Hazel Read Free

they were getting tight.’ And out of
her bag she produced a lovely pair of black, shiny Wellington boots, as black and shiny as Hazel’s eyes.
    ‘Thanks, Mum,’ said the boy. ‘You’re right, my old boots were getting a bit tight.’
    ‘They shouldn’t leave them lying about,’ Hazel thought. ‘Not if they are tight, and a girl might feel inclined to go exploring up them. No wonder I got stuck, if they
were tight. Tight is what they felt.’
    The new boots, apparently, were a perfect fit. While the boy tried them on and expressed his pleasure in them, Mum talked to Hazel and the girl.
    ‘Here you sit, Hazel,’ said Mum, ‘and I have been cycling around town, buying boots and I don’t know what. You have a lucky life.’
    ‘Well,’ said the girl, but her brother shot her a glance that made it clear that she should not tell Mum the story of how Hazel got stuck in the boot, and how they had to cut her out
of it with kitchen scissors.
    ‘Oh, look what she’s done on your dress!’
    ‘Is it a dull life for you, Hazel?’ asked Mum, stroking the back of the guinea pig’s head. ‘All on your own, with nothing to do?’
    ‘I don’t think it’s dull,’ said the girl.
    ‘I think it’s a
bit
dull,’ said Mum. ‘You can’t really imagine a guinea pig having an adventure, can you? She just has her food, and she scampers about and
… oh, look what she’s done on your dress! Come on Hazel, back in the hutch before you do any more damage.’
    ‘My dress is drying now,’ said the girl.
    ‘I’ll put her back in the hutch just the same,’ said Mum.
    ‘I will,’ said the girl.
    ‘No,’ said Mum, ‘you stay here. I will put Hazel back in the hutch.’
    Mum went to the larder and came back with two carrots and two lumps of bread.
    ‘Mum!’ said the girl. ‘Hazel’s fat enough as it is. She’ll burst if she eats all that.’
    ‘She might get hungry,’ said Mum.
    ‘Quite right,’ thought Hazel. ‘You never know when you might get what I call hungry.’
    ‘Come on, Hazel,’ said Mum. And Hazel, who by now had recovered from the secret adventure of the boot, was very happy when Mum picked her up and carried her off down the garden
path.
    Mum opened the door of the hutch very carefully with one hand and put inside it the two carrots and the two lumps of bread.
    ‘Carrots,’ thought Hazel. ‘Now I must remember to look for those. I’ll have a look in the living room, and then – if there’s what I’d call time,
I’ll run over and look in the bedroom. Worth a look.’
    ‘Now, Hazel,’ said Mum. ‘In you go.’
    And Mum put Hazel safely back inside the hutch.
    First Hazel looked at her bowl of dried food, and then she ran back into the bedroom to peep at the hay on the bedroom floor. Then she scuttled back into the living room to look for the bread
and carrots. And then she paused. Had she really seen what she thought she had seen in the bedroom? She thought that she had seen a handsome black, white, and orange boy guinea pig, the colour of
tobacco.
    She turned. She chirruped. That
was
what she had seen! She went back into the bedroom and burrowed in the hay.
    The new guinea pig was called Tobacco. They made a very happy pair.

The Visit of Fudge
    The new guinea pig was called Tobacco. He had a contented nature, he enjoyed his food and he liked Hazel. They made a very happy pair. Hazel lost that slight wistfulness which
she had had when she lived on her own. She no longer scurried about so much, everlastingly on the lookout for something. She had found what she was looking for. She discovered that many of
life’s simple pleasures were twice as enjoyable when they were shared with an amiable companion. In the old days, if someone had put an apple core in the hutch, she would have eaten it
cheerfully enough. But now, as well as there being something to eat there was something to talk about.
    ‘Anything important?’ Tobacco called from the bedroom, hearing that there had been a