by Ginny Deals
“Hey, welcome back!” greeted Mum cheerfully as we all came through the door, wiping our feet and peeling off our coats. “Come in, come in! Did you have a good day? I wish I’d been there, but…”
“It’s OK, Mum,” I said. I think Mum feels a bit guilty sometimes, about spending more time with Izzy than me. Well, Izzy is kind of little, so I guess she needs Mum a bit more than I do. “We missed you, but it’s OK.”
“We saw the most amazing snake, Helena,” Dad started.
I glanced anxiously at Lyndz, at the mention of Hissing Horace. She was still holding on to her bag like grim death, and hadn’t said a word all the way home. She couldn’t still be upset about that Sausage business, could she?
“Tea!” announced Mum. “We’ve got crumpets, and cakes, and toast, and biscuits, and birthday cake, all waiting for you through here.” And she headed into the kitchen.
“Psst, Frankie!”
It was Lyndz, tugging on my sleeve. She was looking totally weird now, with a really crazy glint in her eye. What was with her?
“What?” I said. “Lyndz, what is going on?”
“You’ve all got to come upstairs with me, now!” Lyndz begged. Without waiting for an answer, she started heading up to my bedroom.
“But the tea…” objected Rosie.
“Come on!”
The urgency in Lyndz’s voice was unmistakable. We all followed her upstairs and into my bedroom.
“You’re acting like you’re crazy, Lyndz!” said Kenny irritably. “So what’s the big hurry? There’s a fantastic tea waiting downstairs, and my tummy doesn’t want to wait!”
Lyndz’s back was turned towards us. She seemed to be fiddling with her bag.
“Look, promise you won’t get mad?” she began.
“Mad about what?” demanded Fliss.
“Well, I just couldn’t leave him,” whispered Lyndz, turning round.
There, sitting on my bed among all my teddies and waggling his little tail, sat Sausage.
We all stared stupidly at Sausage, like we’d never seen a pig before.
“It’s that pig,” Kenny managed to say, after about forever and a half minutes.
“Well spotted, Kenz,” I said, ultra-sarcastically.
“And he’s on your bed!” said Fliss, in tones of total disgust.
“But what’s he doing here?” Rosie managed to ask.
Lyndz had sat down on my bed, and was stroking Sausage’s head so hard and fast it was like she was polishing him.
“I couldn’t leave him there,” she said fiercely. “I just couldn’t. He’d have been eaten, and I would never have forgiven myself. Never!”
Kenny dragged her fingers through her hair, so it stuck up all over the place. “Lyndz, it was a joke! You know, a joke? Like we always play on each other?”
Lyndz shook her head so hard that she almost fell off the bed. “No, it wasn’t. I saw the size of that snake. It didn’t get that big on muesli, did it? You were totally right, Kenz. Now do you see why I had to take him?”
Sausage got bored of Lyndz’s stroking, and wriggled out of her hands. With a flump, he slid off the bed – and started heading for the door!
My stomach did a major loop-the-loop at the thought of what my parents would say if they saw a pig on the landing.
“Rosie!” I said quickly. “Shut the door before he gets out!”
With a massive leap, Rosie flung herself at the door, and whammed it shut. Sausage gave a grunt of disappointment, and Lyndz swooped down and tucked him under her arm like he was a swimming towel or something.
“Oh man,” Kenny was saying, shaking her head like she had water in her ears. “Oh man UNITED.”
“You know you can’t keep him, Lyndz,” said Fliss. “He’s got to go back to Animal World. It’s stealing!”
Lyndz just hugged Sausage even harder, and got this concrete-like frown on her face. I could see that persuading her was not going to be easy. And whose fault was that?
I whirled round to Kenny.
“Kenny, you are SUCH an idiot!” I hissed furiously. “See what you’ve done?”
“You are going to have to come up with some serious suggestions about how we’re going to get out of this one, Kenz,” Rosie declared, folding her arms and staring at Kenny very hard.
Fliss joined in with the staring, till Kenny really started wilting.
“Well?” I said, using the same voice that Dad always uses with me when I’ve been using his stapler and haven’t put it back. “We’re waiting.”
“Girls!” Mum’s hurt-sounding voice floated upstairs. “Where are you? Don’t you want this lovely tea I’ve made for you all? Frankie?”
I made a split-second decision. “We’d better go downstairs and act normal. We’ll deal with this after tea, OK? The last thing we want is the folks getting suspicious.”
“And staying up here when there’s a mega birthday tea downstairs is already looking well suspicious,” pointed out Kenny. I think she was pretty relieved that the heat was off – for now, anyway.
“We’re not giving Sausage back to those butchers,” insisted Lyndz. “And nothing that you say will make me change my mind, so there.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s too late to do anything about this now, anyway,” I said wearily. “We can’t keep him up here tonight – we’ll have to smuggle him down to the shed after tea.”
So we plonked Sausage in the middle of the floor, tied him to the bedpost with a pair of my tights, and shut the door, very firmly. Then we went downstairs.
I don’t remember much about my birthday tea, to be honest. It was seriously hard, trying to act normal, when all the time, my brain was whizzing and fizzing and shouting “PIG!” at me. I guess the others were having the same trouble. Rosie spread Marmite on a piece of Mum’s ginger cake, and Kenny dunked a piece of my lemon drizzle birthday cake into her tea for so long that it dropped into her mug with a spongy SQUOOSH. Fliss was trying bravely to chatter, but she told Dad the same story twice and her giggle sounded well nervous. And Lyndz didn’t say or do anything at all.
We cleared everything away in silence. I could see Mum and Dad looking at each other, trying to work out what was wrong. We were never this quiet – and we were certainly never this quiet after a major sugar binge like a birthday tea.
“Thanks for all this, Mum,” I said, hoping that I sounded vaguely normal. “It was like, out there.”
“Are you sure it was OK?” asked Mum slowly. “I didn’t put salt in the cake, or spread the sandwiches with face cream, or anything?”
“It was all really delicious, Mrs T,” said Kenny. “Honest.”
“Yes, Mrs Thomas,” added Fliss. “The chocolate cake was totally magic.”
There hadn’t been any chocolate cake. I gave Fliss a kick.
“Er, chocolate biscuits, I mean!” she stuttered. “The biscuits were, um, great.”
Doh! You didn’t have to be a genius to work out that we were up to something. And my parents were lawyers, so they figured stuff out seriously quickly.
“Frankie?” said Mum. “What’s going on?”
She and Dad turned their laser-ray stares on to me. I couldn’t lose my nerve now!
“Nothing!” I said, forcing a smile. “I guess we’re just pretty tired after our day out. Can we go upstairs, please?”
“Already?” asked Dad in surprise. “What about all your usual games?”
“We’re really exhausted, Mr Thomas,” put in Rosie.
We all started yawning like maniacs.
“Well, I’d rather you didn’t go upstairs just yet,” said Mum with a frown. “I’m about to put Izzy to bed, and I don’t want you disturbing her.”
We gawped at her in dismay. But we had to deal with the Sausage situation like, now! The thought of what Sausage was probably doing to my best and most favourite only bedroom made me shudder. What if there was pig poo everywhere? When were we going to smuggle Sausage out and into the shed?
We trooped rather s
adly into the sitting room, and plonked down on the sofa.
“Well, what shall we play?” asked Kenny, looking around.
“We aren’t exactly in the mood for games, Kenny,” hissed Fliss. “There’s a pig in Frankie’s bedroom, and we are in such trouble I can’t even THINK about how much trouble we are in.”
Lyndz had cheered up. I think she realised that at least we were keeping Sausage for the night, and that was pretty cool.
“What about Crazy Snap?” she suggested. “That would take our minds off things.”
Crazy Snap was a cross between Snap and army training. You set up the furniture so it was a kind of assault course, with chairs to jump over and door frames to swing on. Then you played Snap until you got two matching cards. When you got the matching cards, the two players had to race round the assault course. The first person back who slammed their hand on the pile of cards won the round. It was well funny, and pretty knackering too – just the kind of game to use up any extra energy you had left at the end of the day.
But to be honest, there wasn’t enough spare energy in my mates to run one short-life battery that night. We had a go, but after Rosie had banged her shin because she forgot to jump over the footstool by the door, and Fliss had shouted “PIG!” instead of “SNAP!”, we gave up.
Mum was upstairs with Izzy and Dad was finishing something in his study, so at least we were on our own and could talk.
“Look, we’ll have to smuggle Sausage down in the middle of the night,” I suggested, as we drearily cleared away the mess of cards and furniture. “When my parents have gone to bed. What do you think?”
“I think my head’s gonna explode,” moaned Rosie.
“Izzy must be asleep by now,” fretted Lyndz. “It’s been ages.”
But it was at least ten million years later when Mum finally came into the sitting room, to tell us we could go upstairs again.
“And whatever you are planning better be quiet, OK?” she warned us, as we jostled past her. “If any of you wake Izzy up, I swear I’ll peg you upside down on the washing line.”
Pepsi was sitting outside my door. She had that kind of alert expression that dogs sometimes get because they can hear the postman coming.
“Oh no!” I said, dismayed. “Pepsi can smell Sausage!”
Lyndz sniffed the air. “I can’t smell anything.”
“No, but Pepsi can. Look at her,” I said unhappily.
She really did look like a dog on a mission. Her ears were pricked right forward, and her whole body was quivering.
“Get her away from the door!” hissed Kenny, looking over her shoulder for my mum. “Quick, before she starts barking!”
I grabbed Pepsi and ran downstairs with her, shutting her in the kitchen.
“Sorry,” I whispered to her reproachful little face. “Hope you understand.”
I decided that it would be a miracle if my parents didn’t smell a serious rat any minute. But at least, unlike Pepsi, they wouldn’t smell a pig in a million years. Maybe we’d get away with this?
Yeah, and pigs might fly!
“There’s one over there!” Kenny pulled a dramatic face. “Poo alert, under the window!”
Even though the situation was totally drastic, I couldn’t help giggling. We’d counted three poos and a puddle in my room so far, and Fliss was totally grossed out.
“Bagsy not me who gets rid of it,” said Rosie quickly, bringing her feet up off the carpet.
Sausage oinked happily. He was sitting in Lyndz’s lap, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Lyndz rolled her eyes. “You guys are such babies!” she scorned. “Look, I’ll do it.”
Sausage was dumped into my arms, and Lyndz went in search of something to scoop up the mess. The best we could find was a plastic ring binder and a pencil tin, so Lyndz did this complicated flip thing and scooped everything up. Rosie checked that the corridor was clear, and Lyndz headed off for the bathroom.
Sausage was cute. He was totally covered in gingery bristles, kind of like Dad when he hasn’t shaved – and his tail never stopped waggling! It wasn’t long before we were passing him round the room for cuddles, though Fliss only stroked his nose while Rosie held him at a safe distance.
“There!” said Lyndz triumphantly, when she returned from her poo mission. “See why I had to take him? He’s just too adorable to get eaten.”
Which brought us back to square one. We were never going to convince Lyndz that Sausage would be safe if we returned him to Animal World. So what were we going to do?
The first thing we had to do was hide him. Particularly when Mum stuck her head round the door.
“Everything all right, girls?” she asked, looking round the room suspiciously, like she was going to find some big chemistry experiment ready to explode in one corner.
Eeek! I just knew I’d be grounded till I was about eighteen if Mum saw Sausage! She gets pretty funny about hygiene, now we have Izzy in the house.
“Errr,” I mumbled, shooting a desperate glance around the room.
Lyndz was quietly piling up teddies like a big cuddly wall in front of Sausage, who, fortunately, had decided to fall asleep on my bed.
“Fine, Mum, really,” I managed to say.
Mum kept peering round the room, with a weird expression on her face. “Can you girls smell something?” she said.
“Manure,” said Kenny promptly.
We all stared at Kenny in horror. What was she doing?!
Kenny pointed out of the window. “I noticed your neighbours spreading manure on their vegetable bed earlier, Mrs T,” she said innocently. “I expect that’s what you can smell.”
Mum’s face cleared. “Of course,” she said. “That would explain it. For a minute, I thought…” But she didn’t finish her sentence. She just looked at us all, long and hard, before shutting the door again.
“I can’t keep this up,” Fliss whimpered. “I’m going to blurt something out, I just know I am!”
Rosie took control of the situation. “Look, let’s get ready for bed and then have our midnight feast, shall we?” she said, looking round at us all. “That’ll give us something to do. Then we can set the alarm for Operation Sausage, get some sleep, and finally get this pig down into the shed.”
We all agreed that this sounded like a good plan. So everyone bagged beds, jumped into their PJs and started a relay to the bathroom – always leaving someone behind to keep an eye on Sausage.
My room is perfect for sleepovers. There’s my bed built into one side. Then there’s the bunk beds, which are ace for when my mates come to stay. There’s usually some kind of squabble about who gets the top bunk, because it’s always cool being up higher than the others (though pretty scary if you have to climb down the ladder in the night!). There’s loads of space for sleeping bags on the floor too. When we turn the lights out and turn our torches on, we can make wicked shadows on the walls and the ceiling, and spook ourselves half to death!
When everyone had been to the bathroom, we cut the lights, sat round in a circle on the floor and emptied our goodie bags for the midnight feast. Doritos and salsa dip, Wotsits, liquorice strings, marshmallow aliens, baby carrots (that was Fliss, being healthy), Dairy Milk and choc chip biccies – fabbo!
“Look, Sausage has woken up!” whispered Lyndz.
Sure enough, Sausage’s little orange head was poking up over the teddies on my bed. He’d smelt the food!
“He’s probably starving,” I said. “We haven’t fed him, have we?”
So Sausage was lifted down on to the floor, and we ended up giving him most of our food. He totally went for the carrots and the Doritos, and he thought the marshmallow aliens were delicious, too – but he couldn’t figure out the liquorice strings at all.
Everyone went quiet, watching this little pig in the middle of us all. Somehow, I didn’t think Doritos and marshmallows were a very good diet for a pig, but it was all we had. THEN…
We all leaped out of our skins when Pepsi s
tarted barking. Really started barking. Right outside my door!
“Someone must have let her out of the kitchen!” I said, my heart sinking. “Mum is going to go MAD – this’ll wake Izzy up for sure!”
It was total action stations. I knew Mum would come into my room any second – and we had to hide Sausage, fast! But where? Now he was awake, it was going to be twice as hard!
“In the wardrobe!” yelled Kenny.
Lyndz scooped up Sausage and ran to the wardrobe. Woof, woof, woof! Pepsi was really going for it. We heard Mum running up the corridor – Lyndz managed to fling open the wardrobe door and put Sausage inside – and BANG! Our door flew open.
Pepsi rushed in, her tail a total blur and her nose pressed right down into the carpet. Somewhere down the corridor, I could dimly hear Izzy wailing, and Mum comforting her. And Dad stood at the door, silhouetted like a huge angry giant.
“What is going on in here, Frankie?” he demanded.
Pepsi was still going beserk, snuffling round the room and woofing in a deep, dark kind of voice. I managed to grab her collar, and hung on to her like my life depended on it. Which it kind of did.
“Nothing, Dad!” I protested. “We were just, er, having our midnight feast, you know?”
“Maybe Pepsi smelt the food,” suggested Kenny.
Dad was totally unconvinced. After our weird behaviour at tea and now Pepsi, I knew that he wouldn’t rest until he knew the real reason behind it all.
“Pepsi has smelled something, and I’m going to find out what it is,” he said, taking a step into the room.
Sausage shuffled around inside the wardrobe. Pepsi broke into a fresh burst of barking. And I did the only thing I could think of.
“EEEEEEK!” I yelled. “A MOUSE!”
Rosie cottoned on. “Over there!” she shouted. “I saw it over there!”
Fliss burst into tears. If there’s one thing she hates more than snakes, it’s mice.
Pepsi shot out of my room and straight into the corridor. My plan had worked! She’d got totally confused and didn’t know what she was barking about any more!