David Walliams - Ratburger

“Eurgh, eurgh, eurgh, eurgh …” huffed Sheila as she thundered down the hall. Zoe’s stepmother was quite short, but she made up for it by being as wide as she was tall.

She was, in a word, spherical.

Soon Zoe could sense the woman standing in the doorway, blocking out the light from the hall like a lunar eclipse. What’s more, Zoe could smell the sickly sweet aroma of prawn cocktail crisps. Her stepmother loved them. In fact, she boasted that from when she was a toddler she had refused to eat anything else, and spat any other food back in her mum’s face. Zoe thought the crisps stank, and not even of prawns. Of course the woman’s breath absolutely reeked of them too.

Even now, as she stood in the doorway, Zoe’s stepmother was holding a packet of the noxious snack with one hand and feeding her face with the other while she surveyed the scene. As always, she was wearing a long grubby white T-shirt, black leggings and furry pink slippers. The bits of skin that were exposed were covered in tattoos. Her arms bore the names of her ex-husbands, all since crossed out:

“Oh dear,” the woman spat, her mouth full of crisps. “Oh dear, oh dear, how very very sad. It’s ’eartbreakin’. The poor little fing has snuffed it!” She leaned over her little stepdaughter and peered down at the dead hamster. She sprayed the carpet with half-chewed pieces of crisp as she spoke.

“Dear oh dear oh dear and all dat stuff,” she added, in a tone that did not sound even remotely sad.

Just then a large piece of half-chewed crisp sprayed from Sheila’s mouth on to the poor thing’s little fluffy face. It was a mixture of crisps and spit[1]. Zoe wiped it away gently, as a tear dropped from her eye on to his cold pink nose.

“’Ere, I got a great idea!” said Zoe’s stepmother. “I’ll just finish dese crisps and ya can shove the little fing in de bag. I won’t touch it meself. I don’t wanna catch summink.”

Sheila lifted the bag above her mouth and poured the last of the prawn cocktail crisp crumbles down her greedy throat. The woman then offered her stepdaughter the empty bag. “Dere ya go. Bung it in ’ere, quick. Before it stinks de whole flat out.”

Zoe almost gasped at the unfairness of what the woman had just said. It was her fat stepmother’s prawn-cocktail-crisp breath that stank the place out! Her breath could strip paint. It could shear the feathers off a bird and make it bald. If the wind changed direction, you would get a nasty waft of her breath in a town ten miles away.

“I am not burying my poor Gingernut in a crisp packet,” snapped Zoe. “I don’t know why I called for you in the first place. Please just go!”

“For goodness’ sake, girl!” shouted the woman. “I was only trying to ’elp. Ungrateful little wretch!”

“Well, you’re not helping!” shouted Zoe, without turning round. “Just go away! Please!”

Sheila thundered out of the room and slammed the door so hard that plaster fell from the ceiling.

Zoe listened as the woman she refused to call ‘Mum’ trudged back to the kitchen, no doubt to rip open another family-sized bag of prawn cocktail crisps to fill her face with. The little girl was left alone in her tiny bedroom, cradling her dead hamster.

But how had he died? Zoe knew that Gingernut was very young, even in hamster years.

Could this be a hamster murder? she wondered.

But what kind of person would want to murder a defenceless little hamster?

Well, before this story is over, you will know. And you will also know that there are people capable of doing much, much worse. The most evil man in the world is lurking somewhere in this very book. Read on, if you dare …

Before we meet this deeply wicked individual, we need to go back to the beginning.

Zoe’s real mum died when she was a baby, but Zoe had still had a very happy life. Dad and Zoe had always been a little team, and he showered her with love. While Zoe was at school, Dad went out to work at the local ice-cream factory. He had adored ice cream ever since he was a boy and loved working in the factory, even though his job involved long hours, not much money and very hard work.

What kept Zoe’s dad going was making brand new ice-cream flavours. At the end of every shift at the factory he would rush home excitedly, laden with samples of some weird and wonderful new flavour for Zoe to be the first to try. Then he would report back what she liked to the boss. These were Zoe’s favourites:

Sherbert Bang

Bubblicious Bubblegum

Triple Choco-Nut-Fudge Swirl

Candyfloss Supreme

Caramel & Custard

Mango Surprise

Cola Cube & Jelly

Peanut Butter & Banana Foam

Pineapple & Liquorice

Whizz Fizz Spacedust Explosion

Her least favourite was Snail & Broccoli. Not even Zoe’s dad could make snail and broccoli ice cream taste good.

Not all of the flavours made it to the shops (especially not Snail & Broccoli) but Zoe tried them all! Sometimes she ate so much ice cream she thought she would explode. Best of all, she would often be the only child in the world to try them, and that made Zoe feel like a very special little girl indeed.

There was one problem.

Being an only child, Zoe had no one at home to play with, apart from her dad, who worked long hours at the factory. So by the time she reached the age of nine, like many kids, she wanted a pet with all her heart and soul. It didn’t have to be a hamster, she just needed something, anything, to love. Something that she hoped would love her back. However, living on the 37 thfloor of a leaning tower block, it had to be something small.

So, on Zoe’s tenth birthday, as a surprise, Dad left work early and met his daughter at the school gates. He carried her on his shoulders – she had always loved that ever since she was a baby – and took her to the local pet shop. There, he bought her a hamster.

Zoe picked out the fluffiest, cutest baby one, and named him Gingernut.

Gingernut lived in a cage in the little girl’s bedroom. Zoe didn’t mind that Gingernut would go round and round on his wheel at night keeping her awake. She didn’t mind that he nipped her finger a couple of times when she fed him biscuits as a special treat. She even didn’t mind that his cage smelled of hamster wee.

In short, Zoe loved Gingernut. And Gingernut loved Zoe.

Zoe didn’t have many friends at school. What’s more, the other kids bullied her for being short and ginger and having to wear braces on her teeth. Just one of those things would have been enough for her to have a hard time. She had hit the jackpot with all three.

Gingernut was small and ginger too, though of course he didn’t wear braces. That smallness and gingerness was probably, deep down, why Zoe chose him out of the dozens of little balls of fluff snuggled up together behind the glass at the pet shop. She must have sensed a kindred spirit.

Over the weeks and months that followed, Zoe taught Gingernut some mind-boggling tricks. For a sunflower seed, he would stand on his back legs and do a little dance. For a walnut, Gingernut would do a back-flip. And for a lump of sugar, he would spin around on his back.