I, Houdini

by Lynne Reid Banks

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  DELL YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor’s degree from Marymount College and a master’s degree in history from St. John’s University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

  Published by

  Dell Yearling

  an imprint of

  Random House Children’s Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  Text copyright © 1978 by Lynne Reid Banks

  Illustrations copyright © 1978 by J. M. Dent and Sons Limited

  First American edition published by Doubleday Books for Young Readers in 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press.

  The trademarks Yearling and Dell are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-78680-7

  Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press

  v3.1

  To Adiel {Mark},

  Gillon {Adam},

  and Omri {Guy}

  And to Valerie and

  all at “Hicklebee’s”

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I am Houdini.

  No, no, no. Not that one—of course not. He’s dead long ago. Besides, he was a human being and I am a hamster. But let me assure you that, as my namesake was no ordinary man, I am no ordinary animal.

  Well, that much is fairly obvious, isn’t it? I mean, what ordinary hamster even knows he’s a hamster? What ordinary hamster can think, reason, observe—in a word, educate himself? Show me the hamster, anywhere, with an intellect, a vocabulary like mine! You can’t. Nor can you show me one that can live with humans on a footing of absolute equality because he can understand their language, and because, quite frankly, he has more brains in his head than most of them have.

  I fear you will think me conceited. I assure you I’m not. It’s merely that I have a just and objective appreciation of my own exceptional qualities. It would be as futile to deny that I am exceptional as it would be for an ordinary hamster to boast that he was my equal.

  Besides, if I were conceited, I would claim to be perfect. I don’t. Certainly not! I have my faults and weaknesses, my moments of frailty. I, too, have made mistakes, succumbed to temptations. But I think I may fairly claim to have built up my character, over the months of my long life, until not many fingers could be pointed at me in accusation. Indisputably I conduct myself with more wisdom, ingenuity, and restraint than many of the humans I see about me—not that that’s saying much.

  Here, then, is the story of my life so far. From it you may judge if I am not, in truth, as extraordinary in my ways as the Great Houdini was in his.

  My birth and infancy are almost lost in the mists of memory. I think I may have begun life in a pet shop. It was certainly a large, cold, airy place, exceedingly smelly. Every now and then I catch a whiff that carries me back to those dimly remembered early days—when a friend of my family brings a dog to the house, for instance, and once when I met a mouse, which I shall tell about in its turn.

  At all events it was not a bad place, and I remember I had companions of my own kind there, who gave me warmth by day when we all cuddled up together to sleep.

  It’s strange that, when I think now about living with other hamsters, I shudder with horror at the idea. With one exception I have never seen another hamster since I became mature. And believe me, I never want to. If I ever did see one, I believe I would be overcome with rage, and fly to attack it. Why this should be, I don’t know, for I have a very calm temper as a rule, and despise those who lose their self-control (something I see all too often in this house, I regret to say). So, whatever I have to complain of in my life, it is not loneliness. I am never lonely.

  My worst trial here was imprisonment. I say “was” because luckily it happens less and less now. The Father is my worst enemy in this respect. He has very fixed ideas about “pets” (as I suppose I must laughingly call myself, taking the human point of view). “Pets are all right in their place,” he keeps on saying. (He does tend to repeat things, a sign of a small mind.) His notion of my place is, of course, my cage, and wherever and whenever he catches me, he grabs me up and stuffs me back through that dreaded little entrance tunnel and claps in the round stopper. He never seems to believe it when the boys tell him I’ve even found a way round that.

  Anyway, it doesn’t worry me too much anymore. The Mother, or one of the children, will soon take pity on me if I just go about it the right way, if I can’t get out by myself. So I just whip up the tubes into my loft, unearth something tasty from my store, and then curl up and go to sleep. I must say it’s quite cozy up there since they put the bits of flannel shirt in, though I much prefer my nest under the kitchen floor. One does tend to prefer a home of one’s own choice, arranged and decorated to suit oneself.

  Here I go, rambling on about the present when I really meant to tell the story of my life. I just wanted to make it crystal clear that I am—well, shall we say, rather unusual? Rambling has always been one of my weaknesses. I just have to follow my nose wherever it takes me—and some fine scrapes it’s led me into, I must say!

  Well, so I am, as I say, a rather extraordinary and quite exceptional “little furry animal,” as some people call anything smaller than a pony that runs around on four legs and can’t actually talk. I call them large hairless animals, and I try to use, in my thought, the same degree of superiority that humans do about us. I must admit that nothing infuriates me more than being treated as a pet, picked up, stroked (usually the wrong way), made to climb or jump or run or whatever it is my supposed owners want—and as for eating from their hands and all that sort of degrading nonsense, I’ve not time for it.

  Mind you, my protest against this sort of thing is, nowadays, limited to trying to avoid it by escaping, which is
my specialty (hence my name). I wouldn’t dream of biting, which I regard as very uncivilized behavior. “Brain, not brawn” is my motto. Besides, they’re so vulnerable with their bare skins, it’s not really sporting when you’ve got jaws and teeth like mine. I won’t say I’ve never bitten anyone, but the feeling of shame I had after letting myself go was awful, not to mention the disgusting taste.…

  Anyway, as I said, I was bought (it sounds so quaint!) from wherever-it-was and brought here at an early age. I wasn’t half the size I am now, and of course, I was entirely ignorant. I didn’t even know that I was a hamster, let alone a golden one—I learned that from listening to the children, whose speech I soon picked up just by keeping my ears open.

  At first I was too agitated to learn anything, however. I well remember my first night here. They put me into a deep cardboard box with some water and grain in separate bowls. I don’t suppose they meant to keep me there.

  They hadn’t bought a cage yet, which was silly of them, because inside ten minutes I had discovered that my claws could get quite an easy grip on the roughish sides of the box, provided I used the corner to give myself purchase as I climbed. It took three or four attempts, but I am nothing if not persevering and I was soon hanging over the top. It looked rather a long way to the floor (amazing, when I think of the heights I can jump now!), but even then I was no coward, and half jumped, half slithered down the outside, headfirst.

  I was in a large, open area, which I now know like the back of my paw, but which was a whole unknown world to me then. Like the idiot I am not, as a rule, I hadn’t stored any of the grain in my cheeks before leaving the box, and now that I was free, I could have done with a morsel of something, but it was too late to think of that. Escape was then, as now, my main objective, and I was about to sample my first taste of real freedom.

  The area was a room that the Father uses as a kind of workshop. Apart from the kitchen, where my nest is, I think it’s now my favorite room in the house, because it is so beautifully untidy. It is full of things to explore and wonderful places to hide, and I spent the rest of that night doing both to my heart’s content. You must remember, I’d never been free before, and I’m certain that this first blissful taste of it was what gave me my lifelong passion for escape, concealment, and exploration.

  I climbed into toolboxes and under heaps of sacking, clambered up a big soft mountain that turned out to be a battered armchair, and fell off into a wastepaper basket (fortunately wicker—those smooth-sided metal ones are death traps to me). I ran behind huge bits of furniture and took a quick nap under a lovely warm radiator (after foolishly trying to climb up it and burning my paws. I was always very wary of sources of heat after that).

  I made several attempts to climb the telephone wire, and got so exasperated because I couldn’t that I eventually chewed it right through. I chewed quite a lot of other things as well. I didn’t know any better in those days, or for quite a while afterward, to tell the truth. I’m afraid those teeth of mine, with their constant need of being worn down lest they grow through my skin, led me to be very destructive when I was young. I’ve often made excuses for the Father’s intolerant attitude to me because of this. But of course I didn’t know anything about destructiveness then. When I saw something chewable, I just chewed, and I chewed a fair amount that first night, I can tell you. Apart from anything else, I was trying to find something to eat.

  Eventually the obvious solution occurred to me. I went back to the box. It wasn’t hard to find, even in that vast area, because of the delicious smells of food and water pouring over the top of it. I didn’t think I could climb back into it because the corners were the wrong sort from outside, but I walked round it and found they’d carelessly left it standing against a pile of telephone directories. Of course I was up these like a flight of steps, plopped back into the box, had a long drink, and stuffed my cheeks till they would hold no more. It was a lot harder to climb out with all that load weighing me down, but determination won the day and soon I was safe and warm under the radiator, having a good feast before settling down for my day’s well-earned sleep.

  Well, I didn’t sleep long, needless to say. I had hardly dozed off before an appalling hullabaloo broke out in the vicinity of my abandoned box.

  “He’s gone! Goldy’s gone!” shrieked Guy, who was then only five. He’d come to say good morning to me before going to school and, finding me gone, fell into an uproar. Floods of tears, wails, and cries—dear me, it was all very unpleasant and deplorable. I knew nothing about the modern child in those days and was both alarmed and shocked. (I seem to remember now that my Mother used to nip us if we so much as squeaked. Perhaps that’s why I hardly ever utter a sound.)

  His two brothers, Mark and Adam (as I later learned were their names), came running in, followed by the Mother. A search was put in hand, and I would have been speedily found if I had not scurried off, keeping to the wall, which was luckily blocked in by furniture for most of its length, to a tailor-made hiding place I had noted the night before. I had not chosen it for my day nest for two reasons. One, I hadn’t known I was in any danger, so security had not seemed more important than warmth and comfort. Two, it was dirty. I never liked the smell of dust, and I am fastidious, so I have never ventured into dirty places except in an emergency. But this was one—I could see the Mother’s feet bearing down on me across the wooden floor—so I just slipped through a hole in the baseboard and found myself in a drafty dark cave.

  Instinct told me I was now perfectly safe. There were so many places I could have been concealed that, to the boys’ rage and dismay, the Mother soon told them that the hunt was hopeless. They were bundled off to school, bitterly complaining, and Guy still, alas, in tears. Later in my life I gained enough sensibility to feel uneasy if I had made any of the children sad, but at that time I had no room in my heart for anything but selfish satisfaction that I had evaded them.

  I made a rough nest for myself in the inch-deep fluff, put my nose between my back legs, and fell instantly asleep.

  Chapter 2

  I was captured again the same night.

  I had made the mistake of de-cheeking all the grain I had brought from the box, storing it under the radiator, where I had had to leave it when I ran to the hole. So when I woke up in the evening, I was starving. I remembered at once where the food was and, cautiously emerging from my hiding place, crept back along the wall to reclaim my little hoard.

  It was gone.

  True, I found two or three grains of wheat and one sunflower seed, which I gobbled up. There was still a strong smell of food, so I poked my nose out from under the radiator and saw a trail of grain leading temptingly off into the distance—right across the open floor. Fool that I was (then), I trotted obligingly out to collect up this trail, but was scarcely halfway along when I was pounced on.

  I got the fright of my life, and I may be forgiven for trying to bite on that occasion—anyone would have done the same. But the Father (it was he who had trapped me) had a thick glove on, and my teeth were not then what they are now. Holding me firmly, he carried me some distance and then put me down.

  I stopped hissing (I no longer hiss when enraged, but most primitive hamsters do—it is a danger signal) and looked around. I was in a deep plastic bin with straight, shiny walls. I didn’t bother to entertain the Father, who was hanging over the top watching me, by trying to climb them—one look showed me it was useless. I simply crouched where I was, seething with fury. After a while the giant head above me vanished, and I heard his voice calling the children.

  Soon their three faces were hanging above me. They were all grinning with excitement.

  “How did you catch him, Daddy?” (Of course I didn’t understand the actual words then, but my imagination must be allowed some rein here.)

  This question, put by Adam, was followed by the Father’s self-satisfied description of his brilliant coup. Meanwhile Guy’s little hand crept toward me, fingers temptingly extended. The middle one, as it app
roached my face, was just the perfect diameter for my mouth to enclose, and it must be remembered, in mitigation of the crime I then committed, that I had just been caught and imprisoned by one too big and well-gloved for me to revenge myself on. Nevertheless it was nothing less than wicked of me to sink my teeth into that little bare fingertip and I cannot now think of it without shame.

  The truly awful shriek that followed simply shattered my nerves. I think it was the noise, more than the taste, that taught me my first lesson in manners. The Mother rushed in and carried Guy off. Adam and Mark began scolding me. The commotion was terrifying. Though I couldn’t then make out the exact words, I knew that everyone was angry with me, and that the Father was threatening me. All my own anger had melted away into fear and confusion.

  I cowered down, but the inside of the plastic garbage can (that was where he’d put me) offered no hiding place and I felt dreadfully exposed. Nothing is worse than having nowhere to hide. Even my eyes were hurt by the bright light, and I shut them. After a while the hubbub died down. I ventured to look up. The rim of the bin, far above me, was blank—all the faces had gone. I felt frightened and miserable. I ran around a few times and put my front paws up against those slippery unclimbable sides. No use. I crouched there, filled with a sense of hopelessness, for I had no experience to fall back on that might have told me what to expect.

  I had fallen into a miserable half-sleep when something soft fell on me. Opening my eyes with a jerk of fright, I found myself covered with some light, soft stuff, which blocked off some of the light and gave me the feeling of being safe and hidden. I began at once to make a nest in it.

  Once, I glanced up. The Mother was hanging over the rim, watching me. She spoke to me, but not harshly. Considering I’d recently bitten her young one, I realize now she was showing a very forgiving nature. Also an understanding one, for when her natural anger cooled, she had realized what I needed most—bedding—and had given me some paper shavings.