The Great Pet Plan

by Rebecca Johnson

  Getting the cat to Chelsea’s place is a little trickier. Even though Shredder has calmed down enough to let us pat her, she doesn’t seem keen to get into the pet cage and runs around the room hissing at us when we try to catch her. After we have both been scratched a couple of times we get a little cross. Being a vet can be dangerous.

  We sit on my bed to figure out what to do.

  ‘I know this sounds a bit cruel,’ Chelsea says after a while, ‘but I don’t suppose we could lure her in using the rats?’

  At first I am horrified. The poor rats would probably have heart attacks. But we’ve been at it for over an hour and we still aren’t even close to getting Shredder into the cage.

  I hesitate. ‘I guess if the rats can’t see the cat, it won’t be so bad.’

  We make a plan. I run to the cage of rats that is still hidden around the side of the house. I lift them out, put them in a pillowslip from the linen cupboard, and tie the pillowcase up tightly. Then I creep back into my room.

  We set the trap. The pet cage has a door at either end. We open both ends and wave the pillowcase gently in front of the cat.

  At first Shredder just takes a swipe at the bag, but then she must smell the rats because suddenly her eyes go all huge and she starts slinking across the floor. Chelsea gently drags the pillowcase in front of her.

  ‘Here, puss, puss, puss,’ she whispers.

  As Shredder moves towards the cage, we put our plan into action. I sit at the other end, ready to receive the pillowcase. Chelsea passes it through the pet cage and I reach in from the back. Slowly, Shredder follows, flicking her long black tail, her eyes never leaving the pillowcase.

  ‘Now!’ I yelp, when Shredder is all the way in. I pull the pillowcase out the back door and slam it shut. Chelsea slams the front door shut. Trapped!

  Shredder growls angrily and tries to claw her way out of the cage. We bolt both ends and high-five.

  ‘Nice animal training, Chelsea,’ I laugh.

  ‘Why, thank you,’ she bows.

  We wait until Chelsea’s mum takes the boys to footy training, then smuggle the cat into Chelsea’s room. Afterwards, we settle the snake and the slightly-more-excited rats into my room.

  ‘There,’ I say with a smile as we stand back and survey our work. ‘What was so hard about that?’

  I have the worst night’s sleep. The rats make loud gnawing sounds while they eat, and they spend the whole night rattling around in their cage. At least I worked out why Gilligan bites (see below).

  Noodle the snake has been very quiet. He seems happy curled up in his sack in the bottom of the tank that his owner, Millie, brought him in. I hope he has a bigger tank and a heat lamp where he lives. I think I am going to have to speak to Millie when she comes back to make sure she knows how to properly care for a snake. It’s part of a vet’s responsibility, you know.

  The sound of the rooster crowing wakes everyone up at 4.30 a.m. The parrot on the verandah joins in, followed by Dad yelling, ‘Which one of our neighbours bought a rooster?’

  I must admit the rooster is amazingly loud. The metal pool walls make the sound echo, which seems to encourage him. This makes BOTH parrots screech excitedly as the world around them wakes. ‘Cracker, cracker, Bingo wants a cracker!’

  My first thought is how pleased Tahlia will be when she finds out Bingo is talking at last. Some animals can take a little longer to learn things, you know.

  I am about to reach for my Vet Diary to jot this down when I hear Dad go thundering down the hall. I jump out of my warm bed and head for the back door, but Dad blocks my way.

  ‘Do you know anything about that rooster?’ he snaps.

  I look up at him. He glares down at me. ‘Ummmm,’ I stall. ‘I’ll just go and see, will I? You go back to bed, Dad. I’m sure it’s just passing through.’

  I slip out from under his gaze, but I know there’s no way he is going to let this go.

  Mum isn’t much happier when I meet her on the back verandah. She’s just tried to send Max back to bed, but now that he’s woken up he doesn’t want to go. He is in the hall whining, ‘I can’t find my rubber dinosaur egg that grows when you put it in water.’ He wants to check my room and chucks a full tantrum when I say he can’t.

  ‘You’ve got such a one-track mind!’ I snap. ‘All you ever think about is dinosaurs. My room is being decorated, so you can’t go in. Can’t you hear I’ve got enough to worry about?’

  The rooster crows again and the birds squawk. Max runs off crying and looking for Dad.

  I race back into my bedroom to get my dressing gown and Vet Diary and see that I was right again; I did have more than enough to worry about. The rats have chewed a hole through the plastic top of their cage and are gone!

  I look around. They have to be somewhere in here but I’ll have to worry about that later. My first job is dealing with the rooster.

  I run outside and look up at Chelsea’s room. Her light is on. I call her name and she comes to the window. I mouth ‘HELP’ and point to the pool.

  Mum and Dad are at the back fence apologising to the people who live behind us.

  Chelsea is straight over and we climb in over the side of the pool and sit together in the dark as I hold the rooster with my hand over his eyes.

  ‘They only crow when they see the sun rising,’ I explain to Chelsea. ‘If I keep Frazzle’s eyes in the dark, he’ll be quiet.’ Well, I hope he will, anyway.

  ‘You really are nearly a vet,’ smiles Chelsea proudly. She grabs my Vet Diary and scribbles down a few observations.

  I can hear that the parrots on the verandah are wide awake now and still at it. They really do seem very keen for a cracker. Chelsea is as pleased as I am that Bingo has found his voice.

  ‘SHUT THOSE BIRDS UP NOW OR I’LL “CRACKER” YOU OVER THE HEAD!’ someone yells from across the street.

  ‘Does the dark thing work for all birds?’ Chelsea asks as she leaps over the side of the pool and grabs a sheet from Mum’s washing line. She is on our back verandah in no time and throws the sheet over the birdcage.

  There is instant silence.

  ‘That might keep them quiet for a while,’ she puffs as she clambers back in over the side of the pool, trying not to tear her floral nightie. ‘Do you think we should try to find some crackers?’

  We can’t help but giggle a bit. Then we hear footsteps approaching. We both look up over the edge of the pool to see my parents glaring down at us.

  ‘The owner said it hardly ever crowed!’ I blurt.

  Dad finally snaps.

  ‘First we get extra guinea pigs, then the cracker-obsessed birds, now a rooster. When I said no more pets, Juliet, I meant it!’

  I look up at my parents and swallow hard. It’s Chelsea who speaks first.

  ‘Actually, Mr Fletcher, they’re not our pets. We’re just looking after them for one night and then they’ll go straight back to their owners, we promise. If you have a pet, it means you own it. We’re just looking after these animals to improve our skills.’

  I look at Mum. She shakes her head. ‘Juliet, you should’ve told us about the rooster.’ She rubs one hand over her eyes. ‘Honestly, I think we’ve had enough surprises for one morning.’

  She walks back towards the house. ‘I’m putting the kettle on,’ she says over her shoulder. Dad blows his nose loudly, gives us a final glare and follows her inside, mumbling something about ‘a ridiculous cacophony to wake up to’.

  Chelsea turns to me and says brightly, ‘That went quite well, really.’

  The look on my face must tell her otherwise because her smile vanishes instantly.

  I am almost afraid to tell her. ‘Oh Chelsea,’ I whisper, ‘the rats got out last night and I can’t find them anywhere!’

  Her face turns white as I try to explain. ‘They’d been gnawing and gnawing and I thought they were just eating their food, but when I looked this morning they’d chewed right through the plastic of their cage. I should’ve got up to check but I was just s
o tired.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, patting my back. ‘I had a terrible night, too. Shredder was so unsettled and she scratched and pawed at the door for ages. She still hasn’t eaten anything.’

  We both sigh. Being a vet and a trainer is tough.

  The sun is up now, so we let the rooster go and he goes back to scratching and clucking with the hen. Back in my room, we shut the door and look everywhere for the rats.

  I have my head under the bed when Chelsea whispers, ‘Shhh, I can hear something.’

  Sure enough, there is a rustling sound coming from the toy box.

  ‘Ha!’ I laugh. ‘They’re going to have to find a better spot to hide if they want to fool us.’

  I reach in and start to feel around. Something moves near my hand and I grab it. It’s hard to say who gets the bigger fright. I scream at the top of my lungs, which of course makes Chelsea scream. Noodle the snake swings around angrily as I drop him back into the toy box. I think he would have screamed, too, if he could.

  Chelsea and I have stopped screaming by the time Mum comes running in to see what’s wrong. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  My hand is shaking as I point to the carpet snake coiled up in the toy box.

  I look at Mum and then at the huge lump in Noodle’s stomach, and I start to cry. Working with animals can be very emotional.

  ‘Juliet!’ she gasps. My mother stands there, shaking her head in disbelief. Her eyebrows climb and her jaw drops when she realises we are standing amongst several animal cages and boxes.

  ‘Noodle must have pushed up under the glass lid of his tank,’ I sob. ‘I know I put it back on last night.’

  ‘Juliet! What on earth were you thinking?’ Mum looks from cage to cage. ‘And what is that awful smell? Is there a cat in here, too?’

  ‘I needed to practise being a vet,’ I blubber, grabbing Chelsea’s arm for support. ‘And Chelsea needed to practise training animals. And now Gilligan and Skipper have been eaten and it’s all . . . my . . . fault.’

  ‘Gilligan and Skipper?’

  ‘Rats,’ says Chelsea, shrugging her shoulders apologetically.

  Mum peers into the toy box at the snake. It lifts its head and tastes the air with its bluish tongue. Mum grabs a coat hanger from the floor and carefully hooks it under the snake’s body, lifting it out of the box. It’s very cool that Mum isn’t at all afraid. Vets need to be brave. You should see her handle huge bulls.

  Max comes charging into the room. ‘I want someone to help me NOW!’ he yells. ‘I’ve been looking and looking for my . . .’

  He stops, his mouth agape as he spots the snake. ‘How come Juliet gets a snake? Can I have a snake, too? Can I have an anaconda?’

  At least he isn’t asking for a dinosaur.

  Mum turns her attention to us. ‘I think you might be about to learn how to make a bad-news phonecall, girls,’ she sighs as she looks down at the snake’s swollen tummy. ‘That’s part of a vet’s job, too, you know.’

  I wipe my eyes and look closely at the snake. ‘Maybe one rat got away?’ I suggest hopefully. ‘It’s not a very big lump, is it? Maybe we’ll find the other one and only have to tell Ethan about one of his rats?’

  Mum reaches down and gently feels the lump in Noodle’s stomach. ‘You might be right there, Juliet,’ she says at last. ‘It does only seem to be one lump. I’ll take the snake over to a cage in my surgery where it can’t escape again. You’d better start looking for the other rat. You know Dad hates them.’

  ‘Can I look too?’ says Max excitedly, glancing around the room. ‘I’ve got just the thing.’

  He comes back with a plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex and starts making loud snarling noises. ‘I’ll scare it out of hiding with this guy.’

  Just what we need.

  We search all morning but have no luck. At one stage, Mum thinks she can smell rats in the linen cupboard but it is just the pillowslip from yesterday. She isn’t too happy about that either.

  ‘I guess I should have put it in the wash, not back in the cupboard,’ I whisper to Chelsea. She pulls a face and gags a bit.

  At lunchtime Chelsea remembers Shredder.

  ‘We’d better go and check her,’ I say. ‘We’re lucky your mum hasn’t heard her meowing.’

  We race over to Chelsea’s house. Her mum is in the back yard hanging out more washing. Her brothers are wrestling on an old mattress on the grass. No wonder nobody has heard the cat. We tiptoe into her bedroom.

  We can’t see Shredder anywhere.

  ‘Not again,’ I groan, dropping onto Chelsea’s bed. ‘I can’t take any more bad news.’

  Panic starts to well up in my chest. This is not going the way we’d planned. It isn’t like this for Mum when I watch her work.

  I slump down on the bed and hold my head in my hands. Chelsea gloomily sits down beside me.

  A faint purring noise breaks the silence. We look down into the small space between Chelsea’s bed and the wall and see the loveliest thing a vet could see.

  Shredder is looking up at us, and beside her is a tiny grey kitten with a little white spot in the middle of its tail.

  ‘Shredder’s had a kitten!’ Chelsea gasps excitedly. We peer down at the new baby.

  ‘Oh, Chelsea, it’s adorable!’

  Chelsea and I reach down and gently lift the quilt with Shredder and her tiny kitten onto the bed.

  At that moment Chelsea’s mum comes in with a basket of washing in her hands. When Mrs O’Sullivan sees the kitten on the quilt, she drops the basket on the floor and covers her mouth with her hands.

  ‘Not more washing!’

  Chelsea and I laugh. Something nice has happened today at last!

  ‘Here you go, Mrs O’Sullivan,’ I say, and hold it out gently.

  She opens her mouth to protest, but then reaches for the little grey ball. She holds it against her cheek and closes her eyes. Shredder purrs proudly.

  I race home to get Mum.

  Okay, she is a little surprised to see the cat in Chelsea’s room, but after she’s checked Shredder and the kitten and had a cup of tea with Chelsea’s mum, we can hear them both laughing.

  We tuck the little feline family safely into a box with a clean towel and shut the door. I make a few more quick notes in my Vet Diary.

  ‘We’d better head back to your house and keep looking for the rat,’ suggests Chelsea. ‘Maybe our luck has changed?’

  ‘Let’s just check Noodle before we go,’ I say, running for Mum’s surgery. The surgery is my favourite place to be in the whole world. I love looking at all the shiny equipment and little jars of medicines and things. Noodle seems content enough. He’s curled around a log under a warm lamp. Mum has put a bowl of water in the cage for him as well.

  ‘That’s funny,’ I say as I look closely at the lump in the snake’s stomach. ‘Does that lump look bigger to you?’

  Chelsea reluctantly agrees that it does. ‘Maybe he ate both the rats after all?’

  ‘I think we need to monitor this,’ I say.

  I whip out my Vet Diary and hand it to Chelsea. ‘Can you write down these measurements, please?’

  I take a tape measure from Mum’s drawer and carefully wrap it around the fattest part of the snake. He doesn’t seem to mind and keeps on sleeping.

  ‘His girth is twenty-seven centimetres,’ I say.

  Chelsea checks her watch and writes it down.

  We watch Noodle for a few more minutes.

  ‘Come on,’ I sigh. ‘I’ll feel so much better if we can at least find the other rat.’

  We start at one end of the house and make our way from one room to the next.

  ‘Let’s do Max’s bedroom next,’ I say.

  It is pretty hard to see anything except for dinosaurs and a large cardboard box in the middle of the floor.

  ‘It’s so scary – any rat that ventured in here would have to be blind,’ Chelsea giggles. ‘It’s like a prehistoric jungle mixed with a junk yard.’

  ‘Hey!�
� says Max as he pops up from behind the bed. He is wearing camouflage clothes. His short black hair is standing up all over his head and he has blacked out his whole face with what smells like Vegemite.

  ‘It’s not a junk yard,’ he says. ‘Don’t you see? It’s the perfect rat trap. I’ve put dog pellets in a small dish inside the box. The rat will come into the room, attracted by the smell of food. It’ll see all the dinosaurs and be afraid, and run for the darkness of the box.’

  Max hides his face, pretending to be a frightened rat.

  ‘Then the rat will get hungry. There’s a string under the dish of food which is attached to the front of the box. When the food gets eaten, the dish will get lighter and the string will slip out from under it.’

  He is getting more and more excited now.

  ‘The trapdoor will shut and Brachiosaurus, the heaviest land dinosaur ever to roam the Earth, will fall in front of the door and the rat will be trapped!’

  Max stands with his hands on his hips, smiling proudly, his white teeth appearing from between blackened lips. Maybe he is smarter than he looks.

  ‘Max,’ I laugh, ‘those dinosaurs may actually come in handy after all.’

  But by four o’clock we’ve searched the entire house and are ready to give up. There isn’t anywhere left to look. At one stage in the hunt, we hear an excited cheer come from Max’s room, only to discover he has caught Curly’s head in his trap. Now we are all sitting side by side on the back stairs. Max is scraping the Vegemite off his face with a cracker and eating it.

  ‘The rat’s probably escaped outside by now,’ sighs Chelsea.

  Curly licks his furry lips and stares at Max’s cracker in anticipation.

  ‘We’d better go and find Mum and tell her our bad news,’ I say.

  Mum is sitting at the computer in her surgery when we come in. She holds her glasses in her hand and is rubbing her eyes. She looks an awful lot like someone who’s been woken up by a rooster before sunrise.