The Great Expanding Guinea Pig & Beware of the Snowblobs!

by Karen McCombie

  ‘But perhaps it’s worth considering what Jackson’s said,’ Mr Miller continued. ‘Young children can sometimes be a little rough with pets without realising what they’re doing.’

  ‘BOING! BOING! BOING!’

  Valerie winced at the noise and eyed up her daughter.

  ‘Hmm … well, Posy has been a bit giddy recently,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I found her painting the toilet seat green just before you arrived. But I didn’t think she’d be mean to Frodo.’

  ‘BOING! BOING! BOING! Oops …’

  Posy’s headless doll went flying across the living room. The whack! as it hit the far wall woke Frodo from his doggy dreams and made Jackson’s jacket jump.

  ‘I didn’t do it!’ Posy piped up, with a plastic doll leg still clutched in her hand. ‘It was Frodo!’

  Valerie narrowed her eyes at her daughter, as the truth became clear.

  ‘Posy, come here,’ she said, wiggling her finger.

  Posy reluctantly jumped down on to the floor and dragged herself over to the sofa, where her mum and Jackson were sitting.

  ‘Now,’ Valerie began, once Posy had plonked herself down between them. ‘Have you been opening the front door and letting Frodo out?’

  ‘No, Mummy.’

  Posy innocently blink-blink-blinked her big blue eyes.

  ‘So how do you think he’s escaping, then?’ Valerie asked her daughter.

  ‘Maybe he’s opening the door himself, because he wants to go out for a walk and a wee-wee?’ Posy suggested hopefully.

  ‘You know, Frodo really isn’t getting enough exercise at the moment, but he’d have to be a very special sort of dog to unlock and open a door …’

  ‘He is, Mummy, he really is,’ Posy nodded at high speed.

  ‘Hmm,’ sighed Valerie. ‘I think we’ll talk about this with Daddy later. All right?’

  ‘We should be going,’ said Mr Miller, putting down his mug on the table.

  I was just about to do the same with my juice carton when a thought pinged into my head.

  ‘Mrs … Valerie?’ I said shyly. ‘If you’re very busy just now, painting and, er, having a baby and everything, maybe me and Jackson could take Frodo out for a walk sometimes?’

  Valerie’s eyes lit up as if I’d given her the best Christmas present ever.

  ‘Oh, that would be lovely! Did you hear that, Posy?’

  But Posy wasn’t paying attention to her mum any more. She was busy staring at Jackson. From the fear in his eyes, you could tell she was freaking him out. Maybe she was imagining him headless, like her doll.

  ‘Posy – Ruby and Jackson have offered to take Frodo for a walk now and again.’

  ‘Ooh, can I go too?’ Posy asked, her eyes still fixed on poor Jackson.

  What? No way! I didn’t mind hanging out with an overexcited dog, but I didn’t fancy being in charge of a wild animal like Posy.

  ‘I don’t think so, darling,’ Valerie said, much to my relief. ‘Now, do you want to show our visitors out?’

  With a bunch of smiles and final chit-chat, me, Jackson and Mr Miller stepped through the front door. Jackson in particular looked relieved to be getting away from the intense glare of the small human.

  ‘Now what do we say, Posy?’ Valerie prompted her daughter.

  I think Frodo’s owner was hoping for a polite ‘thank you for coming’, or ‘thank you for bringing our dog back’.

  Instead, Posy opened her rosebud mouth and said, ‘That boy’s jacket was making eating noises!’

  Help … she must have heard Thing nibbling its stash of jelly babies!

  Luckily – going by this afternoon’s revelations – the grown-ups seemed to have decided that everything Posy said was a great, fat, kiddy fib.

  And so they just laughed, laughed, laughed.

  ‘A jacket making eating noises!’ Mr Miller repeated, as we tootled off along Walnut Grove. ‘Can you believe it?’

  ‘No,’ me and Jackson said in unison.

  Though I knew we were both thinking ‘Yes!’ with knobs on …

  ‘Hungry?’ asked Mum, picking a pot off the cooker.

  ‘Definitely, Mrs Morgan!’ Jackson answered enthusiastically.

  ‘Well, I’m glad my spaghetti bolognese tempted you to come inside,’ she added, now pouring the steaming ribbons of pasta into a colander by the sink. ‘I think you two would stay out by those trees all day if you could!’

  Ding-doinggg!!

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I called out to Mum, since she had her hands full with boiling water and squiggly pasta.

  Screeching back the chair, I hurried to open our front door.

  ‘Hello!’ said a man on the doorstep. ‘You must be Ruby.’

  ‘Uh, yes …’

  The man knew who I was, but I didn’t have a clue who he was.

  ‘And are you Jackson?’ he added, looking over my shoulder.

  ‘Yeah!’ said Jackson, shuffling up to my side.

  ‘Can I help?’ Mum’s voice breezed down the hall – and then there were three of us staring at this stranger in a suit.

  He suddenly seemed to realise he should explain himself.

  ‘I’m Paul Thomson.’

  Nope, that didn’t help.

  ‘Posy’s dad? Frodo’s owner?’ he tried again.

  ‘Ah …!’ we all sighed together.

  ‘I just wanted to say a big thank you, Ruby, Jackson, for all your help with Frodo.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Jackson answered for both of us.

  ‘You guys certainly solved the mystery of how Frodo kept “escaping” – Posy’s finally admitted she was locking him out of the house,’ said Mr Thomson. ‘In fact, Posy told us some of the other “funny” things she’s done to Frodo while our backs have been turned. We’ll be keeping an eye on that now!’

  As Frodo would say, ‘Hurray!’

  ‘Now Valerie and I have been thinking of a way to thank you properly, and actually Posy helped us come up with something.’

  ‘There’s really no need—’ Mum began on our behalf, but Mr Thomson stopped her with a wave of his hand. A hand holding an envelope.

  ‘Not at all. It’s a pleasure,’ he insisted. ‘Anyway, Posy was telling me about the little creature she saw peeking out of your jacket the other day, Jackson – hamster was it? Or a guinea pig?’

  Nooooo!

  When we’d dropped off Frodo, Posy hadn’t just heard Thing munching on jelly babies; she’d spotted it too!

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Mum, smiling expectantly at Jackson.

  Jackson opened and shut his mouth, like a goldfish caught in the headlights.

  Yikes.

  I had to get us out of this mess.

  Brain – give me a good excuse, and quick.

  OK, I’d got one.

  The only problem was, Jackson wasn’t going to think it was any good.

  ‘It’s a toy – it wasn’t real,’ I blurted out. ‘It’s Jackson’s, um, “snuggly”. He can’t sleep without it, and carries it around with him sometimes. But he doesn’t like people to know.’

  Jackson went so red from my embarrassing white lie that I could practically feel the heat scorching me.

  ‘Aw,’ murmured Mum, patting Jackson on the shoulder.

  ‘No worries, mate, won’t go any further,’ Mr Thomson said reassuringly. ‘But with your kindness to Frodo and your, er, toy guinea pig, we reckoned you were both animal fans. So Valerie and I thought you’d like these.’

  I took the envelope Mr Thomson was holding out, peeked inside, and spotted three tickets.

  HAPPY VALLEY PETTING ZOO GALA DAY! was printed on them.

  ‘We were going to take Posy, but her granny’s coming for a visit,’ Mr Thomson continued. ‘Do you know the Petting Zoo?’

  I nodded my head – last time I was there was for a classmate’s eighth birthday party.

  Jackson shook his head – I keep forgetting he only moved round here pretty recently.

  I’d describe Happy Valley to him later. Wit
h ‘Zoo’ in the title, he might be expecting lions and tigers and boa constrictors. But it was more of a farm really, with sheep and bunnies and ducks. The cool thing was you could stroke them and feed them carrots and stuff, which was fun. (And you can’t do that with lions and tigers and boa constrictors, can you? If you like your arms, I mean.)

  ‘They’re for this Saturday,’ said Mr Thomson, pointing to the tickets. ‘It’s a special Gala Day, so there are going to be fairground rides and a parade.’

  ‘How lovely!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘Well, I’ll talk to Jackson’s parents, but I’d certainly be happy to take these two along.’

  As Mr Thomson turned and headed for his car, Mum gasped, and hurried back to the bolognese sauce she’d left cooking. Or maybe burning.

  ‘That was great, the way you covered up for Thing,’ Jackson said quietly to me, while we smiled and waved at Mr Thomson.

  ‘Thanks,’ I whispered back.

  ‘But, Ruby,’ he added, still smiling, still waving. ‘Telling your mum and Mr Thomson I have a “snuggly” … you do realise I’m going to have to kill you for that?’

  Well, it was fair enough, really.

  And luckily for me, Jackson’d planned on tickling me to death.

  ‘Noooooo!’ I squealed, running away from his wibbly fingers as fast as I could …

  ‘… And there’ll be geese,’ I could hear Jackson say, as I got down to the bottom of the garden.

  ‘What is geese?’ asked a familiar little voice.

  ‘Birds.’

  ‘Birdies …’ Thing repeated. Sort of. ‘I like pretty little birdies. What elses?’

  ‘Rabbits. And hamsters. And guinea pigs.’

  ‘I knows rabbits. But what hammies and giggly pigs?’

  ‘Uh, imagine rabbits, but a bit smaller, with no ears,’ I heard Jackson answer uselessly, as I clambered over the wall.

  ‘Well, hello!’ I said, landing on the other side.

  I’d expected to see Jackson and Thing, but not Frodo. From my first, quick glance, I noticed that the dog was happily eating a stick to bits, and didn’t seem at all interested in chase-chase-chasing Thing.

  And hey, Thing didn’t look too freak-freak-freaked by Frodo being so close.

  Since their panting session a couple of days ago, they seemed to have bonded, I was pleased to see.

  ‘Rubby!’ Thing squeaked with delight, as if it hadn’t seen me since at least yesterday. ‘Where is you been?’

  I guess it was quite late (quarter to five), but me and Dad had stuff to do after school.

  ‘I went for a check-up at the dentist.’

  Thing blinked.

  I realised that I might as well have said, ‘I went for a be-doink at the flubber-doodle.’

  ‘A dentist is someone who looks at your teeth, and makes sure they are healthy and strong,’ I told it.

  ‘Healthy and stroing …’ Thing repeated, biting its diddy teeth together. ‘These good stuff, Rubby?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, settling down beside Frodo and giving his ears a scratch. ‘It’s important to have healthy, strong teeth.’

  ‘And a healthy, strong body!’ Jackson joined in, putting his arms up and flexing his invisible muscles.

  ‘Stroing good,’ muttered Thing, copying Jackson’s pose and looking adorably silly.

  I was about to mention the importance of a balanced diet too (we did it as our topic at school this term) but explaining stuff to Thing can sometimes be as tricky as eating jelly with chopsticks.

  And anyway, Thing wouldn’t really get what a balanced diet meant, since all it eats are mushrooms, mushrooms and mushrooms. Plus jelly babies, of course.

  Speaking of jelly babies, I needed to ask the King of Jelly Babies a question.

  ‘Jackson, did Frodo find his own way here again?’ I asked, imagining Posy shoving him outside with the leg of her headless doll.

  ‘Nah … I went round earlier and offered to walk him, and—’

  ‘Grrrrrrrrrrr.’

  We both whipped our heads round and saw Thing doing something it shouldn’t.

  I mean, it didn’t seem like a idea to go lifting up Frodo’s lip and staring into his mouth.

  ‘Look, even I know that Frodo is saying “leave me alone”!’ I said to Thing.

  Thing instantly jumped away from Frodo, letting his lip drop like a rubbery curtain.

  ‘I only look there to see if barker is stroing and healthy, Rubby! And he not say “leave me alone”. He say “this stick mine!”.’

  ‘Well, whatever Frodo said, I’d like you two to stay friends, so please stop playing with his teeth,’ I told Thing.

  Then I remembered I had a second question for Jackson.

  ‘Hey, what were you and Thing talking about when I got here? I heard you mentioning animals.’

  Jackson looked up from something he was unwrapping.

  ‘I was just telling Thing what it would see at the Happy Valley Petting Zoo tomorrow,’ he answered, chucking some gum in his mouth. ‘Want some?’

  ‘What? No!’ I yelped, swatting away the gum he was offering. ‘Jackson, we are not taking Thing to the Petting Zoo. It isn’t safe. Thing could get discovered! What if someone sees it? Like Posy the other day! What if it does magic? We could get in terrible trouble – again!’

  While I ranted and fretted and jabbered, Jackson slowly blew a huge pink bubble, watched by a fascinated Thing.

  ‘Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?’ I asked, realising I sounded a lot like Posy’s mum all of a sudden.

  POP! went the huge pink bubble.

  ‘You basically said no, Ruby,’ he mumbled, slurping the gum back into his mouth. (Urgh, gross!)

  ‘Well, that’s because it’s a really terrible idea,’ I said as I watched Jackson offer a piece of gum to Thing.

  ‘Boy, how I get big pink ball?’ it asked.

  ‘You just put it in your mouth and blow,’ Jackson instructed.

  ‘Jackson!’ I snapped. ‘We are not doing this!’

  POOT!

  That was the tiny sound of Thing putting the bubblegum in its mouth and blowing it straight back out whole, without realising you were meant to chew it first.

  GULP!

  And that was the sound of Frodo lunging over and swallowing the small, hard square of gum whole.

  Good grief …

  Between them, Jackson, Thing and Frodo had all the common sense of a very small pebble.

  In fact, I’d probably be better off talking to the half-chewed bit of stick lying discarded in front of Frodo.

  ‘ROOOOBBBYYY! TEA’S READY!’ Mum’s voice drifted from the back door of our house.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I muttered, getting to my feet. ‘But Jackson – you have to promise me, hand on heart, that we are not taking Thing with us tomorrow.’

  ‘I promise, hand on heart,’ Jackson replied, clutching his fists to his chest.

  It wasn’t till halfway through my pudding that I realised what he’d done. I let out a long, low groan.

  ‘Ruby, are you OK?’ asked my mum.

  ‘Excuse me!’ I said, pretending it had been a weird-sounding burp instead.

  But of course it had been a most definite oh-no, I-can-never-trust-that-boy groan.

  Cos your heart’s on the left, isn’t it?

  And Jackson – the big, sneaky donut – had his hands clutched to the right side of his chest.

  Great.

  So I guessed Thing – all giddy and overexcited about seeing hammies and giggly pigs – WOULD be coming with us on our trip tomorrow …

  ‘Woof!’ said the dog standing at the entrance to the Happy Valley Petting Zoo.

  Then it handed me a leaflet.

  Because this dog was actually a spotty-faced teenage boy in a fancy-dress outfit.

  And the leaflet he’d handed me described what was going to be happening at the Gala Day today:

  I passed the leaflet over to Jackson. While he read it, I glanced round and saw …

  • a
busy farmyard, packed with kids and their grown-ups, all oohing and aahing, eating ice cream and candy floss.

  • barns and fences and outbuildings covered with rainbow-coloured bunting.

  • a paddock with donkeys that had flowers entwined in their bridles.

  • another paddock, where a whole fun fair was crammed in.

  ‘So!’ my mum said brightly. ‘What’s first? Deadly Dodgems? Octopus of Terror? Or the Cuddle Barn?’

  ‘Octopus of Terror!’ said Jackson.

  ‘Cuddle Barn!’ said me.

  ‘What?’ Mum laughed. ‘Ruby, I know you like animals, but you LOVE fairground rides. I thought you’d have been desperate to get on the Octopus!’

  I do love fairground rides.

  And I desperate to get on the Octopus of Terror.

  But one thing was stopping me.

  Or should I say, one Thing.

  Cos our weird woodland pet has a habit of getting travel sick. It could just about cope with car journeys, but I think its tiny tummy might have a very big problem with a ride that whizzed round and round at high speed.

  ‘Maybe later,’ I said, shrugging.

  ‘Go on, Ruby!’ Jackson pleaded, not thinking for a second about our stowaway.

  ‘Well, if I was you two, I’d take your chance now,’ said Mum. ‘Look – the ride is slowing down, and there’s hardly a queue at the moment. It could get really busy later.’

  Mum had her hand on my back, gently pushing me towards the fun-fair field.

  I muttered a few more ‘I don’t really want to’s but Mum kept laughing, thinking I was joking, and of course Jackson didn’t help.

  ‘Aw, come on, Ruby!’ he urged, as we got right up to the barrier.

  Fine, I thought, as Mum handed some money to a guy selling ride tickets. Thing is in Jackson’s bag. So HE’LL have to clear up the mess if it gets ill …