though it was burning hot ash falling from her fags that had really created them! Over and over again she warned her stepdaughter she would “stamp on de nasty little beast if I ever catch it out of its cage”.
Sheila also mocked Zoe’s attempts to teach her hamster to breakdance.
“You’re wastin’ your time with dat nonsense. You and dat little beast will amount to nuffink. Ya ’ear me? Nuffink!”
Zoe heard, but chose not to listen. She knew she had a special way with animals, and Dad had always told her so.
In fact, Zoe dreamed of travelling the world with a huge menagerie of animal stars. One day, she would train animals to do extraordinary feats that she believed would delight the world. She even made a list of what these madcap acts could be:
A frog who is a superstar DJ
A rapping terrapin
Two gerbils who ballroom dance together
An elephant who sings opera
A donkey who does magic tricks
A tap-dancing centipede
A boy band comprised entirely of guinea pigs
A street-dance group of tortoises
A cat who does impressions (of famous cartoon cats)
A ballet-dancing pig
A worm hypnotist
A high-wire acrobatics act with cows
An ant who does ventriloquism
A daredevil mole who does incredible stunts like being shot out of a cannon
A karate display with jellyfish
A bungee-jumping hippopotamus
Zoe had it all planned out. With the money the animals earned, she and her father could both escape the leaning, crumbling tower block for ever. Zoe could buy Dad a much bigger flat, and she could retire to a huge country house and set up a sanctuary for unwanted pets. The animals could run around in the grounds all day, and sleep together in a giant bed at night. ‘No animal too big or too small, they will all be loved’ was to be written over the entrance gates.
Then on that fateful day, Zoe came home from school to find that Gingernut was dead. And with him, Zoe’s dreams of animal-training stardom died too.
So, reader, after that little journey back in time, we’re back at the start, and ready to get on with the story.
Don’t turn back to the beginning though, that would be really stupid and you would go round and round in circles reading the same few pages. No, move on to the next page, and I will continue with the story. Quickly. Stop reading this and move on. Now!
“Flush it down de bog!” shouted Sheila.
Zoe was sitting on her bed listening through the wall to her dad and stepmother arguing.
“No!” replied Dad.
“Give it ’ere ya useless git! I’ll bung it in de bin!”
Zoe often sat on her bed in her too-small pyjamas, listening through the paper-thin wall to her father and stepmother arguing way past her bedtime. Tonight they were of course shouting and screaming about Gingernut, who had died that day.
As they lived in a flat on the 37th floor of a dilapidated council block (which leaned heavily and should have been demolished decades ago), the family didn’t have a garden. There was an old adventure playground in the central concrete square shared by all the blocks in the estate. However, the local gang made it too dangerous to venture near.
“Wot you lookin’ at?” Tina Trotts would shout at anyone passing by. Tina was the local bully, and her gang of teenage hoodlums ruled the estate. She was only fourteen but she could make a grown man cry, and often did. Every day she would flob on Zoe’s head from the flats as the little girl walked to school. And every day Tina would laugh, as if it was the funniest thing in the world.
If the family had owned an allotment or even the smallest patch of grass anywhere on the estate they could call their own, Zoe would have dug a little grave with a spoon, lowered her little friend into the hole and made a headstone with a lolly stick.
Gingernut,
Much loved Hamster,
Expert breakdancer,
And sometime bodypopper.
Sadly missed by his owner and friend Zoe,
RIP [1]
But of course they didn’t have a garden. No one did. Instead, Zoe had wrapped her hamster carefully in a page from her History exercise book. When her dad finally returned home from the pub, Zoe gave him the precious little package.
My dad will know what to do with
