Ratburger Page 3

  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:

  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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

  t 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.

  Boobies3 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.

  o 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.4

  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.

  oe quickly put Armitage back in her blazer pocket.

  “I am just having a wee!” said Zoe. Then she made a rather pitiful sound that she hoped would sound like water gushing into a bowl by pursing her lips and blowing. It ended up sounding more like a snake hissing.

  “Pppppppppppppppsssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss……………”

  Of course, Zoe’s hope was that this would convince Tina Trotts that she was using the toilet for legitimate purposes only, and not for feeding a bread sandwich to a long-tailed rodent.

  Zoe then took a deep breath and opened the toilet door. Tina stared down at Zoe, two of her usual goons flanking her.

  “Hello, Tina,” said Zoe in a voice quite a few octaves higher than her usual one. In attempting to play the innocent, she felt like she was giving the appearance of someone who was in fact exceedingly guilty.

  “Oh, it’s you! Who were you talking to, Braceface?” demanded Tina, leaning into the cubicle now.

  “Myself,” said Zoe. “I often actually talk to myself whenever I am passing water…”

  “Passing wot?!”

  “Um... having a wee? So if you will excuse me I have to be off to my History class…” With that, the little ginger girl tried to ease past Tina and her foot soldiers.

  “Not so fast,” said Tina. “Me and my gang own these bogs. We sell stolen gear from in ’ere. So unless you want to buy a trainer we nicked, sod off!”

  “Don’t you mean a pair of trainers?” enquired Zoe.

  “No. I mean a trainer. They only put one out on the shelves so it’s much easier to steal one than two.”

  “Mmmm,” mused Zoe, not sure why anyone with two feet would want to buy just the one shoe.

  “Listen, Ginge,” continued the bully. “We don’t want you in our bogs. You hear? Puttin’ off all the customers by talking to yerself like some nutter…”

  “Understood,” muttered Zoe. “Very sorry, Tina.”

  “Now give us yer money,” demanded Tina.

  “I don’t have any,” replied Zoe. She wasn’t lying. Her dad had been on benefits for years so she never ever received pocket money. When she walked to school she would scour the pavements for coins. One particularly lucky day she had found a five-pound note in a gutter! It was wet, it was dirty, but it was hers. Skipping home in delight, she stopped off at Raj’s Newsagent and bought a whole box of chocolates to share with her family. However, before Zoe’s dad had got home, her stepmother had scoffed every single one, even the dreaded cherry liqueurs, before gobbling down the box too.

  “No money? Likely story,” splattered Tina. Splattering is a bit like spluttering but the person being talked to ends up covered in spit.

  “What do you mean?” said Zoe. “We both live on the same estate. You know I don’t have any cash.”

  Tina scoffed. “I bet you get pocket money. Always walking around like you own the place. Girls – grab her.”

  Like clockwork, the bullies circled our little heroine. The two goons seized her arms tightly.

  “Aaah!” screamed Zoe in pain. Their fingernails were digging into her little arms as Tina’s large dirty hands started rooting in Zoe’s pockets.

  Zoe’s heart started pounding. Armitage the rat was lying asleep in the breast pocket of her blazer. Tina’s chubby fingers were prodding and poking everywhere. Within seconds they would come into contact with a small rodent, and Zoe’s life at school would change for ever.

  Bringing a rat into school was not something you would ever live down.

  Once, a boy a few years above had mooned out of the coach window on a school trip to the railway museum and ever since then he had only ever been called ‘Hairy Bum’ by everyone in the school, even the teachers.

  Time slowed down and then speeded up as Tina’s search for money led inevitably to Zoe’s breast pocket. Her fingers thrust in and poked poor little Armitage on the nose.

  “What’s this?” said Tina. “The little ginge has got something living in there.”

  Now, Armitage must have not taken kindly to being prodded by a big dirty finger on the nose, because he bit into it.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggg ggggggggggggggghh hhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” screamed Tina.

  Her hand shot out of Zoe’s pocket, but Armitage was still attached, clinging on with his little sharp teeth, dangling from her finger.

  “EEEEEEEEEEEUUU UUUUUUUURRRRRRRR RRRGGGGGGGGGG HHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” squealed the bully. “It’s a rat!”

  t’s only a baby rat,” reasoned Zoe, trying to calm Tina down. She was afraid she might smack Armitage against something and hurt him.

  Tina started shaking her hand violently as she ran around the girls’ toilets in utter panic. However, the baby rat would not let go. The goons stood as still as statues, searching their tiny brains for the appropriate response to ‘rat attached to finger’.

  Unsurprisingly, nothing seemed to come to mind.

  “Hold still,” sai
d Zoe.

  Tina kept running around.

  “I said hold still.”

  Seemingly shocked by this authoritative tone from the small ginger girl, Tina stopped moving.

  Carefully, as if dealing with an angry bear, Zoe took Tina’s hand in hers. “Come on, Armitage…”

  Carefully she prised the rat’s sharp front teeth off the large girl’s finger.

  “There you go,” said Zoe in the manner of a dentist who had just given a child a mildly painful filling. “Come on now. Tut-tut. It wasn’t too bad.”

  “The little @**$$$$&!%^!%!!!! bit me!” protested Tina, revealing herself as the likely author of the insulting message on the toilet door. The bully examined her finger, two tiny drops of blood oozing out of the tip.

  “Tina, they are nothing more than pin pricks,” replied Zoe.

  The two goons craned their long necks to get a closer look, and nodded their heads in agreement with Zoe. This infuriated Tina and her face went fiery red like a volcano about to explode.

  There was an eerie silence for a moment.

  I am about to die, thought Zoe. She is actually going to kill me.

  Then the bell rang for the end of break.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse us,” said Zoe, more calmly than she felt, “Armitage and I don’t want to be late for our History class.”

  “Why is ’e called dat?” grunted one goon.

  “Erm, it’s a long story,” said Zoe, who wasn’t about to tell them he was named after a toilet. “Another time perhaps. Goodbye!”

  The three bullies were too shocked to stop her. Cupping her little friend in her hand, she strolled out of the toilets. Just clear of the door, she realised she wasn’t actually breathing, and that she should probably start again. Then she gave Armitage a little kiss on the head.