Dick King-Smith's Book of Pets

by Dick King-Smith

  Jenius was sitting happily in the sunlit vegetable garden, nibbling a tender young lettuce plant and thinking what a clever chap he was, when he heard his name called. He looked up and saw Judy leaning out of her bedroom window.

  ‘Whatever are you doing out there?’ she said, and since Jenius made no reply, she issued two commands.

  ‘Sit!’ she said, and ‘Stay!’

  Jenius obediently sat down, quite content to remain where he was, in easy reach of such nice food.

  Judy was just turning away from her window when, to her horror, she saw the big tabby tom cat from next door drop down from the dividing wall. Slowly, stealthily, he began to stalk the lettuce-eater.

  Judy thought frantically. If she left Jenius dutifully sitting and staying, he was a goner. If she called ‘Come!’ the cat would surely overtake him before she could get downstairs.

  There was only one thing to be done, only one order she could give that might perhaps puzzle the hunter for long enough for her to rush to the rescue.

  ‘Jenius!’ she yelled in the fiercest, most commanding voice she could manage. ‘Die for Your Country!’

  Chapter Six

  A Nightmare

  Jenius, accustomed as he now was to receiving odd orders at odd times, instantly collapsed flat on his back. He stopped chewing his mouthful of lettuce, he closed his eyes, and even the rise and fall of his ribs seemed to have stopped, so lightly did he breathe. He lay, slack and still, looking every inch as he was meant to look. Dead.

  ‘Dead!’ said a voice in his ear suddenly.

  Jenius’s blood ran cold at the sound of this harsh, cruel voice, at the smell of hot, rank breath, at the tickle of long whiskers as something sniffed him all over.

  ‘Pity,’ said the cat. ‘Could have had a bit of sport if you’d been alive. Ah well, a dead tail-less rat is better than no rat at all,’ and with that he began to lick at his victim’s head.

  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?’

  Chapter Seven

  A Bit of a Big-head

  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 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 big head, 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 into 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.’

  Chapter Eight

  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 is Pets’ Day at school! Jenius will triumph! *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.�
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  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.’

  Chapter Nine

  Eat Your Hat

  ‘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.’

  Chapter One

  Jemima Tabb was a farmer’s daughter. She was eight years old, she had dark hair worn in a pigtail, and she particularly liked chickens, especially baby chicks.

  Whenever one of her father’s hens went broody, Jemima would put a clutch of eggs under the hen – eggs that, with luck, would in twenty-one days’ time hatch out into fluffy little chicks.

  Out in the orchard was a duckpond that was fed by a small stream, and not far from the edge of this pond was where Jemima chose to put her broody coop with its wire run attached. Sitting on eggs must be very boring, she thought, which is why she selected this spot.

  ‘Just you listen to the chuckle of the water as it falls into the pond, and the sounds of the ducks quacking and splashing about, and you’ll find the time will pass quite quickly,’ she would say to each broody hen as she settled it upon the eggs.

  Three weeks after she had said all this to a hen called Gertie, eight little chicks duly hatched out.

  When the chicks first came out of the coop into the wire run, seven of them scuttled excitedly about on the grass, but the eighth one walked to the end of the run that was nearest to the duckpond and stood there, quite still, listening to the chuckle of the water and the sounds of the ducks quacking and splashing. From then on, he would do this every day, standing and gazing and listening, so that by the time the chicks were a month old, Gertie – the chicks’ mother – was worried and felt she needed to share her worry.

  One fine morning when she and her best friend, Mildred, were scratching about together in the orchard, pecking at worms and beetles and the seeds of flowering grasses, Gertie said to Mildred, ‘You know, I think that one of my chicks is funny.’

  ‘Funny, Gertie?’ clucked Mildred. ‘Do you mean funny (ha! ha!) or funny (peculiar)?’

  ‘Peculiar,’ replied Gertie. ‘I’ve suspected it for some time now. The other seven chicks behave quite normally but this one’s different. To begin with, he keeps himself to himself. Look at him now.’

  Mildred looked at Gertie’s chicks as they scuttled about in the grass, pecking at anything and everything, and she saw that there were only seven of them doing this. The eighth chick was standing at the edge of the duckpond, looking at the ducks swimming about in it.

  ‘Is that him?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Gertie.

  ‘Well, he’s only looking at the ducks.’

  ‘Yes, I know, Mildred. But why is he looking at the ducks?’

  ‘Better ask him,’ said Mildred.

  ‘You!’ squawked Gertie at the chick. ‘Come here!’

  At the sound of her voice, the eighth chick turned and came towards them. Usually little chicks run to their mother when she calls them, run very fast, flapping their stubby little wings. But this one was in no hurry.

  He came slowly, looking back over his shoulder once or twice at the ducks in the pond, and when he reached the two hens he did not cheep and peep as an ordinary chick would have done. Had Gertie called any one of his brothers and sisters, they would have rushed up to her, saying, ‘Yes, Mummy?’ and probably adding politely, ‘Good morning, Auntie Mildred.’

  This chick, though, simply stood there and said, ‘What?’ He did not say it in a rude way, but rather in the tone of someone who has been interrupted in the middle of something important.

  ‘Now,’ clucked Gertie. ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Looking at the ducks,’ her eighth chick replied.

  ‘Yes, but why were you looking at the ducks?’

  ‘I like ducks,’ he said. ‘They’re cleverer th
an you are, Mum.’

  ‘Cleverer?’ squawked Gertie. ‘Whatever d’you mean, boy? Compared to hens, ducks are stupid. They can’t run about in the grass like we can. They can only waddle.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the chick, ‘but they can swim. I wish I could. It looks nice.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ his mother said. ‘Chickens can’t swim. Run along now.’

  This time he did run, straight back to the duckpond, and stood once more at the edge.

  Gertie shook her head in amazement. ‘I told you, Mildred,’ she said. ‘That chick is funny.’

  Chapter Two

  Gertie and Mildred moved away down the orchard, shaking their heads in a bewildered fashion. On the pond the ducks dabbled happily, while Gertie’s eighth little chick watched, wishing and wishing that he could dabble too.

  What fun it looked to be playing about in all that lovely water that sparkled in the summer sunshine!

  How much they were enjoying ducking their heads under, and letting the glistening stuff slide down their backs, and flapping their wings to spatter themselves with dancing drops, and wagging their rumps with pleasure!