Lulu and the Hamster in the Night (3 page)

Chapter Three

Ratty in the Morning

On Saturday morning the packing began. Lulu and Mellie piled everything they wanted to take to Nan's in a heap by Lulu's front door, ready to be loaded into the car.

Lulu's father looked at the heap and said, “I thought you were just going to Nan's for a night.”

“We are,” said Lulu.

“Not an around-the-world camping trip with no shops on the way?”

“Don't be silly, Dad!” said Lulu.

“Me? Silly?” he asked. “Is this or is this not one of the hottest days of the year?”

“Mmm,” said Lulu.

“Then why rain boots?”

“In case it rains and we have to go out, of course,” said Lulu.

“And do you really need all those books and ten thousand felt pens?”

“They're for in case it rains and we have to stay in,” explained Mellie.

“What if it gets even sunnier?” asked Lulu's father. “What about fans and sunshades and a camel or two? What if it snows, and you don't have a sled?”

Lulu and Mellie said that they didn't think it would snow and continued adding things to the pile. Roller skates and swimming things. Teddy bears. Clothes and toothbrushes. Nan's birthday cake in a tin. All the birthday presents: the robe parcel, the matching crown parcel, several other parcels, and the throne, all wrapped up.

The last thing Lulu and Mellie added was Ratty in his cage. They wrapped the cage in birthday paper and none of the grown-ups noticed. He was just one more package among many others. Lulu held him on her knee, and Mellie held the birthday cake on hers.

“All aboard?” asked Lulu's father, looking over his shoulder.

“All aboard,” said Lulu.

Lulu's house was small, and so was Mellie's, but Nan's was even smaller. Nan said it had been built in the days when people didn't own so many things. Upstairs there was a miniature bathroom and two small bedrooms. Downstairs was a bit bigger because an extra bit of kitchen had been added onto the back. Lulu loved it because it was like a toy house. Mellie loved it because every room in it was perfect, bright and fresh as the inside of a shell.

Nan came running out the moment they arrived, and when she saw all the parcels and other things she said, “Oh my goodness! OH MY GOODNESS! Where are you going to put them all?”

“In our bedroom,” said Lulu. “Just until tomorrow. And you can't look in case you guess what they are!”

Lulu was thinking of the throne when she said this, which still looked like a wrapped-up throne, however much paper she and Mellie taped around it. But it was useful for Ratty too. With Nan's eyes helpfully shut, he reached the little bedroom that Lulu and Mellie were to share quite easily. Lulu and Mellie dumped him on Lulu's bed and surrounded him with parcels.

“You'd never guess he was there!” said Mellie, bouncing a bit.

“Shush!” said Lulu.

When at last the car was unloaded, Lulu's dad said good-bye and told Nan how good he hoped they would be. And Nan said that she knew they would be as good as gold, because they always had been, right from the moment they were born.

“Oh yes,” said Lulu's dad. “I don't know why I keep forgetting that.”

Then he hugged everyone very quickly and hurried away.

Lulu and Mellie and Nan waved from the gate until he was gone, and then Lulu remembered Ratty upstairs, still in his birthday parcel.

“Shall we unpack now?” she asked.

“Later,” said Nan. “First we will have drinks by the pool!”

“What pool?” asked Lulu and Mellie together.

“The one by the orange and lemon tree,” said Nan, and she led them around the corner of her very small house, into her very small garden, and pointed proudly.

There was Nan's very small tree and under it was a beautiful blue paddling pool with flowers floating in the water.

“Oh, Nan!” exclaimed Lulu and Mellie, their hot shoes already kicked off, their feet already dabbling.

“And look at my tree!” said Nan.

The little tree was transformed. Dangling from its branches were oranges and lemons, grapes and bananas and rainbow-colored candle lanterns, waiting to be lit. Large bright paper butterflies balanced on the branches. Mellie spied a pineapple and Lulu, who all her life had wanted to climb a coconut tree and pick a real coconut, now found that she could.

“It's a jungle tree!” said Mellie. “You should have brought your parrot, Lulu, instead of just that ha…”

Splash!

Lulu had climbed into the tree to have a closer look at the coconut. Now Mellie was suddenly much wetter and the coconut was bobbing in the pool. And on the far side of the tree, where Nan had spread rugs and cushions, three furry golden shapes were suddenly awake. Six bright green eyes were staring indignantly at the coconut.

They belonged to Marigold, Nan's enormous golden cat, and Dandy and Daisy, her two fat kittens.

All at once Lulu remembered what it was that she had worried about in her dreams.

Right out loud, Mellie exclaimed, “Lulu! We forgot about the cats! They're good cats, though, aren't they, Nan? They don't go around killing things like some cats do.”

“Certainly not!” said Nan.

“Not even rats or mouses or hamsters or things?”

“Mice!” said Nan. “Not mouses! No, not even butterflies!”

Lulu was so afraid of what Mellie would say next that she slid down the tree, put a cushion on Mellie's head, sat on it, and changed the subject.

“What made you think of an orange and lemon tree, Nan?”

“Oh,” said Nan. “First I wished I had an orange tree, and then I thought I'd make an orange tree! And then I thought, why just oranges? So I added the lemons and everything else. I thought you could help yourselves to fruit just as easily from the tree as you could from the fruit bowl.”

“
Can
we help ourselves?” asked Mellie, wriggling out from beneath the cushion and Lulu.

“Of course. Shall I show you how to open up the coconut?”

But Lulu and Mellie would not hear of that. There was only one coconut and they thought it would be a waste to eat it so soon.

“Let's hang it back up again,” said Lulu.

Nan had hung the coconut by a string tied around its middle. It was not an easy job to tie the string without it slipping. Over and over the coconut splashed down into the paddling pool and either Lulu or Mellie had to climb the tree and try again. They enjoyed this very much, but the cats did not. Every time the coconut fell again, they looked more disapproving and moved a little farther away.

It was amazing how quickly the morning went by. Paddling and coconut hanging. Learning how to make paper-plate butterflies. Bubble-blowing from the top of the tree. They had to take turns to do this because the tree was so small.

“Do the cats like the bubbles?” called Mellie when it was her turn to climb.

Lulu looked around. Where were the cats?

“Gone to get away from the splashes,” guessed Mellie.

“Gone to find some shade,” suggested Nan. “It's getting hotter and hotter. I've opened all the doors and windows to get a breeze through the house.”

“All the doors!” repeated Lulu.

“Don't worry, I didn't look when I opened yours,” said Nan.

That didn't stop Lulu worrying. She rushed upstairs and sure enough, there were Nan's three cats.

Nan's cats were stay-at-home cats. It was true that they never went hunting. They liked sofas and cushions and large meals and sunshine. They had their own cat brushes and their own cat china bowls and at Christmastime they had their own cat Christmas presents under the Christmas tree.

Lovely smelly cat treats, that's what the cats had had, wrapped in Christmas paper. It was Lulu who had wrapped those parcels, and Lulu who had shown the three cats how to unwrap them, ripping the paper with their claws.

Nan's cats had not forgotten. And now they had found a parcel larger and smellier and more exciting than anything they had unwrapped at Christmas.

When Lulu came into the bedroom, there they were, eagerly unwrapping the parcel that was Ratty in his cage.