Try as he would, Jenius could not keep his upper eye shut. Under the rasp of the cat’s tongue the eyelid was pulled back, and he saw, only inches away, a nightmare face. A merciless face it was, with glowing yellow eyes and a wide mouth filled with sharp white teeth. Despite himself, Jenius gave a little shudder.
‘Aha!’ hissed the cat. ‘Not dead after all!’ and he opened that wide mouth. But before he could close it again, a clod of earth hit him on the ear and a furious voice yelled, ‘Scat!’ as Judy came galloping to the rescue. She knelt among the lettuce plants beside the motionless figure of the Jenius.
‘It’s all right!’ she cried. ‘He’s gone. You can get up now.’
As always she used the system of praise-and-reward by which she had trained him.
‘What a good boy!’ she said, and from the pocket of her dungarees she took one of his favourite digestive biscuits and broke off a bit. Jenius did not move. Now it was Judy’s blood that ran cold. Fearfully she lifted the limp body. There was no mark upon it, no blood to be seen. Could he have died of shock?
‘Jenius!’ cried Judy frantically in his ear. ‘Speak to me. Speak!’
Even though he had fainted with fear at the sheer horror of the experience, the sound of a familiar command was enough to bring him to his senses.
Feebly, through that unchewed mouthful of lettuce, the Jenius obediently uttered a single strangled squeak.
It was a much-reduced Jenius that Judy replaced in his hutch, and when Molly asked: ‘Had a nice walk, dear?’ he did not answer.
‘What’s the matter, son?’ said Joe. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
7
A Bit of a Bighead
AUGUST 26th: Jenius escaped a horribel Death!
Jenius had no intention of escaping again. He had had the fright of his life and, for a little while, his parents were spared their son’s bragging and they could enjoy some early nights.
But before long he forgot, and his natural cockiness returned, particularly when he at last mastered the most difficult trick of the exercises that Judy set him. This was the ending to the trick called ‘Trust’.
Not only had he to balance a piece of biscuit on the end of his nose, but then, when Judy said ‘Paid for!’, he had to toss up the food with a jerk of his head and catch it in his mouth.
Jenius never tired of telling his mother and father how easy this trick was.
‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘I’m the only guinea pig in the world who can do it, I’m sure of that.’
‘Very nice, dear,’ said Molly absently.
‘Pride,’ muttered Joe darkly, ‘comes before a fall.’
SEPTEMBER 3rd: Jenius has quite recovered. Tomorrow is the last day of the Hollidays and I am going to give him a Test. I am going the to make him do all the things he has been taut and he has got to do them correcktly and I shall give him marks for his performants in each one.
SEPTEMBER 4th: Jenius lived up to his name! he performed perfictly and got Full Marks and I am going to ask my teacher if I can take him to school and show them how briliant he is and how briliantly I have trained him. I’m the only person in the World who could have done it, I’m sure of that.
Jenius, it must be said, was not the only one who had become a bit of a bighead, and by the end of the first day back at school everyone in the class was fed up with hearing how clever both he and Judy were. Before long Judy’s teacher too had had enough.
‘Judy,’ she said. ‘You don’t really expect us to believe all this, do you?’
‘Yes,’ said Judy. ‘It’s true.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what. You bring this amazing animal of yours into school and then you can show us all these tricks that you say he can do.’
At once everyone wanted to get in on the act and bring their pet to school.
‘Oh, can I bring my rabbit?’
‘. . . my gerbil?’
‘. . . my hamster?’
‘. . . my budgie?’
Until the teacher said: ‘All right. We’ll have a Pets’ Day. You can each bring a pet in to school, provided you bring it in a cage or a box – we don’t want anything too big, mind, no Shetland Ponies or Great Danes. Who knows, Judy, someone else may have a clever animal too.’
Judy laughed. ‘Not as clever as Jenius,’ she said scornfully. ‘Not possibly. You just wait and see.’
8
Pets’ Day
Like most people who keep diaries, Judy wrote in hers each evening. But as soon as she woke on the morning that had been chosen for Pets’ Day, she opened it.
SEPTEMBER 11th: Today it if Pets’ Day at school! Jenius will tryumph! * Watch this space! *
At breakfast time she could not contain herself. Till now she had said nothing to her parents – as she had sworn on July 23rd – of the progress of the Jenius, but she just knew she would not be able to resist describing the success that was to come before another hour had passed.
‘What d’you think is happening today?’ she said.
‘You’re going to be late for school,’ said her mother, ‘if you don’t hurry up. And clean your shoes before you go. And take your anorak – it looks like rain.’
‘I’m taking Jenius to school,’ said Judy.
‘Very nice, dear,’ said her mother. ‘Now, do you want an apple or a banana in your lunch box?’
‘Apple,’ said Judy. ‘Dad, did you hear what I said?’
‘I did,’ said her father from behind his morning paper. ‘Will he have to start in the Infants or is he clever enough to go straight into your class?’
‘Oh Dad!’ cried Judy. ‘Honestly, I really have trained him,’ and she rattled off a list of the things that Jenius could do.
‘Judy,’ said her father. ‘You don’t really expect us to believe all this, do you?’
‘Yes,’ said Judy. ‘It’s true.’
Her father folded his newspaper.
‘Now look here,’ he said. ‘Playing pretend games with your precious pet is one thing. But you mustn’t confuse fantasy with truth.’
There was hardly room to move in Judy’s classroom that morning.
Everywhere there were hutches and cages and baskets and boxes containing pets. Only the Jenius was free, sitting perfectly still in front of Judy.
Judy’s teacher saw what seemed to her a rather odd-looking whitish guinea pig, with a crest of reddish hair sticking up along its back, and said: ‘Is this the genius we’ve heard such a lot about?’
‘Yes,’ said Judy proudly. ‘Shall I show you what he can do?’
‘All right,’ said her teacher. ‘Put him on that big table in the middle of the room where everyone can see him.’
Ranged around the edges of the big table were several pet-containers: a couple of hamster-cages, a glass jar that held stick insects and a square basket that had one open side barred with metal rods.
Fate decreed that Judy should put the Jenius down quite near to this basket and facing it, and though no one else could see what was in it, he could. He looked through the bars and saw a face, a merciless face, with glowing yellow eyes and a wide mouth filled with sharp white teeth.
In fact the occupant of the basket was only a half-grown kitten, but the sight of it turned Jenius’s legs to jelly and scrambled his brains. He was so frightened that he promptly Died For His Country, and there he lay, quite still and barely breathing. He could hear Judy’s voice saying, ‘Come!’ and then, more loudly, ‘Jenius! Come!!’ Then he heard a rising tide of noise which was the whole class first sniggering, then giggling, and finally laughing their heads off at clever Judy and her clever guinea pig, about which she had boasted so loud and long. But he could not move a muscle.
‘The great animal trainer!’ someone said, and they laughed even more.
‘Perhaps that will teach you a lesson, Judy,’ said the teacher at last. ‘He doesn’t seem to be quite the genius you told us he was. You mustn’t confuse fantasy with truth.’
9
Eat Your Hat
&nbs
p; ‘How did you get on, dear, your first day at school?’ said Molly that evening.
‘Need you ask?’ growled Joe. ‘You were top of the class, weren’t you, son? Got full marks for everything? Performed perfectly, eh?’
‘No,’ said the Jenius in a small choked voice. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘Well well well,’ said Joe. ‘The only guinea pig in the world who can do all those tricks and he didn’t do anything. I quite expected you to tell us you did something fantastic . . . Hopping like a rabbit perhaps. Or flying like a bird, I shouldn’t be surprised.’
Judy came in at that moment with a bunch of dandelions, to hear Joe and Molly making an awful racket. She thought they were yelling for food as usual but actually they were in fits of laughter.
‘Flying! Oh Joe, you are a scream!’ squealed Molly, and Joe, snorting with mirth, chuckled, ‘Pride comes before a crash-landing!’
A few minutes later Judy’s father, home from work, put his head in at the door of the shed.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘And did our genius perform all his amazing tricks?’
‘No,’ said Judy. ‘He wouldn’t do anything.’
‘Perhaps that will teach you a lesson, Judy,’ said her father.
Judy took a deep breath.
‘Perhaps it has, Dad,’ she said. ‘But I wouldn’t like you to think I was a liar.’
‘It’s difficult for me not to think that,’ said her father, ‘when you tell me such fantastic things. For instance, that your guinea pig can balance something on his nose and then throw it up and catch it. If he can do that, I’ll eat my hat, I promise you.’
‘Watch,’ said Judy. She took a digestive out of her pocket and broke a piece off. She opened the door of Jenius’s hutch.
‘Come!’ she said, and he came.
‘Sit!’ she said, and he sat.
Carefully she placed the fragment of biscuit on top of Jenius’s snout.
‘Trust!’ she said, and he remained sitting bolt upright and stock-still for perhaps ten seconds, till Judy cried, ‘Paid for!’
Up in the air sailed the bit of digestive and down it came again, straight into the open mouth of the Jenius.
‘What a good boy!’ said Judy. ‘Now you can eat it up.’
She turned to her father, who was bending down, hands on knees, watching in open-mouthed amazement, hat in hand. She took it from him.
‘And you,’ she said, ‘can eat that.’
THE BEGINNING
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First published by Victor Gollancz Ltd 1988
Published in Puffin Books 1998
Published in this edition 2004
Text copyright © Fox Busters Ltd, 1988
Illustrations copyright © Ann Kronheimer, 2004
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ISBN: 978-0-241-42145-1
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The Jenius Page 2
