We didn’t mean to do it!
Yes, we did.
Don’t listen to Jemima, she doesn’t mean it! She can be tricky like that. I know it looks bad – four of Mr. Shelley’s pets dead in the last six months. And technically, we did have a hand in all of them, but it weren’t deliberate – shut up, Jemima! Mum says that we have to take responsibility for our actions, but it’s not all our fault. If old Shelley would just build a better fence between his garden and ours, they might not come over to play, and things… might not tend to go so wrong.
Does he do it? Does he heck. He just rambles on about how things were never this bad in some ancient relation’s day, and how children should be seen and not heard. I say he’s got a cheek with that hearing crack, given the noise that comes from his house. He used to be a zoo-keeper, or so Dad says, and still has some animals, the ones he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – get rid of. Not that Jack and me have ever got to see them! He says we might make them kick the bucket. After the doggie died, he said it would be better if they made us kick the bucket! I would have told Mum, but I thought she might say he had a point.
And if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s hers. I mean, there we were, fooling about in the back garden. (She’s always saying we should get out in the fresh air more often.) And I’d built my trebuchet, and was tossing Jemima about, trying to fix the aim (it always shot too long), when out came Mum, shrieking like a banshee. “Jack! You’re going to kill your sister!” As if. She wasn’t hurt, honest! Besides, Jemima could survive the electric chair – and I’m betting one day she’s going to need to. But Mum got all grumpy and threatened no more peanut brownies forever, so I unstrapped the kid and we tried to look innocent. I don’t think she bought it, but she went inside anyway. Her fault, see? What did she think we’d use as a replacement?
And that’s when we saw the dog, sticking his head through that sad excuse for a fence, wagging his tail like anything. And we thought waste not, want not.
Poor Cerberus. He hit the milk-truck dead on.
Don’t be such a baby. Bet he didn’t feel a thing! But Shelley was real MAD. Said there’d been too many accidents with his pets, and he was going to get one that could fight back.
And of course she didn’t shut up. “Ooh!” squealed Jemima. “Lovely!” The muppet.
Well, it was! I think it’s going to be FUN.
Anyway, that didn’t make it any better, and he got redder than a tomato. So now there’s one more dead pet, the neighbour’s out to get us, Jemima’s all ready for our very own “War of Trishum” (pity she’s not old enough to spell it)-
I can too spell!
…and Mum didn’t let us have any biscuits for supper. It’s been a bad day.
And the trebuchet’s still aiming too long.
