‘IT’S TRUE!’
‘YEAH, TELL ’EM, PEANUT!’
Jackson looked from one cousin to the other. And for the first time, it looked like they were nervous and he was in control.
‘It was just a dumb game we were all playing,’ Jackson said with a casual shrug and a wide baboon grin.
Yay – that was my Jackson! My friend! My friend who wasn’t getting bossed about by his irritating, bully-boy cousins!
Luke and Matt; they were opening and shutting their mouths, not sure what to say or do.
If they kept insisting that their snowman had turned itself into flying snowblobs, or that I was a weirdo witch (ha!) they’d sound completely mad.
And worse, they’d look uncool.
So the brothers did the only thing they could – they stared warily at Jackson and grudgingly agreed with him.
‘Uh, yeah,’ grunted Matt, not shouting for once. ‘It’s like Peanut said …’
‘Hey, and I don’t like being called Peanut,’ Jackson added, getting confident now and twirling his knitted hat round his finger. ‘Can you stop doing that?’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Matt muttered, as Luke nervously nodded beside him.
‘Oh, I love that you all get along so well!’ said Nan, getting up from her chair and giving them all an embarrassing, squelchy granny kiss one by one.
That sure wiped the confident grin off Jackson’s face.
Though not as much as when his nan grabbed the twirling hat from his finger and shoved it on to his blond hair.
‘There. Don’t want my darling grandson to catch a chill now, do we?’
It was only then that I realised all the boys had matching hats.
As the three baby blue skulls smiled down at me, I giggled and giggled and giggled till everyone thought I was a complete dingbat.
But since most of them thought I was a dingbat already, who cared …?
Frodo lay flopped over the tree roots, tired after an exciting day being walked, lost and found.
It was Sunday afternoon, and me and Jackson had just waved off his tearful nan and his sheepish cousins.
‘See you next time, Jacko!’ Matt had called out, while Luke looked fairly scared still, and Jackson had beamed at his new, improved nickname.
‘Another jelly baby, Ruby?’ he asked now, lounging on the black plastic bin liner I’d laid over the snow like a waterproof picnic blanket.
‘Yes, thanks,’ I said brightly, pausing as I stretched the carrier-bag snowflake bunting above him.
Soon, me and Jackson would have to take our part-time, woofy pet back to its real owners. But in the meantime, we were chilling out, having a sweetie snack and watching Thing attempt to make its new nest.
Since Thing was busy, I took a couple of jelly babies from the packet Jackson was holding out and popped them into its new special dishy.
(Tomorrow I’d tell Miss Wilson that I’d dropped and broken the diva. Though it was looking very pretty now, covered in glittery stickers that came free with my latest copy of Girls Are Us! magazine.)
‘Peh!’ came a sigh from inside the Mystery Machine.
‘Is the bedding no good, d’you think?’ Jackson asked me, nodding down at his old toy, buried under bracken.
‘Not sure,’ I replied.
The late-afternoon sun was glowing and golden out in the garden. But here, under the trees, the light was fading fast … time to switch on the pumpkin. (I’d finally found my Halloween torch on my bedroom floor under my chucked-down copy of Girls Are Us!.)
‘Peh!’ muttered Thing, its fuzzy red back visible at the open doors of the van as it pushed and squeezed and squizzled its bedding into place.
‘Don’t you like it, Thing?’ asked Jackson, as me, him and Frodo all peered at what was going on.
What a shame. So far, Thing had tried …
… and now Jackson’s latest offering, which by the sound of it, wasn’t cosy and crunchy enough either.
‘Peh!’ purred Thing, shuffling round to face us.
It wrung its little paws together, tiny tears streaming down its furry face.
Frodo whined, and wriggled towards his small sad friend.
‘Hey, don’t be upset, Thing!’ said Jackson, sounding pretty upset himself.
‘We can try out some more stuff!’ I added, reaching over to scoop up Thing and give it a never-mind-cuddle.
‘But I not sad, Rubby!’ it sniffed, blinking up at me. ‘I happy! Jackson’s mess best mess I ever have!’
It was then that I realised ‘peh!’ can mean a fed up sort-of-sigh, OR a hurray-for-my-new-cosy-crunchy-nest sort-of-sigh.
It was also when Jackson realised that there was a very good use for his awful, nan-knitted, smiling skull-and-crossbones hat after all.
‘Can we do big huggly?’ asked Thing, holding out its arms.
Now that life was back to our weird kind of normal, having a huggly with my three best friends (one a doggy, one a donut and one a special secret) was exactly what I wanted to do.
‘C’mere!’ I said, squeezing all three so tight that Thing giggled and squealed, Frodo wriggled and barked, and Jackson accidentally kissed me on the cheek …*
(Yuck.†)
* It definitely by accident, right?
† I, er, of kissed him back. By accident too. (Double yuck!)
About the Author
Karen McCombie is the bestselling author of numerous children’s and teenage books, including the series Ally’s World, Stella Etc, Indie Kidd and novels Life According to Alice B. Lovely and The Year of Big Dreams. Before becoming an author she worked for teen magazines such as J17 and Sugar. Originally from Scotland, she lives in London with her husband, young daughter and assorted cats, who all give her inspiration for her books, whether they like it or not.
By the Same Author
The Curse of the Jelly Babies
The Dreaded Noodle-Doodles
The Legend of the Loch Ness Lilo
The Mummy That Went Moo
Copyright
First published in 2014
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2014
All rights reserved
Text © Karen McCombie, 2014
Cover illustration © Alex T. Smith, 2014
Inside illustrations by Dynamo Design
The right of Karen McCombie to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–31056–2
The Great Expanding Guinea Pig & Beware of the Snowblobs! Page 9