Boy: I can’t believe in Danny The Champion of the World, when Mr Victor Hazell was going to see the Doc and he kicked the dog out of the way instead of walking over it!
Mum: I know, it was cruel wasn’t it?
Boy: Yes – it was SO cruel.
Mum: Some people aren’t very nice like that, they can be very unkind to animals.
Boy: Yes, like Jane’s brother – he doesn’t like animals and he hates them SO much that he threw her pet hamster DOWN the stairs!
Mum: Really? A real, live hamster?
Boy: Yes! And the hamster had to go to hospital because it had broken its leg and to had to stay there for a whole week!
Mum: It sounds like it might have been safer there. That’s awful – how old is he?
Boy: He’s 4.
Mum: Why do you think he did it?
Boy: I don’t know – he just doesn’t like animals. Except skunks. He goes to a club called Animals Karate Club and they learn all about how to not be nice to animals there.
Mum: I doubt very much that there’s a club which encourages children to be nasty to animals – that would be wrong.
Boy: Well, half the time they’re telling the children what’s cruel and half the time they tell them about what’s good, and Jane’s brother only stays for the half which tells them about how to be cruel.
Mum: Do you think they give examples of cruel behaviour – just to explain what you shouldn’t do with animals – before they tell you how to care for them properly?
Boy: Yeeees. But he only stays for the bad stuff, then he goes home.
Mum: Oh dear.
Boy: Jane’s changed her code on the cage now, because she had a code on it before, but her brother was watching over her shoulder and saw it, so she’s changed it now. I like the cage – it’s got a tube that the hamster can play in and a zig-zag cardboard thing with steps in it that the hamster can climb up when he wants to go up to his bed for a nap. And he’s got a hamster wheel.
Related articles
- Five Animals (wikipedia.org)
- Danny the Champion of the World (alicook2013.wordpress.com)
- Basics to caring for a hamster (mairossanna.wordpress.com)
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