The Other Sister by Jane Renshaw

Author:Jane Renshaw [Renshaw, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

16

DAISY’S DIARY

Wednesday 28 May 1985

We spent most of today at the Prestons’ farm.

Olive showed Violet where the hoover and other cleaning things are and told her to start in the dining room. She told me I should go with Jack and Tommy. She smiled all the time she was talking to us and said she really appreciated us helping out. I wanted to scream at her, Don’t pitch us that gammon! How can she think that smiling and pretending to be nice will make us like her again?

They’re BLACKMAILING us!

I went with Jack and Tommy to the barn. Jack said the ferrets’ enclosure needed cleaning out and they needed to be groomed. I said I would do the cleaning if Tommy got the ferrets out first, and I would groom them if he held their heads so they couldn’t bite me.

All the time we were talking, the ferrets were running around and jumping up at the chicken wire as if they were trying to get at me. Their enclosure is made of a wooden frame and chicken wire on the sides and top. It’s higher than me and takes up half the barn. At one side, outside the wire cage, is a box on legs with a door that opens into the enclosure.

‘You wait till they go in the box and then drop this door down to shut ’em in, see?’ said Jack. ‘Then this here…’ He pointed at the top of the box. ‘Open this lid here, lift ’em out and put ’em in that.’ He pointed to a smaller cage. ‘Then you brush ’em, muck out box and cage. Give ’em fresh towels, newspaper, water.’

Jack left the barn, but instead of going too, Tommy stood there grinning. ‘Easy as pie. But I’ll watch you this first time.’

‘What do you mean first time?’

‘Need cleaning every day.’

I didn’t let him see that this bothered me. ‘How do you get them into the box?’

‘Ferrets go mad for chicken.’ He gave me a paper bag with cooked chicken inside.

I took two pieces from the bag and waved them at the ferrets. They started racing around and jumping on each other, and I couldn’t help laughing. I opened the lid of the box and dropped the chicken in, and the ferrets rushed inside one after the other. I pushed down the sliding door to shut them in.

‘How do I get them out?’

‘How do you think?’

‘Do you have gloves?’

Tommy shook his head.

I gave them a few minutes to eat the chicken, then I opened the lid of the box and began talking to them. I could see the little eyes of one of them shining up at me from the dark. I put my hand in the box and felt something wet on my fingers.

It was Arthur’s little nose sniffing me!

I gently put my hand round his long body and lifted him out. He didn’t try to bite me, he just sort of hung there, and I quickly put him in the small cage. Then I did the same with Mabel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.