Philippa Pearce Quotes

There are a whole series of truly dramatic events (in gerbil terms) for the gerbils when Sid’s ability to keep them is seriously threatened, right up to the end, but all is well in the end and the family dynamics seem to have improved as well.

The Parker children’s home becomes a battlefield because they want a pet while their mother declares that she will have no gerbils in her house.

It’s a story about a family that take on a couple of gerbils as pets, much to the utter dismay-disgust of the mum. She hates messy things, especially gerbils that chew soft furnishings.

“Sid may not have loved his gerbils in the way that Peggy did, but he was conscientious about them. He changed their food and water daily, and cleaned out their cage every weekend. He exercised them often. What hey seemed to enjoy was the freedom of a limitless time -the living-room table would do- with a great many tunnels.”

“She had felt an unexpected spasm of concern for the little creatures in the cage. She took a duster down to the gate and draped it over the cage. It would protect the inmates from the cold. (It would also disguise the cage a little.) ‘You know how to look after these gerbil-things?’ Mrs Sparrow asked. ‘Oh, yes! We had gerbils once. We had a gerbil farm.‘”

An engaging story of a family and their two new gerbils, Bubble and Squeak. Sid, Peggy and Amy love the gerbils, and their stepfather doesn’t mind them, but their mother hates them! In this family battle, Mum tries everything she can to get rid of the gerbils whilst Sid and his sisters desperately want to keep them.

There were so many situations that children can engage with in terms of wanting to the keep the pets in the face of a parent’s opposition. There is also then the relationships within the family of the children and their stepfather.

A simple tale that will delight lovers of gerbils, which should not be confused with jerboas, which despite the similarity of their name belong to a totally different family, nor with golden hamsters.

But two gerbils -like desert rats- come the Parkers’ way. The gerbils share a handy cage, and eat peanuts and other vegetarian food, and play hide-and-seek through the cardboard tubes of toilet rolls and kitchen paper. They have winning ways; but they don’t win over the children’s mother.

“Across the little landing were the doors of the children’s bedrooms. The girl’s bedroom door stood just ajar, as they liked it. Sid’s door was also open -not ajar- but wide open. Bill Sparrow shone his torch in, cautiously, then boldly. The bed was empty. ”

″ On the other hand, she didn’t like animals, had never liked animals, and never would like animals. It was bad luck that the three children had not taken after her in this. There were like their father, who had died soon after Amy was born. No doubt, if he had lived, the house would have swarmed with cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, hamsters, budgerigars, and canaries in yellow clouds.”

“That’s one of those gerbil-things,′ Mrs Sparrow said in the voice of a sleepwalker. The gerbil seemed not to like her tone, for it withdrew into the tube again. Meanwhile, another gerbil sat up on its hind-legs behind another tube, on which it rested one front paw, as if to begin public speaking. It held its other paw against its white shirt-front.”

“Sid Parker crouched on the floor, in front of a cage in which two mouse-like creatures had frozen into stillness on the instant. One had been working a little treadmill fastened to the inside of a cage wall. The other had been gnawing at one of the bars of the cage.”

“As long as they were there, the gerbils belonged to Sid. But, from that very first afternoon, Peggy was the one who loved them. Sid would be doing his homework, or out playing football, or just watching television.”

A boy gets two gerbils from a friend and so starts the battle between him and his sisters (with the silent support of his step-father) on one side and his mother on the other.

‘Sid’ll be back,’ said Bill Sparrow. ‘We might as well have tea.’ ‘No,’ said her mother. ‘Where’s Peggy?’ asked Amy. ‘She is upstairs. She doesn’t want any tea. And don’t ask any more questions.’ As his wife stood making the tea, Bill Sparrow massaged her shoulder. He did this when she complained of back-ache.”

“Tom had few ideas on the causes and cures of sleeplessness, and it never occurred to him to complain. At first he tried to read himself to sleep with Aunt Gwen’s schoolgirl stories. They did not even bore him enough for that...”

″‘Really, there’s nothing to see.’ Nothing... only this: a great lawn where flowerbeds bloomed...”

“I’d rather have had measles with Peter- much rather!”

“His aunt and uncle would certainly do all they could to stop him; they did not want him to use the garden, else why had they kept him in the dark about its very existence.”

“Tom knew that he was in the wrong, of course, but they need not have made such a fuss. Aunt Gwen was most upset because, if Tom slipped into the larder at night, that meant he was hungry. She was not feeding him properly.”

“Tom had been preparing himself to play the grateful guest; but- ‘But there are bars across the bottom of the window!’ he burst out. ‘This is a nursery! I’m not a baby!‘”

“At the landing-stage waited a real boat, a canoe at least ten feet long.”

“But he’ll never even try to beat me, I know; and Aunt Gwen- she’s worse, because she’s a child-lover, and she’s kind.”

“The stillness had become an expectant one; the house seemed to hold is breath; the darkness pressed up to him, pressing him with a question: Come on, Tom, the clock has struck thirteen- what are you going to do about it?”

“Mrs. Moss had always distrusted the river, not for herself, but because she was afraid of her children falling in. The only one who had done so, years ago, was David’s elder brother Dick; the falling in had had no special effect upon him, unless perhaps it had given him a taste for water- he was in the Navy now.”

“She was not as portly as a trout; kinder than a pike; what fish was she? ‘I shall call her the Minnow,’ said David softly, digging deeply with his paddle.”

″‘It’s the worst hole I’ve ever been in,’ he wrote, in imagination. ‘I’d do anything to get out of it, Peter- to be somewhere else- anywhere.‘”

“He wanted to prove quickly what he felt in his bones: that no one owned the boat, that no one had the right to claim it from him.”

“He had lost the Minnow to her rightful and unpleasant owner; he would have to go ashore and fight the owner for calling him a thief, and, as he was the smaller boy, he would probably be beaten.”

“Ben, the middle child in a large, busy family living in London, wants a dog. His grandparents give him an embroidered picture which leads to fantasy which has a violent culmination. ”

“During recuperation at his grandparents, he at first rejects a mongrel puppy but realization of need brings acceptance.”

″.. but he receives a picture of a dog instead of a real one! But the imagination can be a powerful thing, and when Ben puts his to work, his adventures really begin!”

“Ben’s grandfather had promised him a dog for his birthday, but the promise was kept in an unusual way.”

“While his grandparents live in the country with their own dog, Ben and his large, busy family live a rather bustling life in central London, a short stop away from Big Ben.”

“It is tough being a middle child and more so when the age between your two older sisters or two younger brothers is great. Your place in the family is unstable.”

“So when the day comes for Ben to receive his gift from his grandparents, his heart is broken and trust shattered when he only receives a woven image of a Chihuahua in a frame.”

“The fact dawns on him that he will never own a dog because it’d be too big for the house and central London is no place to raise a large dog.”

“Young Ben Blewitt is desperate for a dog. He’s picked out the biggest and best dogs from the books in the library.”

″... and he just knows he’s going to get one for his birthday. Ben is excited when the big day arrives..”

“So what does Ben do? He imagines a dog so small that only he can see it, play with it and care for it. But in becoming so engrossed in imagining this creature, Ben loses touch with the real world and a tragic accident happens which calls on the family to consider everyone’s futures.”