Vets and pets: Jamie and the magic whistle. Helen Brain, Nicky Webb, Rico Schacherl
little red blobs on my mom’s roses?”
Chanza nodded. “Rose hips?”
“Well, if you open them, they got little hairs inside and those are the itchy powder. Simple.”
Chanza looked impressed. “So all we have to do is find hundreds of rose hips?”
“Right,” said Tick, hoisting Bieber onto his shoulder and setting off for the rose bed. “We can start in the garden.”
6
Chickenpox for sale
Toby, the eldest of the three Waine children, looked thoughtfully out of his upstairs window. His fingers were fondling a huge pimple on his chin. In his hand he held a small glass bottle containing 37 fresh chickenpox scabs he’d bought for R20 from Rory Rinkelbaker in grade 8.
He watched Tick and Chanza come running past the washing line and disappear around the front of the house. They’re up to something, he thought.
Jamie was also in the back garden. She was trying to teach Fungi to sit and stay on command. She had a pocketful of dog treats she’d “borrowed” from the vet shop. Toby wondered if he should try and blackmail her out of her pocket money. Their mother got very annoyed when they took things from the vet shop without asking.
“You’ll never train that dog!” he called out the window. Fungi was a cross between a Maltese poodle and a Great Dane. He had a long body, short legs, fluffy fur and a goofy expression.
“Yes, I will,” called Jamie. “And stop squeezing your pimples. You’ll contaminate the planet with your toxic pus.”
The pimple popped. Toby held out his finger so she could see the green blob.
“I’m going to wipe this on your pillow!” he called.
But then he noticed that one of the chickenpox scabs was starting to dry out. He needed to get them into his dad’s cryogenic freezer before they became completely useless.
Toby hid the bottle of scabs under his shirt and crept upstairs to the professor’s lab. He listened at the door for the crackling noise that would mean that his dad was in there, fiddling with the Van der Graaf generator.
Nothing. His dad must be out.
He sneaked inside.
Toby opened the cryogenic freezer. A cold mist of liquid nitrogen poured out into the air. He hid his bottle behind another specimen and closed the door. “There you go, little scabs,” he murmured. “Each one of you is worth R50 to me.”
He couldn’t help grinning as he crept down the wooden stairs without the professor discovering him. Jamie was going to try and make money by winning a competition at a dog show with that dumb dog of hers. His plan was a lot more foolproof. He was going to sell his freeze-dried scabs to some of the guys in the chess and computer club. If they rubbed them on an open wound he was pretty sure that they would come down with chickenpox. It was an excellent way for them to get out of sports day.
Toby planned on using a scab himself to get out of the school camp. He chuckled and went back to his room to post an advertisement for his product in his favourite chat room. Soon he would be rich.
7
Fifi is coming to stay
That afternoon Jamie lay on the sofa cuddling Fungi. He rested his head on her tummy and gazed at her adoringly. When he behaved he was the most perfect dog that ever lived.
Unfortunately he had developed a liking for underwear. Jamie thought her mother’s were bad enough. But what Fungi really liked were men’s underpants, especially if they were dirty. He’d stolen her father’s from the washing basket, and yesterday she’d found him chewing up Toby’s sad grey briefs. He would have liked Tick’s too, but Tick never changed his underpants.
“Why do you have to be so disgusting?” she said, fondling his fluffy ears. “You’re as bad as Toby. We’re going to train you, aren’t we? You’re going to win the Best Behaved Dog Competition. Mrs Jones is going to shake hands with us both – you’ll be able to shake hands on command then – and she’ll say, ‘Any girl who can train a dog so efficiently is a Natural Born Leader and deserves to be head girl of the junior school. Well done, Jamie Waine. You are an example to others’.”
“Ah, here you are,” Arabella said, coming into the lounge. Arabella looked like she had something bad to say. Jamie’s heart sank.
“Jamie love, now I don’t want you to get all upset and grumpy,” she said, holding up her hands like a traffic cop stopping a car, “but Aunt Sylvia has just called …”
“Aw, no, Mom, please!” shouted Jamie. “No way! Don’t tell me Fleaflea is coming to stay! No way!”
“Now, Jamie,” said Arabella, trying to sound soothing, but ending up sounding a little hysterical. “I said, don’t get all grumpy. And don’t you dare call her Fleaflea when she’s here. It’s Felicity or Fifi. And she’s only coming for a week while her mother goes on a poetry conference.”
“A week!” stormed Jamie. “It may as well be a lifetime, it’s so awful! Why don’t you just shoot me now and put me out of my misery?”
She stomped off back to her room and slammed her door as hard as she could.
Her irritating, whiny cousin, Fleaflea, was coming for a WHOLE week.
She needed to speak to Pandora ASAP. This was an emergency. They needed to make a plan to get rid of her.
8
Fifi arrives
The next afternoon after school Jamie and Pandora were sitting in the lounge painting their nails and eating cupcakes. Pandora had made them – she was a whizz baker and they were double chocolate with a thick dollop of chocolate icing on the top.
A screeching, scraping noise in the driveway interrupted them. Jamie looked out of the window and saw Aunt Sylvia easing her Volkswagen Passat into the driveway. The exhaust pipe was dragging along the driveway.
“Oh no!” groaned Jamie. “It’s Felicity! Aargh!”
Pandora leaned over to peep out the window. “Pity that whole car doesn’t just blow up,” she said, pointing to the sparks coming from the back.
“PAN!” laughed Jamie, trying to sound horrified.
The car stopped and Aunt Sylvia opened the door to let Felicity out. She was cuddling her miniature Yorkie, Snoopy, and even from the window Jamie could see that her cousin’s nose was red and she had cotton wool in one ear hole.
Aunt Sylvia opened the boot and dragged out a bag of groceries and a box of medicines, and the R7 000 blender she had bought to make Fifi’s special smoothies.
“Yeugh,” moaned Jamie. “She’s bringing all her organic, sugar-free, wheat-free food with her. I can’t stand it – my mother makes me eat all that awful stuff when she stays.”
Pandora patted Jamie sympathetically. “Sorry for you. Should I take the cupcakes home?”
Jamie gave her a dirty look. “Ha, ha, very funny.”
By now Arabella was in the driveway hugging Aunt Sylvia and Felicity. “Jamie!” she called. “Your cousin is here.”
Jamie and Pandora looked at each other and stayed where they were. But that didn’t stop Felicity. Next moment she was standing next to the couch, breathing noisily through her mouth.
Jamie