The pet I’ll never forget: Chocolate and Smudge, the

It took months of pestering my parents before I was able to bring home a pair of furry, friendly rodents. And then, in the blink of an eye, they were gone

They say losing a pet is a good way for a child to learn about grief, but boy did I get the lesson quickly. Less than six months after my parents brought the guinea pigs home, they had the tough task of delivering me the news. “But they were here when I left,” I said after I arrived home from a school trip to France when I was 11. “How could it have happened so fast?”

It turned out that poor, sweet Chocolate and Smudge had been left outside too long on a blisteringly hot day and suffered a serious case of heatstroke. I was furious: with my mum and dad; with myself, for abandoning them in favour of my own enjoyment abroad; and even with them, for being too weak to enjoy an afternoon of nice weather. “I don’t understand,” I repeated, again and again. Just a week before, they had been so healthy.