There's a Hamster in my Pocket (8 page)

All evening Kylie put a brave face on it, but you could tell she was in a terrible mood, and even Mum's pizzas – with no fewer than
twelve
different toppings – didn't cheer her up as much as you'd think.

After tea, Kylie and me went up to the Fiesta Red room, which I'd made as cosy as possible for the sleepover. I'd moved in our sleeping bags and my make-up mirror and every item of make-up and nail polish I possessed, because I'd promised Kylie a radical Face ‘n' Nail Makeover to cheer her up.

I'd also moved in the wildcat, because I didn't want Nani breathing in sawdust, and I'd propped it up against Castle Hamster. And, finally, I'd taken the dreaded puzzle box out of my underwear drawer, and laid it on Kylie's sleeping bag.

When we were all nicely settled, I picked up the box, positioned my fingers on the three pearl petals, and
demonstrated how to get the sides to spring out and show the heart-shaped hole. Then I handed the box to Kylie, and she examined it from all angles.

When she'd finished, she said, “It's fabulous, thank you, even if it doesn't open.” She said it in rather a flat voice, though, and I could see that, like me, she had very mixed feelings about it.

“We could sneak downstairs when the grown-ups are in bed,” I suggested, “and have a final, all-out search for the key. Two heads are better than one. . .”

But in the end we didn't. I guess we'd both decided it was a lost cause. Instead, we took turns playing with Toffee ‘n' Caramel and Killer Queen, and I tried hard not to think about what Mum and Dad were going to say when – inevitably – they found out about her. Then, when Nani came up to bed, I started Kylie's makeover.

But Kylie's heart wasn't really in it. Every fifteen minutes or so, I had to stop to let her go and peer out of the window, and every time she did, her mood darkened. After one particularly bad session, when she said she'd distinctly seen Germane with the mallet, I braced myself.

“Perhaps,” I said, carefully sticking a plastic ruby in the middle of her thumbnail, “we've got it wrong about Sniper and his gang. . .”

Kylie looked at me as though I'd gone completely mad. “What's to get wrong?” she asked sharply.
“Sniper and his gang are the very Embodiment of Evil. There's no two ways about it.”

I bit my tongue. There was, after all, no doubt that Sniper and Twista were pretty challenged in the social skills department, but as for Germane . . . I wasn't at all sure any more.

Ever since he'd given me the chicken livers, I'd been wondering, and that afternoon, when he'd smiled his starry smile at me and told me I was “lookin' like a little Killer Queen”, I really thought Kylie and me might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

I didn't like to say it outright, though – not with the way Kylie was feeling. It seemed somehow disloyal. Next morning, however, when the sun rose brightly on Kylie's mum's fortieth birthday, I was proved right. We
had
got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

In fact, we'd got hold of the wrong
stick
.

***

We were woken very early by Bilal banging us on the head with a plastic tub and shouting “Ow! Ow! Ow!” at the top of his voice.

“Is he still teething?” Kylie muttered sleepily. “Sounds like he's in agony. . .”

I'd just opened my mouth to explain about the
In/Out
game, when several things happened in rapid succession.

First, Kylie's mobile gave a muffled ring from somewhere under the sleeping bags, and she jerked the sleeping bag up, catching the corner of Castle Hamster, which tipped over.

Next, an extremely dishevelled Toffee ‘n' Caramel appeared through the portcullis, and Bilal, with a scream of delight, made a nose-dive in their direction. The nose-dive dislodged the wildcat, which tipped over onto its side.

Then Kylie yelled “
Mum
!” and Bilal yelled “
Out
!” at exactly the same time, and there on the carpet, beside the wildcat's gaping jaws, lay a tiny, heart-shaped key.

Quick as a flash Bilal pounced, picked the heart up, sniffed it, and licked his lips. Then, with a loud, and very definite, “
In
”, he put it into his mouth.

I have never moved so fast in all my life. I lunged across the sleeping bag at Bilal, forced his lips open, and grabbed the heart just before it disappeared down his throat. Then I wiped him down, and held the heart up for Kylie to see.

But Kylie had other things on her mind. She was pulling on her jeans and heading for the door.

“Mum's
hysterical
!” she yelled back at me. “Something
catastrophic
has happened!”

My stomach did a back-flip. Pausing only to deposit a howling Bilal on Nani's bed, I followed Kylie.

“What's happened?” I asked her as we ran. “What did your mum say?”

“She was
incoherent
,” Kylie told me breathlessly. “Said something about ‘that Sniper of mine' . . . and ‘you'll never guess what ‘im and ‘is mates've gone and done. . . ' She kept sobbing, Yosser,” she said, finally. “Sobbing fit to burst. . .”

It was like a waking nightmare. I just couldn't take it in. All the way to Kylie's house, the most awful images ran round and round in my head.

I saw Germane, holding his mallet aloft and singing the all-too-familiar words, “Bang-bang-bang, an' it'll knock ‘em dead!” Then, as I followed Kylie up the garden path, he stopped being Germane and morphed into the man with the pins.

And the man with the pins had the puzzle box –
Nani
's puzzle box – in one hand, and the little wooden heart in the other, and he was opening it, and out was flying the Deadly Curse of Samarkand. And even though I still didn't know what the Deadly Curse of Samarkand actually was, I was suddenly
convinced
I was about to see it in Kylie's back garden.

I must have put my hands over my eyes, because all I remember as we went through the gate was hearing lots of barking, and voices singing Happy Birthday, and then a loud cheer and a
pop!
Then I felt Kylie pulling at my hands, and screaming, “It's OK, Yosser! It's OK! You can look!”

And when I did, I honestly,
honestly
, didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

There, in the middle of the cabbage patch, stood a small, very rickety building made out of long sticks, string and corrugated plastic. It was covered in red heart-shaped balloons, and there was a banner draped across it that said, ‘Happy 40th Brithday, Mum', in big red letters.

The plastic door was open, and inside you could see wooden shelves supported by empty lager cans. The shelves were stacked high with plant pots and bags of potting compost, and there was a fork, and a trowel, and a pair of cutters, all with pink flowery handles.

On one side of the building, in floods of tears, stood Kylie's mum, and a very embarrassed Sniper. On the other side stood Kylie's dad, towered over by Germane and Twista. Germane was holding a foaming bottle of champagne.

When she saw us, Kylie's mum gave a big sniff and said, “Come on, boys – do your Birthday Rap again for Kylie and Yosser!” and Sniper and Twista and Germane cleared
away the Papillons, stood in a line, and, with appropriate movements, they sang:

When they had finished, Kylie's mum gave each of them a big kiss, and said it was the happiest day of her entire life. Then Kylie's dad went and got the camera and took a photo of us all.

Kylie stood beside Sniper for the photo, and I stood on tiptoe between Germane and Twista, and I honestly thought I would
burst
with happiness.

The next day we all went to the airport to collect Auntie Shabnam, and by the time we'd squeezed ourselves and three big bouquets of flowers into the car, there was hardly room to breathe.

On the journey, we were all a bit subdued. Nani sat beside me in the back with Bilal on her knee, watching him stick his thumb in his mouth and say “
In
”, then take it back out and say “
Out
”. But we hardly spoke.

Now that the big day had finally come, I was nervous as anything. I kept wondering what Auntie Shabnam would be like, and whether she'd really be able to help with the business, and – most of all – whether we'd get on.

I also wondered whether she would approve of her office, which now sported a smoked-glass desk, a state-of-the-art computer, and a day-bed covered in scarlet silk cushions and a deep brown faux-fur throw.

It also sported the wildcat, because we'd fixed its leg and asked Nani if we could have it, and Nani had given a
sniff and said that we were welcome. In fact, she'd added, Auntie Shabnam could take it back to Lahore with her, for all
she
cared.

So we put it on the shelf above the computer, and it looked great with the faux-fur throw.

As for the puzzle box – after the birthday breakfast, Kylie and me finally opened it and (surprise, surprise!) there was no Deadly Curse of Samarkand inside.

There was
something
inside, though. Something even more beautiful than the box itself. I put it in an envelope, and I put the envelope into my underwear drawer till the time was right to give it back to Nani, and I kept thinking about it.

And the more I thought about it, and about the man who'd shot the wildcat, the more I understood why Nani didn't like the box from Samarkand. . .

***

The Lahore flight took forever to arrive, and the longer it took, the more nervous I felt. I kept thinking how incredibly clever and high-powered Auntie Shabnam was, and worrying that she might find
us
a bit dull.

I also suspected she'd be quite glamorous, because Mum had shown me photos of her, and sometimes incredibly glamorous people can be a bit difficult to cope with.