Kitabı oku: «Ratburger», sayfa 2

5
Droppings

Zoe trudged even more reluctantly than usual to school the next morning. Gingernut was dead, and with that her dreams had died too. As Zoe walked out of the estate, Tina flobbed on the little girl’s head as she always did. As she was wiping the flob out of her frizzy hair with a page ripped from one of her exercise books, Zoe saw Dad crouched over by the tiniest patch of grass.

He appeared to be digging with his hands.

He turned around quickly, as if in shock. “Oh, hello, my love …”

“What are you doing?” said Zoe. She leaned over him, to see what he was up to, and saw that the little package containing Gingernut was laid on the ground, next to a small mound of earth.

“Don’t tell your mum …”

“Stepmum!”

“Don’t tell your stepmum, but I fished the little fella out of the bin …”

“Oh, Dad!”

“Sheila’s still asleep, snoring away. I don’t think she heard anything. Gingernut meant so much to you and I just wanted to give him, you know, a proper burial.”

Zoe smiled for a moment, but somehow she found herself crying too.

“Oh, Dad, thank you so much …”

“No word of this to her though, or she’ll murder me.”

“Of course not.”

Zoe knelt down beside him, picked up the little package and lowered Gingernut into the small hole her father had dug.

“I even got one of these for a headstone. One of the old lolly sticks from the factory.”

Zoe took out her chewed biro from her pocket, and scribbled ‘Gingernut’ on the stick, though there wasn’t really room for the ‘t’, so it just read:

GINGERNU

Dad filled in the hole, and they stood back and looked at the little grave.

“Thanks, Dad. You are the best …”

Now Dad was crying.

“What’s the matter?” asked Zoe.

“I am not the best. I am so sorry, Zoe. But I will get another job one day. I know I will …”

“Dad, a job doesn’t matter. I just want you to be happy.”

“I don’t want you to see me like this …”

Dad started walking away. Zoe pulled on his arm, but he shook it out of her grasp, and walked off back to the tower block.

“Come and meet me at the school gates later, Dad. We can go to the park, and you can put me on your shoulders. I used to love that. It don’t cost a thing.”

“Sorry, I’ll be in the pub. Have a good day at school,” he shouted, without looking back. He was hiding his sadness from his daughter, like he always did.

Zoe could feel her stomach screaming in hunger. There had been no dinner last night as Sheila had spent all the benefit money on fags, and there was no food in the house. Zoe hadn’t eaten for a very long time. So she stopped off at Raj’s Newsagent.

All the kids from school went to his shop before or after school. As Zoe never received pocket money, she would only come in to the shop and gaze longingly at the sweets. Being exceptionally kind-hearted, Raj often took pity on the girl and gave her free ones. Only the out-of-date ones though, or those with a hint of mould, but she was still grateful. Sometimes she would be allowed a quick suck on a mint before Raj asked her to spit it out so he could put it back in the packet to sell it to another customer.

This morning Zoe was especially hungry, and was hoping Raj would help …

TING went the bell as the door opened.

“Aaah! Miss Zoe. My favourite customer.” Raj was a big jolly man, who always had a smile on his face, even if you told him his shop was on fire.

“Hello, Raj,” said Zoe sheepishly. “I don’t have any money again today I am afraid.”

“Not a penny?”

“Nothing. Sorry.”

“Oh dear. But you do look hungry. A quick nibble on one of these chocolate bars perhaps?”

He picked up a bar and unwrapped it for her.

“Just try and eat around the edge please. Then I can put it in the wrapper and back on sale. The next customer will never know!”

Zoe nibbled greedily on the chocolate bar, her front teeth munching off the edges like a little rodent.

“You look very sad, child,” said Raj. He was always good at spotting when things were wrong, and could be a lot more caring than some parents or teachers. “Have you been crying?”

Zoe looked up from her nibbling for a moment. Her eyes still stung with tears.

“No, I’m fine, Raj. Just hungry.”

“No, Miss Zoe, I can see something is wrong.” He leaned on the counter, and smiled supportively at her.

Zoe took a deep breath. “My hamster died.”

“Oh, Miss Zoe, I am so so sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“You poor thing. A few years ago I had a pet tadpole and it died, so I know how you feel.”

Zoe looked surprised. “A pet tadpole?” She had never heard of anyone having one as a pet.

“Yes, I called him Poppadom. One night I left him swimming around in his little fish bowl, and when I woke up in the morning there was this naughty frog there. He must have eaten Poppadom!”

Zoe couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.

“Raj …”

“Yes …?” The newsagent wiped a tear from his eye with the sleeve of his cardigan. “Sorry, I always get quite emotional when I think about Poppadom.”

“Raj, tadpoles turn into frogs.”

“Don’t be so stupid, child!”

“They do. So that frog was Poppadom.”

“I know you are just making me feel better, but I know it’s not true.”

Zoe rolled her eyes.

“Now tell me about your hamster …”

“He is, I mean, was, so special. I trained him to breakdance.”

“Wow! What was his name?”

“Gingernut,” said Zoe sadly. “My dream was that one day he would be on the TV …”

Raj thought for a moment, and then looked Zoe straight in the eyes. “You must never give up on your dreams, young lady …”

“But Gingernut is dead …”

“But your dream doesn’t need to die. Dreams never die. If you can train a hamster to breakdance, Miss Zoe, just imagine what you could do …”

“I suppose …”

Raj looked at his watch. “But as much as I would like to, we can’t stand here chatting all day.”

“No?” Zoe loved Raj, even if he didn’t know a tadpole turned into a frog, and never wanted to leave his messy little shop.

“You better be off to school now, young lady. You don’t want to be late …”

“I suppose so,” mumbled Zoe. Sometimes she wondered why she didn’t just bunk off like so many of the others.

Raj beckoned with his big hands. “Now, Miss Zoe, give me the chocolate bar please, so I can put it back on sale …”

Zoe looked at her hands. It had gone. She was so hungry she had devoured every last morsel, save for one tiny square.

“I am so sorry, Raj. I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t!”

“I know, I know,” said the kindly man. “Just put it back in the wrapper. I can sell it as a special diet chocolate to someone fat like me!”

“Good idea!” said the little girl.

Zoe went over to the door, and turned around to face the newsagent.

“Thank you, by the way. Not just for the chocolate. But for the advice …”

“Both are free of charge for you any time, Miss Zoe. Now run along …”

Raj’s words went round and round in Zoe’s mind all day at school, but when she returned home to the flat she felt the same sense of absence. Gingernut was gone. For ever.

Days went by, then weeks, then months. She could never forget about Gingernut. He was such a special little hamster. And he brought her so much joy in a world of pain. From the moment he died, Zoe felt as if she was walking through a storm. Very slowly, as the days and weeks passed, the rain became a little lighter. Though the sun had still not shone.

Until one night, months later, when something completely unexpected happened.

Zoe was lying in bed after another insufferable day at school at the hands of the bullies, and the dreaded Tina Trotts in particular. There was shouting from next door as usual. Then, out of a brief moment of quiet in the night, came a tiny sound. It was so soft at first it was almost imperceptible. Then it became louder. And louder.

It sounded like nibbling.

Am I dreaming? thought Zoe. Am I having one of those strange dreams that I am lying in bed awake?

She opened her eyes. No, she wasn’t dreaming.

Something small was moving in her bedroom.

For a mad moment, Zoe wondered if it could be the ghost of Gingernut. Lately she’d found a couple of what seemed like droppings in her room. No, don’t be crazy, she told herself. Must be funny-shaped clumps of dust, that’s all.

At first all she could see was a tiny shadowy shape in the corner by the door. She tiptoed out of bed to have a closer look. It was little and dirty and a tad smelly. The dusty floorboards creaked a little under her weight.

The tiny thing turned around.

It was a rat.

6
Rat-a-tat-tat

When you think of the word ‘rat’, what is the next thing to come into your head?

Rat… vermin?

Rat… sewer?

Rat… disease?

Rat… bite?

Rat… plague?

Rat… catcher?

Rat… a-tat-tat?

Rats are the most unloved living things on the planet.

However, what if I told you that what Zoe found in her room that night was a baby rat?

Yes, this was the cutest, sweetest, littlest baby rat you can imagine, and it was crouching in the corner of her room, nibbling on one of her dirty hole-ridden socks.

With a tiny pink twitching nose, furry ears and huge, deep, hopeful eyes, this was a rat that could win first prize in a vermin beauty pageant. This explained the mysterious droppings that Zoe had recently found in her room: it must have been this little mite.

Well, it certainly wasn’t me.

Zoe had always thought she would be terrified if she ever saw a rat. Her stepmother even kept rat poison in the kitchen, as there was always talk of an infestation in the crumbling block of flats.

However, this rat didn’t seem very terrifying. In fact, if anything, the rat appeared to be terrified of Zoe. When the floorboard creaked as she approached, it skirted the wall and hid under her bed.

“Don’t be scared, little one,” whispered Zoe. Slowly she put her hand under the bed to try and stroke the rat. It shivered in fear at first, its fur standing up on end.

“Shush, shush,” said Zoe, comfortingly.

Little by little, the rat made its way through the garden of dust and dirt under Zoe’s creaky little bed and approached her hand. It sniffed her fingers, before licking one, then another. Sheila was too idle to cook, and Zoe was so starving she had stolen a bag of her stepmother’s dreaded prawn cocktail crisps for her dinner. The rat must have been able to smell them on her fingers, and despite Zoe’s grave misgivings about the snack, which bore no relation to prawns or indeed cocktails, the rat didn’t seem to mind.

Zoe let out a little giggle. The nibbling tickled her. She lifted her hand to stroke the rat, and it ducked underneath and raced to the far corner of the room.

“Shush, shush, come on. I only want to give you a stroke,” implored Zoe.

The rat peeked at her with uncertainty, before tentatively, paw by paw, making its way over to her hand. She brushed its fur with her little finger as lightly as she could. The fur was a lot softer than she imagined. Not as soft as Gingernut’s, nothing was. But surprisingly soft nonetheless.

One by one, Zoe’s fingers lowered and soon she was stroking the top of the rat’s head. Zoe let her fingers trickle down its neck and back. The rat arched its back to meet her hand.

Most likely it had never been shown such tenderness before. Certainly not by a human. Not only was there enough rat poison in the world to kill every rat ten times over, but when people saw a rat, they would generally either scream or reach for a broom to whack it with.

Looking at this little tiddler now, though, it was hard for Zoe to understand why anyone would want to harm him.

Suddenly, the rat’s little ears shot up and Zoe quickly turned her head. Her parents’ bedroom door was opening, and she could hear her stepmother thundering along the hallway, huffing with each step. Hurriedly, Zoe snatched up the rat, cupped it in her hands, and jumped back into bed. Sheila would go crazy if she knew her stepdaughter was in bed cuddling a rodent. Zoe took the duvet between her teeth and hid under the covers. She waited and listened. The bathroom door creaked open and closed, and Zoe could hear the muffled sound of her stepmother thudding down on to the cracked toilet seat.

Zoe sighed and opened her hands. The baby rat was safe. For now. She let the little rodent scamper over her hands and on to her torn pyjama top.

“Kiss kiss kiss kiss.” She made a little kissing noise just like the one she used to do with Gingernut. And just like her hamster used to do, the rat approached her face.

Zoe planted a little kiss on its nose. She pushed a dent in the pillow next to her head, and gently laid the rat down into it. It fitted perfectly, and soon she could hear it snoring very quietly next to her.

If you have never heard a rat snoring before, this is what it sounds like:

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz.

“Now, how on earth am I going to keep you a secret?” Zoe whispered.

7
Animal Smuggling

It isn’t easy to smuggle a rat into school.

The hardest animal to sneak into school is of course the blue whale. Just too big and wet.

Hippopotamuses are also hard to slip in unnoticed, as are giraffes. Too fat and tall respectively.

Lions are inadvisable. All that roaring gives them away.

Seals bark too much. As do walruses.

Skunks smell really bad – even worse than some teachers.

Kangaroos just don’t stop hopping.

Boobies[1] sound too rude.

Elephants tend to break the chairs.

An ostrich will get you to school quickly, but is too big to hide in your school bag.

Polar bears blend into arctic wastes very well, but can be spotted instantly in a school dinner queue.

Smuggling a shark into school would lead to instant expulsion, especially if you had swimming lessons that day. They have a tendency to eat the children.

Orang-utans are also a no-no. They can be very disruptive in class.

Gorillas are even worse, especially in Maths. Gorillas are not good with numbers, and hate doing sums, although they are surprisingly good at French.

A herd of wildebeest is almost impossible to take into school without a teacher noticing.

Nits, on the other hand, are ludicrously easy. Some children smuggle thousands of nits into school every day.

A rat is still a difficult animal to smuggle into school. Somewhere between a blue whale and a nit on the ‘hard to smuggle into school’ scale.

The problem was that it was impossible for Zoe to leave the little thing at home. Gingernut’s old battered cage was long gone, as her stepmother had taken it to the pawnbrokers. The ghastly woman had swapped it for a few coins, which she promptly spent on a bumper-box of prawn cocktail crisps. Thirty-six bags that she had demolished before breakfast.

If Zoe had just left the rat running around the flat, she knew that Sheila would have poisoned it or stamped on it or both. Her stepmother made no secret of hating all rodents. And even if Zoe had hidden the rat in a bedroom drawer, or in a box under her bed, there was a very good chance Sheila would have found it. Zoe knew that her stepmother always rummaged through her possessions the moment she left for school. Sheila was looking for things she could sell or swap for a fag or two, or some more prawn cocktail crisps.

One day, all of Zoe’s toys had gone, another day it was her beloved books. It was just too risky to leave the rat alone in the flat with that woman.

Zoe considered putting the rat in her school bag, but because she was so poor she had to take her books to school in a beaten-up plastic carrier bag, held together with strips of sticky tape. It was too much of a risk that the little rodent might nibble its way out. So Zoe hid it in the breast pocket of her two-sizes-too-large blazer. Yes, she could feel it constantly wriggling around, but at least she knew it was safe.

As Zoe came out of the stairwell of the tower block and into the concreted communal area, she heard a shout from above her. “Zoe!”

She looked up.

Big mistake.

A huge flobbet of flob flobbed square on to her face. Zoe saw Tina Trotts standing at the railings several floors up.

“HA HAH HA!” Tina shouted down.

Zoe refused to cry. She just wiped her face with her sleeve and turned away, Tina’s laughter still echoing behind her. She probably would have cried, but then she felt the little rat move in her pocket, and she instantly felt better.

Now I’ve got a little pet again, she thought. It might just be a rat, but it’s only the beginning…

Perhaps Raj was right: her dream of training an animal to entertain the nation wasn’t dead after all.

The rat’s presence remained a comfort when Zoe arrived at school. This was Zoe’s first year at big school and she hadn’t made a single friend there yet. Most of the kids were poor, but Zoe was the poorest. It was embarrassing for her to have to go to school in unwashed clothes from charity shops. Clothes which were either far too big or far too small for her, and most of which had gaping holes in them. The rubber sole had all but fallen off her left shoe, and flapped against the ground every time she took a step.

FLIP FLAP FLIP FLAP FLIP FLAP went her shoes every time she walked anywhere.

FLIPITY FLAP FLIPITY FLAP FLIPITY FLAP if she ran.

In assembly, after an announcement about an end-of-term talent show, the pale headmaster Mr Grave stepped up to speak. He stood in the centre of the stage, unblinkingly staring at the hundreds of pupils gathered in the school hall. All the children were a little bit scared of him. With his staring eyes and pale skin, wild rumours abounded among the younger pupils that he was secretly a vampire.

Mr Grave proceeded to give a stern warning to those “errant pupils” who, against the rules, had been smuggling their mobile phones into school. This was just about everyone, though Zoe was far too skint to even dream of ever owning one.

Great, thought Zoe. Even when we’re being told off I get left out.

“Needless to say, I’m not just talking about phones!” boomed Mr Grave, as if reading Zoe’s mind. His voice could carry across a crowded playground at break-time and make every pupil fall silent in a heartbeat. “Anything that beeps or vibrates is strictly forbidden! Did you hear me?” he boomed again. “Forbidden! That is all. Dismissed.”

The bell rang and the kids plodded off to their lessons. Sitting on the uncomfortable little grey plastic chair on her own lonely row at the back of the assembly hall, Zoe wondered nervously if her rat came under Mr Grave’s description. It certainly vibrated. And sometimes it beeped. Or at least squeaked.

“Don’t make a sound today, little rat,” she said.

The rat squeaked.

Oh no! thought Zoe.

8
Bread Sandwich

So as not to be jostled at the door, Zoe waited a few moments before ambling off to her first lesson. Amazingly, Maths, which she always found cataclysmically boring, passed without incident. As did Geography, where she wondered if her new-found knowledge of oxbow lakes might come in useful in adult life. During the lessons, Zoe stole an occasional glance into her blazer inside pocket, and saw that the little rat was sleeping. It must really enjoy a nice lie-in.

At break-time, Zoe locked herself in a cubicle in the girls’ toilets and fed the rat some of the bread she was meant to be saving for her lunch. She made her own packed lunch whenever there were scraps of food still in the house. However, this morning there was absolutely nothing in the fridge other than a few cans of very strong lager, so she made herself a bread sandwich out of some stale slices left out on the side …

The recipe was simple:

BREAD SANDWICH

You will need: three slices of bread.

Instructions: take one slice of bread, and put it between the other two slices of bread.

The end.[1]

Unsurprisingly, the rat liked bread. Rats like most food we like.

Zoe sat on the toilet seat, and the rat perched on her left hand while she fed it with her right. It gobbled up every last mouthful.

“There you go, little—”

At that moment Zoe realised she had yet to name her tiny friend. Unless she wanted to give it a name suitable for a boy or a girl like ‘Pat’ or ‘Les’ or ‘Viv’, she would first have to find out if it was indeed a boy or a girl. So Zoe carefully picked the rat up to have a closer look. Just as she was trying to undertake a more thorough investigation, a thin arch of yellow liquid sprayed from just underneath the rat’s tummy, narrowly missing Zoe, and decorating the wall.

The girl now had a definitive answer. She was convinced that the wee had come from a tiny little spout, though it was impossible to look again, with the rat now wriggling in her hands.

But she was sure it was a boy.

Zoe looked up for inspiration. On the toilet door, some older girls had scratched obscene sentences with a compass.

‘Destiny is a complete @**$$$$&!%^!%!!!!’ Zoe read, which I think we can all agree is very rude, even if she is.

Destiny would have been a stupid name for a rat. Especially a boy rat, thought the little girl. Zoe continued searching the names on the door for inspiration.

Rochelle … no.

Darius … no.

Busta … no.

Tupac … no.

Jammaall… no.

Snoop … no.

Meredith … no.

Kylie … no.

Beyonce … no.

Tyrone … no.

Chantelle … no.

Despite being crowded with words (and some rude drawings), the toilet door wasn’t providing as much inspiration as Zoe had hoped. She sat up from the toilet seat and turned around to flush, so as not to alert the suspicion of the girl she could hear in the next cubicle. At that moment, she spied some posh writing amidst all the ingrained stains in the toilet bowl.

“Armitage Shanks,” she read out loud. It was only the name of the toilet manufacturer, but the little rat’s ears twitched when she said it, as if in recognition.

“Armitage! That’s it!” she exclaimed. It was a suitably upper-class-sounding name for this special little fellow.

Suddenly there was a loud thud on the toilet door.

BOOM

BOOOM

BOOOOM.

“Who have you got in there, you little squirt?” came a guttural voice from outside.

No! thought Zoe. It’s Tina Trotts. The spit from today’s flob had still not entirely come off Zoe’s little freckled face.

Tina was only fourteen but built like a trucker. She had big hands that could punch, big feet that could kick, a big head that could butt, and a big butt that could squash.

Even the teachers were scared of her. Inside the cubicle, Zoe was quaking with fear.

“There’s no one in here,” said Zoe.

Why did I say that? she instantly thought. The mere act of saying that there was no one in there meant there was definitely, without doubt, one hundred per cent, someone in there.

Zoe was in terrible danger, but only if she opened the door. For now, she was safe inside the—

“Get out of the bog right now before I smash the door in!” threatened Tina.

Oh dear.