Guinea Pigs Online (4 page)

6

Eduardo

The sound of singing woke Coco. She yawned and stretched, imagining for a moment that she was back in
the hutch with Fuzzy, listening to Radio 2. It was a rather nice song, she thought lazily—it just needed a harp accompaniment.

A song about
guinea pigs
? Was she dreaming? Coco sat up, puzzled. It was quite dark. She sniffed. She was lying on a bed of fresh hay, but it didn’t smell quite like the fresh hay
in the hutch. It smelled even better: like Henrietta’s special hand cream—grassy and lemony and soft and zingy all at the same time.

Coco climbed off her bed. The floor felt dry and dusty, not at all like the newspaper at the bottom of the hutch. She reached out with her front paws. The walls felt different too:
not chicken wire with a water bottle poking through—this felt like earth.

Suddenly Coco remembered. The cunning fox had tricked her. She had gone to the thicket to help Fuzzy and nearly been eaten alive! Someone had come to her rescue. Could that someone be the same someone who was now singing such a beautiful
love song? Coco blushed. Her heart jumped.

She felt her way along the walls, following the sound. She stopped. The most handsome guinea pig she had ever seen stood in the middle of a small hollow, under a shaft of light that shone through a hole above him. He had short thick fur—a deep-black undercoat sprinkled with silver, which glowed in the light like tiny diamonds—and black eyes. Slung over his shoulder was a small blue satchel, which he was mending with a needle and thread, pulling
it in and out. He paused, lifting his head as if about to sing another verse.

Then he saw Coco. He stopped his mending and smiled.

“You feeling better, señorita?”

Señorita!
Coco nearly fainted again. He was so romantic! She felt like a princess.

“Yes,” she squeaked, “I am. Thank you so much for rescuing me.”

“You’re welcome.” He looked at her from under his shaggy eyebrows. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Eduardo Julio Antonio del Monte
from far away in the Andean mountains: Cavy Boliviensis.”

“I’m Coco,” said Coco, “from number 7, Middleton Crescent, Strawberry Park. And before that I lived with the Queen. Er . . . Cavy Palaciensis.”

“Really?” Eduardo nodded thoughtfully. “The Queen!” He frowned. “So tell me, Señorita Coco, what’s a pretty princess like you doing hanging around a place like this at midnight?”

“I was trying to find Fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?”

“Yes, we share a hutch. He’s Ben’s and I’m Henrietta’s. He’s not my boyfriend or anything,” Coco added hastily. She explained about Scarlet Cleaver’s ad and about Fuzzy running away. She told him about Terry finding out about the other missing guinea pigs on the computer. “The fox sent me a message,” she
said, “after Terry left, pretending to be a friend. He offered to help me find Fuzzy. That’s why I agreed to meet him here.”

“
Caramba!
” Eduardo whistled. “You should choose your friends more carefully next time, señorita. Don’t you know you should NEVER—”

“One does now!” Coco said miserably. “I won’t do it again. It was all so different at the Palace,” she sobbed. “One simply wrote letters, placed them on a silver tray and asked the butler to put them in the post.”

“I see,” Eduardo raised his eyebrows. “Well, it’s not like that here in the bush, señorita. You have to be able to look after yourself or it’s curtains. You have to find shelter, search for food, keep a watch out for predators.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Man! You domestic guinea pigs, you’re so spoiled you’re something else!”

“What do you mean?” Coco asked huffily. There was no need to be rude.

“My mother brought me up as a freedom fighter,” Eduardo sighed, picking up his mending. “‘Eduardo,’ she said, ‘travel the world and free your
brothers and sisters.’ I did as I was told. Like her, I used to think all guinea pigs should be free.” He shrugged. “Since I’ve been here, I’m not so sure. Some guinea pigs, like you, señorita, are better off in cages. Go back to yours now, where you belong.”

“They’re called hutches actually,” Coco chattered. Eduardo was making her feel quite cross. She couldn’t imagine why she had ever liked him. He was clearly not a gentleman. “And there’s nothing wrong with living in them as long as you have nice owners like Henrietta and Ben, or the Queen.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be roaming the Andean mountains?” Eduardo looked aghast. “Foraging for chickweed?”

“Certainly not,” Coco snapped. “One would miss the quilted toilet paper, one should think! Besides, it would make Henrietta and the Queen very sad. Which reminds me,” she said firmly, “I have to find Fuzzy. Ben will be terribly worried.” She looked around. “Which way is out?”

“Where are you going?” Eduardo blocked her way.

Coco drew herself up and flicked her whiskers at him. “111 Upper Street,” she said stiffly. “To Scarlet Cleaver’s new restaurant.”

Eduardo laughed. “How are you going to get there, señorita? A horse and carriage, perhaps?”

He was making fun of her. “One will hail a taxi.” Coco tried to sound more confident than she felt.

“Sure.” Eduardo nodded. “Do you have any money?”

“Money?” Coco felt confused. The Queen never carried money.

“I thought not.” Eduardo blew
out his cheeks. Then he bit the thread off the satchel and placed the needle carefully upright in the cotton reel. “Good as new,” he said, flipping the satchel open and stretching it. “Pass me my skeleton keys.”

“Your skeleton keys?”

“There, on the wall. We might need to break into the joint. And we’ll take some grass in case we get hungry.”

“We?” Coco said faintly.

“Yes, señorita. One has decided to come with you to help you rescue your friend Fuzzy.” He bowed.
“Eduardo Julio Antonio del Monte at your service.” He winked. “The only problem is, princess, as the horse and carriage is busy today, I guess we’ll just have to take the scooter.”

7

Which Way?

“
All right then, you can come with me,” said Coco haughtily as they scrambled up the tree roots into the thicket. “I just need to comb my hair before we go.”

“It’s not ME coming with you, señorita, it’s YOU coming with me!”

“If you say so,” muttered Coco, turning back toward the house to get her comb.

“And you don’t have time to comb your hair. From what you say, señorita, we have no time to lose! Let’s go!
Vamos!
”

“But what about—”

“Forget the hair,” Eduardo interrupted. “You’re the kind of chick who looks good with or without a comb. Now come on. It’s six o’ clock already!”

“Six o’ clock?” Coco gasped.

“Sure. You been asleep all day,
chiquita
, now move . . .”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” said Coco indignantly.

They squeezed under a fence and into the street.

“Wait here!” Eduardo disappeared behind a bush. Soon he reemerged, bottom first, dragging a doll’s scooter with his front paws.

Coco stared at it. “I’m not going on that!”

“You are, if you want to get there before Fuzzy is finger food.” He held the handlebars and put one foot on the scooter. “Now jump on.”

Reluctantly Coco jumped on behind him and wrapped her front paws around his neck.

“Aarrggh! Don’t strangle me!” Eduardo shouted. “Put your hands here, around my waist.”

They wobbled along the pavement.

“You’ve got to use your foot!” Eduardo grumbled. “I’m doing all the work! Let’s scoot!”

Coco soon got the hang of it and
it wasn’t long before they reached Upper Street. It was getting dark, but the area was still bright and busy and scary compared to Middleton Crescent. Coco felt quite frightened, but for some reason she didn’t want to admit how she felt to Eduardo.

Eduardo, on the other hand, seemed quite at home on the crowded street.

“We’ll keep to the edge of the sidewalk, senorita, it’s safer that way,” he called over his shoulder.

“Do you mean we should ride closer to the curb?”

“No, no!
Caramba
! We can be squashed by the cars that way! I mean here, by the shops. In the shadows. Where we can’t be seen.”

Eduardo swerved across the pavement, trying to make sure that he and Coco weren’t trampled by someone rushing to the theater or the movies or maybe even to Scarlet Cleaver’s new restaurant. She felt a
chill run through her little bones when she thought about Fuzzy. They must get there soon.

The scooter skidded to a halt. Immediately ahead of them a red carpet stretched across the pavement, from the curb to the doorway. Coco looked up: “111 Upper Street,” she read.

They had arrived.

“Have they rolled out the red carpet for me?” Coco thought aloud, scratching a rosette in puzzlement.

“Of course not,” answered Eduardo. “They don’t know you’re coming here tonight.”

“True,” she said thoughtfully. “Then I wonder who it’s for . . .”

“A film star, maybe?” suggested Eduardo.

Coco stroked the carpet lovingly. It was thick and deep and soft. Her eyes shone.

“No no no, Eduardo—not a film star. Someone even more famous!” Coco rubbed her paws together rapturously. “Don’t you see? It’s for Her Majesty the Queen.”