Chapter Four

A Great Team

‘Mum! Mum!’ cried Judy, bursting in from the garden with Jenius in her arms. ‘Guess what!’

‘Not now, Judy,’ said her mother. ‘I haven’t got time for guessing games this morning, what with the washing and the ironing, and I’ve got a lot of cooking to do, never mind the housework. Off you run and play, out of my way, please.’

‘But, Mum, Jenius comes when he’s told!’

‘Very clever, dear. Now you go when you’re told, there’s a good girl.’

‘She just didn’t listen to what I was saying,’ said Judy as she sat on the lawn with Jenius on her lap.

Jenius replied with a small, sympathetic whistle which meant, Judy felt sure, ‘Grown-ups are hopeless, aren’t they? I expect it’ll be just the same when you tell your dad.’

And it was.

‘Comes when you call him, does he?’ said her father from behind his evening paper.

‘Yes, Dad! Honest! Don’t you want to see?’

‘Not now, pet, I’ve had a long day. You go and teach your precious genius something else.’

‘What like?’

‘Oh, reading, writing, some sums. Start with the two-times table – guinea pigs are good at multiplying. Buzz off now, there’s a good girl.’

JULY 23rd: I think Mum and Dad grew up in Vicktorian days, they think that childeren should be seen and not herd. I am not going to bother to tell them anything about Jenius any more but only write about him in this dairy so that the World will know how clever he is when I am Ded Dead and Gone.

In the darkness of the garden shed Jenius squeaked from the spare hutch: ‘Mum! Dad! Guess what!’

‘Not now, dear,’ said Molly.

‘But guess what I learned today!’

‘Hundreds of things, I imagine,’ said Joe sourly.

‘No, only one. I learned to come when called.’

‘Well, now learn to shut up,’ said Joe. ‘It’s late.’

‘Your father’s right, dear,’ said Molly.

‘Go to sleep now, there’s a good boy.’

Throughout those fine sunny summer holidays the flowering of Jenius came into full bloom.

Judy was the ideal trainer, patient and hard-working, and her new pet was the perfect pupil. He enjoyed his lessons, he learned quickly, and what he had learned he seldom forgot. They made a great team.

AUGUST 15th: Here is a list of the things I have trained Jenius to do:

1. COME

2. SIT

3. STAY

4. DOWN

5. WALK ON A LEED

(I do not make him walk to heal because I might tred on him so he walks a little bit in front of me.)

Before the end of the Hollidays I am going to teach him three speshial tricks.

(A) ‘Speak’. That is to make a noise when he is told (I suppose I should call this ‘SQUEAK’).

(B) ‘Trust’. That is balancing a bit of biskit on his nose.

(C) ‘Die for Your Country.’ He has to lie quite still with his eyes shut pretending to be Dead. If I can teach him all these things before the begining of Term I will take him to school and show them all just what a Jenius can do.

Every day trainer and trainee worked at their lessons. And every night Jenius kept his aged parents awake long after their proper bedtime, telling them all the clever things he had learned to do. He had become, it must be said, a bit of a big-head.

Molly, who was rather vague by nature, did not listen very carefully to her son’s boasting, and only yawned and said ‘Very nice, dear,’ now and then, but Joe became irritable.

‘You must be the most brilliant guinea pig there has ever been,’ he would say sourly, but this did not improve matters, for Jenius always replied: ‘I am, Dad, I am,’ in a voice so smug that it made Joe’s teeth chatter with rage.

‘Cocky young blighter,’ he would mutter to Molly. ‘One of these fine days he’s going to be too clever for his own good.’

And Joe was right. One of those fine days came quite soon.