Various Pets Alive and Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

says.
    ‘Tosser and Kollon aren’t really Facebook types. I last saw Tosser … ooh … two years ago?’
    ‘I last saw Star on TV. In a police raid on a climate camp. She was still wearing that rainbow crochet top and raggedy velvet skirt. I thought social networking was the big thing among that lot.’
    ‘Mm. Maybe.’
    He sounds distant and distracted. She can feel her irritation rising. How did it happen that holding the family together became her job?
    ‘And it’s strange Otto isn’t on Facebook, given his obsession with all things technical.’
    ‘Otto? I dunno. Maybe he’s changed his online name. Isn’t this more your sort of scene, Claz?’ he mutters.
    ‘Why’s it always me that has to do everything?’
    ‘You’re good at it. You have the organiser’s touch.’
    ‘Like you have the touch of death.’
    ‘Sheesh! You’re not still going on about that icky hamster! Get over it!’
    ‘It’s not the hamster, Soz. It’s your total refusal to accept responsibility for … Oh!’
    She jabs her phone off, and takes several deep calming breaths.
    Whatever they start off talking about, it always seems to come back to Fizzy. Thinking of him (or her) makes her choke up with remorse, even after all these years, and she doesn’t know whether to feel more upset at Serge for killing him, or at her parents for letting it happen.
    Fizzy was her class’s pet hamster when she was at primary school in Campsall. He (or possibly she) lived in a cage on the nature table. Fizzy was named after Bucks Fizz, then number one in the hit parade. He was unbelievably cute, like Hamlet, with ginger fur and a white tummy, pink paws, and a little black spot that looked like an ink splodge on the tip of his nose. On Fridays the kids took turns to take Fizzy home and look after him for the weekend. Clara was the lucky one who got to have him for a whole week at spring half term. Doro collected her from school, helped her carry the cage home, and set it in a corner of the sitting room.
    Fizzy was a champion carrot-chomper; he whizzed round on his hamster wheel like a boy racer; and when she took him out of the cage, he sat in the palm of her hand twitching his whiskers and looking around with bright beady eyes. Serge, who hadn’t started school yet, was mad with envy.
    ‘I want a go!’ He made a grab.
    ‘Gerroff! He’s mine!’ Clara closed her hand around the hamster, feeling its little frame squirming between her fingers.
    ‘I just want to hold it!’
    ‘You can’t, so there!’
    ‘Don’t grab, Serge,’ said Marcus, who was sitting on the sofa trying to read a newspaper.
    ‘Darling, just let him hold it for a moment,’ said Doro.
    ‘No,’ said Clara.
    ‘Doro says I can.’
    ‘You can’t because you’re too little and you’ll kill it.’
    ‘I’m not little. I just want to hold it.’
    ‘Clara, don’t be selfish,’ said Doro.
    ‘You can’t make me,’ said Clara, squeezing him tight.
    ‘Yes, I can.’ Serge lunged and prised the little creature out of her hands. He held it up in the air like a plane and ran around the room yelling, ‘Ner-ner! Ner-ner!’
    ‘Give it back!’
    Clara ran after him and grappled it out of his hand, pressing it against her chest. Then she noticed something odd. Actually, it wasn’t just odd, it was horrible. The hamster wasn’t squirming any more.
    ‘Aaaaw! He’s dead!’
    She opened her hands and stared at the limp furry scrap. One of its eyeballs seemed to have popped out.
    ‘Put it back in its cage,’ said Doro. ‘It’s probably just frightened.’
    They put Fizzy back in his cage, and Clara poked him every few minutes. But he didn’t move.
    ‘He killed ’im!’ she sobbed.
    Marcus looked up from his newspaper. ‘That’s what happens when you fight over possessions. Now go and play outside! Scarper!’
    ‘What’ll I say, when I have to take ’im back to school?’ Clara wailed.
    ‘We’ll find another one,’ said Doro.
    On Saturday, Nick Holliday drove