Hazel (6 page)

‘Sounds like breakfast,’ called Tobacco.

‘Eh?’ shouted Hazel from her hutch to his. ‘Breakfast, eh?’

‘You
poor
things,’ said the girl when she heard their piping voices. But she had not brought their breakfast, which made them squeak all the more. In the event, she opened
Tobacco’s hutch and took him back upstairs to her bedroom. She got back into bed and gave him a celery stick which she had had the foresight to procure from the refrigerator on the way.

It was Saturday. The family had had their breakfast. Dad and the boy packed a basket and said that they were going out fishing. Mum said that she was going shopping, and when she had given the
girl her pocket money, the girl said she would like to come to the shops with Mum. First they went to the grocer’s and bought butter, biscuits, drinking chocolate, and cheese. Then they went
to the butcher and bought a chicken and a pound of sausages. Then they went to the baker and bought a white loaf, a brown loaf, four teacakes, and two gingerbread men. And then they went to
Mum’s favourite café, and Mum had a cup of coffee, and the girl had a milkshake. Now all these shops and the café were in the covered market in the centre of the town, in the
very place where the pet shop was. It took the girl only two minutes to drink her milkshake through a straw, but Mum was lingering, in the annoying way that grown-ups do linger over their drinks.
She had hardly started her coffee.

‘Mum,’ said the girl, ‘would it be all right if I went out and looked at a few shop windows? I won’t go far.’

‘Provided you don’t leave the covered market,’ said Mum, ‘and provided you don’t talk to strangers, and provided you are only five minutes.’

So the little girl left the café and walked to the next aisle of the market. And there on the corner was the pet shop window. There was a little group of people staring in at the window.
Some were looking at a green lizard in a tank; and some were looking at the goldfish. But the greater part of them were looking at a lower window that contained … Beryl! There was Beryl, all
on her own, nibbling some bran from a bowl and looking nonplussed by all this attention.

Evidently the other three babies had already been sold and, to judge from the talk at the window, Beryl would soon be sold too.

‘Mam – get us a gerbil,’ said a little boy.

‘You shut up,’ said his mother rudely.

Another mother was saying, ‘Isn’t it sweet?’

‘Can’t we get it, Mummy,
please
?’ said this other mother’s daughter who looked – our girl considered – really horrible.

Our girl had only planned to have one last
look
at her guinea pig babies. She only wanted to see them, and to say goodbye. She really had not planned what happened next, but she found
herself looking in her purse. Mum had let her keep half the money from yesterday’s transaction, so she had £1.75. In addition, she had 50p pocket money from that morning and £1 in
savings. Altogether she had £3.25. She had promised not to speak to strangers, but the man in the pet shop was not exactly a stranger. She found herself going into the shop. She felt very
shy, and her heart was pounding excitedly.

The pet shop man took a long time before serving her. There were a lot of people in front of her, and every time they opened their mouths, the girl was afraid that they were going to ask if they
could buy the guinea pig. But the man with the nobbly nose bought some dog food, and the short, fat woman with a scarf bought birdseed, and the two children bought hay … and at last it was
the girl’s turn.

‘How much is the guinea pig in the window?’ she blurted out shyly.

‘At least you know what it is,’ laughed the man. ‘We had some people in just now thought it was a gerbil. It’s four pounds. Very fine guinea pig. It’s been
beautifully reared.’

The man did not seem to recognise her as the girl who had sold him the guinea pigs the day before.

‘You wouldn’t take three pounds and twenty-five pence, I suppose,’ said the girl.

‘Well,’ said the man. ‘The price is …’ He peered at her. Did he know? ‘The price is really four pounds.’

‘It is rather a small, puny guinea pig,’ said the girl. ‘Have you no others?’

‘We had three others,’ said the man, ‘but they’ve all gone. Sold like hot cakes. And this,’ he paused, ‘this was the prize of the bunch.’ He was
obviously weakening because he then said, ‘If you bought it, you would look after it properly wouldn’t you? It’s been beautifully handled and reared since birth, this
cavy.’

‘Oh, I would. I know how to look after guinea pigs. I have one or two already,’ said the girl.

‘Three is the ideal number to have,’ said the man. ‘Two females and one male. This one here’s a female.’

The girl was clever. She did not say, ‘I know.’ She said instead, ‘You see, I only have three pounds and twenty-five pence. I could let you have the other seventy-five pence in
a week’s time.’ And then the man smiled and said, ‘Oh, all
right
. You can have it for three pounds and twenty-five pence.’

A few minutes later the girl reappeared at the café, just as Mum was finishing her coffee. She was carrying a little cardboard box, and out of it there were coming the excited squeaks of
Beryl.

‘You needn’t tell me what you’ve got in there,’ Mum said. ‘I’ve guessed.’

‘I wasn’t planning to buy her, really, Mum, I wasn’t.’

‘Which one is it?’ asked Mum. ‘I hope it
is
only one? Three guinea pigs is quite enough.’

‘It is Beryl,’ said the girl.

‘Not One, Two, Three or Four?’

‘It is the one you call “Four,”’ said the girl.

‘I shan’t call her “Four” anymore,’ said Mum. ‘I shall call her Beryl. Beryl is a good name.’

About an hour later, Tobacco and Hazel were in their separate hutches.

‘Coo-eee!’

‘Is that you, girl?’ asked Tobacco.

‘No,’ said Hazel, ‘it wasn’t me.’

‘Thought I heard you call. Nice celery this morning, mine were.’

‘I’ve tasted crispier,’ said Hazel, ‘but yes, it were nice.’

‘Coo-eee!’

‘There you go again,’ said Tobacco.

‘No I don’t,’ said Hazel. ‘It’s not me calling out. It’s this new little brown ’un.’

‘Brown ’un?’

‘Yes,’ said Hazel. ‘When they come round with the celery this morning, they put this new brown ’un in to share with me.’

‘Not a boar?’ said Tobacco suspiciously. ‘You’re not sharing your cage with no he-pig?’

‘No, a little sow,’ said Hazel.

‘That’s all right then,’ said Tobacco. ‘Wonder why they didn’t put her in to share with me?’

‘She’s nice,’ shouted Hazel. ‘More friendly to have someone to talk to.’

‘Coo-eee!’ shouted Beryl.

‘Funny idea, bringing in another,’ said Hazel, ‘when we were all right on our own. But friendly, certainly.’

‘Coo-eee, brown ’un!’ shouted back Tobacco.

The End

‘This guinea pig,’ said Tobacco, ‘he said the best fruit to eat was called the Barn Anna. White, I believe it is.’

Us humans like bananas to be a little bit more exciting. Here’s a fun and easy recipe to make BANANAS into BREAD.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and grease a loaf tin or small cake tin.

2. Mash the bananas with a fork and then mix with all the other ingredients until the flour has disappeared into the mixture.

3. Pour into the loaf tin.

4. Cook for about one hour or ask for help to test with a skewer/knife: if you poke it into the cake, and it comes out ‘clean’, your bread is cooked and ready to
eat when it has cooled down!

Hazel liked to explore. When she was in her hutch, she sometimes ran from one room to the next, as though she were looking for something.

Your guinea pig will love to explore, too. To make your pet a network of tunnels, you will need:

Make sure your guinea pig can easily squeeze through a kitchen roll. Then, cut four 2cm slits into the end of the rolls. When they are cut, they will be able to squeeze together
more easily to slip one inside the other.

Make two holes in a cardboard or shoe box and pop the rolls into the holes to create a fun den for your guinea pig. Experiment with hiding bits of food in places around the den so your pet can
search for it.