“She is staying on Josh’s side of the room, not yours,” Mother
reassured him.
“But Patricia Featherbottom doesn’t stay on Josh’s side. She
moves around like some sort of animal, and sometimes she touches
my belongings with her tail.”
I had no choice but to move Patricia Featherbottom out of the room
so that Jordan could sleep peacefully at night. Instead she slept at the
foot of our door, which meant we had to enter and exit through the
window.
Muncho was upset because he wanted to play with Patricia
Featherbottom, but Patricia Featherbottom was always scared of him.
She ran off each time Muncho moved closer to her.
“But I am just a carrot, I could do no harm to her!” he cried out.
It was hard to tell if Patricia Featherbottom truly could see Muncho.
She froze each time he stood in front of her. She would sniff and hiss
and purr.
As they both grew older and bigger, Jordan took a liking to Patricia
Featherbottom. Patricia Featherbottom also no longer ran when she
saw Muncho. Instead she would groan loudly and chase the poor little
ball of vitamin A around the house. It seemed that Patricia
Featherbottom saw poor Muncho as an intruder in the house, and she
was always on the watch for him. Nobody but me understood why she
seemed to enjoy running around the house and knocking things over.
And when I told them she was chasing Muncho, my father would look
weary and ask why I still believed in Muncho at my age.
I got to see less of Muncho with Patricia Featherbottom always
around me, which hurt Muncho badly. He was always in hiding and he
missed me just as I missed him. Of course he missed me more
because I had Patricia Featherbottom, Jordan, and my parents to talk
to, and by now I was officially the most missable boy in South East
England. The only time Muncho got to play with me was when he
followed me to school and we had pleasant times together. But when
we got home, he was out of sight.
We had never let Patricia Featherbottom out of the house for fear
that she would run away, but one day we had no choice. Our house