by Angela Robb
Copyright © 2019 Angela Robb
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
Matador
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Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
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Email: [email protected]
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ISBN 978 1838599 065
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
For all the pocket-money pets
Contents
1
An Ingenious Plan
2
The Not-So-Great Escape
3
The Nutcracker
4
Hang on a Minute…
5
The Mole
6
Drained
7
Nev
8
Restaurants, Rats and a Rumpus
9
The Mousetrap
10
Cheesed Off
11
On Friends and Foes
12
Fast Food
13
Pistachio Peril
14
Dirty Tricks and Cocktail Sticks
15
Rumour Has It
16
The Cat is Out of the Bag
17
Visiting Old Friends is More Dangerous Than You’d Think
18
I, Spy
19
A Business Proposal
20
Trick or Treat
21
Foxed
22
Saving Dwayne
23
It’s Not Lying, It’s Self-preservation
24
Cat-astrophe
25
Well They Should Have Signed a Contract
26
Murder by Meatballs
27
A Tight Scrape and the Bottom of a Barrel
28
Fromage Fray
29
The Crowd-pleaser
30
No Light Bulb
31
Bottled Up
32
Dog Gone
33
Le Riot
34
The New Big Cheese
35
Rocco the Reinvented (But Still Fantastic)
Acknowledgements
About The Author
1
An Ingenious Plan
I have been hiding under my sawdust for long enough to be sure: the Fiend is safely out of the house, at a meeting of the Junior Jungle Scouts.
So let me fill you in while the coast is clear.
My problem is this: ten days ago I arrived in the home of the most dangerous mini-human in the world. He is four feet high, with beady eyes and an evil smile that shows off his sticky-out teeth. He is utterly nutty, and deadly violent. His name is Gary Bickle.
Too many times have I been grabbed and squeezed and thrown, and kicked around the carpet in a plastic ball – all at the hands of this bully. But one thing is for certain: my days of living with the villain Gary will be short-lived. It is time to stand up for myself. After all, I am nearly eight weeks old.
But before I carry out my clever plan, or begin to think of one, I had better introduce myself. My name is Rocco the Fantastic. Or it would have been, had my mother had time to think of it before I was whisked away from her at an early age. As it happens, she only got as far as ‘Rocco’, so you may call me just that. As I am a hamster, you might think that I am very small. This is not the case. In fact, I am particularly large when compared with a great many creatures, such as grasshoppers, and baby mice.
Now, even as I was telling you that, another compartment in my brain was already planning my escape from Gary’s lair. I have now reviewed this plan, and I think you will agree that it is genius. It is a two-step strategy:
Step 1: Be in plastic hamster ball.
Step 2: Exit house.
A few details are missing because some things cannot be planned or predicted: one must respond to the circumstances as they unfold. Of course, the circumstances will involve the Enemy himself, as well as Pesky and Ginger.
I have not yet told you about Pesky and Ginger. The first is a tall, skinny, wild-eyed fellow whose tongue always hangs out the left side of his mouth. He is a hound of some kind, and an idiot of every kind. He is very friendly and playful – in other words, extremely dangerous from a hamster’s point of view. But Ginger is a cat, and she is crafty and determined, which makes her the worst foe of all. It is fortunate, then, that I am smarter than she.
Once I am past them, I have one vital tool in my survivalist’s toolkit. You see, we hamsters are equipped with spacious pouches in our cheeks for carrying essential supplies. Right now, my cheeks are positively bulging. I have been careful to pack only the most nutritious foodstuffs, including hamster muesli and choc drops.
My extraordinary sense of hearing tells me that the car has just pulled into the driveway. So, Gary Bickle, you return from Junior Jungle Scouts.
My plan, like my food supplies, is safely tucked away inside my head. The time is near.
2
The Not-So-Great Escape
One moment – please.
Wait till … I catch my breath … and I’ll tell you everything that just happened …
Okay, so … On entering the house, the Menace came straight to his bedroom. He played his favourite video game for eight minutes, until his attention span was used up. Then he approached my cage. Perfect.
‘ROCCO!’ he shouted. ‘COME OUT AND PLAY!’
And let it go.
I left my stomach far behind as the hamster ball plummeted. Gary caught it on top of his foot, and kicked it upwards, over and over again. I clamped both hands over my mouth to stop myself being sick.
At last, he grabbed the ball and shook it – and my efforts not to be sick came to an unfortunate end. Then, finally, he put me down – on top of his desk.
‘HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!’
The unexpected, just as expected, was happening. So, you are probably asking, what does this fantastic hamster do now? Here is exactly what I do.
I roll across the desk, looking for a suitable way down, knocking twelve-inch Octo-Man and the Amazing Beetleboy out of my way. There is no suitable way down.
So I drop. I spin. I bounce. I tear across the carpet, weaving my way between countless toys. I come to a paper map of the world. I cross continents, and oceans littered with little grey battleships. Then I hear fighter planes, diving and firing overhead. It is Gary, armed with a plastic jet.
I am hit! (by his foot). The world tumbles, but I recover quickly and roll under the bed. And what do I find? An army of green soldiers! Their intentions are unclear, but I trust no one, so I bowl them over anyway. Then it’s back out into the light – except at that very moment Gary drops his duvet on me.
‘BLACKOUT!’ he yells.
No matter. Rolling in any direction will get me out, so I begin to move. But then I hesitate – this could be my chance to sneak out of the room unnoticed. I wait for a minute. Bingo. The sound of explosions tells me that You-Know-Who has returned to his video game. So I bowl silently to the edge of the duvet, and make for the door.
I’m out of the bedroom, simple as that. Now you might think the steep staircase would be scary – but not for me, a fearless survival expert. I bounce from one stair to the next and fly straight into the kitchen.
That’s where it all kicks off. Ginger streaks in through the cat flap, straight past Gary’s mum, who is mopping the floor. She springs on the ball, sticks her claws in the air holes, and pulls. I run as hard as I can, but her grip is too tight. A gap opens around the middle of the ball. A dainty pink nose forces its way through. In a flash, I seize this dainty pink nose in my jaws. With a yowl Ginger drops the ball, and I roll back along the hall.
So what next, you ask? Surely the cat will be back, madder than ever?
Spot on.
Lucky, then, that in five seconds flat I steer my way into the living room and enlist my secret weapon. That is, I accidentally activate my secret weapon by rolling over his back paw, just as Ginger bursts into the room. Pesky springs to his feet and starts to yap. With a screech, Ginger turns and flees.
Pesky is a handful, but I know what to do. I curl myself up tight as the ball spins. I can feel the dog’s hot breath, steaming up the plastic. I feel dizzy – but I know that a brainwave is near.
Pesky nudges me under the coffee table. Here I show how clever I can be without even trying, because I come to a stop right next to a chunk of chocolate chip cookie. As Pesky squeezes himself under the table in a bid for the biscuit, I roll out of the room.
And so back to the kitchen. The mop is propped against the sink, next to the back door. Which, as I already mentioned, has a cat flap. So here’s what I do.
I roll up to the mop and knock it over. It lies in front of the door. I move into position, take a run at it, strike the handle. I’m tossed over it, landing right by the back door, under the cat flap.
I need to build up more speed.
I roll back out of the kitchen and along the hall. Gary’s mum heads for the stairs with her laundry basket and starts to climb. I turn and bowl fast along the hallway. In the kitchen, the phone starts to ring. Gary’s mum thuds back down the stairs, unaware of my approach, and at the foot of the stairs, we meet.
She kicks me, hard, into the kitchen. The world spins. I hit the mop handle, fly, smack into the cat flap, get blinded by daylight, bounce – and stop. It is a perfect escape.
The only slight difficulty is that my ball is now wedged between the branches of a small dead bush. Of course, any minute now I will figure out a cunning way to free it. I just hope that I can do so before the Grey Streak reappears. Do not be alarmed, but this mysterious creature whizzed past more than once while I was telling of my adventure. What it is, I can’t tell – but I sense that it has something to do with the loud cracking sounds coming from just behind the cherry blossom tree.
3
The Nutcracker
It is not because I am unable to free myself that I am still stuck in the small dead bush. It is because it is safest to remain here until the Grey Terror has gone away, as the tangle of branches ensures that I am rather well hidden. (It turns out, then, that what at first seemed like an unfortunate landing is actually the latest example of my genius.)
The rustling in the bush is not a good sign. What makes this new foe so dangerous is that it is completely unknown; without understanding its ways, it is much harder for me to plan its defeat.
‘How very odd!’
Now that it is standing right in front of me, and talking, I can see that it has sharp front teeth and long, curling eyelashes. I can see it is a squirrel.
‘A hamster in a plastic ball. What will they think of next?’
‘They won’t get the chance, because I have left them behind once and for all.’
‘Is that so? Well, you’d better get out of their garden, then.’
She’s altogether rude, but it’s best to remain polite – for now.
‘You’re exactly right. So please step aside while I remove myself from this shrub, and I’ll be on my way.’
‘And just how are you going to remove yourself? And even if you do, what then? Are you to roll off into the sunset in your ball?’
She’s not very smart, either: it won’t be sunset for hours.
‘Just watch and learn,’ I tell her. ‘And stand well back – please.’
Actually, I wish she would leave. For some reason I suddenly feel less sure of myself. She is watching me with her arms folded, which is very off-putting.
Running on the spot isn’t working. I do not need the squirrel’s raised eyebrow to tell me that. What else to try … How about ramming against the inside of the ball.
Ram the ball. That’s it. Come on. Ram the ball.
Did you hear that? That was the squirrel, sighing.
‘I heard that, you know,’ I tell her.
‘What did you hear?’
‘You sighed. Don’t say you didn’t.’
‘I won’t say I didn’t, because I did.’
‘And why did you?’
‘Because what you’re doing is never going to work. Unless you’re just trying to knock yourself silly. Or should I say sillier.’
This is too much.
‘Go away.’
The look of pity on her face is the worst insult yet. This, and the fact that even as she’s pulling on the branch underneath me, I can feel the ball start to move.
‘Okay, hamster. Try running now.’
I slip gently on to the ground. I’m not going to thank her, if that’s what she wants.
‘A rather obvious way for you to speed up my escape. I wonder why you didn’t think of it sooner.’
‘Well, it was rather difficult to do while I was standing well back. Also, my sense of fun does get in the way. What’s your name?’
‘Rocco.’ In my head I added ‘the Fantastic’, but somehow it didn’t come out.
‘My name is Sweet Pea.’
‘Well I’m pleased to meet you.’ Where did that come from?
‘Likewise. Now, you’ll be wanting out of that ball. I can help you there. Just let me show you something.’ Off she goes. What could she p
ossibly have, hidden behind that cherry blossom tree?
A large broken chestnut, apparently.
‘One I did earlier. Trust me, this is a lot harder to crack than that plastic.’ She’s testing said plastic with her stupidly large teeth. ‘Watch and learn,’ she says with a sly smile.
I would of course think of some brilliantly witty reply, but she’s already sinking her teeth into the ball.
And breaking a large hole in it.
‘Come on out, then.’
‘Actually I think I will.’
I have never felt grass beneath my feet before. It feels strange, and scratchy.
‘So what are you going to do now, then?’ asks Sweet Pea.
‘I’m leaving, of course. I’m going to have adventures and be the hamster I was born to be.’
Now both her eyebrows are raised, which tells me she is curious, and impressed. ‘And who exactly is the hamster you were born to be?’
That’s it: the ultimate question. And I know I have the ultimate answer.
‘I’ll be the hamster who does just what he likes; the hamster who is bullied and thrown around by no one! I must lead other rodents into greatness. Just tell me: where do we live in the biggest numbers?’
‘Well … if it’s hordes of rodents you’re looking for, you want to head for the Big City.’
It sounds so magical I have to say it back. ‘The Big City.’
‘But I wouldn’t recommend it. These aren’t friendly rodents. In fact, from what I’ve heard, they’re ruthless criminals who won’t be led by a pet hamster.’
