by Ted Staunton
Morgan’s Pet Plot
Ted Staunton
Illustrations by Bill Slavin
Formac Publishing Company Limited
1
Playing With Godzilla
It’s almost ten o’clock on Saturday morning. Any second now the whistle is going to blow. The gym is full of the clack of floor-hockey sticks and the whump of sneakers. Voices yell,“Over, over, get it!” “Here! Here!”
Everybody’s yelling because the score is tied and my best friend Charlie has stolen the puck.
I’m on Charlie’s team this week. I’d go help him, but if I stay here, I’ll be first to the pop machine after the game. Besides, I’m not Joe Superstar the way he is.
“HEY!”
“WATCH IT!”
“YOWWWWW!”
Now they’re yelling because Aldeen Hummel is after Charlie. Aldeen is the Godzilla of Grade Three. When she starts whanging her stick around, it doesn’t matter what team anybody is on.
“Holy — ”
“Look out!”
“Whoah!”
Now they’re yelling because Charlie has deked out Kaely and — oh-oh — passed to me. I’m wide open in the corner. The orange puck comes scritching across the gym.
“GET HIM!”
Whump, whump, whump, whump. Oh, no. Aldeen is in the lead, all red in the face.
Her eyes are squinched behind her steamed-up glasses. Her witchy hair is bouncing twenty different ways. Her arms and legs are flying around in her purple sweatsuit, as if she’s made of elastic bands. She’s carrying her floor-hockey stick like a battle-axe.
I’m ready to wet my pants — I really am — when the whistle blows.
Everybody stops and groans.
“Good game, everybody!” calls Dave, the community-centre guy.
“Lucky for you, lard-butt,” Aldeen says to me.
I’m already on my way to the pop machine. Dave hands out yellow papers as we go by. I take one for later. Right now, root beer is more important than reading.
“Hey Charlie,” I call as soon as I get my drink, “wanta come over this aft?”
“I can’t,” he says. “We’re going to get our new puppy.”
Oh yeah, I forgot. Charlie is getting a dog. Rats. I’ll have to find somebody else.
“Hey,” snorts Aldeen, “I’m coming over, remember?”
Oh, rats. I remember. We go outside. My dad is waiting in the car. When we get in, I look at the yellow paper. PRIZES! it says, FUN! FUN! FUN! ENTER THE COMMUNITY CENTRE PET SHOW!
Pets? Who needs one? Godzilla plays at my house.
2
A Pet Project
I think that Aldeen thinks she’s my friend ever since she came to my birthday party. Mom made me invite her.
Now Aldeen comes over sometimes when her mom has to be at work. Saturday she stays at our house till suppertime. She cheats at every game we play and still gets to choose what video we watch. By the time her mom picks her up in their rumbly, crumbly car, I feel squished.
Sunday afternoon I want to do some real playing. I call up Charlie.
“Sorry Morgan, I can’t play today,” he says. “We’re busy with the puppy. You can come see her tomorrow.”
I can hear all this yipping and squealing. “Not again!” somebody groans.
Charlie is laughing as I hang up.
I call Mark, Ian, Luke, Sam, Jordan and Zack. Everybody’s busy.
“Phone Aldeen,” Mom suggests. I think Mom thinks Aldeen is my friend, too.
I say, “I just played with her yesterday.”
Aldeen and I are not buds, no matter what Mom thinks. Real buds are me and Charlie. Except now Charlie can’t play because he has a pet. Rats.
I stuff my hands in my pockets. There’s something in there. I pull out the pet show paper from the community centre. I think about making it into a paper airplane, but it’s all crumpled. Besides, I have a better idea.
“Mo-om,” I call, “Can we get a pet?”
Mom is in the kitchen, ironing. I like the kitchen. Eating is a hobby of mine.
“What do you want a pet for?” she asks.
“It would be cool. I could play with it. And we could put it in the pet show.” I show her the paper.
“Mm-hmm,” says Mom. Mm-hmm means “probably no.”
“Charlie got a new puppy,” I tell her.
“He did?” says Dad, coming in. He gets out cookies for us. Excellent. “Every kid should have a dog. It’s an important part of growing up.”
“Yeah!” I take my cookie.
Mom says, “Pets are a lot of work. Who’d look after it?”
“I will!” I say, chewing.
Mom lifts an eyebrow. “Sweetie, you don’t even pick up your toys.”
“Maybe this would help Morgan learn to,” Dad says. “Teach him some responsibility.”
“Yeah,” I say and sneak another cookie.
“Mm-hmm,” says Mom. To me she says, “We’ll see.”
3
Rattlesnakes and Retrievers
Monday morning, everybody in Mrs. Ross’ class is talking about the pet show. I tell them I’m getting a pet, too. Okay, so I’m only maybe getting a pet, but I can’t help it; it just bloops out.
Nobody goes, “Whooah, cool!” or anything, but Charlie stops talking about his puppy and asks, “What are you getting?”
Before I can answer, Aldeen butts in. “I’m getting one too.”
“Oh yeah,” someone snickers.
Aldeen gets her Queen of Mean look. Kids shut up. You live longer that way. “I am. I’m getting a horse.”
Talk about lying. As we go to our desks someone whispers, “I bet she gets a rattlesnake.”
We’re still giggling about it now, as Charlie and I walk to his place after school. We’re going to play with his puppy.
Charlie’s puppy is a golden retriever. Her name is Roxy. She’s got floppy ears and big feet, compared to the rest of her, and she’s, well, golden.
She’s also squirmy, slobbery and panty, and she likes to climb on Charlie and chew stuff. When she runs across the kitchen floor her legs windmill like Aldeen at floor hockey.
“Can she go fetch and do tricks?” I ask Charlie.
“Not yet,” he says, “But I’m going to teach her.”
Cool, I think. I can see me and my dog playing with Charlie and his dog, doing tricks and playing catch and stuff.
My dog will be one of those big, shaggy ones about the size of a polar bear, with hair down over his eyes. Or no, an Arctic husky dog. He could pull me around on my toboggan.
I want to tell Charlie all about it, except I have to sneeze first, and Roxy is chewing on my shoe.
“Ah-ah-CHOO!”
I push Roxy off. She licks my hand as if it’s ice cream.
“Ah-AH-CHOOO!”
I reach up to wipe my nose. My hand is itching. I scratch and wipe, and now my nose is itching. So is my other hand. So are my eyes.
“AH-AH-AH-CHOOOO!”
“Wow, Morgan,” says Charlie’s brother, “I think you’re allergic to dogs.”
4
Decisions, Decisions
I have to go home. Mom makes me have a bath, and my clothes go in the wash to get rid of dog hair. After a bit I stop sneezing.
“Do you still want a pet?” Mom asks at supper.
Darn right, I still want a pet. I have to have a pet now. I mean, I can’t play at Charlie’s anymore. He won’t want to come here because he wants to
be with Roxy.
Besides, there’s the pet show. And I told everybody at school I was getting a pet. I don’t want to be a liar; I’ve done that before. I don’t say any of that, though. I’m busy chowing down. What I say, after I swallow, is, “I have to get responsibility, remember?”
“Mm-hmm,” says Mom. “How about a cat? They’re not much trouble.”
“Guess what?” Dad says. “I’m allergic to cats.”
“Oh, great,” says Mom.
After supper, we go to the pet store in the mall. First, we look at fish. They’re neat, but you can’t exactly play with them. Besides, there aren’t any piranhas. Mom says the aquarium is too expensive anyway.
“And how would you get fish to the pet show?” she asks.
The birds are noisy but they don’t do much, except poop.
“How about alligators?” I suggest. Boy, would that be cool, walking into the pet show with my alligator on a leash!
The saleslady smiles, but they don’t have alligators. They don’t have pythons, either. Or monkeys, or bear cubs, or lion cubs.
“Horses?” Thanks to Aldeen, they’re the only other pets I can think of.
“Isn’t that sweet?” laughs the saleslady to my parents.
“Why exactly do you want this pet?” Mom asks.
Before I can answer, the saleslady says, “I’ve got just the thing.”
5
Ruby Snowdrop
“A rat?” Charlie says.
“Yeah. A special one.”
Behind me, Aldeen snorts. We’re going to my place after school. It’s an Aldeen day. Charlie is coming too. His brother wants to look after Roxy half the time.
“It is,” I insist. “It’s white with red eyes. An al-beeno. She’s called Ruby.”
Ruby’s cage is in my room. In it there are wood shavings and a water thingy and food pellets and a running wheel and Ruby. She’s snuffling in a corner. She looks at us with her red eyes. You can see her sides moving as she breathes.
“Can she do tricks?” Charlie asks.
“Not yet, but I’m going to teach her. Hi, Rube,” I say.
Ruby sniffs at us.
Aldeen squints back. “Come here.” She pokes a finger into the cage.
“Be careful,” I warn, “She nips.” Dad laughed when Ruby climbed all over him last night. I didn’t when she climbed all over me. She’s prickly. Also I am not crazy about getting sniffed in the ear.
Aldeen ignores me. “Come here, Snowdrop.”
“Ruby,” I say.
“Like stink,” says Hummel the Bummel. She opens Ruby’s cage.
“What are you doing? You can’t — ”
Aldeen hauls Ruby out and plops her on the carpet. Ruby takes one look around and scrams under the bed. “Hey!” Aldeen dives after her.
Charlie and I peek under the bed. Ruby is panting. Aldeen glares in from the other side, muttering words I don’t know. I’ll ask Mom what they mean later.
It’s a scary sight — Aldeen’s sideways face. She reaches in with her witchy fingers.
Ruby nips her. Aldeen yowls. Ruby scoots behind the door. Charlie dashes after her. Ruby squeezes through the crack and skitters down the hall. Aldeen shoves past and sprints after Ruby into the living room. CRASH. I start to run, too. I’m glad Mom is outside.
We chase Ruby all over the house. And then she’s gone. We split up. I walk back across the spilled-out sofa cushions to look in the kitchen. I’m checking in the cookie jar when I hear Aldeen: “Got her!”
She comes out of the bathroom with my rat. “She was behind the toilet,” Aldeen says.
She’s cradling Ruby in one hand. She’s also smiling, and making this strange “urk-urk-urk” noise. Then I get it: Aldeen Hummel is giggling. I’ve never heard it before.
“That was fun,” Aldeen says between urks. She strokes Ruby with a finger. “Right, Snowdrop? Let’s do it again.”
6
A Horse of a Different Colour
So now it’s a game we play every day after school. Aldeen calls it Find Snowdrop. I call it Find Ruby, but what it is, is Find the Rat.
Aldeen wants to come over to play it whether she has to or not. Charlie has gotten bored with it. I’m bored with it. Aldeen is driving me crazy. I wish she would get a horse and quit bugging me.
The only good thing is that Aldeen will do Ruby’s chores for me. She cleans the cage, and changes the water, and puts out her food and all that stuff. She likes to hold her, too. I guess that’s good because — secretly — I don’t.
See, Ruby is nice and everything, but she makes me a little nervous. Mom says, “Sweetie, she’s gentle. She’ll calm down if you do.” But how can I?
She’s twitchy. Her claws prickle. She can nip. You never know what she’s going to do.
It’s a little like hanging around with Aldeen. In fact, it’s a lot like hanging around Aldeen. I wonder if Aldeen knows she’s like a rat. I don’t think I’ll ask her.
And then I find out something. We’re having gym, at school. We are supposed to be taking turns giving each other boosts up onto the vaulting horse. From there, you jump into this big, squishy pile of mats.
Aldeen is my partner and she won’t help me, even after Mrs. Ross tells her to. She just zooms around like a racing car and takes all the turns. Zoom, climb, thlump; zoom, climb, thlump; over and over.
“Aldeen,” I complain, “Help me.”
“No way, Morgan.” Zoom, climb, thlump. She doesn’t need my help.
“You have to,” Mrs. Ross said.
Zoom, climb. Aldeen looks down from the horse.
“Get real, tubby. How am I going to boost you?” Thlump.
That does it; I’ve had enough of Aldeen. As she zooms past I say, “If you don’t help, you can’t see Ruby.”
What else can I do? I don’t expect it to work. I don’t even think I can not allow her. But Aldeen comes back and gives me a boost. I practically fall over.
And now I’m up on the horse. It’s high up here. Aldeen is looking up at me and it is so weird: behind her smudgy glasses she looks scared.
She bangs her hand on the horse and I do fall over, into mats soft as marshmallows. Oh, yeaaaaaaaahhhhhh. I have just bossed the Queen of Mean, and won. I close my eyes. Everything is perfect. I could lie here forever.
“Move!”
I open my eyes just in time to see the next jumper sailing down.
7
Ratnap
“There,” says Aldeen, “All done. Come on, Snowsy-wosy.”
Snowsy-wosy? Yecch, I think, but I don’t look up from my comic. I say, “You change the water?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Food?”
“Yes.”
“Clean the cage?”
“YES.”
“Take it to the garbage?”
“YES! Now let’s play.”
“Soon as I finish reading this part.”
We play Find the Rat now when Aldeen has done all my chores and starts to get mad. It’s so-o-o-o fantastic.
Things are great at school, too. I boss Aldeen all the time. Like today, when I wanted a cookie from her lunch. She started to huff and puff, so I said “Wanta go to the pet show or not?” Ta-dah, just like that — cookie city. I can zap her any time I want.
See, I know the only way Aldeen is going to the pet show is with Ruby and me. A few days ago I heard Mom ask her if she was getting her own pet.
“Nah,” Aldeen said, “My mom says we don’t need one.”
Now she’s saying, “Come on, Morgan. Snowy’s all ready.”
I sigh but I get up. I always quit bugging Aldeen before she gets too mad. I don’t want her complaining to Mom — or belting me. I mean, if she didn’t do Ruby’s stuff, I’d have to d
o it myself.
Aldeen puts Ruby on the floor. We close our eyes and count to twenty. When we’re done, Ruby is gone.
Sometimes she doesn’t go. Anyway, today I find her first, out in the hall. Easy.
We play again. I find her again, this time under the bed. Aldeen gets pouty.
We play again. I find her in the kitchen. Aldeen gets really pouty.
“Look downstairs next time,” Aldeen glares. I count and look downstairs. No Ruby. Aldeen can’t find her, either. We hear Mom calling: Aldeen’s mom is here.
We go to the door. “I can’t find Ruby,” I tell Mom.
“She can’t be too far,” Mom says.
She’s right. As Aldeen lifts her backpack, I notice it’s moving. It’s also squeaking and scratching. I grab at the zipper. It opens and out pops Ruby.
Mom shrieks in surprise.
Aldeen runs out the door.
8
Handling Hummel
After Aldeen goes, I carefully pick up Ruby and take her back to her cage. She seems glad to get there. I’m glad, too. There’s just something about her that makes me nervous. Maybe it’s her long, pink tail.
Mom comes in and says, “Morgan, why don’t we give Ruby to Aldeen?”
“What?” I say. “No way.”
Is Mom nuts or what? Why would I do something dumb like that? What about the pet show this Saturday? What about me bossing the Godzilla of Grade Three? Anyway, she’s a ratnapper.
“She’s a ratnapper,” I say.
“Uh-huh,” says Mom. “I think Aldeen cares for Ruby a lot more than you do.”
“No way,” I say again.
“Honey, you never play with Ruby. You’re jittery around her. Aldeen loves her.”
“So what?” I say, “She’s mine.” I look at Ruby; she’s chowing down. It’s a good idea. As I go to the kitchen, I can’t help wondering who Ruby likes better — Aldeen or me.
At school the next day, I feel mad at Aldeen. I make her do all the cleanup when we’re partners for art. At lunch, she’s not allowed to sit with us when we talk about the pet show. I want her cookies again, too. By now, the other kids know I can boss her.
