Hazel Read Free Page A

delivery next door.
    ‘A bit of fruit, by the looks of things,’ said Hazel.
    ‘Fruit, eh?’
    Hazel never fully remembered
all
the fruits that there were, but Tobacco had a real knowledge of the subject. As he came out of the bedroom he said, ‘It could be a piece of orange
peel. Then again, it could be a pear.’
    ‘Ar,’ said Hazel. ‘It could be a pear.’
    She was eating some of it and couldn’t rightly make up her mind.
    ‘It could be, girl,’ Tobacco conceded.
    He had taken to calling Hazel ‘girl,’ and she seemed to like it, though she never called him ‘boy’.
    ‘But as it happens, this is …’
    ‘It’s nice,’ said Hazel.
    ‘That it is,’ said Tobacco, sinking his teeth into the apple core. He had momentarily forgotten what this particular fruit was called, but it was very delicious.
    When they had nibbled it down to almost nothing, Tobacco shared with Hazel some of his almost-memories of the old days. He had no memory for things that had happened very recently. But there
were some fascinating things lodged in his memory from three or four weeks before, when he lived with his parents in a rather over-crowded hutch. He did not
know
that they had been his
parents, and when he thought of his father, it was simply a half-memory of an old black and white guinea pig who had talked rather a lot.
    ‘I knew a guinea pig once …’ said Tobacco, remembering his father but not
knowing
that it was his father.
    ‘Now I can’t remember whether I ever did,’ said Hazel.
    ‘This guinea pig,’ said Tobacco, ‘he said the best fruit to eat was called the Barn Anna. White, I believe it is.’
    ‘More like a cabbage?’ asked Hazel.
    ‘Could be.’
    ‘This here fruit was nice,’ said Hazel, surveying the few remnants of the apple core. ‘What did you say it was? My memory’s terrible. Not like yours.’
    Tobacco went to the bars of the hutch and sniffed.
    ‘It’s a really nice day today, girl. Let’s hope they put us out on the lawn.’
    A few minutes later the children came and put the guinea pigs in the run on the lawn. When Tobacco and Hazel ran about together on the grass, they were a joy to see. They were so happy, so
playful, so carefree.
    Now it so happened that on that day, the children who looked after the guinea pigs were planning a surprise for Tobacco. The girl had told all her school friends about him. Yes, Hazel was a
wonderful, beautiful creature. And when she had owned just Hazel, the girl had believed that it would not have been possible to love a guinea pig more. But after Tobacco arrived, well …
comparisons are odious. The girl did love Tobacco very, very much indeed. He was so friendly and happy, and he chirruped when you picked him up and put him in your jumper. The girl had told her
friends that Tobacco was the handsomest, the most chirruping, the friendliest, and the best
boy
guinea pig in the world.
    The girl’s best friend, another girl called Rona, was also very fond of guinea pigs, and she had one whom she considered the prettiest, the most chirruping, et cetera: Fudge was a special
breed, known by guinea pig experts (or, as they call themselves, Cavy fanciers) as American Crested.
    The girl who looked after Hazel and Tobacco knew that no girl guinea pig could be nicer than Hazel. But she agreed with Rona that it would be very exciting if Fudge could have some babies. And
if the prettiest, most chirruping, et cetera were to mate with the handsomest, most chirruping, et cetera, they would have the most et cetera
baby
guinea pigs in the world. Some of them
might even turn out to be et cetera
cresteds
, and that was an exciting thought. So the girl had agreed that Rona should bring round Fudge that Saturday morning, and that Fudge should spend
the weekend in a separate hutch with Tobacco. But as with so many things that sound like a good idea, it actually turned out badly.
    ‘This,’ Tobacco was saying, ‘is what I’d call juicy. Really juicy grass,