I put the leaflet on my desk next to Stinky’s cage and, when he’d finished reading it, I said, ‘What could your talent be?’
‘That’s a difficult question,’ he said, ‘because I’m rather good at so many different things.’
He wasn’t very modest, for a hamster.
‘There is a problem, however,’ he continued. ‘If I do enter the competition, my performance will be so astounding that people will realise I’m a genius. So, no talking. No maths. No dazzling the crowd with my knowledge. Anyway, who says I want to be in a talent show?’
‘There are cash prizes,’ I said. ‘And I know just the thing I could buy for you.’
I went over to my drawer, picked out a small cutting from a magazine and showed it to him.
Stinky didn’t look too impressed though.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘If I win the talent show, I get to be shut up inside a clear plastic ball?’
‘Look at the hamster in the picture,’ I said.
‘He’s having a great time.’ ‘Or, more likely,’ Stinky argued, ‘he’s in a state of complete shock from being stuck in a plastic prison from which there is no escape.’
I sighed. ‘If you don’t want a hamster ball,’ I said sulkily, ‘I could always get you something else with the prize money – a bigger cage, for example. Some tubes to make a burrow. Anything.’
He seemed a bit more interested now. He took another look at the leaflet, scrunched up his forehead in concentration and then his nose twitched. This usually meant he’d had a great idea.
‘Do you know what “dog obedience” is?’ he asked me.
‘I’m sorry to tell you this, Stinky, but you’re not a dog.’
He frowned at me impatiently. ‘Dog obedience,’ he explained, ‘is when the dog’s owner says, “Sit!” and the dog sits. And then the owner tells the dog to roll over or stay or fetch, and the dog does those things.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen that. It’s pretty cool.’
‘Dogs are very silly animals like that,’ said Stinky. ‘Tell them to do something, and – if they can understand it – they’ll usually do it. To my knowledge, however, no one has ever trained a hamster before. So, for the pet show, we could do “hamster obedience”. Then you would actually look like the clever one, Ben. I’d just look like a regular hamster that had been brilliantly trained.’
I grinned. It was a fantastic idea.
‘What are we waiting for?’ I said excitedly. ‘Let’s practise right now!’
‘I’m actually rather tired,’ he complained.
‘Come on, Stinky. Just for a minute.’
‘If we must,’ he sighed.
So I said, ‘Sit!’ and he sat.
‘Roll over!’ I said, and he did that too, although not very enthusiastically. ‘You could do it with a bit more energy,’ I said.
‘I am trying to avoid rolling in my own poo,’ he snapped. ‘Because a certain someone hasn’t cleaned out my cage for a while.
I sighed. Nothing was ever easy with Stinky.
‘Fetch!’ I said.
‘Fetch what?’ he asked.
‘Fetch – I don’t know … some carrot.’
He glanced at the piece of carrot over on the other side of his cage and then looked back at me and shook his head.
‘Why not?’ I asked, frowning.
‘I always eat over on that side of the cage,’ he said. ‘Why on earth would I want to bring the carrot over here, near to where I poo? It’s unhygienic.’
‘It’s called hamster obedience,’ I said. ‘Not hamster disobedience.’
He nodded. ‘That’s an excellent point,’ he said. ‘And, on the day of the competition, I will do whatever you ask me to, I promise.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘we’ll win for sure! What could possibly beat a hamster doing tricks?’
At school the next day, I found out.