There's a Hamster in my Pocket (2 page)

Kylie, on the other hand, was
tripping over
things to
cuddle – what with her dad's dozens of ferrets, and her mum's seven (yes,
seven
) Papillon dogs, and her brother's white rat, Fang.

And now, as if that wasn't enough, they'd only gone and given her a pair of hamsters.

Russian Dwarf hamsters, to be precise. The cutest, cuddliest animals you ever saw, with little brown stripy bodies and little white tummies and furry little feet and bright little eyes like shiny black pinheads.

“I'm calling them Toffee ‘n' Caramel,” Kylie told me when she took me up to her room to see them. “‘Cause they're s-o-o-o-o sweet.”

And, boy, were Toffee ‘n' Caramel ever sweet! Kylie and I played with them all the time. We loved letting them crawl up our sleeves and sniff our necks and dive down under our jumpers and out again. They were drop-dead gorgeous!

I didn't begrudge Kylie Toffee ‘n' Caramel one bit, and she was great at sharing them with me. But no matter how hard I tried not to be, I was still jealous.

That summer, it seemed to me that Kylie had everything going for her. But, as it turned out, Kylie had a big worry too. Kylie had Sniper.

The evening after the ‘Auntie Shabnam' news broke, Kylie and me were in her bedroom building a castle for Toffee ‘n' Caramel, and that was when she told me about Sniper.

Castle Hamster was amazing. We'd collected loads of old washing-up liquid bottles and toilet roll insides, and we'd glued them onto a big cardboard box to make turrets and secret tunnels.

Then we'd painted the whole thing bright pink and added sparkly detail with glitter pens and red love-heart stickers. It looked quite magical.

Kylie was trying to get a cardboard flag to stick straight up from the battlements, and she was getting more and more frustrated because it kept keeling over. Suddenly she said, “My mum's forty next week. Which is old, Yosser, really old.”

I held the flag while she fixed it with more Sellotape. “That's great, Kylie,” I said. “Your mum loves parties – and there's sure to be a
humungous
one.”

Kylie nodded. “We're having a surprise fancy-dress party for her the night before, ‘cause her birthday's on Sunday,” she said. “It's in the Masons' Arms and Dad says no expense has been spared.”

She stuck the last bit of Sellotape on, and sat back. The flag was still wonky. She looked over at me, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. When she spoke again, the words came out in a rush.

“I'm worried Sniper's going to ruin it all,” she said. “He's been in loads of trouble this summer, him and his mates. He won't do anything Mum and Dad say, and the other week the police came round and they had a long talk. Then they issued him with a warning.”

She took a deep breath. Her bottom lip was trembling.

“He's said some terrible things to Mum and Dad, Yosser,” she went on, very quietly. “He's been like a different person these past few months.”

I was horrified. Everyone knew that Dean ‘Sniper' Teasdale was a bit wild, but I thought he was cool. In fact, Sniper was another thing I envied Kylie.
I'd
have liked a big brother with Heavy Metal T-shirts and a ring in his nose. I'd have swopped Sniper for Bilal any day.

“Mum's beside herself with worry,” Kylie went on. “You can tell, because she's spending hours and hours in her vegetable patch. She can't think beyond her potatoes and her carrots and her purple-leafed broccoli. . .”

Kylie sighed. “It's not healthy, Yosser,” she said. “It's like she's in denial.”

I stuck a big bit of Blu-tack on the flag so that it didn't dare go wonky again, and then I crawled over to Kylie and put my arm round her.

“I'm sure Sniper wouldn't do anything to spoil your mum's special birthday,” I said. “He's just going through a difficult phase.”

Then, hoping to cheer her up, I asked, “What are you going to get her?”

It had the opposite effect. Kylie sighed again.

“I don't know,” she said. “I can't seem to get my head round the present. I think it's because I'm so worried about everything else.”

I gave her another squeeze. Then I went over to the hamster cage and lifted Toffee ‘n' Caramel out.

“Come on, Your Majesties,” I said, in as jolly a voice
as I could muster. “Allow me to transport you to your royal residence.”

I put them down outside the portcullis (which we'd drawn on in silver pen), pulled on a piece of string to raise it, and pushed their bottoms till they slid inside. Then I lowered the portcullis and left them to settle in.

“I'll help you find the perfect present for your mum,” I told Kylie. “Something really pretty.”

Kylie looked a bit better then, and when one of the royal hamsters popped its head up and peered over the pink battlements, she cheered right up.

“I was thinking of a jewellery box,” she said. “One lined with red velvet that plays music and has a ballerina going round. Only I'm kind of strapped for cash.”

Then her voice changed. “I was wondering. . .” she said, and then she bit her lip.

I thought she was going to ask me for a loan, because she sounded like I do when I'm after something, and I was getting ready to tell her I was sorry but
I
was pretty much broke too, when she went on.

“. . . if you'd help me spy on Sniper?”

I was dumbfounded. “Spy on him?” I said. “Isn't that a bit extreme?”

Kylie took hold of my shoulders and looked right into my face. I could see from the expression in her eyes and the way her hair stuck up even more than usual that she was deadly serious.

“They're plotting something, Yosser, him and his mates,” she said. “I've seen them creeping into the house, carrying stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” I asked, but Kylie shrugged.

“I never get a proper look,” she said, “because it's always dark. But some of it's massive. . .”

Suddenly I had the most terrible picture in my head of Sniper and his mates, Germane and Twista, with their heads down and their hoods up, creeping through the darkness with big sacks on their backs.

Sacks full of horrible, suspicious-looking things for committing horrible, dastardly crimes. . .

That evening, I'd been hoping to tell Kylie my own worries about Auntie Shabnam and the decluttering of Nani's room, but now
my
worries flew right out of the window. Compared to Kylie's, they were peanuts.

Just then, we heard a dull thud from outside.

“It's them,” hissed Kylie. “The gang. Turn off the light!” and she crawled over to the window.

Taking care to keep my head down, I did what I was told and together we stared out into the street.

There they were, creeping up the garden path – Sniper, Germane and Twista. A cold shiver ran up my back, because they looked exactly, precisely as I'd imagined they would. Their heads were down, their hoods were up, and Germane and Twista were carrying a long, pointed object that looked like a fat spear.

Sniper led the way, and he was clutching a bag to his chest. Ugly-looking metal objects were sticking out of it. He opened the door and he and Twista went in.

There was a clatter and a lot of
shushing
, and then they emerged, empty-handed. Taking the bag from Germane, Sniper muttered, “OK guys, see ya. And don't forget the mallet.”

Kylie and me stopped breathing. ‘The mallet' sounded absolutely terrible, but what we heard next was infinitely worse.

“Get a big heavy one, mind,” Sniper told Germane urgently. “So we just need one bang. . .”

Germane nudged Twista, and they both laughed. “We know wot you is saying, man,” Germane assured Sniper.

“We got just da job,” Twista added. Then he and Germane jumped off the path onto the lawn and launched into a rap routine.

Kylie and me watched and listened in awed silence. That rap struck dread into our hearts.

“Big an' heavy wif a metal head,” Twista sang.

“Bang-bang-bang, an' it'll knock 'em dead!”

“Bang-bang-bang,” Germane continued, “it is an awesome sound,

“Bang-bang-bang and they go into da ground. . . Yay!”

With a series of loud whoops, Sniper joined them and they all danced wildly round Kylie's mum's prize rose bush, till Kylie's dad banged on the window and told them to give over and act their age.

As Germane and Twista disappeared into the shadows, and the words of their rap echoed eerily down the street, I reached for Kylie's hand and gave it the hardest squeeze possible.

Next day, the Decluttering began.

We started by clearing Nani's shelves. I stood on a ladder and handed things down to Mum, who put them carefully into labelled boxes. Nani stood grimly behind Mum, watching her like a hawk, and Bilal sat in the smallest box, gnawing it to a pulp.

One of the boxes was labelled ‘For throwing out', and every time Mum put something into it, Nani gave an enormous
tut
and picked it back out again. By lunchtime, the ‘For throwing out' box contained two used corn plasters, three sweetie wrappers and a toothpick, and Nani had a face like a smouldering volcano.