Fi said to Ros, ‘Stary cat! What you always staring for?’ ‘Who’s going to stop me, Bighead?’ Ros was no faintheart. She felt bitter towards Fi and her family for the brutish way they treated Badger. Badger was becoming more nervous and less friendly, and put his ears back now when once he had come forward with his little knucker of greeting. ‘But you love me, don’t you, Badger?’ Ros asked him anxiously, making up his diet with carrots and a bagful of porridge oats she had filched from the pantry. Once he saw who it was, Badger rubbed his head against her arm in his old friendly way. He wasn’t as round and shining as he had been. His summer coat was scurfy and he was thin in the flanks. If it wasn’t for herself and Albert, filling his bucket every day, he would have died of thirst before now, Ros thought. Albert had had a go at Fi’s dad, but he had told Albert to keep his long nose out of business that didn’t concern him. ‘They are horrid people. I hate them!’ Ros told her mother.
