Guinea Pig Killer (3 page)

That was the night the rash arrived.

It started with a dream where something small and cold kept pinching his big toe.

Hard.

It hurt, and when he woke up the pain was still there.

His big toe was covered in little red marks.

He scratched at the rash but that only made it itchier.

His mum called it eczema.

She slathered it with cream that didn't do very much good.

Every night the rash spread further and further.

It was halfway up his leg by the time they went to the doctor.

The doctor said it didn't look like a normal rash; it looked like something was biting him.

There was a stronger cream to put on.

A green one this time.

It smelled like toilet cleaner and, after a while, so did Sandy.

Nobody wanted to sit beside him in school because the smell was so strong and he was always twitching and scratching.

His mum changed his bed sheets and cleaned his room from top to bottom.

They made him stop eating milk and cheese and chocolate, in case he was allergic to something.

And he had to wash with a special type of soap.

Meanwhile the rash kept spreading and spreading and the dreams felt more and more real.

In his nightmares, the furry thing was on his tummy.

Its nose burrowed into the crook of his arm.

How could something so small be so heavy and so strong?

Sandy did ask his mum one time if she thought it could be the ghost of Princess Snowflake getting her revenge.

But she told him not to be silly.

He didn't feel silly, though. He felt afraid.

When he closed his eyes, the two red dots were there all the time now.

Even if he was awake.

The little red eyes.

On a living guinea pig, the eyes had seemed so helpless.

They weren't helpless now.

They were angry.

Sandy had no idea what he could do to stop the eyes from troubling him, but he knew someone who might.

Dolly had been nice to Sandy since she came back from Irish college.

She felt sorry for him, especially now that the rash was way up his face.

Mum was still making him put on that disgusting cream even though it wasn't working.

So Dolly hung out with him, even though he looked like he had freckles made of scabs and would go pale whenever she mentioned guinea pigs.

Sandy didn't want to tell her the truth.

He had to, though.

She had known Princess Snowflake (the first Princess Snowflake) better than anyone.

She might know how to stop whatever was happening to him.

It had to stop soon.

Sandy could not take much more of the night-time nibbling.

Dolly sat and listened to the story without saying a word.

When Sandy was finished, she asked him why he would make up such a horrible lie.

You see, Dolly had painted the tiny toenails of Princess Snowflake with pink nail polish.

This way she could tell her apart from other guinea pigs that were white all over with big red eyes.

(And, well, it also looked adorable.)

When she had come home from Irish college, the polish was still there, and so was the scar that Snowflake had gotten on her back that time the vet had to remove a lump.

It was definitely the same guinea pig.

Sandy didn't know what to say to that.

That night Princess Snowflake the second disappeared.

The hutch was empty in the morning and, try as they might, they couldn't find the guinea pig anywhere.

The weird thing was, the hutch door was locked from the outside.

Dolly refused to speak to Sandy for six weeks.

She thought that his story from the day before was the start of some mean trick.

Six weeks was also the amount of time it took for the rash to fade.

Things are back to normal now, except that Sandy is scared of anything small and furry.

Once, he started to cry like a baby when I threw a teddy bear at him.

Oh, and Rock is a lot bigger now and I haven't forgotten to feed him even once.

Even though his eyes are large and soft and brown and could never haunt you in your nightmares.

THE END