My hamster is a spy, p.1
My Hamster is a Spy, page 1
Contents
Title Page
Books by Dave Lowe
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Have you read the first STINKY and JINKS adventure?
Look out for more STINKY and JINKS adventures …
About Dave Lowe
About The Boy Fitz Hammond
Copyright
Books by Dave Lowe
The Stinky and Jinks series
My Hamster Is a Genius
My Hamster Is a Spy
Coming soon
My Hamster Is an Astronaut
My Hamster’s Got Talent
My Hamster Is a Pirate
My Hamster Is a Detective
The Incredible Dadventure
The Mumbelievable Challenge
The Spectacular Holly-Day
To my mum and dad, who took me to the library.
THE JINKS FAMILY
Me, Lucy, Mum, Dad and Stinky
Chapter 1
My hamster, Stinky, is usually pretty grumpy when he’s just woken up. Or when he’s tired. Or hungry.
Basically, he’s in a bad mood quite a lot of the time.
Today, he lost his temper almost as soon as I got back from school.
‘How was your day?’ he asked me, which was nice enough.
‘Pretty boring,’ I said, sagging onto my bed.
‘Boring?!’ he spluttered, squinting at me through the bars of his cage. ‘Boring?!’
‘A bit,’ I said, shrugging. This made him twitch furiously.
‘I’m stuck here all day,’ he snapped, ‘in this little hamster prison …’
‘It’s called a cage, Stinky.’
‘In this cage on your desk, with absolutely nothing to do. Zero. Zilch.’
‘You’ve got a little house to sleep in,’ I pointed out. ‘And you’ve got a wheel. You can always run on that.’
This seemed to annoy him even more.
‘And why on earth would I want to do that? Going round and round and round all day, never actually getting anywhere? The only thing I’ve had to amuse me is this single piece of newspaper lining my cage. However,’ he whinged, ‘it’s the sports page, and rodents in general aren’t that interested in sport. Furthermore, even if I had wanted to read it, it’s covered in my own poo, because someone –’ he glared at me – ‘hasn’t cleaned it out for three days.’
He took a deep breath. ‘And you’re telling me that your day was boring?’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘if you must know, it wasn’t all boring. Something did happen today. Something bad.’ I sighed. ‘Ty Hackett was pushing me around again.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Stinky, suddenly more sympathetic. ‘That’s becoming quite a hobby of his. What a horrible boy.’
Stinky had actually met Ty Hackett, which was pretty much when my problems started. I’d taken him into school, weeks ago, and he’d bitten Ty on the finger. Stinky had very sharp teeth for such a cute-looking animal.
Ty Hackett was the school bully, with a very small brain and really big fists.
‘You should stand up to him,’ Stinky said. ‘Bullies don’t like that.’
‘He’s almost twice my size,’ I said.
‘He’s seventeen times my size,’ Stinky explained, ‘but that didn’t stop me from chomping on his finger.’
‘Even if I did stand up to him,’ I said, ‘he’s got these two older brothers – twins – at high school and they’re even bigger and meaner than him. They come back to our school a lot, to pick up Ty, and pick on everyone else. Do you really think it’s a good idea to stand up to three Hacketts?’
But before Stinky could answer, my mum called my name from the kitchen. She was a normal-sized woman with a normal-sized voice – usually. But when she was cross, or she had something important to say to me or my little sister, Lucy, her voice could get so loud that the house seemed to shake.
Stinky shuddered at the noise, and then frowned at me.
‘Going?’ he said. ‘Going where?’
I sighed.
‘It’s Lucy. I have to go and watch her dancing in a show again. It’s called Very Happy Feet. All the kids are going to be dressed up like penguins. We get free tickets because my mum makes the costumes.’ I let out a huge sigh. ‘Can you imagine, watching loads of little kids in penguin outfits, tap-dancing? It’s going to be so boring.’
This started Stinky off on another rant of course.
‘Boring? You don’t know the meaning of the word. I’ll be stuck in here again, by myself, with absolutely nothing to do. Spy Gang’s on tonight! And I’m going to miss it if you’re not here to turn the TV on!’
Spy Gang was our all-time favourite TV show.
‘I’ll be back in time,’ I said. ‘I promise.’
And I was back in time.
But when I got home, my TV had gone.
Chapter 2
After the show, we piled out of the car and hurried up the front path, all of us happy to be home.
My dad, as usual, needed the toilet. My mum was desperate for a cup of tea. Lucy was exhausted after all that stomping around in a penguin suit. And I had to get to my room in time to watch Spy Gang with Stinky.
My mum went to put the key in the lock, but the door was already open.
Instead of us all rushing off in different directions, we stood on the doorstep, gawping into the house.
It wasn’t what we could see that stopped us in our tracks. It was what we couldn’t see. No clock. No TV. Lots of other things were missing too. My mum gasped. Lucy shrieked. My dad was the first to speak.
‘We’ve been burgled,’ he muttered. Then he told us to move away from the door a bit, just to be safe. ‘Wait there.’
He stepped carefully into the house, and went briskly from room to room to make sure no one was still in there. When he came back, he said, ‘They’re gone. And so,’ he added with a sigh, ‘is a lot of our stuff.’
My mum was hugging Lucy very tightly indeed.
‘I’ll call the police,’ she said quietly.
I burst into the house, dashed to my room, flung open my door and sighed with relief: Stinky was still there in his cage. But apart from my bed and the desk and the wardrobe, everything else was gone: my games console, my toys, my TV.
‘Welcome home,’ Stinky said as I slumped onto the bed.
‘What happened?’
‘Some aliens came and beamed everything up.’
‘Really?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Blimey. Of course not. Aliens indeed. You’ve had burglars. And, what is more, I know who they are.’
I gasped.
‘It happened just after you left,’ he continued. ‘I was in my house, having a nap, when I heard these two voices and so I poked my head out. Two older kids. Big. Very big. One of them was carrying your TV. The other one had most of your other stuff in a box.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Do?’ he said. ‘Do? What do you think I did? Am I a guard-hamster? Is there a “Beware of the Hamster” sign on the front door? I just stayed quiet, of course. But here’s the thing – one of them spotted me. He said, “Hey, there’s the hamster that bit Ty,” and the other one laughed.’
‘Ty? They knew Ty Hackett?’
‘Not only knew him, but looked like him too.’
Stinky waited impatiently for the penny to drop.
‘His brothers?’ I said. ‘The twins?’
He nodded.
‘So,’ I said, ‘let’s tell the police.’
‘Tell them what, exactly? “Yes, officer, my hamster can identify the burglars”?’
‘Didn’t think of that,’ I admitted.
I couldn’t even tell my mum and dad what Stinky had seen – they just thought he was a regular hamster. They had no idea that he was a genius, and that’s the way that Stinky wanted it.
‘But what can we do? We can’t let them get away with it, can we?’
‘You said they still come back to your school sometimes.’
‘Yes. To pick up Ty, or just to hang around and make trouble.’
‘So what we need is surveillance.’
‘Serve-whatty?’
‘Snooping. Like they do in Spy Gang. Watching the Hacketts to see what they get up to. Trying to find out where they’re going to break in next, and calling the police to tip them off.’
‘I thought you were terrified of being outside,’ I said. ‘But you’d still be happy following them?’
‘Not me, you dimwit. You.’
Chapter 3
Being a spy looks really cool on TV. It isn’t. It’s just hours and hours of waiting and waiting, sprinkled with little bits of absolute terror.
Like now.
I pushed my back tight against the tree. The binoculars were trembling in my hand.
The tree was only a tiny bit wider than me but it was all that hid me from the Hackett twins. They were leaning against the school wall, only a pebble’s throw away from me.
I’d been trying to watch them for weeks and weeks, and this was the closest I’d ever got and the most afraid I’d ever been.
There was no one else around. School had finished half an hour ago and my bag was heavy with homework from my horrible teacher, Mr McCreedy.
The sky was a
The binoculars were my dad’s. He used to take them to the racetrack so he could get a better look at his horses losing. ‘What do you need them for?’ he’d asked me. ‘Birdwatching,’ I’d told him.
Also in my school bag was the camera I’d borrowed from my mum. I’d told her that it was for birdwatching too. She’d frowned at me. ‘That’s a nice peaceful hobby,’ she’d said doubtfully.
Now I nervously poked my head out from the tree to see what the twins were up to. They were waiting for something, I was sure about that. I didn’t know what. But I planned to find out.
They were identical, as far as I could tell. The same freckled skin. The same mean little piggy eyes. And the same massive fists to mash me like a potato if they caught me spying.
Someone was marching over to them and I didn’t need the binoculars to work out who it was.
Old. Bald. Huge beard.
Beardy McCreedy!
I was afraid of the Hackett twins, but my teacher scared me more. He was mean, unpleasant and he hated kids.
I’d thought that he was going to tell the twins off, but that wasn’t it. As I peered through the binoculars, I saw that McCreedy was actually smiling. It looked strange on his face, the smile, like it didn’t belong there.
He was clutching a blue plastic folder and he pulled out a piece of paper with a flourish. There was writing but I couldn’t make it out.
I stuffed the binoculars into my bag and grabbed the camera. And when McCreedy handed one of them the paper, I snapped a picture.
Big mistake.
Big, big mistake.
It was so cloudy and dark that the flash from my camera went off. I ducked behind the tree again.
My mouth was suddenly dry and my legs were all wobbly.
I didn’t know if they’d seen me but they must have seen the flash, and they’d surely come looking.
What could I do? If I ran, they’d see me and catch me. So I stayed behind the tree and hoped they’d somehow missed it. All the while, I was waiting for a hand to reach around and grab me. I felt like an animal caught in a trap.
I could hardly breathe. I heard footsteps coming towards me, and mumbled voices.
Just then came a gigantic flash of lightning, illuminating the whole sky. Seconds later, an enormous crackle of thunder, and then rain came tumbling down.
Maybe I was saved! The flash from my camera might have looked like lightning! And maybe the twins had run off to shelter from the storm. But I didn’t dare peek.
Never stay under a tree in a thunderstorm, said a voice in my head, but it was a long time before I risked looking out. I did it very slowly, holding my breath.
No one was there! My body tingled with relief.
The rain was fast and noisy, bouncing off the ground. I was going to get absolutely drenched. But I ran home anyway. I couldn’t wait to tell Stinky what I’d seen.
Chapter 4
Later that night, Stinky was pacing up and down my desk while I cleaned his cage. I screwed up the old piece of newspaper, put down a fresh sheet, then scooped Stinky up and put him back.
‘Careful,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not a stuffed toy, you know.’
‘I know you’re not,’ I replied. ‘Stuffed toys don’t poo half as much.’
We were both really tetchy. I was tetchy because of the close shave I’d had with Beardy and the Hacketts. Stinky was tetchy because my sister had sneaked in to play with him while I was out spying. She loved hugging him and dressing him up in her dolls’ clothes. Stinky didn’t like either of those things. ‘Hamsters – especially boy hamsters – are not meant to wear dresses,’ he’d grumbled as soon as I’d got home.
‘And when she hugs me, it’s like I’m being choked.’
To take his mind off my sister, I cleaned his cage and told him what I’d seen on my spying mission.
‘It’s pretty strange, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘McCreedy meeting the twins like that to give them information.’
‘Very suspicious indeed. And I suppose you know that other kids at your school have been burgled too?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘How do you know that?’
He pointed a paw towards the scrunched-up newspaper.
‘It was under my nose,’ he said. ‘And under my poo actually, in the paper. Three burglaries in two weeks – and they were all houses of kids at your school.’
‘And you think Beardy was involved?’
‘More than involved!’ he exclaimed. ‘I think he’s some kind of master criminal. He’s getting those boys to break into houses for him. He tells them where to go.’
‘But how does he choose the houses? And how does he know they’ll be empty?’
Stinky shook his head.
‘That’s the question,’ he said.
We both fell quiet for a minute, thinking. But it was me that had the idea this time.
‘That’s it!’ I said. ‘It’s been under my nose all this time. Of course!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Maybe something’s been under my nose all this time. I knew I’d seen a blue folder somewhere else. He’s got a briefcase, and he keeps it open beside his feet in class. And there’s always a blue folder in there.’
Stinky’s eyes lit up.
‘So have a quick flick through it tomorrow when he’s not looking,’ he said.
‘Are you crazy? I’d never be able to do it. There are all the other kids in the class for a start. And McCreedy has eyes like an owl. If somebody blinks, he knows about it. There’s no way I could find out what’s in that folder without him seeing me.’
‘What about at lunchtime?’ Stinky asked. ‘Does he take the briefcase with him?’
‘No, but he locks the room and makes sure we’re all out of there.’ Then I had an amazing thought. ‘What I really need is something small – something small and furry – to stay in the classroom at lunchtime and take a look.’
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. Definitely not. Absolutely, positively not.’
‘I’ll put you in your special lunchbox, the one with breathing holes,’ I explained excitedly. ‘I’ll put the box in my bag, and leave the bag in the classroom at lunchtime. When no one’s there, you’ll wriggle out of the bag, go over to his briefcase and climb in to see what’s in the folder. Then you’ll scurry back to my bag and into the lunchbox, and the mission will be accomplished.’
‘No, it won’t,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Because I won’t be there. I’ll be here, safe and sound.’
‘Come on, Stinky – what can possibly go wrong?’
‘A lot,’ he said. ‘An awful lot.’
‘I’ll be taking care of you.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ he mumbled.
‘All right, then,’ I said, shrugging, pretending not to care. ‘Have it your way. Oh – did I tell you that Lucy’s got the day off school tomorrow? She’ll probably be in here all day, playing with you, dressing you up, giving you hugs. You’ll have loads of fun.’
Stinky went quiet for ages.
‘OK,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m coming.’
Then he climbed onto his wheel and started running. It was something he only ever did when he was feeling really stressed. Tonight he was on there for hours.
Chapter 5
It was time.
When the bell rang for lunch, I took a deep breath.
As all the other kids scraped back their chairs, stood up and headed for the door, I reached into my bag, opened my lunchbox, and whispered, ‘Good luck,’ to Stinky.
I was the last one to leave.
McCreedy was waiting by the door with the key in his hand, tapping his foot impatiently and scowling at me.
‘Come on!’ he barked. ‘Get a move on, boy! I’ve known faster snails.’
When I was finally out of the classroom, he grunted, locked the door and hurtled off in the direction of the staffroom, muttering to himself.
