by Poppy Harris
‘Hey, you! Titch!’ said Toffee. ‘That’s my Chloe you’re sitting on!’
Hamilton shrugged. ‘Is that a problem?’ he asked. ‘She picked me up. But, if you like…’
He jumped from Chloe’s hand into Bethany’s lap. (‘Aah!’ said both the girls.) From here, he ran to Toffee’s cage and sat a few centimetres from it, looking at Toffee through the bars.
‘Pleased to meet you!’ he said.
‘You come any nearer and I’ll sort you,’ warned Toffee.
Hamilton scratched his head. His hamster instincts told him that he and Toffee should fight, but his intelligence told him there was no good reason for it.
‘I know we’re supposed to fight,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know why.’
‘Get away!’ said Toffee (but he didn’t know why either). ‘You stay out of my cage!’
‘No problem!’ said Hamilton, who was already very fond of his own cage. He’d got the bed just the way he liked it, and he’d carried out a bit of light engineering on the wheel to give it three gears. ‘And I suppose you’ll stay out of mine?’
‘Cheeky little kid,’ growled Toffee. ‘I’ll fight you.’
‘Done much fighting, have you?’ asked Hamilton, washing his paws.
‘Er…’ said Toffee. He hadn’t, but he didn’t want to say so.
‘Tell you what,’ said Hamilton, ‘I won’t fight you and you won’t fight me. Is that a deal?’
‘Er… all right,’ said Toffee, who was getting puzzled.
‘We could even be friends,’ said Hamilton.
‘What?’ said Toffee, who couldn’t understand what Hamilton was talking about.
‘Friends,’ said Hamilton, ‘like my Bethany and your Chloe.’
‘What?’ said Toffee again. He didn’t want to be like Bethany and Chloe, who talked and laughed a lot and sometimes wore pink. ‘You’re daft, you.’
‘You’re welcome. My name’s Hamilton, but you can call me Hammy.’ A short name would be easier for Toffee to remember.
While the hamsters were getting to know each other, Bethany and Chloe had been talking about what to do next. Chloe wanted to go down to Dolittle’s to buy some more hamster food for Toffee, and Bethany said she’d go too. She was putting Hamilton in his cage when she felt his claw tighten round her finger, as if he wanted to tell her something.
She looked down, and he nodded towards her phone. She glanced over her shoulder to see if Chloe was watching, but Chloe was putting on her coat and had her back to them. Bethany held the phone in front of Hamilton.
me 2? he tapped in, and looked hopefully up at her. He was watching her with his head on one side and his eyes were like the eyes of a puppy pleading for a walk.
Chloe was now talking to Toffee. Quickly, Bethany opened her shoulder bag (a purple one with white kittens on it) and Hamilton jumped in. Bethany put a finger to her lips to make it clear to him that nobody, not even Chloe, must know he was in there.
‘I’ll leave Toffee here, if that’s all right,’ said Chloe. ‘Bye‐bye, Toffee, be good. Come on, Bethany, they’ll be closing soon.’
chapter 5
‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked the lady behind the counter at Dolittle’s Pet Shop. Her name was Theresa Nelson. She had only worked there for six months, and enjoyed it very much. She particularly liked to talk to the children who came in to buy food and toys for their pets. She knew all the regular customers by now, and even remembered the names of their animals, but she didn’t know the man standing at the counter today. His hair was grey at the front and black at the back, and perhaps he had dandruff because there was a light powdering of something white on the shoulder of his jacket. She tried not to stare at his moustache, which looked oddly lopsided. Maybe he had trimmed it in a bad light. He carried a clipboard in his hand and a white coat over his arm.
‘I’m the inspector,’ said Tim Taverner. ‘Charles Newton.’ He showed her the fake identity pass he had made. (He had enjoyed making that badge and was really quite proud of it.)
Charles Newton
Quality Team Pet Inspection Executive
QTPIE
Theresa turned the badge to the light to take a good look at it. It seemed genuine. Nobody had told her that an inspector would be calling, but maybe that was the idea – it was one of those surprise inspections, so that you don’t have time to sort everything out and have a good clean first. There was nobody else in the shop to ask about it, and Theresa knew that the all the pets were well cared for. Everything was clean, tidy and organized. The inspector was welcome to do all the inspecting he liked.
‘Go ahead,’ she said. ‘Where would you like to start?’
Tim Taverner nearly said ‘Hamster poo’ because that’s what he was thinking about, but he stopped himself in time.
‘Rubbish!’ he announced.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Theresa.
‘I need to see the rubbish bins,’ he said. ‘Where are they?’
Theresa could understand that an inspector would need to see that the rubbish was safely and cleanly disposed of. She led him out to the little courtyard at the back of the shop.
‘Dustbins are here, sir,’ she said. ‘All the rubbish goes into black plastic bags before it goes in the dustbins. We always wear plastic gloves for cleaning the cages and we always wash our hands after handling animals. Would you like to see the washroom?’
‘Rubbish bins first,’ said Tim, trying very hard to be patient. He was getting excited at the thought of finding the microspeck, and didn’t want to be kept from those bins any longer.
‘You’ll need protective gloves, sir,’ she said. ‘The only ones we’ve got are purple, I’m afraid.’ Tim was so keen that he almost snatched them from her.
A bell rang as the shop door opened.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have customers.’
‘Oh, yes, you go and serve your customers – off you go!’ said Tim, hoping this was the sort of thing a real inspector would say. He couldn’t wait to get her out of the way.
While Theresa was in the shop selling poop scoops and cat mats, Tim took out his tracking device (it looked very like a mobile phone) and scanned the dustbins. But the device stayed silent. If he’d been near the microspeck, the light on the display would have glowed and there would have been a faint bleep – he had turned down the volume in case people noticed and wondered what he was doing. He ran the scanner up and down the sides of the bins.
Nothing bleeped. Nothing glowed. He tried again – then it occurred to him that, of course, these dustbins were made of metal. He had been in such a hurry to make his tracking device that he hadn’t bothered to make sure it could detect anything through a metal dustbin. Drawing on the purple gloves Theresa had given him, and wrinkling up his nose, he lifted out a black bin liner.
The smell wasn’t really that bad, but it was enough to make him look away over his shoulder and hold the bin bag as far from his nose as possible, as if it might bite him. Holding the tracker in the other hand, he turned his head just enough to see what he was doing.
Theresa glanced out of the window and saw the inspector lifting out each bag of rubbish in turn and running a scanner over it. He seemed to be doing the job very thoroughly, even though he clearly wasn’t enjoying it. These inspectors must take their job very seriously.
Tim slammed the bin lids back on with a clatter. After all that, there wasn’t a trace of the microspeck. He’d searched through all those smelly bin bags for nothing.
He cheered up at once when he thought that, if the microspeck wasn’t in the rubbish, it must still be somewhere in the shop! Perhaps it was lying in the bottom of a cage somewhere! That must be it. He wasn’t beaten yet. Hoping he didn’t smell too bad and feeling in need of a good wash, he walked back into the shop.
‘Thank you,’ he said to Theresa. In spite of being hot, bothered and untidy, he still tried very hard to sound like an inspector. ‘I’d like to see the washroom now, please.’
‘Certain
ly,’ said Theresa. ‘It’s the door on your right.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tim, and sneezed. Either the dust from the bins or the talcum powder in his hair must have got up his nose.
‘Bless you!’ said Theresa.
Tim straightened his shoulders and strode to the washroom. He was used to laboratories where every tap and every sink was scrubbed until it gleamed. At the lab, everything, including the toilets, had to be as clean as an operating theatre. He guessed that a pet shop washroom would be shabby and a bit scruffy, but it would have to do.
He pushed open the washroom door and blinked several times. This was Theresa’s washroom and she was very proud of it. She liked to keep everything sparkling, spotless, mauve and smelling of lavender. The curtains, carpet, towels and all the frilly things – and there were a lot of frilly things – were mauve. There was lavender soap, as well as lavender air freshener, and a little box of mauve tissues. A mauve loo brush stood in a mauve holder.
Tim looked in the mirror and was horrified to see that his artificial moustache was hanging sideways and about to fall off. He tidied himself up as well as he could, eased his moustache back into place, checked that the tracking device in his pocket was still switched on, and returned to the shop smelling very sweetly of lavender.
Two girls, one dark and one blonde, had come into the shop while he was getting washed. Tim ignored them. He was only interested in the hamsters, and began to run the tracker along the hamster cages, one by one. By this time he was sure that the microspeck must be in one of them, maybe stuck in a corner that hadn’t been properly cleaned. Peering through the bars as closely as he could without getting his nose bitten, he kept the tracking device half‐hidden in his hand – but to his great disappointment, there was still no bleep and no glowing light.
The two girls were picking up pet toys – rubber bones and catnip mice – and giggling about them. The blonde one said, ‘Listen to this, Bethany,’ and squeezed a rubber mouse so that it squeaked – ee‐ee‐ee!. Tim frowned. He was trying to listen for the bleep, and their silly chat and laughter wasn’t helping. Drawing himself up to his full height, he glared down at them, but they weren’t looking. He wished they’d just buy something and go.
On the way to the pet shop Hamilton had enjoyed his ride in Bethany’s bag enormously. He had explored the bag, tasted it (nice!), chewed a corner of an old bus ticket and a pencil, then yawned, curled up, and fallen asleep. He was woken by two things. One was the ee‐ee‐ee! from the rubber mouse. The other was a strange buzzing feeling in his right cheek pouch.
He sat up and scrabbled at his cheek. It tingled. It didn’t hurt, but there was an uncomfortable tugging sensation that made his head twitch to one side. Hamilton had no idea what it meant, but he knew he didn’t like it a bit. He rubbed his cheek against Bethany’s bag to see if that made it stop.
Tim Taverner gave a little squeak and a jump. Theresa looked up in alarm, wondering if he’d poked his finger through the bars of a cage and been bitten. Serve him right, she thought.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ she asked.
‘Yes!’ said Tim, a bit crossly. He needed to concentrate. His heart was beating wildly. On the tracking device, the light glowed. Faintly, it beeped. He scanned the cages again, but the signal failed, and it was only when he turned away from them that the light glowed and the signal bleeped again. Could the microspeck be on the floor?
Hamilton stopped rubbing his face against the inside of Bethany’s bag because it wasn’t doing any good. The tingling and twitching went on, so he tried to run away from it. There wasn’t much room to run anywhere in a shoulder bag but, in the very second he ran behind Bethany’s mobile phone, the buzzing and tugging stopped abruptly. He stayed there, curled up behind Bethany’s phone, keeping very still. As long as he stayed there, nothing buzzed in his cheek.
Tim Taverner, completely puzzled, looked at the tracker device. He’d lost the signal. He tapped sharply at it to see if it was still working, then bit his nails. The microspeck was definitely in here somewhere. There had been a signal. It seemed to be strongest just around the spot where those two girls were standing, and he scowled. They were in his way. He wished they’d just go home. It didn’t help at all that, at that moment, every hamster in the shop decided to climb on to its wheel and go for a run. All that whirring made it hard to concentrate, but he tried to work things out. If the microspeck had been in the hamster bedding, it should now be in the rubbish, but it wasn’t. What if it was still inside a hamster? But it couldn’t be, surely? Not after all this time?
In the bag, Bethany’s phone rang. Hamilton jumped in surprise. Bethany took out the phone. On the tracking device in Tim’s hand the signal returned, strong and clear. Hamilton’s pouch tingled and twitched again.
chapter 6
Shaking with excitement, Tim looked about. Stay there, my little microspeck, he thought. I’m here. I’m coming to find you. The microspeck’s signal was definitely coming from somewhere near that dark‐haired girl. It must be very close to her. Oh, why couldn’t she just get out of the way? The microspeck might be jammed in the floorboards at her feet! He scowled at her again, but she had turned the other way to talk into her phone, and wasn’t looking.
‘Excuse me,’ he muttered, pushing past her as he tried to find the source of the signal.
‘I’m just going outside, Chloe,’ said Bethany. ‘It’s too noisy in here with all those wheels spinning.’
She frowned at the man who had just pushed past her and went outside. It was just good luck that she stood beside a large metal litter bin that blocked Tim’s signal completely, but of course Tim didn’t realize this. He only knew that he was left again without a microspeck, without a signal and without a clue. But there had been a signal!
Bethany came in again, dropping her phone into her bag. Hamilton curled up behind it.
‘That was my mum,’ she said to Chloe. ‘She’s coming down in five minutes, so we can have a lift home.’
‘Cool,’ said Chloe, and went to the counter to buy hamster food. Theresa, who remembered her, smiled warmly at her.
‘How’s Toffee?’ she asked.
‘He’s fine, thanks,’ said Chloe, very pleased to be asked.
Theresa turned to Bethany. ‘And how’s your new hamster?’ she asked.
Tim dropped the tracking device and scrabbled on the floor for it.
Bethany beamed. ‘He’s fine, thank you,’ she said. ‘He’s really sweet, I love him to bits.’
‘Has he settled in?’ asked Theresa.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Bethany. ‘Straight away.’
‘We’d better wait outside for your mum,’ said Chloe.
Tim stared after them as they left. The signal had come from near them, and they both owned hamsters – in fact, one of them had a new hamster, bought from this shop! Could the microspeck be something to do with this girl’s hamster? And which girl was it – the dark one or the blonde one?
‘Sir?’ said Theresa.
‘What?’ he snapped, and then remembered his manners. ‘I mean… er…’
‘Do you want to inspect the food supplies?’ she asked helpfully. ‘And the cleaning records? And the health records? We clean out every cage, every single morning.’
He could see the girls outside, chatting as they waited for their lift home. He mustn’t lose sight of them, but he was still pretending to be an inspector. He peered over the rows of hamster food and tried to sound as if he knew what he was talking about.
‘Yes – very healthy, very good, very well displayed,’ he said. ‘Good balanced diet, that’s what I like to see. Very good. Well done. That’s all I need to see.’
‘Then – have we passed the inspection?’ she asked as a car drew up outside.
‘Yes, of course you have,’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you. Goodbye!’
Bethany and Chloe were getting into the car. His own car was parked nearby, and he was just in time to follow them. When Bethany’s mum parked at the house he d
rove on, but he remembered the address – 33 Tumblers Crescent.
He drove on until he found a parking space on Bethany’s road. There, he adjusted his false moustache again with a dab of glue and ruffled a little more talcum powder into his hair. He’d better keep up the disguise a bit longer. The sky was darkening, and a few fat raindrops splashed on to the windscreen.
Bethany, Mum and Chloe had hardly stepped out of the car when Bethany knew something was wrong. Sam was crying! He didn’t often cry, and this was no ordinary crying – he was howling as he ran from the house, his face streaked and blotchy with tears.
‘Bobby’s not there!’ he sobbed. ‘Mum! He’s gone!’
chapter 7
‘Oh, Sam!’ said Bethany, and put an arm round him. ‘I’ll help you look for him.’
‘We’ll talk about it inside,’ said Mum, ushering them into the house. ‘It’s about to rain cats and dogs. In you come now.’
‘He’ll catch cold!’ sobbed Sam. ‘I have to find him.’
‘Oh, sweetheart, he can’t have gone far,’ said Mum. ‘We’ll all look for him.’
‘I’ll take Toffee home, then I’ll come and help,’ offered Chloe.
Hamilton clawed his way up to the top of Bethany’s bag and peeped out cautiously – very cautiously, because he didn’t want to be underneath any raining cats and dogs – but soon they were all indoors. Chloe ran upstairs to collect Toffee and hurried home, shielding the cage with her jacket as the rain began to fall. Dad was pulling on his wellies and anorak.
‘I went to the shed to feed Bobby and clean his cage,’ said Sam, sniffing. There were streaky stains on his face where he had rubbed at tears with a grubby hand. ‘He’d just gone.’
‘Hadn’t you fastened the door catch?’ asked Mum.
‘Of course I had!’ said Sam. ‘He’d chewed the wood around it until it was loose, and he got out.’
‘I’ll come out and look for him,’ said Bethany. ‘Let me just change my shoes. Sam, leave his cage open and put something to eat in there in case he comes back.’
