1
TV Troubles
‘It’s my turn!’ said Coco.
‘No, it’s not. It’s my turn!’ said Fuzzy.
‘But you’ve been on it for ages!’
‘That’s because YOU were on it for ages!’
Fuzzy and Coco were guinea pigs. They lived in the kitchen at number 7, Middleton Crescent, Strawberry Park. And they were arguing over the laptop.
‘I have to see the latest episode of The Ice Factor,’ said Coco.
‘No, you don’t. You’ve seen it loads of times already,’ said Fuzzy.
‘No, I haven’t. I’ve only seen it eight times and I like to see each episode ten times.’
‘Well, I’ve only seen this episode of Winter Warmers ONCE and I need to see it again because I want to make Volcano Veg for dinner.’
‘Well, I don’t want Volcano Veg for dinner,’ said Coco.
‘Well, you don’t have to have any,’ said Fuzzy.
‘Well, good. So can I watch The Ice Factor now?’
‘No.’
Luckily at that moment the catflap opened and Terry, their guinea-pig friend from next door, popped through it. He was covered in a light sprinkling of snow. Fuzzy and Coco went to greet him.
‘Hi, Terry, are you OK?’ said Fuzzy. ‘You look cold.’
‘I’m fine, thanks, Fuz,’ Terry said, pulling off his woolly hat and giving it a quick shake, before putting it back on again. Terry always wore his hat, even indoors.
‘It must be freezing out there in the hutch,’ Coco said. ‘How’s your mum? And all your brothers and sisters?’ Terry had thirteen little brothers and sisters and a wonderful mum called Banoffee, who was one of Coco’s best friends.
‘We’re all fine,’ answered Terry. ‘Our owners have moved us into a new hutch in the house to keep warm.’
Both Fuzzy and Coco sighed with relief.
‘Oh good!’ said Coco. ‘We’ve been so worried about you. It said on the news that this is the coldest winter since the last coldest winter.’
‘No, it didn’t,’ said Fuzzy.
‘Yes, it did,’ Coco said. ‘You weren’t watching.’
‘That’s because you were watching, even though it was my turn.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Terry, who was very sensible, even though he was younger than Coco and Fuzzy, ‘but why doesn’t one of you watch on the TV in the lounge? Then you wouldn’t argue about it.’ Terry also liked TV and computers, so he knew what he was talking about.
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Coco, ‘but this is the only room Ben and Henrietta heat for us while they’re at work. It’s freezing in the lounge.’
Ben and Henrietta were Fuzzy and Coco’s owners. Ben worked at the animal rescue centre. Henrietta was a vet.
‘So why doesn’t one of you watch your TV programme on the phone?’ Terry said. ‘Ben and Hen usually leave one lying around, don’t they?’ Ben and Henrietta were very forgetful.
‘That’s a great idea!’ said Coco, dashing over to the phone and turning it on. ‘Have you seen The Ice Factor, Terry? It’s the most brilliant programme. They have an ice skater and a celebrity, and they have to dance together in a competition.’
‘And when they fall over they cry, and when they win they cry, and when they lose they cry . . .’ said Fuzzy.
‘At least it’s better than your silly Winter Warmers programme,’ Coco shot back. ‘That’s boring. All they do on that is cook.’
‘No, they don’t. They have a cook and a celebrity and they have to cook together in a competition.’
‘Sounds a bit like The Ice Factor’, said Terry.
Coco peered at the phone screen. She needed glasses, but she refused to wear them.
‘I can’t watch on this. The screen is too small. It makes the dancers look like ants.’
‘Maybe you could watch on the phone, Fuzzy,’ suggested Terry.
‘That won’t work,’ said Fuzzy. ‘I won’t be able to see what the contestants are cooking.’
‘You could zoom in,’ suggested Terry.
‘No, I can’t,’ said Fuzzy.
‘Yes, you can,’ said Terry.
Now Fuzzy and Terry were arguing!
‘Stop arguing with Terry!’ said Coco.
‘OK,’ said Fuzzy to Coco. ‘I’ll argue with you instead.’
Just then the catflap opened once more. This time a big round snowball came hurtling through it and landed on the kitchen floor. The three guinea pigs looked at it in surprise.
‘Where did that come from?’ said Fuzzy.
‘Perhaps one of the kids next door threw it in,’ said Terry.
Just then the snowball started to wriggle.
‘It’s alive!’ shrieked Coco.
The snowball muttered and groaned.
‘Madre mía’, it said.
‘It can speak Spanish!’ said Fuzzy.
The snowball was wriggling and groaning and muttering in Spanish. Flakes of snow flicked in all directions. They fell on the kitchen floor and started to melt. Then dollops of snow dropped to the ground. Coco, Fuzzy and Terry could see that underneath the snow was a guinea pig with black fur speckled with silver.
‘It’s Eduardo!’ Coco exclaimed.
Eduardo was another one of Fuzzy and Coco’s friends. He was a type of guinea pig called an Agouti. He came from Peru, but now he lived in a burrow in the copse at the bottom of Coco and Fuzzy’s garden.
Eduardo stamped his paws so that the last bits of snow fell from his legs. He shook his satchel to dry it off. There were now quite large pools of water on the kitchen floor.
‘You’re making a terrible mess, Eduardo. Could you go back outside and do that?’ asked Coco.
Coco wasn’t always very nice to Eduardo. This was because secretly she really liked him so she tried too hard to impress him and it came out all wrong.
Eduardo looked at her in astonishment. ‘Outside, señorita? OUTSIDE?’ he cried. ‘Have you been outside recently?’
‘Well, no, to be honest,’ Coco admitted. ‘It’s far too cold and snowy. I’d rather be in here in the warm.’
‘Exactamente, señorita! It is very cold and very snowy outside. That is why I am come inside to see you!’
‘Have you got enough to eat?’ Fuzzy asked.
‘Nada,’ said Eduardo sadly. ‘No hay nada para comer.’
‘Has the cold got to your brain?’ asked Coco. ‘You seem to have forgotten how to speak English.’
‘I have not forgotten nothing,’ Eduardo chuttered, sounding cross. ‘But I have no energy to speak English because I am hungry. No hay nada para comer means there is nothing to eat.’
‘That’s odd.’ Fuzzy frowned. ‘Ben’s been making special oat cookies and Henrietta’s been putting them out in the copse for the wild animals every morning before work.’
‘I find no food, amigo. And all my friends they find no food. The robin he find no food, the mouse she find no food. We all are hungry.’
‘Do you know what I’m thinking?’ said Coco.
‘No, I do not. I cannot read your mind,’ said Eduardo.
‘I think someone is taking your food.’
‘Who?’ Eduardo demanded. ‘Who, who, who do this?’
‘Someone large and red and—’
‘Father Christmas!’ guessed Terry.
‘No!’ said Coco. ‘He doesn’t take things, he gives them. He gave me a lovely pink bow for Christmas.’
‘Coco means the fox,’ Fuzzy said, ‘not Father Christmas, don’t you, Coco?’
‘Renard the fox!’ said Terry. ‘You’re right. It’s just the sort of sneaky thing he’d do. I’ll bet it’s him.’
‘But what are we going to do about it?’ Coco said. ‘I mean, we can’t just march out there and tell him to stop or he’ll eat us instead.’
At the thought of Renard they all fell silent. They turned and looked out of the French windows into the garden. Snow was falling softly. Icicles hung from the kitchen roof. It was getting dark. None of them wanted to go out into the cold to look for a large, mean creature who wanted to eat them.
‘Let’s have a think about it while I fix Eduardo something to eat,’ Fuzzy suggested.
‘Gracias, amigo.’ Eduardo bowed.
‘I’ll help,’ Terry offered.
The two guinea pigs pattered off towards the fridge.
‘That’s a good idea,’ Coco called after them. ‘You two go and do that and I’ll catch up on my TV programme.’ She turned back to the laptop.
Fuzzy sighed. Coco could be a bit selfish sometimes. But she was too selfish to realize that she was being selfish.
Coco was scrolling through the shows.
Eduardo sat down beside her. His eye fell on one of the titles. ‘Hah!’ he cried. ‘The Butch Grizzly Show! My favourite! I used to watch it in Peru.’
And before Coco could stop him, he clicked play.