Free Lulu and the Hamster in the Night by Hilary McKay

Chapter One
    Ratty the Hamster
    Lulu was seven years old, and she was famous for animals. She was so famous for animals that people buying new pets for their children had begun to say, Well, if things go wrong we can always ask Lulu to take it.

    Lulu did not know they said this, and neither did her mom and dad. They might have minded, or they might not. Lulu’s parents were quite famous themselves, for letting Lulu have so many pets. They said, The more the merrier! As long as Lulu cleans up after them. Lulu did not just clean up after them. She looked after them as if they were the most important things in the world.
    And to her, they were.
    At Lulu’s school there was a big girl called Emma Pond. Emma Pond had a hamster. Emma Pond’s hamster had a hamster wheel. The hamster ran desperately on the hamster wheel, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. It ran as if it was trying to escape. Whenever it got off the wheel it would look around as if to say “Am I still in the same place?” When it saw that it was, it tried again.

    The hamster wheel made a squeaky noise that Emma Pond did not like. She used to reach through the bars with a pencil and poke the hamster off the wheel.
    One day, when Emma Pond’s hamster had the chance, it bit Emma Pond. This happened on a day when Emma had not been able to find a pencil and had used her finger to poke him instead. It was not a little bite; it was a big one. As big as the hamster could manage.
    The next day Emma Pond came up to Lulu at school and said, “I’m getting rid of my hamster.”
    â€œWhy?” asked Lulu.
    â€œHow?” asked Mellie, who was seven years old like Lulu and her best friend as well as her cousin.
    Emma Pond answered them each in turn. She unpeeled a sticky bandage from her finger and showed Lulu two red holes. “That’s why,” she said. She told Mellie, “I’ll just let it go if Lulu doesn’t want it.”
    â€œLet it go where?” asked Lulu.
    â€œPerhaps at my uncle’s. He’s got a big field. We let our rabbits go there.”
    â€œWhat happened to your rabbits?”
    Emma Pond shrugged to show she didn’t care. “Anyway,” she said to Lulu, “my house is on the way to yours. You could stop on your way home.”
    â€œToday?” asked Lulu.
    â€œToday, after school,” said Emma Pond. “Wait at my gate. If you’re not there, I’ll know you don’t want it.”
    â€œI want it! I want it!” said Lulu.
    Right after school that day Lulu and Mellie rushed to Emma Pond’s house.
    â€œWait!” commanded Emma when they reached the gate. Then she went in and came back carrying a small plastic cage.
    Inside the cage was a heap of newspaper and hamster bedding and a hamster wheel. The rubbish heap twitched a little.
    â€œIs it a boy or a girl?” asked Lulu.

    â€œWe never really…” began Emma Pond, and then she stopped. “It’s a boy,” she said. “Or if it’s not, it’s a girl. Obviously.”
    â€œWhat’s its name?” asked Mellie.
    Emma Pond paused. It was almost as if she didn’t want to tell them. Then she said, “Ratty!”
    â€œRatty?” repeated Mellie.
    â€œRatty?” echoed Lulu. “But you said it was a hamster!”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œCalled Ratty?”
    â€œAre you taking him or not?” demanded Emma Pond.
    â€œWe’re taking him,” said Lulu.
    Lulu and Mellie walked home, carrying the cage between them. With her free hand Mellie held her nose.
    â€œI don’t think Emma Pond has cleaned this cage for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said.
    At Lulu’s house they put the cage down on the doorstep and stretched their arms.
    â€œWe still haven’t seen a hamster,” said Mellie, but even as she spoke, the heap of newspaper in the cage began to move. A pink nose came out. A ginger head