Horace couldn’t stop sneezing.
Joshua rubbed him down with an old towel. Feeling guilty, Horace offered him a lick and a handshake.
“Get your muddy paws off,” said Josh huffily. “You got me in trouble again.”
All the same, he took pity on Horace. He persuaded his mum that because of his soaking, Horace needed to stay warm and should sleep inside the house that night.
So Mrs Hay put Horace’s beanbag in the hall with strict instructions to Stay There And Be Good!
“Of course,” sneezed Horace.
He couldn’t sleep, however. He longed to go and sit in the car. It was his favourite place: he always felt better in the driver’s seat. But when he padded down the hall in the middle of the night, he found the kitchen door was locked. He couldn’t get into the garage that way.
So Horace padded out again, unhappily. Upstairs, the family was snoring; but faint thumps came from the living room, where Tickety and Boo had their cage.
Horace slunk in to see the hamsters. He thought they might let him watch Roaring Roadhogs.
For once, though, the TV wasn’t on. Horace tripped over a tangle of elastic on the floor.
“Ow! Ow!” he yapped as he sprawled across the carpet.
“Ow! Ow!” he cried again, as he landed on Joshua’s construction bricks. They were scattered everywhere. Some had been made into toy trucks, and others into towers and bridges.
“Watch out!” said Tickety. “You’re trampling all over our Titanic Trucks assault course.” She was busy winding something long and pink round Boo’s left hind leg, until it looked like a sausage.
“What are you doing?” asked Horace, sitting up gingerly amidst the bricks.
“Putting a plaster on Boo’s knee,” she said. “He sprained it.”
“Poor Boo!” said Horace. “Was it the assault course?”
“Bungee jumping off the bookcase,” said Boo faintly. “I must have measured the elastic wrong.”
“Well, anybody could have worked that out!” came a hiss from underneath the sofa.
Horace bent down and peered beneath it. All he could see was a striped shadow with glittering golden eyes.
“Kimi? How did you get in?”
“There’s a hole in your floorboards,” said the snake as she glided out like a long, lithe ribbon. “Did you use the proper formula for that elastic, Boo?”
“Formula?”
“Mg(l +d)= ½ kd squared.”
Boo scratched his head. “I thought formula was baby milk.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck!” tutted Kimi. “That elastic’s far too long.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Horace, impressed.
The snake rolled her eyes. “It’s basic engineering.”
“Did you come over just to give us a maths lesson?” demanded Tickety.
“No. It’s Tuesssday!” Kimi hissed.
“Oh! Your feeding day,” said Horace, remembering that Kimi only ate one meal a week.
“But my stupid humans have gone out without feeding me!” complained the snake. “I was hoping there might be some dead mice in your fridge.”
“We don’t keep mice in our fridge,” said Horace.
“Anything, then,” snapped Kimi. “Rats! Chicken! Steak! I’m hungry.”
“Sorry. They’ve locked the kitchen.”
“I could find a way in. I can find a way in anywhere. I need food! Beef! Rabbit! Hamster!”
“Don’t look at us,” said Boo.
But Kimi was staring at Tickety and Boo with avid eyes. “I’m sssstarving. I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can!” urged Tickety. “Don’t think about food. Think of something else. Think of... snowdrops.”
“Snowdrops,” said Kimi dreamily, “with a fat little hamster curled up underneath them.” She began to sway with a hypnotic motion. “Come to me, my little rotund friends...”
“What? Whoa!” Horace barked a warning. He leapt up and promptly fell over in a tangle of bungee elastic.
Kimi swayed closer to the hamsters, her forked tongue stabbing the air. “Oh, come to Kimi, plumptious little pals!”
“Run, Boo, run!” cried Tickety as she scampered to the bookcase.
“I can’t run!” Boo squealed. “I’ve got a leg in plaster!”
Tickety flung herself at Boo and dumped him on to a toy truck. She gave it a shove so that it shot across the carpet. Kimi rippled after it, flowing as fast as a stream in flood.
“Whee!” cried Boo. “I’m a Titanic Truck!”
Horace managed to pull free from the elastic. He leapt across the room and, just before the snake reached Boo, clapped a paw down on her.
“Let me go! I’m famishhhhed!” hissed Kimi, pinned to the carpet. “I’ve got to eat!”
“If you leave Tickety and Boo alone, I’ll find a box of chocolates for you.”
“Are any of them mouse flavoured?” asked Kimi sulkily.
“I don’t know,” said Horace. “Try them and see.” He dragged a box of Mrs Hay’s chocolates from their hiding place underneath the dresser.
As soon as he nosed open the lid, Kimi dived into the box. She promptly swallowed three truffles and a caramel, one after another.
“Aaah,” she sighed. “They’re niccce.” And she sank her fangs into a strawberry surprise.
“That was fun!” cried Boo from the toy truck. “Push me again, Tickety. Faster this time!”
“It won’t go any faster,” said Tickety.
“Ushe the elashtic ash a catapult,” said Kimi with her mouth full.
“Good idea,” said Tickety. She looped the elastic round the truck and tied the ends to the sofa leg. “Give me a hand, Horace!”
Horace helped her pull the truck back. The elastic tightened, until suddenly the truck – with Boo perched on it – leapt away.
It shot back into the sofa with a WHUNK. Two tyres and a hamster flew through the air.
Boo bounced along the carpet. “Ooh! Ow! Ow! Ooh! Cool,” he said. “I must have gone at a hundred miles an hour!”
“At least,” said Tickety. “Horace? What’s the matter?”
For Horace stood rigid, nose quivering, tail aloft like a flag.
“I’ve had a brainwave,” he announced.
“Does it hurt?” said Kimi.
Horace ignored her. “A hundred miles an hour – that’s our answer! That’s how we’ll beat the cats! Can we build a truck that’s big enough for me?”
“It’ll never work,” said Kimi from inside the chocolate box.
Tickety wrinkled her nose. “Why not? We’ve got loads of bricks and wheels.” She tipped all the remaining bricks out onto the carpet and plunged into the pile.
Horace and Boo joined her. Kimi was too busy investigating chocolates.
A little later, they sat back to survey their work.
They had managed to build something, but it didn’t look much like a truck. It looked like a knobbly raft balancing on a dozen tiny rubber wheels.
“Try it out!” said Tickety. Horace stepped cautiously onto the raft. It creaked and cracked.
“Now for the elastic.” Tickety tied the elastic to the sofa leg and tried to pull.
“Help us, Kimi!”
“I feel sick,” complained the snake, curled up in the chocolate box. Tickety and Boo tugged at the elastic. The cart creaked ominously.
“Now lets–”
PER-TWANG went the elastic. The cart disintegrated, throwing Horace off and spraying several thousand tiny plastic bricks around the room.
Horace collided with the dresser, which wobbled for a long moment until it gradually keeled over with a crash.
“Told you it wouldn’t work,” gasped Kimi, writhing strangely, before she was sick on the carpet.
Footsteps thudded down the stairs. The door was flung open.
“What – on – earth!” bellowed Mr Hay.
Kimi rolled out of sight beneath the sofa. Tickety and Boo fled behind it.
Mr Hay glared around at the muddle of bricks, elastic, chocolate wrappers and snake sick. His eyes fixed on Horace’s paws sticking out from under the dresser.
“Horace!” he thundered.
A growl came from underneath the dresser. Mr Hay shook his head, baffled, convinced he was hearing things.
For his crazy dog was roaring.
“VROOM! VROOM! VROOM!”
Chapter Four