I can’t believe it’s seven weeks already since my brother Dougall died.  Mummy says she doesn’t believe it either, and she’s nowhere near ready to come out of mourning.  She says she still dreams of him lying in her arms when he wasn’t feeling well, and she gets very upset about it.  And I tell her that I still think of him sitting next to me, and wondering what’s going on, and me telling him what’s going on, because he couldn’t hear it.

I missed him a lot last Saturday when Mummy got the big noisy cleaning thing out and not only did under our cages, but did the light in the roof as well.  There were big long strands of stuff wafting about, made by the spiders that live up there.  She said they were catching her hair when she walked past us.  It’s always very scary when Mummy gets the big noisy cleaning thing out, and I hid in the tunnel to keep out of its way.  Oscar dashed about a lot, then hid in his grassy hutch, then hid in his fiddlesticks and pulled the hutch to cover one end to keep him safe.  Percy just wheeked like mad and jumped on his ledge.  He seemed to enjoy watching it.  Mummy said she hoped that doesn’t mean he’s deaf, like Dougall was.  It was the big cleaning thing that really made Mummy realise he really was deaf, and that was why she scared him so much when she suddenly arrived in front of our cage.  He would run a mile because she frightened him so.  And he just ignored the big scary thing.  It was funny, Mummy would come in and make the humungous noise with it, and we’d all go and hide (even when Victor and Humphrey lived next door, they’d hide too).  Dougall would just stand around watching Mummy with the stick thing wondering what she was doing.

The only thing that’s really changed now that he’s not here is that I don’t have to eat all my breakfast at once.  Mummy asked me if I was okay, because she came down at lunchtime and half my breakfast was still there.  But I can leave it for later, now, because it’ll still be there.  Somehow I think I’d rather have Dougall back, though.

PS.  I went to see Auntie Shirley and Uncle Barry about my teeth last week.  My back teeth are fine, it’s the funny thing growing beside my lower incisor that is causing me trouble.  It makes my gum sore, and I don’t want to eat.  Mummy is giving me lots of dry things like herbs, which don’t sting it, and lots of muesli, which I find easier to eat than pellets, and she’s giving me tube-juice and some aniseed flavoured gel afterwards.  I’m losing weight, but not so much as I was.  I hope it gets better soon.