Free Rocky by Rebecca Lisle Page A

crack of a mouth.

    â€œHello,” said Ruby. The rock didn’t reply.
    She picked the rock up. It was as heavy as the baby next door.
    She put the rock up close to her ear, but it was silent. She whispered to it, but it didn’t reply.

    She breathed in its cold cellar smell. Nothing like the kitten . . . but it did smile. Ruby smiled back.
    â€œI’ve got a pet! I’VE GOT A PET! ” She rushed into the kitchen. “LOOK!”
    Ruby put the rock on the table. Jane and their parents came to look at Ruby’s pet.
    Jane laughed. “That’s a stone.”
    Mum stroked it. “It’s a very nice one,” she said.

    Dad turned it around in his hands and examined it carefully as if it were very precious. “It’s a very fine specimen.”
    â€œIs it?” asked Ruby. “Oh, I’ve got a pet specimen. It must have fallen out of the sky.”
    Dad grinned. “From Planet Droppablock, perhaps?”

    â€œYes,” said Ruby. “I think I’ll call it Rocky. Rocky from Planet Droppablock. My pet.”

    â€œThat’s just so silly,” said Jane. “It can’t be from another planet. Anyway, there’s no such thing as a pet rock. A pet has got to be alive. It’s got to breathe!”
    Ruby didn’t say anything. She stared at her smiling rock. That was a tough one. It had to breathe. Huh.
    â€œTrees breathe,” said Mum, “you just can’t see them doing it.”
    â€œAha! See!” cried Ruby. “It
is
alive!”

Chapter Three

    JANE TOOK KITTY to her room. She found a cardboard box and cut a doorway in it so Kitty could squeeze in and out. She put in an old jumper and an old cuddly monkey. Kitty went straight insideand rolled on her back and tussled with the monkey. When the monkey was dead she ran in and out chasing her tail.
    Ruby watched, thinking, Huh! She found a shoe box still lined with tissue paper and put in a scrap of blanket. “This will make a lovely bed,” she told her rock. She had lots of cuddly toys on her bed, but none she could spare.

    â€œI hope you won’t be lonely, Rocky,” she said as she took the box down to the playroom.
    Then she remembered the pebbles in her pocket. “These’ll keep you company.” She slipped the pebbles into the box – three smooth and two knobbly – and laid the rock on top.

    â€œThere,” she whispered. “That’s cosy, isn’t it?”
    Jane came in. Kitty was snuggled under her chin, purring. “What are you doing?” she asked.

    â€œMaking a bed for my pet.”
    â€œSilly, you know it’s not a real pet. Look, if it was alive and a real pet,” said Jane, “it would move, like Kitty.”

    Ruby stroked her rock. It was cold and hard and it didn’t move. “Things are different on Planet Droppablock. It moves so, so, so slowly, you can’t see it,” she said. “Like a very, very, very slow snail.”
    Jane’s mouth fell open. She didn’t know what to say.
    Ruby liked it when Jane was lost for words. She smiled. And the rock went on smiling too.
    Jane sat down and Kitty leaped around the room, bouncing over the chairs and fluffing up her tail like a brush.

    â€œShame your pet is so slow,” Jane said, throwing a sponge ball for Kitty. “I mean, you can’t have much fun with such a slow pet, can you?”

    â€œHuh,” said Ruby.

    Kitty jumped and cartwheeled around the room after the ball, leaping on invisible mice and chewing her cuddly monkey.
    Then Ruby noticed something: the kitten had made a puddle on the floor.

    â€œMum! Mum!” she called.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    Ruby pointed. “That naughty Kitty’s made a puddle,” she said quietly.
    â€œOh dear, never mind,” said Mum. “That’s what kittens do. Jane must clear it up.”

    Jane made a face. “Yuck! It’s smelly. I don’t want