Piggy Handsome - Faber Children's
Transcript of Piggy Handsome - Faber Children's
Piggy Handsome Guinea Pig Destined for Stardom!
Guinea pig destined for stardom!
Written by Pip JonesIllustrated by Adam Stower
For Ava and Ruby, and for the children of
Mission Grove Primary School,
who once named a guinea pig.
First published in 2017
by Faber & Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
Typeset by Faber & Faber Limited
Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group UK (Ltd)
Croydon CRO 4YY
All rights reserved
Text © Pip Jones
Illustrations © Adam Stower
The right of Pip Jones and Adam Stower to be identified as author and illustrator of this
work respectively has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
A CIP record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978–0–571– 32754–6
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Meet Piggy Handsome!
Just look at that smile!
This guinea pig has such charisma and style!
He is, after all, the nineteenth generation
of Handsomes, and each one an utter sensation!
But poor Piggy Handsome, something went wrong.
He’s been waiting for fame and for fortune SO long.
And now, here he sits, just dreaming up capers
(ways that he might get his name in the papers).
Could this be his chance? Are you desperate to know?
Well, let’s see! Turn the page! And on with the show!
1
Tantrumptious! or The woes of a pompous guinea pig
In a very ordinary house, in a mostly ordinary town
called Gibblesby-on-Sea, a rather extraordinary
guinea pig was stomping around his cage, hitting
himself on the head with a rolled-up newspaper.
Ooh, not that you’d want to call it that actually.
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I don’t mean you wouldn’t want to call the
newspaper a newspaper. I mean, you wouldn’t want
to call the cage a cage. Good gracious, no! Not if
Piggy Handsome was listening. He’d go mad.
‘A cage?’ he’d scream, his ginger fur standing
on end to show quite how indignant he was. ‘How
DARE you! I’ve never been so insulted in all my
life . . .’
And then he’d ramble on for a while about how
he actually lived in a maisonette (which is a posh word
for a flat with stairs). Then he’d show you his four-
poster bed (which he’d fashioned out of the shredded
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paper that normal guinea pigs were expected to
sleep in), and his en-suite bathroom (complete with
a pink plastic toilet and a sink with gold taps). And
then he’d insist you admire all the portraits of his very
grand and extremely famous ancestors.
Well, those grand and extremely famous
ancestors just happened to be the reason why Piggy
Handsome was crashing around like a furious,
fuming furball.
‘Arrrrgh!’ he yelled, whacking himself in the
noggin again. ‘Jeffry, my dear friend! What shall
I do?’
5
High above Handsome, in an ornate birdcage,
Jeff Budgie was trying to enjoy his morning snooze.
‘What shall you do about what?’ he yawned,
peeking out from beneath his blue and black wing.
‘About THIS THING!’
Piggy Handsome slapped his newspaper on to
the floor, then jumped up and down on it until his
pointy, piggy little feet had completely shredded
the front page. Then he swooned, and collapsed
into his armchair with a flop so flopsome that his
beautifully styled quiff went flat.
After a moment – or rather, ‘a dramatic pause’
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– Piggy Handsome was bored with not talking.
‘I’m nearly THREE!’ he wailed. ‘And NO
ONE knows who I am! I’m not on the telly. I’ve
never had my name in the newspaper. It’s humiliating,
Jeffry! I’m not . . . I’m not even . . .’ Piggy
Handsome sobbed dramatically, ‘AN INTERNET
SENSATION!’
Now, you might be thinking: ‘What’s his
problem? He’s only three! He’s got loads of time to
fulfil his life ambitions.’
But actually, in guinea-pig years, being nearly
three meant that Piggy Handsome was already
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nearly thirty years old. Practically an antique!
Not good. Not good at all. Especially since one
of his ancestors – Tiddly Handsome – had become
famous at the age of six months for learning
how to play Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony on the
piano . . . BACKWARDS.
Anyway, all of this Jeff knew very well.
‘Not this again,’ he groaned, in a voice that
was surprisingly deep and raspy for a tiny budgie.
Oh, sure, Jeff did the high-pitched budgie
song, to please the human who delivered seeds and
grated apple every day. But whenever the human
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wasn’t there, Jeff Budgie sounded like a forty-five-
year-old taxi driver from east London.
‘Listen, Handsome,’ Jeff gruffle-huffed, expertly
pinging open the door to his cage and fluttering
out. ‘The truth is that guinea pigs, as a rule, ain’t
always . . . all . . . that . . .’
‘FAMOUS!’ shrieked Piggy Handsome.
‘Jeffry, I’m no mere guinea pig! I’m a Handsome. And
Handsomes have always been famous. It’s all right
for you. Budgies do nothing! Budgies are useless!
Not good at anything! Well, apart from being blue
and—’
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‘Yes, yes,’ Jeff said, rolling his eyes. ‘And
squawking. Although, officially, it’s tweeting, not
squawking.’
FLWAT! A large, floppy cabbage leaf hit Jeff
on the side of the head.
‘Stop talking!’ Piggy Handsome yelled.
‘There’s work to do, so think! I simply cannot be
the only Handsome in history to not be famous. I
need a plan. It needs to be good, it needs to be . . .
foolproof. Just look at what I have to live up to!’
Piggy Handsome, who considered himself far
too important to use his finger to point at things,
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picked up his pointing stick (which was just a stick
with a plastic pointy finger at the end) and pointed
at the portraits that were hanging on the wall of
his cage . . . ahem, er, maisonette.
‘Missy Handsome – sailed the length of the
Danube! Rocket Handsome – the first guinea pig
in space! Rugged Handsome – ac-TOR on stage
and on screen! Doctor Dave Handsome – saved
the life of the Queen’s corgi! Ransom Handsome,
oh, er . . .’
Handsome was pointing at a framed but
tattered newspaper clipping. It displayed a photo
of a grimacing, handcuffed guinea pig, and a
headline that read: No Ransom for Handsome:
Gangster guinea pig captured by cops.