“I can’t say that!” However, when she reminded him that Cruncher and his ever so sharp teeth might come out from the house at any moment, he decided to do as she said.
Searching frantically for the guinea pigs, Horace finally located them behind a cucumber frame. “Come to dada, little guinea pigs, and I’ll save you from the big, nasty dog,” he said to them. His words were supposed to calm the rodents; however, they fell short of the mark, and they ran away from him in three different directions.
“What are you doing?” Moidering Maria asked her Horrible brother.
“What are you doing down there?” Mrs Slark asked the garden invader, when she opened her bedroom window above him. “And what happened to your trousers?”
“What am I doing?” Horrible Horace thought, as he chased after the rodents, ever more determined to catch them. “I am not boiling an egg,” he thought.
Catching up with a guinea pig hiding behind a raspberry bush, Horrible Horace grabbed hold of it. “I’ve got you!” he said triumphantly. A few moments later, having caught up with another guinea pig, this time behind a cabbage plant, he said, “I’ve got you too!” A few moments later, having secured the third guinea pig, Horace said, “And I got you too, you little rascal.”
With a rodent held firmly in each hand, and with the third one held securely in his mouth, Horrible Horace made a beeline for the hole in the hedge.
Having finished eating its dinner, Crusher wanted to return to the garden. Opening the door, Mr Slark said, “There you are, boy. Go out and play in the garden.” Then he saw him; the garden invader. “Go get him!” he commanded Crusher.
“Who are you?” Mrs Slark asked the Horrible child again.
“I’m coming!” he called out to his sister.
“Run faster,” she told him, “lest my babies are torn to shreds by that mad dog that is hot on your heels!”
Diving into the hole, with his hands extended in front of him, still holding two rodents, Horrible Horace tried to return to safe haven, next door. He made good progress at first; working his way through the hedge, until the branch that caused him so much grief on his way snagged him again. Then he felt them; Crusher’s sharp teeth, sinking into his bottom. “OW!” he hollered, spitting the guinea pig out from his mouth, “OW! OW! OW!”
“What on earth is wrong with you?” asked Moidering Maria.
“I am being attacked!” he told her.
Leaning into the hole, Maria grabbed hold of the guinea pig that her brother had spat out. “Quick, pass me the other two!” she ordered.
After handing his sister the remaining rodents, Horrible Horace asked her to help him out from the hole. Preoccupied with her beloved pets, she ignored him. Cruncher’s sharp teeth, digging deep into his bottom for a second time, brought tears Horrible Horace’s eyes. “Help me!” he bawled. “I will have nothing left, back there, if I stay here any longer!”
When she had returned her guinea pigs to the safety of their hutch, Moidering Maria said, “Anyone would think you are being murdered, the way you are carrying on. Crusher is not a big dog, you know.”
“That’s not what you were saying before,” he grumbled, “when your pigs were in next door’s garden.”
“Guinea pigs, they are called guinea pigs,” she told him.
“Alight, guinea pigs it is!” her Horrible brother complied. “PLEASE help me out from this hole! I want away from this dog! OW! OW! He’s at it again, OW!”
A few minutes later, when he was free of the hedge, and safe from Crusher’s sharp teeth, Horrible Horace’s mood took a dive. His grand afternoon off, the little vacation that he had so looked forward to, had turned into a disaster. “The next time someone gets time off from school, I don’t want to hear about it,” he said to himself. “In fact, I’ll offer to do extra lessons, instead.” Laughing impishly, he said, “They will have to be geography lessons, though, about China, and India, Maluka, Miafra and...”
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