3
Coco’s Big Idea

Early next morning, when Fuzzy and Coco were still fast asleep, there was a little tap on the door of their hutch. Fuzzy woke first.

‘Who’s there?’ he said, his eyes still closed.

‘It’s Pepper,’ said the small voice.

Pepper was the second youngest of Banoffee’s children.

‘Oh, hello, Pepper!’ said Fuzzy, opening his eyes and getting up all in one go. ‘What brings you visiting so early in the morning?’

‘I’ve brought you a lettuce leaf,’ said Pepper.

The lettuce leaf was almost bigger than Pepper, so Fuzzy could only just see her little paws peeking out from behind it.

‘That is kind of you. Thank you,’ said Fuzzy.

‘It’s not actually for you. It’s for the poor, hungry wild animals in the copse,’ said Pepper.

‘I know,’ said Fuzzy. ‘And I’ll give it to them. Thank you.’

‘We read on Micespace that you’re collecting food. I know it’s supposed to go to our old hutch in the garden but I couldn’t wait any longer so Mum said I could bring it to you here.’

‘That’s fine. And it’s very kind of you. I’ll take it down to the hutch later and give it to the wild animals there. Thank you. Bye-bye.’

‘Bye,’ said Pepper. She laid the lettuce leaf on the kitchen floor and made her way back out of the cat flap. Fuzzy fell back on the soft hay and went back to sleep.

A few seconds later there was another little knock on the hutch door. This time it was Coco who woke up. The visitor was Blossom, Banoffee’s youngest daughter.

‘I’ve brought some seeds for the wild animals in the copse,’ she said.

‘That is kind of you,’ said Coco in a nice voice, even though she didn’t feel like being nice because she had been woken up much earlier than usual.

Once Blossom had gone, Coco went back to sleep too, but not for long. There was another knock on the hutch door. It was another one of Banoffee’s children. After that, there was another and then another, all bringing food for the wild animals in the copse. Eventually, after visits from all of Banoffee’s children (apart from Terry who was busy fixing up the Wi-Fi in the old hutch), Fuzzy and Coco gave up trying to sleep and got up. While they were eating their breakfast more donations arrived from local pets.

‘Give us a hand with this food, will you, Coco?’ Fuzzy said. ‘I’ve got to get it all down to Banoffee’s hutch so we can give it to the wild animals.’

Coco gave a huge yawn. ‘I’m much too tired to help, Fuzzy,’ she said. ‘I need to catch up on all the beauty sleep I’ve missed by being woken so early.’

So Fuzzy took all the donated food down to the hutch (he had to make the journey a few times because there was so much of it) while Coco tried to go back to sleep. But she was wide awake now, so while Fuzzy was out of the house she sneaked off to watch The Ice Factor on the laptop.

It was then that she had her brilliant idea. She switched from The Ice Factor to Micespace and carefully typed a message:

      MICESPACE          

The Ice Factor
comes to Strawberry Park!

Come on down to the
Ice-Skating Competition

When: later today. RSVP*
Where: the frozen stream in the copse
Dress: sparkly

*RSVP is French for let me know if you can make it.

*

Coco clicked on the box marked Send and scuttled off to look for her tiara. When she came back to check the computer she was excited to see that lots of animals had already accepted her invitation. The computer gave another ping. New message flashed up on the screen. And underneath it said:

Rufus and Renarta are pleased to accept your invitation.

Coco didn’t know Rufus and Renarta. They must be friends of Fuzzy’s, she thought. But she knew she should be sensible and ask some questions just in case. So she typed:

Are you guinea pigs?

  No. We are hairs.

Hairs?

  No. Sorry. Hares.

Ha ha. That’s funny. I didn’t think hairs could skate! Coco wrote.

We are last year’s Strawberry Park ice-skating champions and we can teach you how to skate.

Great! I’ll see you on the frozen stream later. Don’t forget your sparkly costume.

Coco rushed outside and down to Banoffee’s old hutch to tell Fuzzy and Terry about the ice-skating competition. Luckily it had stopped snowing, but it was still very cold. By the time she got to the hutch her teeth were chattering.

‘Fuzzy, I’ve had the m-m-most br-br-brilliant idea!’

‘Hang on a minute, Coco, I’m just dishing up,’ said Fuzzy.

Coco looked around her. The hutch was divided into two parts. In the bedroom part Terry was organizing the different foods into neat piles: lettuce, seeds, carrots and so on. Next to the raw food was a pot of Fuzzy’s Volcano Veg, but with the right amount of chilli in it this time. In the living space stood an orderly queue of wild animals. There was a mouse, then a robin, then Olaf, the guinea pig who liked to pretend he was a Viking, then lots of other animals from the copse. Fuzzy stood at the doorway between the two parts of the hutch, dishing out the food.

‘What would you like to eat?’ Fuzzy asked the mouse.

‘Have you got any cheese?’

‘Sorry, I’m afraid not.’

‘How about lettuce?’

‘Yes, we have,’ said Fuzzy. ‘Lettuce, please, Terry.’

‘Lettuce coming up,’ said Terry, as he passed the lettuce to Fuzzy, who passed it to the mouse.

‘Thanks a million,’ said the mouse.

‘Enjoy your meal,’ said Fuzzy. ‘Who’s next?’

‘It’s me,’ said Olaf the Viking. ‘Have you got any Viking meat stew?’

‘No, because this is a vegetarian soup kitchen,’ said Fuzzy.

‘OK, then I’ll have some vegetarian soup.’

‘No, Olaf,’ said Fuzzy, ‘a soup kitchen is a place that feeds hungry animals. We don’t actually have any soup. But my Volcano Veg is good.’

‘I’ll try that then,’ said Olaf, taking off his helmet and holding it out to Fuzzy so he could ladle his food into it. ‘A Viking is always prepared,’ he said.

After a while Banoffee took over handing out the food.

‘So what’s your brilliant idea?’ Fuzzy asked Coco.

‘The Ice Factor comes to the copse!’ said Coco proudly.

‘Does it?’ asked Fuzzy. ‘So we’ll be invaded by TV cameras and sparkly costumes?’

‘Not the real Ice Factor!’ said Coco. ‘I thought we could have our own Ice Factor competition in the copse and I could wear my tiara and my silver bow and perhaps have a bit of tinsel as a scarf—’

‘So what’s the point of The Ice Factor in the copse,’ said Fuzzy, ‘apart from giving you the chance to show off?’

‘It’s not for me to show off!’ Coco protested (even though showing off had been her first idea). ‘It’s for all the wild animals to keep warm. I read on the Internet that you don’t just need food to survive the cold, you need to keep moving. Otherwise you get hippo–thermometer.’

‘Hypothermia,’ said Terry, who used an online speaking dictionary so he knew how words sounded as well as how to spell them.

‘Whatever,’ said Coco. ‘It means you get so cold you can’t talk.’ She shuddered at the thought of such a dreadful fate. ‘I’ve posted an invitation on Micespace to all our animal friends, telling them to come down to the frozen stream for our very own Ice Factor competition.’

‘That’s amazing, Coco. I remember when you hated computers,’ said Fuzzy. ‘And now you’re posting invitations on Micespace!’

‘I’ve had lots of replies already, including one from a pair of hares called Rufus and Renarta who were last year’s Strawberry Park ice-skating champions.’

‘Rufus and Renarta? I don’t remember them,’ said Fuzzy.

‘Come on, Fuzzy – you’ve got so many friends on Micespace, you can’t remember them all,’ said Coco. ‘I checked anyway. They seem really nice. They’re going to teach me how to skate!’