Page 15 of Highland Games
‘Can we help you, lassie?’ asked the man, smiling as Zoe gingerly brought out the rat.
The couple lit up and the woman exclaimed, ‘Basil!’ She nudged her husband. ‘I just knew he would be going to a good home.’ She stroked the rat, cooing. ‘Hello, you little cutie! How are you enjoying your new human?’
‘Err. You know this rat?’ Zoe asked.
‘Of course, my dear, we know all of our babies. This is Basil, he’s a Dumbo rat. See his big ears. Aren’t you gorgeous, my darling! And such a lovely present for a pretty girl! Your boyfriend came in yesterday to buy something special for you and decided it had to be a rat.’
‘My boyfriend?’
‘Oh aye, strapping fella, lovely hair and bright eyes. Good teeth too.’
Her husband turned to Zoe. ‘Do you have everything you need? He said you had the essentials, but you might need a little more to get you going, and if you’re going to be away from him a while then he needs a friend. Rats are sociable creatures you know.’
Zoe’s jaw moved but no words came out. The lady stepped back and Basil scurried to Zoe’s shoulder. The couple let out a collective happy sigh.
‘Awwww. Friends for life!’
Zoe leftthe pet shop considerably lighter in the pocket and heavier on unanticipated purchases. She hadn’t budgeted for this. She sat back in her truck, Basil running happily back and forth along the dashboard in front of her.
Rory. Her mind hadn’t left him since the pet shop. What in god’s name was he up to? Did he think she would run back to London because of a rat? And did he think she was that much of an idiot she’d believe beautiful Basil was wild? Well, she had told him she thought he was a bear. She sighed. And he’d said she was his girlfriend? Fat chance of that. Not only did he despise her and want her out of the cabin, he obviously thought she was a half-wit as well.
Well, she would show him. She wasn’t going anywhere and neither was Basil. She whistled to him as she fired up the truck and he leapt from the dashboard to her shoulder, chattering away.
Zoe stoodin front of the tall tree she used to climb with Jamie and Fiona when they were children. It was perfectly placed to offer a vantage point of the cabin’s roof, and if there was phone signal up there, then so much the better.
However, the tree seemed to have grown far more than she had in the last nineteen years. She could touch the lowest branch but it was too high to haul herself onto it. Basil climbed to the top of her head as she contemplated it, as if a second pair of eyes would solve the problem.
‘Right then, Basil, let’s show them,’ she said, as she strode confidently to the cabin, returning with the least rickety chair which she set against the trunk.
She made sure her phone was secure in a zipped pocket and lifted Basil down. ‘Now then, you must keep still. I haven’t done this since I was just a bit bigger than you, so you’ve got to be a help, not a hindrance. Okay?’
Basil twitched his nose in agreement and she placed him behind her, in the hood of her jacket. She stepped onto the seat. So far no broken bones. She reached her arms over the branch, lifted her right leg up and tried to swing it over, but it was too high.
‘Come on, you can do this!’ she told herself, bringing her right foot back onto the seat, then tentatively placing her left foot on the back of the chair.
It wobbled and she pushed it back against the trunk so the chair was now balancing on its back legs. Not wanting to take it past tolerance, she grasped the trunk securely with her arms, put her weight through her left leg, swung her right leg over the branch and heaved, just as the back bar of the chair snapped and the whole thing fell over. She was up!
‘Yes!’
She punched the air at the small victory, then glanced at the broken chair. She turned to Basil who had worked his way to her shoulder.
‘Come on now, that chair was knackered, I’m not that heavy. Now back into your seat and hold on tight.’
Basil scurried into her hair as she got to her feet on the branch and began her ascent.
The tree was a great one to climb once you got going. As a kid she’d never climbed that far but it still felt very high. As she reached each new branch, she took out her phone to check the signal. Nothing.
She paused on the seventh branch, high enough now to see the roof. She could see where a few of the shingles had come loose. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been but it certainly wasn’t pretty. She zoomed in with the camera on her phone to take photos. She could show them to someone who knew more than she did and make sure she only spent as much as she actually needed to.
Putting her phone back in her pocket, she heard a chattering noise above her and saw that Basil had gone exploring and was now perched above her, squeaking.
‘Oh, what are you doing? Come back here! We’ve seen enough and there’s no signal so we’re going down now.’
Basil didn’t budge.
‘Are you stuck?!’
Basil continued his chattering and squeaking. Hadn’t the lady in the pet shop told her that squeaking was a sign of stress?
