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“I think I can see him,” Rosie hissed. We both got so excited we banged heads. “OW,” I yelled. Suddenly all the others were awake.
“What’s going on?” said Kenny, jumping out of bed.
“Is it morning?” said Lyndz, rubbing her eyes. She’d only been asleep ten minutes!
“I’m sure I can see him,” Rosie said again.
I wasn’t sure I could, but I could certainly hear him moving about. Soon the others were crowding round us, Fliss was shivering in her nightie.
“Move back,” I said. “You’re in the light.”
“Try and coax him out with some Pringles,” said Kenny, getting one and crumbling it between her fingers. “Look what we’ve got for you,” she said, poking the crumbs down between the floorboards. She posted as much through as she could and waited. But still nothing happened. So we tried some more, until we’d pushed a whole Pringle down.
“If you keep pushing food through to him he’ll never come out,” said Rosie. “In fact if he eats too much he might get so fat he can’t fit back through the hole.”
“Good thinking, Wonder Woman,” I said. Rosie’s pretty clever at times.
Next we tried tapping messages on the floorboards above his head and flashing our torches on and off. But we couldn’t get him to come out.
Then Kenny got silly and started shining her torch up Fliss’s nightdress.
Fliss shouted, “That’s not fair, just because I’m the only one in a nightdress.”
So then we shone them up each other’s pyjama legs instead, until Rosie hissed at us, “Shhh, my mum’ll be in and then there’ll be trouble.”
I was ready to get back into my sleeping bag anyway, I was getting cold.
“Let’s finish off our midnight feast,” said Lyndz. But first I made a little trail of food.
Rosie’s mum had said Gazza would soon come back if he got hungry. So we crushed up the last few Pringles – there were only three left but as Kenny pointed out that would be a feast for a hamster – and laid them in a trail from the spot where we had heard him, all the way back to his cage.
When all the food was gone Lyndz started dozing off again. Lyndz is always the first to go to sleep. She’d already got her thumb in her mouth and her eyes kept closing. Kenny dug her in the ribs. “Wake up,” she said, “let’s sing our song before you nod off.”
We’ve got this Sleepover song that we always sing before we go to sleep. I bet you’ve heard it before.
Down by the river there’s a hanky panky
With a bullfrog sitting on the hanky panky
With an Ooh, Aah, Ooh, Aah,
Hey, Mrs Zippy, with a One-two-three…Out!
At the end of each verse one of us lies down. This time I was the one left sitting up in the dark on my own. It felt scary, but in a nice way. You know what I mean?
I turned off my torch and snuggled down into my sleeping bag. I must have fallen asleep straight away and I didn’t wake up until the morning, even though I had a horrid dream about being chased down tunnels by hamsters with pouches full of Pringles.
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The next morning there was still no sign of Gazza. When I first woke up, I thought he’d come back. Fliss was squealing as if he was crawling over her face or something. In fact it was Kenny up to her tricks. She was using Fliss’s pony tail to tickle her neck. The first couple of times Fliss just brushed it away, without opening her eyes. Then she must have woken up and remembered the hamster on the loose because she just started to squeal, “AGGHHHH!” After that we were all awake and on the move.
One of the other great things about Rosie’s house is the wide staircase. We had mega sleeping-bag races sliding down on our bottoms two at a time. It was excellent until we had to stop because Lyndz split her sleeping bag. She wasn’t worried because it was an absolutely ancient one that used to be her brother’s. It was already in holes and she was dying for a new one. I’d have been in BIG trouble.
Then we made up a new game for our International Gladiators Challenge. We took it in turns to do a mad dash down the stairs, past the others armed with pillows or squishy poos. (A squishy poo is a sleeping bag filled with clothes for whacking people with.) It was magic!
Adam sat in his chair in the kitchen doorway watching us and bouncing up and down with excitement. We all felt sorry that he couldn’t join in and afterwards Lyndz said we should make up some special events that he could join in with, which I thought was a neat idea. At least Adam was coming with us to the Pet Show later because, after all, Jenny’s really his dog.
We were having such a great time none of us wanted to go home when our parents came to collect us. But we had to because we all needed to get our pets organised.
Gazza still hadn’t turned up by the time we left, but Rosie’s mum said, “Don’t worry we’ll keep on searching.”
Fliss looked dead miserable. She said there was no point in her going home because she didn’t have a pet to get ready. As if we didn’t all know that!
Rosie said “You could stay here and help us look for him, if you want to.” So that cheered her up a bit.
When I got home Mum was giving Pepsi a bath, which she hates. She doesn’t like water at all. She never jumps in the river like other dogs, she even runs away if Dad turns the hose pipe on in the garden. So I had to hold on to her to keep her in the bath, while Mum shampooed her and then rinsed her off. Then, even though we put the gas fire on and sat her in front of it, she shivered as if she was freezing. Dad rubbed her until she was nearly dry and then I brushed her.
We had to trim some tangled bits of fur from her ears. They do get messy because they hang down in everything. But Dad said, “Never worry. You won’t see from a distance.”
When we’d finished, she looked so adorable, I told her it didn’t matter what the judges thought. I thought she was the most beautiful dog in the world. And I gave her a big hug and she gave me a big lick.
We’d arranged to meet at the Village Hall at two o’clock. Brown Owl told us the hall wouldn’t open until two-thirty but we couldn’t wait to get there. I was first because Mum and Dad dropped me off on their way to the supermarket. They said they’d come back later to watch us. It was starting to rain, but I’d got my kagoul on.
I took Pepsi onto the field behind the Village Hall for a few minutes and then she sat down patiently near the entrance, while we waited for the others. My tummy was full of butterflies. I was already feeling excited and now I was starting to feel a bit nervous so I was glad when Kenny’s dad drove up and dropped her off.
Kenny was in her Brownie uniform, the same as me, and she was carrying Merlin in a brown cardboard box with holes in the lid. Her dad had made a rope handle so she could carry it without Merlin turning somersaults inside. She lifted the lid to show me, but I just took a quick peep and kept my distance. Pepsi was much more interested than I was but we tried to keep her away because whenever she got close to the box we could hear Merlin racing round in circles, scrabbling to get out.
Rosie came next with Fliss. They were walking towards us and Fliss wasn’t carrying anything, so Kenny said to me, “Uh-oh, it doesn’t look as if Gazza’s turned up.” But even from a distance we could see she was smiling.
“Have you got him?” I shouted to her.
She frowned at me, as if I’d said something wrong. When she got closer she hissed, “Do you want to tell everyone? It’s supposed to be a secret, remember.”
Kenny said, “There’s nobody here, yet.”
“No, but walls have ears,” she said. Then she stood close up to us and held her kagoul pocket open. We peeped in and there he was, a bit dusty-looking, but otherwise OK.
“How did you get him out?” whispered Kenny.
“We had to take the floorboard up in the end. It was Adam’s idea.”
“Where is Adam?”
“Mum’s bringing him later. Where’s Lyndz?”
But we just shrugged, there was no sign of her yet.
You could tell Jenny and Pepsi were pleased to see each other, their tails were wagging nineteen to the dozen. We would have liked to take them onto the field and let them off their leads but we wanted to keep them nice and clean, so we tried to get them to sit and be good. And they were, until Buster came. Then the trouble started.
Buster isn’t used to being on a lead; he was pulling so hard Lyndz couldn’t control him. He’s only a quarter of the size of Pepsi and Jenny but he’s so strong. The minute he saw them he made a bee-line for them. He wouldn’t stop fussing and jumping up at them.
“Leave them alone, Buster,” Lyndz kept saying. But he wouldn’t. He was a menace. Then he noticed Kenny’s box and started growling at it. We could hear Merlin scuffling about inside, as if he knew there was an enemy outside, which there was. The minute Lyndz pulled Buster away from Kenny, he started fussing Fliss and getting up on his back legs to reach her pocket.
“Get him off,” Fliss squealed.
“I’m trying,” said Lyndz, yanking on Buster’s lead.
Thank goodness it wasn’t long before Brown Owl arrived.
“You girls are very early,” she said. “Well, you’d better come inside, out of the rain, but you’ll have to wait in the foyer until we’re set up. Please keep your pets under control.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” said Lyndz, under her breath. But she wasn’t having much success.
A few other people were beginning to arrive, so we followed them into the building. But when we got into the foyer and saw who was sitting there, behind a table, ready to take everyone’s names, we nearly went home again. It was Snowy Owl, and, in case you’ve forgotten who Snowy Owl is, she’s only Fliss’s Auntie Jill. She knew Fliss didn’t have her own hamster. Why hadn’t we thought about her?
Fliss turned straight round and raced outside, and the rest of us followed her.
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“What am I going to do now?” Fliss wailed.
“Look, what are you worried about?” I said. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Not yet,” said Fliss.
“Why not just keep him in your pocket?” said Lyndz. “No one need know.”
“Oh, that’s all right for you to say, but I was really looking forward to this. I want to be in the Pet Show.”
Poor old Fliss, we all wanted her to be in the Pet Show too, but we couldn’t think of a way to help. It was raining harder now and we were getting properly wet. But I remembered what my gran always says, where there’s a will, there must be a way. I concentrated really hard.
Rosie was standing by Fliss, patting her shoulder. “This is all my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have had that stupid idea in the first place.”
“It was a good idea,” said Lyndz. “You weren’t to know.”
“I’ve got it,” I said. “We’ll tell Snowy Owl he’s Rosie’s hamster. She can’t take him in because she’s got Jenny as well. So you’re going to enter him for her.”
“Yeah! One-nil!” said Kenny. “Mega-Brain Strikes Again.”
“Oh, Frankie, you’re so clever,” said Rosie.
Mmm, yes, I thought, I am pretty cool, actually.
“OK, let’s go,” I said. It was nearly two thirty and lots more people were arriving.
But when we went back into the foyer, we nearly had to come out again, because now there wasn’t just Snowy Owl at the desk, her boyfriend, Dishy Dave was there too. Dishy Dave’s the caretaker at school. He might recognise Gazza, because he’s always in and out of our classroom, checking up on things.
Fliss was about to disappear again, so I grabbed her.
“Just keep him in your pocket,” I whispered.
“And try to look natural,” whispered Kenny.
Fliss swallowed and gave a big sigh. “I wished I’d stayed at home,” she said. But she didn’t really, you could tell.
When we got to the front of the queue I went first and gave my name.
“And your dog’s?” said Snowy Owl, busy writing.
“Pepsi,” I said, smiling.
“What class?” she asked me.
“Class?” I didn’t know what she meant.
“Obedience? Appearance? Novelty?”
Well, I knew Pepsi wasn’t very obedient so I chose Appearance. Snowy Owl gave me a card with a large number nine on it. “Dogs are in the Main Hall,” she said. “Listen for your name to be called.”
Rosie chose Obedience as well as Appearance because Jenny’s very well-behaved and comes whenever you call her. She got a number ten to hold.
When it came to Lyndz she didn’t know which to choose for Buster. He’s quite a funny looking thing, not a bit pretty and he certainly doesn’t do as he’s told.
Snowy Owl told her she’d put him in Obedience because there weren’t many dogs in that class, and Novelty too. Buster was number eleven, which made me giggle.
“What’s so funny?” said Lyndz.
“You know,” I said. “In Bingo, when they call out ‘Legs Eleven’. It really suits him.” But Lyndz wasn’t amused.
Then it was Kenny’s turn. “Laura McKenzie and Merlin,” said Kenny.
“And what’s Merlin?” asked Snowy Owl, looking at the box.
“My white rat,” said Kenny, opening the lid to show her. Snowy Owl went white and leant back in her chair. You could see she wasn’t keen on rats. She looked as if she was having trouble swallowing.
“That’s alright. I don’t need to see him. Just keep him in the box until the judges are ready. Number twelve, room three: small animals.”
“Are there any other rats entered?” I asked.
“Not at the moment,” said Snowy. “Thank goodness,” she added, under her breath.
“So if nobody else comes,” said Dave, “you’ll win automatically.”
That made Kenny grin. Jammy or what!
Then it was Fliss’s turn. She was looking very pink. Snowy Owl smiled at her. “I think I know your name,” she said. Well, she ought to, she’s her auntie, after all. “Are you just here to keep your friends company?”
Fliss didn’t know what to say.
