ he said. ‘He was shivering in the corner with his ears down, and he looked miserable. I’m never, ever ever going to let him get like that again. I promised him.’
‘Good,’ said Bethany.
‘I was always going to clean him out,’ explained Sam. ‘Every day I was going to clear out his hutch, but I always ran out of day.’
‘Then you’d better always do it as soon as you get home from school,’ said Bethany. ‘While you’ve still got your coat on and before you get interested in anything else.’
‘All right, don’t go on,’ said Sam as he handed Hamilton back to her. ‘I promise, OK? But I’m not promising you. I’m promising Bobby. Promises to animals are really important because they can’t look after themselves.’
‘That’s very true,’ said Bethany.
chapter 10
At Number 38, Chloe took Toffee out of his cage and told him all about the hunt for Bobby. At Number 40, Minim the cat stared at the fire and thought about that small furry animal. It had been too big and fluffy for a mouse, and hadn’t smelt quite right. At Bethany’s house, Dad and Sam mended the hutch door and Sam made a sign to put over it – bobby – and added: he bites. He didn’t, but Sam said it might stop anyone from trying to steal him. He never wanted to lose Bobby again.
Tim Taverner filled in his records of all the work he had done that week (or, at least, all the bits he wanted people to know about). Then he opened the diary he was keeping secret.
‘Microspeck not found,’ he wrote. ‘No trace in shop waste. Found a link with 33 Tumblers Crescent, then lost track.’
He locked the diary away, and sniffed at his hands, then at the sleeve of his jacket. He wasn’t sure if he’d quite managed to wash off the smell of pet shop and lavender.
There was a tap at the door. Mary the cleaner was there, smiling and sensible, with her Hoover and her baskets of dusters and polish.
‘I won’t get in your way, Dr Taverner,’ she said.
‘Mary,’ he said as she came in, ‘do I smell like a hamster cage?’
‘Really, Dr Taverner!’ she said. ‘You don’t smell of any such thing. If anything, you smell of…’ She sniffed. ‘Lavender soap. It’s like the kind my daughter uses. It’s very nice.’
She looked at him again, more carefully. She hadn’t noticed that his hair seemed to be going grey – but when she looked again she saw that it wasn’t grey at all. There was something white and streaky in his hair. Maybe he’d had a bit of an accident with flour, or plaster of Paris, or some such thing, and the rain had made it run – no, it smelt like talcum powder. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be polite to mention it.
The fake identity badge lay on the table. The rain had got into it, making the name and the words blur, but the initials at the bottom were still clear.
‘QTPIE,’ she read out loud. ‘Cutie Pie! Isn’t that nice! Now, you go home, Dr Taverner. I know you, you always work too late.’
Scented soap. Powder. And a badge spelling ‘Cutie Pie’. Mary thought it all over as she cleaned the office. Perhaps Dr Taverner had a girlfriend. Good. He needed to get out more.
Sam, who had been outside to say goodnight to Bobby and give him fresh water, stopped to look into Bethany’s room. Bethany was sprawled across her bed, reading. There was no sign of Hammy, but scrabbling sounds came from the nest box, and now and again a bit of sawdust would fly out as if he were digging in there. Sam watched for a while, then decided that, if Hammy wasn’t going to do anything more interesting than that, there was no point in staying. Hammy, he decided, was cute but boring. Not fun and intelligent, like Bobby.
‘Goodnight,’ he said.
‘Goodnight, shut the door,’ said Bethany.
Hamilton was extremely busy. He had seen that Bethany’s bedroom walls were decorated with pictures she’d drawn and photographs she’d taken on holiday and on school trips. This seemed like a very good idea to Hamilton, who was now scratching pictures of Bethany, an apple and a mobile phone on the wall of his nest box. Then he added one more picture, but he couldn’t understand why he’d drawn that. It was a drawing of a salad baguette with sesame seeds on the top. He sat back and looked at it. He knew exactly what it was, even though he knew he’d never seen one before.
Bethany put a marker in her place in the book. ‘Goodnight, Hamilton Hammy,’ she said.
Night? It must be time for a run on the wheel. Hamilton finished his picture, climbed on to the wheel, adjusted its timing, and ran his fastest, as if he could run into his next adventure.
Bethany lay awake, smiling, her eyes open in the darkness. She couldn’t sleep. Here beside her, running on his wheel, was the most wonderful pet in the world. Now that Hamilton had come into her life, whatever would happen next?
She could hardly wait for tomorrow.