There's a Hamster in my Pocket Read online

  There’s a

  HAMSTER

  in my pocket!

  There’s a

  HAMSTER

  in my pocket!

  Franzeska G. Ewart

  Illustrated by Helen Bate

  Text copyright © Franzeska G. Ewart 2011

  Illustrations copyright © Helen Bate 2011

  The right of Franzeksa G. Ewart to be identified as the author and of Helen Bate to be identified as illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 (United Kingdom).

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

  Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 4 Torriano Mews,

  Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RZ

  www.franceslincoln.com

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-84780-118-0

  eBook ISBN 978-1-90766-684-1

  Set in Plantin

  Printed in Croydon, Surrey, UK by CPI Bookmarque Ltd. in November 2010

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Beset with Worries

  Sniper

  The box from Samarkand

  Unimaginable Horrors

  Nightmare

  Better out than in

  Germane

  Discovered

  Secrets

  Birthday Surprises

  Auntie Shabnam

  Franzeska G. Ewart

  To Jean B. Campbell

  Beset with Worries

  I must be a Born Worrier.

  Don’t get me wrong – I can go for ages without a care in the world, but there are times when I’m simply beset with worries. And last summer was one of those times.

  ‘Beset with worries’, by the way, is an expression I got from my best friend Kylie Teasdale. Kylie’s dead set on being a writer when she grows up, and she has this little notebook where she writes down good words and phrases.

  She let me look at it once, and I found ‘beset with worries’ on the ‘B’ page, underneath ‘bravado’ and ‘bucolic’.

  There were three worries besetting me last summer. The first one, which had a Worry Factor of 10, was the family business, Farooq’s Fruits.

  The second one, with a Worry Factor of 8.5, was Auntie Shabnam from Lahore.

  The third one, which only had a Worry Factor of 4, making it more of an Annoyance than a Worry, was Kylie’s Russian Dwarf hamsters.

  Of all the Worries, Farooq’s Fruits was far and away the worst. It was the Mother Of All Worries.

  It began one night, when I tiptoed downstairs for a glass of water and heard Mum and Dad talking in the living room. Something about their voices made me stop and listen.

  They were talking about the shop, and they were using words like ‘recession’ and ‘falling profit margins’. Dad kept sighing, and Mum kept saying she was sure it would be all right, in a voice that clearly meant she wasn’t.

  By this time my ear was almost bonded to the living room door, so when Dad gave his biggest sigh yet and said, “And then there’s the business of the health and safety inspection . . .” I heard every word, clear as a bell.

  I didn’t entirely understand what ‘recession’ and ‘falling profit margins’ were, but I knew they were not good news, and I understood perfectly how serious a failed health and safety inspection was. The next day, though, when I asked Mum and Dad if anything was wrong, they just smiled and said of course not.

  They couldn’t fool me, though. Not for a minute. And when I asked Kylie what ‘recession’ meant, and she told me it was ‘a period of general economic decline’, I felt absolutely sick.

  So that was the First Worry, and it was, as I discovered at breakfast the next morning, the direct cause of the Second Worry.

  “Auntie Shabnam is coming to stay for a while,” Dad announced. “All the way from Lahore. Exciting, isn’t it?”

  We were all sitting round the table. Nani was eating soggy Weetabix and Bilal, who had just cut his second tooth, was gnawing the handle of his mug.

  The news completely floored us. For a while, no one spoke.

  “Auntie Shabnam has agreed to help boost the business,” Dad went on. “Give us advice, and so forth.”

  “Very sharp, my sister is,” Mum put in. “Brimful of business acumen.”

  I turned to ask Nani what ‘business acumen’ was, but she was glaring down into her spoonful of mushy cereal as though it contained all the sins of the world. I decided I could wait.

  Dad cleared his throat and looked directly at me.

  “Your mum and I have decided, Yosser,” he said, “that Auntie Shabnam would be most comfortable in Nani’s room. We’re going to convert it into an executive office for her.”

  A sound like a small, wet, explosion came from Nani’s direction. Dad ignored it.

  “So Nani will move in with you,” he went on.

  I swear I heard my stomach go splat! as it hit the kitchen floor.

  “It’s only for a short while,” Dad added, apologetically.

  “And it’ll give us a chance to give Nani’s room a nice, fresh lick of paint,” Mum said, very brightly. “And declutter it.”

  At the word ‘declutter’, Nani’s nostrils flared. She glowered over at Dad, then at Mum, then finally at me.

  I glowered back. I was beyond words.

  Mum didn’t seem to notice all the bad vibes coming from Nani and me, though. She went on talking about decluttering, and painting and wallpapering, as if it was some kind of treat.

  And all the while, I was picturing my little room with Nani’s bed in it, and Nani’s hundreds of bottles of cough linctus and nerve tonic and indigestion medicine, and her thousands of tubs of foot powder and face powder and tooth powder, and her corn plasters.

  I pictured my neat shelves covered with her stuffed birds and bats and lizards, and my walls hung with her butterfly and moth collection, and every last bit of my carpet littered with her big vests, and I badly wanted to cry.

  “As Shahid says, it’s only for a couple of months,” Mum told Nani. “Then you can move back. And think of all the extra space you’ll have when we clear out a few things. . .”

  Nani’s nostrils flared wider than ever. She banged the table with her fist, sending Bilal an eyeful of wet Weetabix. He began to howl.

  “Not one thing will you clear out,” Nani hissed through clenched teeth. “Not one single, solitary thing, as I live and breathe.” Then she rammed her spoon hard into her mouth, and didn’t say another word till bedtime.

  So that was Worries one and two. And, in the light of them, Worry Number three hardly seems worth mentioning.

  Worry Number three concerned Kylie.

  Now, I don’t think I’m a jealous person. I try not to be, anyway. But that summer I was really jealous of Kylie. And the reason was Kylie’s pets.

  Kylie’s menagerie.

  I would have loved a pet. I’d pleaded for a dog, but Mum and Dad said that was out of the question because Nani couldn’t take it for walks during the day while the rest of us were out.

  I’d begged for a cat, but they said Nani w
as allergic – though how anyone who’s lived all their life surrounded by stuffed leopards and lynxes could possibly be allergic to a mere cat is beyond me.

  Eventually I’d had to settle for a goldfish.

  It was a really nice goldfish, with big black eyes and a frilly tail, and I kept it in a bowl on the shelf above my bed and called it Smartypants.

  I liked watching Smartypants, and feeding him and so on, but what I really wanted was something I could cuddle.

  Kylie, on the other hand, was tripping over things to cuddle – what with her dad’s dozens of ferrets, and her mum’s seven (yes, seven) Papillon dogs, and her brother’s white rat, Fang.

  And now, as if that wasn’t enough, they’d only gone and given her a pair of hamsters.

  Russian Dwarf hamsters, to be precise. The cutest, cuddliest animals you ever saw, with little brown stripy bodies and little white tummies and furry little feet and bright little eyes like shiny black pinheads.

  “I’m calling them Toffee ‘n’ Caramel,” Kylie told me when she took me up to her room to see them. “‘Cause they’re s-o-o-o-o sweet.”

  And, boy, were Toffee ‘n’ Caramel ever sweet! Kylie and I played with them all the time. We loved letting them crawl up our sleeves and sniff our necks and dive down under our jumpers and out again. They were drop-dead gorgeous!

  I didn’t begrudge Kylie Toffee ‘n’ Caramel one bit, and she was great at sharing them with me. But no matter how hard I tried not to be, I was still jealous.

  That summer, it seemed to me that Kylie had everything going for her. But, as it turned out, Kylie had a big worry too. Kylie had Sniper.

  Sniper

  The evening after the ‘Auntie Shabnam’ news broke, Kylie and me were in her bedroom building a castle for Toffee ‘n’ Caramel, and that was when she told me about Sniper.

  Castle Hamster was amazing. We’d collected loads of old washing-up liquid bottles and toilet roll insides, and we’d glued them onto a big cardboard box to make turrets and secret tunnels.

  Then we’d painted the whole thing bright pink and added sparkly detail with glitter pens and red love-heart stickers. It looked quite magical.

  Kylie was trying to get a cardboard flag to stick straight up from the battlements, and she was getting more and more frustrated because it kept keeling over. Suddenly she said, “My mum’s forty next week. Which is old, Yosser, really old.”

  I held the flag while she fixed it with more Sellotape. “That’s great, Kylie,” I said. “Your mum loves parties – and there’s sure to be a humungous one.”

  Kylie nodded. “We’re having a surprise fancy-dress party for her the night before, ‘cause her birthday’s on Sunday,” she said. “It’s in the Masons’ Arms and Dad says no expense has been spared.”

  She stuck the last bit of Sellotape on, and sat back. The flag was still wonky. She looked over at me, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. When she spoke again, the words came out in a rush.

  “I’m worried Sniper’s going to ruin it all,” she said. “He’s been in loads of trouble this summer, him and his mates. He won’t do anything Mum and Dad say, and the other week the police came round and they had a long talk. Then they issued him with a warning.”

  She took a deep breath. Her bottom lip was trembling.

  “He’s said some terrible things to Mum and Dad, Yosser,” she went on, very quietly. “He’s been like a different person these past few months.”

  I was horrified. Everyone knew that Dean ‘Sniper’ Teasdale was a bit wild, but I thought he was cool. In fact, Sniper was another thing I envied Kylie. I’d have liked a big brother with Heavy Metal T-shirts and a ring in his nose. I’d have swopped Sniper for Bilal any day.

  “Mum’s beside herself with worry,” Kylie went on. “You can tell, because she’s spending hours and hours in her vegetable patch. She can’t think beyond her potatoes and her carrots and her purple-leafed broccoli. . .”

  Kylie sighed. “It’s not healthy, Yosser,” she said. “It’s like she’s in denial.”

  I stuck a big bit of Blu-tack on the flag so that it didn’t dare go wonky again, and then I crawled over to Kylie and put my arm round her.

  “I’m sure Sniper wouldn’t do anything to spoil your mum’s special birthday,” I said. “He’s just going through a difficult phase.”

  Then, hoping to cheer her up, I asked, “What are you going to get her?”

  It had the opposite effect. Kylie sighed again.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t seem to get my head round the present. I think it’s because I’m so worried about everything else.”

  I gave her another squeeze. Then I went over to the hamster cage and lifted Toffee ‘n’ Caramel out.

  “Come on, Your Majesties,” I said, in as jolly a voice as I could muster. “Allow me to transport you to your royal residence.”

  I put them down outside the portcullis (which we’d drawn on in silver pen), pulled on a piece of string to raise it, and pushed their bottoms till they slid inside. Then I lowered the portcullis and left them to settle in.

  “I’ll help you find the perfect present for your mum,” I told Kylie. “Something really pretty.”

  Kylie looked a bit better then, and when one of the royal hamsters popped its head up and peered over the pink battlements, she cheered right up.

  “I was thinking of a jewellery box,” she said. “One lined with red velvet that plays music and has a ballerina going round. Only I’m kind of strapped for cash.”

  Then her voice changed. “I was wondering. . .” she said, and then she bit her lip.

  I thought she was going to ask me for a loan, because she sounded like I do when I’m after something, and I was getting ready to tell her I was sorry but I was pretty much broke too, when she went on.

  “. . . if you’d help me spy on Sniper?”

  I was dumbfounded. “Spy on him?” I said. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

  Kylie took hold of my shoulders and looked right into my face. I could see from the expression in her eyes and the way her hair stuck up even more than usual that she was deadly serious.

  “They’re plotting something, Yosser, him and his mates,” she said. “I’ve seen them creeping into the house, carrying stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?” I asked, but Kylie shrugged.

  “I never get a proper look,” she said, “because it’s always dark. But some of it’s massive. . .”

  Suddenly I had the most terrible picture in my head of Sniper and his mates, Germane and Twista, with their heads down and their hoods up, creeping through the darkness with big sacks on their backs.

  Sacks full of horrible, suspicious-looking things for committing horrible, dastardly crimes. . .

  That evening, I’d been hoping to tell Kylie my own worries about Auntie Shabnam and the decluttering of Nani’s room, but now my worries flew right out of the window. Compared to Kylie’s, they were peanuts.

  Just then, we heard a dull thud from outside.

  “It’s them,” hissed Kylie. “The gang. Turn off the light!” and she crawled over to the window.

  Taking care to keep my head down, I did what I was told and together we stared out into the street.

  There they were, creeping up the garden path – Sniper, Germane and Twista. A cold shiver ran up my back, because they looked exactly, precisely as I’d imagined they would. Their heads were down, their hoods were up, and Germane and Twista were carrying a long, pointed object that looked like a fat spear.

  Sniper led the way, and he was clutching a bag to his chest. Ugly-looking metal objects were sticking out of it. He opened the door and he and Twista went in.

  There was a clatter and a lot of shushing, and then they emerged, empty-handed. Taking the bag from Germane, Sniper muttered, “OK guys, see ya. And don’t forget the mallet.”

  Kylie and me stopped breathing. ‘The mallet’ sounded absolutely terrible, but what we heard next was infinitely worse.

&nbs
p; “Get a big heavy one, mind,” Sniper told Germane urgently. “So we just need one bang. . .”

  Germane nudged Twista, and they both laughed. “We know wot you is saying, man,” Germane assured Sniper.

  “We got just da job,” Twista added. Then he and Germane jumped off the path onto the lawn and launched into a rap routine.

  Kylie and me watched and listened in awed silence. That rap struck dread into our hearts.

  “Big an’ heavy wif a metal head,” Twista sang.

  “Bang-bang-bang, an’ it’ll knock ’em dead!”

  “Bang-bang-bang,” Germane continued, “it is an awesome sound,

  “Bang-bang-bang and they go into da ground. . . Yay!”

  With a series of loud whoops, Sniper joined them and they all danced wildly round Kylie’s mum’s prize rose bush, till Kylie’s dad banged on the window and told them to give over and act their age.

  As Germane and Twista disappeared into the shadows, and the words of their rap echoed eerily down the street, I reached for Kylie’s hand and gave it the hardest squeeze possible.

  The box from Samarkand

  Next day, the Decluttering began.

  We started by clearing Nani’s shelves. I stood on a ladder and handed things down to Mum, who put them carefully into labelled boxes. Nani stood grimly behind Mum, watching her like a hawk, and Bilal sat in the smallest box, gnawing it to a pulp.

  One of the boxes was labelled ‘For throwing out’, and every time Mum put something into it, Nani gave an enormous tut and picked it back out again. By lunchtime, the ‘For throwing out’ box contained two used corn plasters, three sweetie wrappers and a toothpick, and Nani had a face like a smouldering volcano.

  I was in a bad mood too, because I badly wanted to be with Kylie. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get my head round what had happened the night before.

  After Germane and Twista had left, Kylie and I had sat frozen at the window, thinking about the terrible Mallet Rap we had just heard.