Rocky (2 page)

“Huh,” said Ruby, watching them. “Can I play with her?”

“Sorry, Ruby, but she's mine. I've only just got her.”

Jane played with Kitty all day and she would hardly even let Ruby stroke her. “In a few days,” she said grandly, “when Kitty's used to us all, then you can play with her, just a bit.”

At school the next day, Ruby wrote a long story about her pet puppy.

“I didn't know you had a puppy, Ruby,” said Miss Allbright. “What's it called?”

“Piddlypooh,” said Ruby quickly. “And I'm afraid Jane isn't allowed to touch him. She's allergic to dogs.”

But there wasn't really a pet puppy. It seemed as if there wasn't going to be a pet for her until she was eight years old and that was a long, long way off.

DOWN AT THE
bottom of the garden, in the gloomy place beneath the lime tree, beside the compost heap and broken plant pots, was an old bench. It was a good place to sit and be sad. So that's where Ruby went after school that day.

“It's not fair,” she told the rotting tea bags and potato peelings on the compost heap. “I want a pet so badly. Much more than Jane.”

She filled her pockets with pebbles and tossed them at the pots. Plink! Plink! Plink!

“I need a pet! I
deserve
a pet!”

Plink! Plink!
Plonk!
Her pebble had bounced against a rock and made an odd sad “plonk” sound. Ruby looked at the rock she'd hit. It had a knobbly lump just like a nose and two dents for eyes. It had a smiling, wonky crack of a mouth.

“Hello,” 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.

“I'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.”

“Is it?” asked Ruby. “Oh, I've got a pet specimen. It must have fallen out of the sky.”

Dad grinned. “From Planet Droppablock, perhaps?”

“Yes,” said Ruby. “I think I'll call it Rocky. Rocky from Planet Droppablock. My pet.”

“That'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.

“Trees breathe,” said Mum, “you just can't see them doing it.”

“Aha! See!” cried Ruby. “It
is
alive!”