Rabbit Racer (5 page)

Susie didn’t waste any time once we got back home from the studio. Armed with a stopwatch and a clipboard, she put me straight into training. Round and round the garden I
raced, while Susie marked down the times and Smudge watched with a ‘glad-it’s-not-me’ look on his face. I even got to use EE’s beloved runner beans as weaving poles and
there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. The thunderous look on his face as the poles shuddered and shook was a picture.

‘Careful!’ he bellowed, as the young beans wobbled on their stalks above my head. ‘They’re not ready to be picked yet.’

They looked juicy enough to me, so it wouldn’t be a bad thing if a few fell off while I was training . . . Next I hurtled through Susie’s hula hoop and scooted up the bottom of
Lily’s plastic yellow slide. As I raced through the skipping-rope finish line, Susie clicked the stopwatch and peered at the clipboard. ‘That’s great, Harriet. I’m sure
you’ll be faster than Taz.’

Salt and Pepper sat side by side in their hutch, watching me with bright, black eyes. I shook out my tail and hopped back to the start of the course. Susie might be confident I could win, but I
wasn’t so sure. Taz had been racing since he was a fluffy little kitten. He was a proper agility cat. If I wanted to beat him, I’d have to smash my best time and I didn’t mind
practising until my paws hurt to make that happen.

Susie didn’t agree. ‘That’s enough for one day,’ she said firmly, lifting me up and carrying me towards my hutch. ‘It will be dark soon and you need a good
night’s sleep.’

Huh, I thought, there was no chance of that. Salt and Pepper were party animals who thought sleep was for wimps. I’d lost count of how many times their noise had woken me from my dreams of
Hollywood film premieres and gigantic crunchy carrots. Pet-sitting was hard work and I couldn’t wait until the Greens got back from their holiday. I needed a rest!

I was snuggled up in the hay of my hutch when the first clatter woke me up. At first, I thought it was Salt and Pepper misbehaving, but then I heard a muffled moan and I
frowned. That wasn’t the gormless giggle of a guinea pig, it was more like the stifled yelp of someone stubbing their toe, and it sounded nearby. Instantly, I was wide awake and hopping to
the door of my hutch for a better look.

The trouble was, I couldn’t see a thing. It was dark and, in spite of all the carrots I ate, I couldn’t make out much in the moonlit garden. Then my eyes began to adjust and I saw
two pairs of eyes glittering opposite me: Salt and Pepper. They too were crouched at the front of their hutch, noses pressed against the wire of the door. For once they were completely silent.

Suddenly, a movement caught my eye. Over by the fence, someone was coming our way. The only person I could think of who would wander around people’s gardens in the middle of the night was
a burglar, and that wasn’t a cheery thought at all. The Wilsons would be tucked up in bed, fast asleep by now. Who was going to stop the shadowy figure from breaking into their house?

There was only one thing for it: I’d have to try and raise as much of a ruckus as possible. Hoping Salt and Pepper would get the idea and join in, I lifted up my back legs and fired them
as hard as I could at the wall of my hutch. They connected with the wood with an enormous thud, which boomed across the still night air like cannon fire. The guinea pigs meeped in shock and the
figure leaped high into the air with a surprised shriek.

But a strange thing happened when the figure landed. Instead of hitting the floor and running away, like I expected, the burglar seemed to struggle to keep their balance. In fact, they began to
career across the garden, waving their arms in the air and colliding with Mrs Wilson’s washing, a big, white sheet wrapping itself around their head.

In a flash, I realised what had happened; Susie must have forgotten to put her roller skates away after playing with them today and the burglar’s feet had found them! Wrapping my ears
around my head, I waited for the crash. It came seconds later. I peered out of my hutch.

Above the fence to Mr and Mrs Green’s garden, a pair of upside-down legs waved in the moonlight and the sound of grunts and groans filled the air. The window over the kitchen flew open and
EE’s grumpy voice rang out.

‘What’s going on out there?’

The legs froze. Then, with a final loud grunt, they disappeared into the Greens’ garden. I heard a crashing noise and a howl of pain as the sheet-coated burglar bumped into Mrs
Green’s hanging baskets. After that everything went quiet. EE closed the bedroom window and the guinea pigs and I listened for signs that the burglar was coming back. There were none. I
started to breathe more slowly. Whoever it was seemed to have gone.

Salt and Pepper celebrated the only way they knew how: noisily. Within seconds, EE had flung open the window again.

‘Will you animals be quiet down there? Some of us are trying to get some sleep!’

He had a cheek – how many times had Mrs Wilson moaned that his snoring was keeping her awake? Salt and Pepper must have thought the same because they ignored him completely, continuing
with their inane chattering. Then a brilliant idea hit me. I rooted around in my hay for the carrot tops from my supper. With a bit of careful wriggling and nibbling, they’d make a perfect
pair of ear plugs. I doubted they’d work for Mrs Wilson, but they were good enough for me. Let the guinea pigs party the night away. I’d be catching up on my beauty sleep!

It had been a few days since we’d seen anything of our other neighbour, Madame Belladonna. EE joked that maybe she’d gone chasing chickens, but I thought I’d
caught a glimpse of goggle-covered eyes watching me over the fence as I’d raced around the garden. There was something very odd about her and I didn’t just mean those crazy clothes.
Even Mrs Wilson admitted to being curious.

‘There’s no Mr Belladonna, is there?’ she asked as the family tucked into their dinner and I chomped on a carrot nearby. ‘Only I’m sure I saw a man’s face at
the window when I knocked on her door this morning to ask if she wanted to come to
Superpets
with us. I wonder who it could have been?’

‘I haven’t seen any men going in there,’ EE said. ‘But we don’t know much about her. Maybe she has a son?’

‘Pretty Polly, Pretty Polly,’ Lily chirped.

Mrs Wilson frowned. ‘No, Lily, it was definitely a man. I think he might have had a moustache.’

‘Perhaps we should get him a ticket, too,’ EE said, rubbing his chin.

‘Madame Belladonna said she can’t come to the
Summer Special
,’ Mrs Wilson replied. ‘In fact, she went a bit strange when I mentioned it.’

EE smiled. ‘Stranger than usual, you mean?’

Nodding, Mrs Wilson said, ‘Yes, she let out this high-pitched squawking laugh and said “I ’ope to be far, far away by zen.”’ She shrugged. ‘She must be going
on holiday. Maybe the man is looking after the house while she’s away.’

I didn’t know who the mystery man was or where Madame Belladonna was going, but it made me even more curious about our funny neighbour. As soon as my big
Superpets
race was over, I
planned to do a bit of investigating in next-door’s garden.

EE was turning into an army sergeant about my training. No matter how fast I zoomed around our homemade obstacle course, he wasn’t happy.

‘You can do better than that, Harriet!’ he bellowed, eyebrows beetling together over the top of the stopwatch. ‘We need to shave five seconds off that time or Taz is going to
stamp all over you. They don’t call him the Tabby Tornado for nothing!’