The Battle of Bubble and Squeak Page 6
Peggy hushed suddenly. Bill Sparrow put his newspaper away.
Sid got Bubble out again and showed his mother where her grip should be. ‘Right!’ said Mrs Sparrow. She had never touched one of the gerbils before, but now all her mind and will concentrated on taking hold of this one.
‘Ready?’ asked Sid. He held the syringe as close as he could.
‘Ready.’
‘Right, then!’
Mrs Sparrow’s finger and thumb plummeted down to grip in exactly the right place; but then – like Peggy’s – they slid sideways. The gerbil squirmed from her. As he did so, a pinch of fur came off between Mrs Sparrow’s fingertip and thumb-tip. ‘Aaargh!’ she muttered – the only time she expressed distaste. Then: ‘Keep hold of his tail, Sid,’ she said. ‘I’m going to try again.’
This time her grip was quick, accurate and firm: she held the gerbil’s head steadily up, and Sid pumped between its teeth the necessary drops.
‘Right,’ said Sid.
‘Right,’ said his mother.
Sid lifted Bubble back into his hay. He checked the time on his watch. Bubble would need another three drops tomorrow morning before breakfast; another three at dinner time; a last lot in the evening.
‘Lucky I’m working half-time for holidays,’ Mrs Sparrow said.
The day on which Bubble twisted round energetically in Mrs Sparrow’s grip and tried to bite her, Sid cried: ‘He’s better – he’s really better!’
That evening he ate a peanut.
The next day he gnawed at a toilet-roll tube.
Meanwhile, Bill Sparrow had made another gerbil cage – a bit rough-looking, but all right – for Bubble. For it seemed hard that an invalid should have to share with the energetic Squeak.
The children were watching Bubble through the bars of the new cage early one evening. They were waiting for Bill Sparrow to get home: he was unusually late. When he came, they would have tea. After tea, Mrs Sparrow would be free to help with the antibiotic treatment, which had to continue for only a little longer.
The front doorbell rang, and Mrs Sparrow went to answer it.
A boy whom – to her remembrance – she had never seen before stood on the doorstep. He was about Sid’s age, or younger; but he was small – small in every way, except for his eyes. His eyes were large, and they fixed themselves intently upon Mrs Sparrow’s face.
‘Please,’ he said, ‘I’m Jimmy Dean’s cousin. We’ve come back from Australia. It didn’t suit. Please, I’d like my gerbils back again.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mrs Sparrow’s first impulse was to slam the door in Jimmy Dean’s cousin’s face. Instead, she said, ‘You’d better come in and speak to Sid.’
Jimmy Dean’s cousin followed her along the hall and into the living room.
Sid recognized him as soon as he walked in. ‘You’ve come for the gerbils you gave me,’ he said. Peggy gasped.
‘Yes,’ said Jimmy Dean’s cousin. His eyes had settled instantly on the two cages on the table. ‘Why’ve you separated them?’ he asked angrily. He was a small-sized boy, but he seemed to swell with indignation. He fumbled in his pocket, brought out some pound notes, and slapped them on the table. ‘There you are!’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting my gerbils back as a gift. I’m buying them back, with their cage. At once. Didn’t you even know that gerbils love each other’s company?’
‘One of them’s been ill,’ said Sid. ‘Very ill.’ They told Jimmy Dean’s cousin the story of Ginger’s attack. In the middle of the story, Mrs Sparrow said to him, ‘Sit down and be comfortable, do,’ and Amy offered him a peppermint. He sat down and took the peppermint, and he was now listening quite calmly to all that Sid had to say. But the pound notes remained on the table.
‘So you see,’ Sid ended, ‘we can’t very well hand you back a gerbil that’s only just convalescent. In fact, he may never be completely fit, the vet says. He enjoys his food; but he seems to be deaf.’
‘You know how to treat him – you should keep him,’ said Jimmy Dean’s cousin sadly.
‘If we keep Bubble,’ said Sid, ‘we ought to keep Squeak – for their sakes. They enjoy each other’s company, just as you said.’
‘Yes, I see that,’ said Jimmy Dean’s cousin, even more sadly. He began picking up his pound notes and putting them away.
‘They’re going to be put together in one cage again, very soon,’ said Peggy. ‘As soon as Bubble seems strong enough for rough-and-tumble. Then there’ll be a cage to spare.’
‘You can have your very own cage back again,’ said Sid. ‘Free. A gift returned.’
‘And you’ve got enough money to go to the Garden Centre and buy two more gerbils of your own.’
‘Yes,’ said Jimmy Dean’s cousin. It seemed impossible for him to be sadder. Sid and Peggy and Mrs Sparrow looked at each other in dismay. It was awful to send him away feeling like that.
‘Stay and have tea with us,’ said Mrs Sparrow.
‘No, thank you very much,’ said Jimmy Dean’s cousin. ‘No.’
‘Do stay!’
But it was Amy who made everything all right. She said wistfully: ‘I wish we were having more gerbils. Then we could have a mum gerbil and a dad gerbil, and they’d have lots and lots of baby gerbils. Babies!’
Peggy was suddenly excited. ‘That’s what you can do,’ she cried to Jimmy Dean’s cousin. ‘Make sure you buy two gerbils of opposite sex! Let them mate! Let them have babies!’
‘Babies! Babies! Babies!’ cried Amy.
Jimmy Dean’s cousin was very much taken with the idea. ‘But I don’t know what my mum and dad would say,’ he said.
‘Pooh!’ said Mrs Sparrow. ‘They’ll just have to put up with it, won’t they?’
So, after all, Jimmy Dean’s cousin decided to stay and have tea. He took off his anorak and settled down. He helped Sid administer the very nearly last dose of antibiotic to Bubble. Sid congratulated him on the steadiness of his hand, in doing what Mrs Sparrow usually had to do. Then, with Peggy, they took Squeak out of his cage on to the table and gave him a run in and out of newspaper tubes and cardboard tubes.
Meanwhile, Mrs Sparrow was in the kitchen, preparing something special for tea. From the living room they could hear the spitting of fat in the pan and smell the delicious smell of sausages beginning to cook, and other frying.
Amy wandered between the kitchen and the living room and back again. She seemed upset about something; but nobody felt they had to pay much attention.
The front gate clicked, which meant that Bill Sparrow was home at last. He shouted to them from outside: ‘Someone come out and help me!’ He did not sound in distress.
They all rushed out, and there he was struggling with a Christmas tree which he had brought home on his bicycle. He had had to push the bicycle, on foot. That was why he was so late home.
Now that she knew that nothing had gone wrong, Mrs Sparrow went back to her frying. Sid and Peggy and Jimmy Dean’s cousin carried the Christmas tree indoors and propped it up for the time being in the usual corner of the living room.
Only Amy was left outside with Bill Sparrow. Now that everyone else was gone, she had him to herself. She began crying.
Bill Sparrow put his bicycle away, and picked her up, and carried her indoors. ‘What is it, then, lovey?’
‘Bill! I think they’re going to eat them!’
‘Eat them?’
‘Eat Bubble and Squeak for tea. Mum says so. Sid’s pleased.’
‘Are they now?’ said Bill Sparrow. ‘We’ll have to sort that out, shan’t we? I don’t want fried gerbil for my tea!’
‘Oh, no!’
He carried Amy into the kitchen and set her down there, calling to the other children as he did so. He said that he had brought presents home with him. They crowded in, with Jimmy Dean’s cousin. Bill Sparrow said: ‘The same present for everyone. I brought one for you too, Alice; but perhaps I’d better give it to the young chap
.’ He nodded towards Jimmy Dean’s cousin. ‘Perhaps you won’t mind not having yours, anyway, Alice.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a white mouse each.’
‘Bill!’ She thought he must be joking.
But Bill Sparrow said, ‘Yes. Really!’
Mrs Sparrow backed slowly into a corner of the kitchen, holding her cooking fork in front of her.
‘Yes.’ He dived a hand into a pocket and brought out a brown paper bag. It seemed an odd, unsafe way to carry four white mice, but he held the bag carefully and firmly as though he knew they might attempt to escape. Then he put a hand in: ‘Ow!’ he said, twisting his features. ‘One bit!’
They all watched him, breathless, except for Mrs Sparrow, who had closed her eyes. She opened them in time to see him bring the first mouse out of the paper bag. He held it up by its tail – a white string tail for a white sugar mouse.
‘Sugar mice!’ Mrs Sparrow gave a wild screech of laughter that drowned everyone else’s. They calmed her down; and Sid said, ‘That was a really good joke.’
Then they all sat down to bubble and squeak with their tea. Bill explained to Amy, and she said happily: ‘Not Bubble and Squeak. Never dear Bubble and Squeak.’
1920 Born 23 January in Cambridgeshire
1951 Diagnosed with tuberculosis and has to spend many months in hospital
1955 Minnow on the Say, her first children’s book, is published and is a runner-up for the prestigious Carnegie Medal
1958 Tom’s Midnight Garden is published and goes on to win the Carnegie Medal in 1959
1960 Becomes Children’s Editor at Andre Deutsch publishers
1973 Philippa returns to live in Great Shelford, the village in which she grew up
1978 The Battle of Bubble and Squeak is published in hardback by Andre Deutsch and then two years later by Puffin Books
1997 Receives the OBE for services to children’s literature
2006 Dies 21 December
Interesting Facts
Philippa Pearce’s father was the miller at Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, and it was the mill, the river and the landscape that inspired her first book, Minnow on the Say.
The garden at the Mill House (where Philippa grew up) became the true-life setting for her most famous novel, Tom’s Midnight Garden.
Where Did the Story Come From?
The Battle of Bubble and Squeak was written after Philippa Pearce and her daughter Sally left London and moved back to the Cambridgeshire village where Philippa had grown up. Here they had lots of animals: cats, dogs, hens, goats and a pony – and two gerbils that Sally named Bubble and Squeak. Philippa said in an interview with Books for Keeps magazine in 1983: ‘Almost all the incidents in the book happened to us: they gnawed holes in the curtains, the cat caught one and we took it to the vet and the vet told us what to do and we saved his life. I invented the rest, but everything about the gerbils was absolutely true.’
Guess Who?
A … small, with straight red hair and gimlet eyes.
B He was small – small in every way, except for his eyes.
C He was quite bald on the top of his head, with a little fringe of straight red hair round the baldness.
D ‘It’s no use your trying to hide them! I saw them!’
E A sad little bundle of fur, brindled and white …
ANSWERS:
A) Dawn Mudd
B) Jimmy Dean’s cousin
C) Mr Mudd
D) Mrs Sparrow
E) Bubble
Did You Know?
Despite what some people mistakenly believe, gerbils are usually diurnal (meaning they are active during the day).
Gerbils love to burrow long tunnels.
Gerbils don’t like being on their own. Like Bubble and Squeak, gerbils should be kept together.
Gerbils are very sociable and generally not aggressive.
Quiz
1 Who gave the gerbils to Sid?
a) Jimmy Dean’s cousin
b) Bill Sparrow
c) Mrs Pring
d) Dawn Mudd
2 Why does Mrs Sparrow want to get rid of Bubble and Squeak?
a) She’s allergic to fur
b) She prefers mice
c) She doesn’t like pets
d) She wants a dog
3 Where does Sid run away to after hearing that his mother has given the gerbils away?
a) To the park
b) To the woods
c) To Jimmy Dean’s house
d) To the shopping centre
4 What is the name of Mrs Pring’s cat?
a) Sooty
b) Tabby
c) Minnie
d) Ginger
5 What does Bill Sparrow buy for the family as a joke?
a) Mice-shaped cookies
b) Sugar mice
c) Chocolate mice
d) Rubber mice
ANSWERS:
1) a
2) c
3) b
4) d
5) b
Make and Do
How to make a home for a gerbil!
If Bubble and Squeak inspired you and you have permission, you might first want to do some research into what it takes to own a pet gerbil. Always remember that an animal needs plenty of love and care. Here’s how you do it.
YOU WILL NEED:
❋ A big cage (can be a wire cage or aquarium with netting on top)
❋ Recycled paper and wood shavings as bedding for the bottom of your cage
❋ Water bottle and food dish
❋ Gerbil entertainment: tubes, cardboard, exercise wheel, toys that are safe to chew
❋ A small box made of wood for nesting
1 Gather all your supplies around you. You can ask a local pet store for advice on what your gerbil needs to be happy.
2 Cut up strips of cardboard and paper, or use wood shavings, to make bedding for the bottom of the cage.
3 Place a full water bottle and food dish in the cage.
4 Use a wooden box with the entrance cut out as a hideout in which your gerbil can nest.
5 Now for the fun part! Decorate the cage with toys and branches and make fun tunnels for them from toilet-roll or kitchen-towel tubes.
6 You can give your pet gerbil a new toy to play with every couple of months. Gerbils love presents too!
7 Always remember that gerbils love to gnaw. Make sure everything in the cage is safe for your pet to chew. Put plenty of cardboard for chomping at into the cage.
8 Clean out the water bottle and food bowl every week. Clean the cage only every couple of weeks because it can make your gerbil stressed. (By cleaning, they will feel you are messing up their house!)
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The first Walkman is introduced by Sony.
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First published by André Deutsch 1978
Published in Puffin Books 1980
Reissued in this edition 2016
Text copyright © Philippa Pearce, 1978
Illustrations copyright © Annabel Large, 2000
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Cover illustration by Jim Tsinganos
ISBN: 978–0–141–92951–4
Philippa Pearce, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak
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