It started with the faintest of tickles on my sock. Then I felt something creeping under my trouser leg and up my shin and I couldn’t help wriggling in my seat. My leg twitched as Stinky edged upwards. The tickly fur made me want to laugh, but the claws, jabbing my skin like tiny needles, made me want to yelp.
When he reached my knee and started edging up my thigh, I was really freaking out. I looked down so McCreedy wouldn’t see my face.
I should have been answering Question 5, but a completely different question was bothering me – just how could Stinky possibly get into my shirt pocket?
And then suddenly he was inside my boxers. I held my breath. It would only take one misplaced paw and …
‘Yeeow!’ I cried, springing up from my chair like I’d been electrocuted.
The whole class spun around again.
McCreedy’s head (or at least the parts not hidden by the huge beard) went a kind of purple.
‘Jinks! What now? Do you have ants in your pants?!’
Everyone laughed. Except McCreedy. And me.
Not ants, I thought, and sat back down.
Very. Carefully. Indeed.
‘Sorry, sir – pins and needles,’ I mumbled.
Everyone giggled.
‘Silence!’ yelled McCreedy and then gave me a terrifying stare. ‘Boy! One more squeak out of you, and it’s an automatic fail. And you know what that means.’
I sat there, frozen. At first it seemed as if Stinky couldn’t move either. But then he was trying to squeeze up under the elastic waistband of my pants. He pushed and wriggled, kicking his little legs. I sucked my tummy in to help, and he finally squirmed up into my shirt. I was completely exhausted by this time, so I could only guess how Stinky was feeling.
I leaned back in my chair, not out of relief, but so that it would be easier for him to climb straight up my tummy. All this time, Beardy was watching me very suspiciously indeed.
I winced as a paw stabbed into my belly button, and then again seconds later as Stinky negotiated his way past my left nipple. Somehow I managed to stifle a scream.
Stinky was under my collar now.
‘Can I come out?’ he wheezed, but Beardy’s eyes were still fixed on me.
‘Not yet,’ I muttered through clenched teeth, but just at that moment Stuey Jones knocked a pencil to the floor and McCreedy turned to glare at him. I whispered: ‘Now!’ and Stinky leaped out and flipped spectacularly into my shirt pocket.
I knew that Stinky deserved a standing ovation, but instead, I whispered Question 1 to him.
No answer came, so I asked again.
Nothing.
And then, from my pocket, came a very faint sound.
Faint, but unmistakable.
It was the sound of a hamster snoring.
Nothing, not even poking him with a pencil, could wake him.
Stinky stayed asleep until late that evening. He was back in his cage in my bedroom by this time, and I shook my head as he blinked his eyes open.
He shrugged his tiny shoulders. ‘I told you I was crepuscular,’ he said.