When most of the other people and their pets had gone home, we were still there.
The sun was setting and the pet show was long over. Delilah had come fifth in the cat show. Edward Eggington’s mice had won the talent show. But none of that mattered. It didn’t matter at all.
I was calling Stinky’s name over and over. We’d looked everywhere in the Talented Pet marquee and now we were combing the field behind it. Delilah was sleeping inside her box on the grass, and Mum and Lucy had joined Dad and me and a few other helpful people on our search. We spread out, treading slowly and looking carefully, but there was no sign of my hamster.
What had happened to him? Had he got so nervous that he’d opened the cage by himself and run away? Had the pressure got too much for him?
I was blinking a lot to try to stop myself crying, but it was no good. A sick feeling in my tummy told me that Stinky wasn’t coming back.
Dad came over to me and put his arm around my shoulder.
‘It’s getting dark, Ben,’ he said softly. ‘I think it’s time to give up.’
I shook my head and dabbed at my tears with a sleeve.
‘Give up?’ I said. ‘No way! Stinky wouldn’t give up, so I’m not going to either.’
‘Look,’ said Dad, very gently, ‘I’m really sorry, but I think he’s probably gone, Ben.’
We kept on walking though, keeping our eyes on the ground for any sign of Stinky.
‘I know it won’t be the same, but we can always get another hamster,’ my dad added.
‘I don’t want another hamster,’ I whimpered.
Lucy and Mum had walked over to us by now. Lucy gave me a hug.
‘You can share Delilah with me,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to share Delilah,’ I muttered. ‘I want Stinky back.’
Then my mum hugged me too.
I suppose it was nice that everyone wanted to give me a hug, but I just wanted to be left alone. Besides, instead of hugging, we should all have been looking for Stinky.
Finally it got too dark to see anything and we trudged back to the car and drove home in silence.
When we got back, I went straight to my room and threw myself on the bed.
Dad came in soon after and sat on the edge of my bed. ‘Poor Stinky,’ he said, looking at the empty cage on my desk. ‘Poor you.’
I was too upset to speak.
‘How on earth did he escape anyway?’ Dad said. ‘That’s what I can’t understand. The cage was closed.’
After he’d left, I thought about what he’d said. How had Stinky got out? Where had he gone? Had he escaped, or was it possible that he’d been stolen?
Stinky would have been able to work out the answers to these questions. But that was the problem.
Stinky wasn’t here.
