Too Cool for School, Hammy the Wonder Hamster! Read online

  Hamilton put his head on one side. Could that noise really be a trombone? It didn’t sound half as good as the wonderful oompah music on the computer. He had really liked that.

  ‘I know,’ said Bethany. ‘It’s terrible. But his teacher said that all beginners make noises like that. It takes a long time before you can play a trombone without horrible sounds coming out of it – but never mind the trombone just now. I’ve got something important to tell you. My Auntie Sally phoned this morning. She’s Mum’s sister. She’s bringing Kitty here today. I wish she wasn’t, but she is, and Kitty is an absolute horror. Unfortunately, we have to put up with her now and again.’

  Why? wondered Hamilton. The message on the answering machine had only said, ‘Can I leave her with you?’. Maybe this monster cat was so dangerous that it had to be watched by a keeper at all times. If Kitty was a Monster Cat of Absolute Horror, why wasn’t she kept in a cage? He was, and he was a harmless hamster. Hamilton would never hurt anyone (although when he came to think of it, he might nip someone who took away his food, his water bottle or his crossword – oh, and anyone who tried to hurt Bethany).

  ‘I don’t think Sam knows about Kitty coming,’ said Bethany. ‘He was making too much noise to hear Mum. I’d better go and warn him.’

  Bethany crossed the landing. Soon, Sam was running noisily down the stairs.

  ‘Don’t let her near my trombone, either!’ he shouted.

  Bethany came back.

  ‘Sam’s gone to check that the shed door’s locked, so Kitty can’t get near Bobby the Bunny,’ said Bethany. ‘And the key has to go on a high shelf so she can’t reach it. Mum and Dad are putting everything away in high places and I think I’d better do the same.’

  Bethany gathered together her school books, her phone and some pretty things – necklaces and china animals – from her desk and the windowsill. While she climbed on to a chair to stack these things safely on the top shelf of her wardrobe, Hamilton let himself out of his cage and sat on the pillowcase, waiting for her to put him up there too. He wondered what Monstrous Kitty of the Absolute Horror would look like. At least if she couldn’t reach the high shelves she couldn’t be all that big – certainly not as big as an elephant – but even ordinary cats were much bigger than he was. Really, Kitty Monsters shouldn’t be allowed out. What if it came Monstering in and attacked Bethany? He’d have to bite it – he would do that for Bethany.

  From Sam’s room came a click, a thump and a bump. Hamilton stood up on his hind legs, ready to either fight or run away.

  ‘It’s all right, Hamilton,’ said Bethany, climbing down. ‘That’s just Sam shutting his trombone in its case because he doesn’t want Kitty anywhere near it. Now, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do with you. I’m taking you round to Chloe’s house – all right? You can stay there until Kitty’s gone.’

  This sounded to Hamilton like a very sensible idea. Chloe was Bethany’s best friend. She had a hamster of her own, Toffee, so she understood about hamsters. (Although she did insist on calling him ‘Hammy’, which he wasn’t so impressed with.)

  ‘I’d like to stay there with you,’ said Bethany. ‘But if Kitty goes raging round the house, she’ll get into my room and wreck things, so I’d better be here. I need to keep her away from Sam too because he can’t stand her.’

  There were voices downstairs, then a car door banged. Bethany ran to look out of the window, and Hamilton saw a look of horror on her face.

  ‘It’s too late!’ she whispered. ‘Kitty’s here!’

  ‘I want to play in Bethany’s room!’ yelled a loud and piercing voice.

  ‘I don’t want her even to see you!’ Bethany whispered urgently.

  Hamilton gave the door catch on his cage an extra hard twist to make sure it was as tightly shut as possible before tunnelling into the safety of his nest box. As footsteps pounded up the stairs, Bethany threw her coat over the cage to hide it. The bedroom door was flung open.

  Hamilton was worried, but he was also extremely curious about the Monstrous Kitty. He peeped out very cautiously and found a gap at one corner where the coat hadn’t quite covered the bars of the cage. It looked like a good place for spying on the Kitty Monster without being seen.

  But there was no cat, and certainly not an enormous one. In the doorway stood a small person with ribboned bunches of blonde hair. She wore a very pink sweater and trousers, and sparkly trainers. She jumped up and down twice and Hamilton, feeling the floor shake, crept backwards.

  ‘Hello, Bethany!’ shouted the Kitty. ‘I’ve come to play! Let’s get all the toys out! You’re my very bestest cousin!’

  With an enormous bounce, Kitty launched herself on to Bethany’s bed. The springs creaked.

  So she’s not a monster cat, thought Hamilton. She’s just Bethany’s little cousin. That can’t be so bad, can it?

  ‘Let’s get everything out!’ shouted Kitty. ‘Let’s get all the toys out!’

  ‘No, Kitty,’ said Bethany firmly. ‘You can only get out one thing at a time.’

  ‘Paint, paint, paint!’ shouted Kitty, bouncing with every word.

  ‘Kitty, you’ve been told before about bouncing on the bed,’ said Bethany.

  Kitty bounced again.

  Bethany folded her arms and stood still. She was used to her little cousin Kitty.

  ‘Do you want to paint or don’t you?’ she asked calmly.

  Kitty jumped down from the bed with a thud that made Hamilton flinch. ‘Paint, paint, paint!’ she said again.

  Bethany remembered all too well what had happened last time Kitty had got her hands on, or rather in, the paint. There were still purple stains on the carpet, but Bethany had hidden them under a small fluffy rug between the bed and the wardrobe. ‘You’ll need an apron,’ she said. ‘And we’ll do the painting in the bathroom.’

  ‘But I like your bedroom best!’ wailed Kitty. She grabbed at a handful of felt pens, but Bethany was too quick for her and snatched them away before she could draw on the walls.

  ‘I want the pens!’ screamed Kitty.

  ‘Do you? I thought you wanted to paint,’ said Bethany with great patience.

  ‘Pe-he-hens!’ whinged Kitty, trying to sound as if she were crying. She could make herself cry very easily, but Bethany was used to that and looked around for something to distract Kitty quickly, before she could damage anything. There was a kaleidoscope that Kitty sometimes liked to play with.

  ‘Would you like to look in the kaleidoscope?’ she suggested.

  ‘Klidoscope, klidoscope, klidoscope, Bethany is a klidoscope!’ sang Kitty, and climbed on the bed again. This time she lost her balance, wobbled, looked for something to hold on to, and grabbed the curtain. When the curtain came off the rail, even Kitty looked subdued.

  ‘Get down off the bed, Kitty,’ ordered Bethany. Normally, Kitty would have refused, but just for a few seconds, she was worried that she might really be in trouble, so she wriggled down from the bed without a murmur. Bethany climbed up to put the curtain back on its rail, glancing over her shoulder to see what Kitty was up to now. She was trying on Bethany’s slippers, which were much too big for her. She couldn’t do any harm like that, so Bethany went on rehanging the curtain. When she looked again, Kitty was still dressing up and had got as far as putting on a sweater Bethany had left on a chair. That was safe enough too. Bethany clipped the last curtain hook back into place.

  ‘Ooh!’ squeaked Kitty.

  Bethany turned sharply, but it was too late.

  Kitty had taken Bethany’s coat from the cage, meaning to put it on, but had seen Hamilton and forgotten all about dressing up. She was trying to open the cage door as Bethany jumped down and caught he
r hand.

  ‘No!’ Bethany pulled the chubby little fist away from the cage. ‘You mustn’t touch that!’

  ‘Mouse!’ shouted Kitty. ‘There’s a big mouse in there! Come out, mouse!’

  ‘It’s a hamster,’ said Bethany, holding firmly on to Kitty’s hands as Hamilton glared from behind the bars. ‘He’s a hamster and he doesn’t want to play today.’

  Hamilton went straight back to his nest box and pulled the bedding round him. He wanted to make it quite clear to Kitty that he really didn’t want to play.

  ‘He’s making his bed,’ said Bethany. ‘That means he wants to sleep now, so we have to leave him alone.’

  ‘But I want him!’ cried Kitty. ‘Get him out!’

  ‘He doesn’t want to come out,’ said Bethany. ‘He’s an animal, not a toy. He’s gone to hide in his nest box and that means he wants us to leave him alone. We have to be very quiet so he can sleep. Let’s see if we can be very quiet, shall we?’

  ‘I’ll sing him to sleep,’ yelled Kitty with a lunge towards the cage.

  ‘He doesn’t like singing,’ said Bethany through gritted teeth. He certainly wouldn’t have liked Kitty’s singing, which was the same as shouting, only louder and off-key.

  ‘I WANT HIM!’ yelled Kitty.

  ‘Shall we find the paints?’ said Bethany, still holding on to Kitty and trying to change the subject. ‘You want to paint a picture, don’t you?’

  ‘Not paints!’ said Kitty crossly. ‘I want to play with him!’

  ‘I know, but he doesn’t want to play with you,’ said Bethany, and picked up her coat from the floor where Kitty had dropped it. ‘You were dressing up, weren’t you? Here’s my coat; shall we see what else we can – Ow!’

  The ‘Ow!’ was because Kitty had kicked Bethany and was struggling hard. Bethany held on to her as long as she could, but Kitty fought, wriggled and kicked before escaping to try to wrench the cage door open again. Bethany prised her fingers away.

  ‘I DON’T WANNA DRESS UP!’ bellowed Kitty, with a tearful sob in her voice. ‘I WANNA DRESS MOUSIE UP, all pretty and frilly and PINK!’

  Hamilton had left the safety of his nest when Bethany said ‘Ow!’ to see if he could help her. Hearing Kitty’s words, he froze. He was not going to be ‘dressed up’. Not up, not down, not sideways and definitely not pink. And he was not called ‘Mousie’.

  ‘No,’ said Bethany firmly. She slipped in between Kitty and the cage, and stood still.

  Kitty tried hitting Bethany, but Bethany wouldn’t move, so instead she tried crying very loudly. That didn’t do any good either and Hamilton could see exactly why Bethany had called Kitty a monster. She howled, she screamed, she lay on the floor and kicked, she held her breath until she turned purple. But none of it appeared to make any difference to Bethany. Kitty stopped kicking the floor and banged her head on it instead and when that hurt, she ran howling from the room.

  The howling stopped so quickly that Hamilton thought Kitty must have an On/Off switch. Maybe Bethany had run after her and switched her off, or perhaps it worked by remote control, but he was very glad of the silence, and looked out. He couldn’t see what was happening on the landing, but he could hear the grunt of the trombone.

  He had a feeling that things were about to get even worse. He was right.

  Kitty flung open the door to Sam’s room and stood quite still in astonishment. She even forgot to howl. Her eyes were wide, her mouth was open and she was staring as if she had seen an angel. Sam, the trombone still at his mouth, stopped in the middle of a grunt. He didn’t look at all as if he’d seen an angel. He looked as if he’d seen Kitty.

  Kitty drew a deep breath and pointed.

  ‘Trumpet!’ she exclaimed with longing. ‘I want that trumpet!’

  Bethany knelt on the floor beside her and put an arm round her.

  ‘It’s very heavy,’ she said. ‘Much too heavy for you. Listen to …’ She had meant to say, ‘Listen to Sam play’, but the noises Sam made didn’t sound much like playing yet, so she changed it to, ‘Listen to all those lovely sounds Sam makes with it.’

  Kitty stepped forward, reaching out to stroke the gleaming brass of the trombone.

  ‘That’s called the bell,’ said Sam.

  ‘And a pushy thing that goes back and forward,’ observed Kitty.

  ‘That bit’s called the slide,’ explained Sam. ‘Do you want to hear it?’

  ‘No,’ said Kitty. ‘I want to play it.’

  ‘It’s very delicate,’ said Sam. It didn’t look or sound at all delicate, but he didn’t like the idea of Kitty touching it. ‘And it isn’t mine. It belongs to the school, so I mustn’t let anyone else –’

  Sam wasn’t able to finish because at that second he had to leap out of the way as Kitty hurled herself with open arms at the trombone. Bethany held on to her, so she began howling again.

  ‘Don’t touch, Kitty,’ Bethany said. Kitty screamed, kicked again and was about to start her second tantrum of the afternoon when, over the screams, came Mum’s voice.

  ‘Kitty,’ she called up the stairs, ‘would you like to see a DVD?’

  ‘No DVD!’ said Kitty and kicked the wall.

  ‘Oh well, I’ll put Pingu away, then,’ said Mum.

  Very soon Kitty stopped screaming. She tried a sob, but Bethany ignored it, so she dried her eyes, sniffed indignantly and ran down the stairs to watch Pingu. Sam and Bethany sat down on the landing and sighed with relief.

  Hamilton, who had heard it all from his cage, sighed too. He had had more than enough of Kitty for one day.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Bethany. ‘I’ve got homework to do and I’ll do it while it’s quiet.’

  ‘And I’m going to do my trombone practice,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll do it in the shed. I think I’ll be safe from her in there.’

  Bethany went back to her bedroom, shut the door and took Hamilton from the cage. The catch was unusually stiff.

  ‘Poor Hamilton, did you lock yourself in for extra safety?’ she said gently, stroking him with one finger. ‘That was very sensible of you. Are you all right? I’m sorry about this. Kitty can be really scary, and it’s a bit late to take you to Chloe’s now. Kitty would see, and want to come with us.’

  She let him run from one hand to the other, then gave him the book he had been reading that morning on the Battle of Hastings while she settled down to do her homework. When Hamilton had finished the book – which didn’t take long – he ran up and down the curtain a few times for fun, then jumped back into his cage, locking it firmly again. He was already calling it ‘kittylocking’. He attended to eating, drinking and washing while Bethany got on with her maths.

  Hamilton soon got bored, though. Bethany didn’t appear to need any help with her maths today, and Sam’s trombone playing still wasn’t very good, but it was interesting. He didn’t like to bother Bethany, so he unlocked the cage very quietly and slipped out of the room, taking care to stay well away from the sitting room, where he knew Kitty would be watching Pingu.

  Hamilton had been to the shed before, so he knew where it was. The shed was shut – Sam had locked himself in – but Hamilton was small enough to slip under the door. The trombone wasn’t exactly making oompah noises yet, but he didn’t mind that. In fact, he could never tell what sound would come out of it next – and now he knew what was making all the different sounds, it was actually great fun.

  For a while, everything was calm. Bethany finished her homework, Sam tried to play the trombone, Hamilton listened and Kitty watched another DVD. In the shed, Hamilton and Sam didn’t hear the doorbell ring, but Mum did, and went to answer it. Out of curiosity, Bethany went downstairs, and at that
moment, the phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’ said Mum, picking it up. ‘Oh! Nice to hear from you – excuse me a moment!’ She put her hand over the phone. ‘Bethany, I’ve got a customer on the phone. Will you answer the door?’

  A man stood on the doorstep. He was young, with glasses and blond hair, and his suit looked a bit too big for him. In his left hand he carried a briefcase, and his right hand was held out to shake.

  ‘Good afternoon!’ he said. ‘My name’s Peter and I’m from Pexperts. You asked for a visit.’

  The man at the door smiled a little nervously and Bethany took a good look at him as she shook his hand. There was something strangely familiar about him, and she wondered where she might have seen him before. His hair was clearly dyed – she could tell that because it was dark at the roots – so she tried to imagine him with dark hair, but it wasn’t easy.

  ‘You left a message on my phone,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You wanted advice about your hamster?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Bethany, ‘but let me check with Mum.’

  She looked over at Mum, who was just finishing her phone conversation. ‘Mum, did you phone somebody for advice about hamsters?’

  Mum shook her head, and the look on her face said quite plainly that she was suspicious about this. She came to stand beside Bethany at the door.

  ‘Here’s my card,’ said the young man, handing over a printed business card. ‘And here’s my ID and the copy of our leaflet.’

  He was really Tim Taverner, of course, but the card said ‘Peter Pilkington’. He was becoming very good at fake ID cards. Mum looked at the yellow leaflet.

  ‘Yes, one of these came through the door,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we phoned anyone, though.’

  ‘Unless Dad did,’ suggested Bethany. ‘He might have come home at lunchtime.’ But she still felt a bit wary of this man.

  Tim took out his mobile phone. ‘“PLS CALL AT 33 TUMBLERS CRESCENT, SPINHILL”,’ he read from the screen, and held it up to show them the message. Bethany saw her own phone number on the screen.