Dervel crossed his eyes, bit his lip and wrinkled his nose down.  “Got an idea!” he said after a few seconds, his features pinging back into place.  “I just had some deep thinks.”

Dervel

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Derfel

Derfel was a very handsome rat.  He was already several months old when he came to live with Si, Smurf, Bronte, Stitch and I, and we could see that he would grow in to a strong, muscular manrat.  However, as he was destined to live with a colony of girls he went straight to the vets and had his manly bits taken away.

Ouch!

As soon as he had recovered from his operation, we put him in with the girls.  As girls don’t tend to be territorial, and Derfel was unlikely to be aggressive now that his nadulars had gone, we didn’t forsee any problems.  And at first there weren’t.  Smurf bound straight up to him and instantly welcomed him to the cage.  It was almost as though she was offering him a paw of friendship.  Bronte wasn’t bothered about him in the slightest.  Then came Stitch.

Poor Derfel!  Stitch wasn’t at all impressed at the sight of this cheeky young interloper.  Determined to retain control, she knocked seven bells out of him.  For three days, Derfel refused to come down to the bottom level of the cage – with Stitch patrolling with her fur all puffed out, it was far too risky.  Instead, we put food and water on the top shelf, and let him settle in properly in his own time.

Unfortunately, relations never really improved between the two rats.  Whilst Derfel grew to be twice the size of Stitch (easily!) he remained terrified of her for the rest of his life, and we tried really hard not to find the thought of a tiny, plump little rat like Stitch making an enormous, muscular rat like Derfel a gibbering wreck.  The thing was, Stitch was full of attitude – Derfel was actually a bit of a wuss.

Pink-eyed rats have it hard.  Their eyes don’t work in the same way as other rats, so they’re actually quite short-sighted.  To get a good look at things, they have to sway their heads from side to side (a particular habit of Derfel’s more than any other pink-eyed rat I’ve ever had).  Si and I used to joke that when Derfel swayed his head like he was in a trance, he was actually communing with the spirits – and formed the idea behind this cartoon.  Such poor eyesight made Derfel continually nervous of Stitch’s unpredictable behaviour and, when he was out of the cage, he would hide under a pile of cushions rather than go exploring.

Derfel’s best friend was Smurf, and she constantly protected him from Snitch’s furious outbursts.  When she died young, Derfel became quite close with her sister, Bronte, and his relationship with Stitch became slightly less strained.  After moving to London and acquiring several more male rats (Hobbes, Baldrick and Mallow), Derfel moved in with them.  The change in him was remarkable.  Instead of being in a perpetual state of nervousness, Derfel became the respected patriarch of the cage.  The younger boys treated him with love and respect and he in turn was kind and gentle with them.  He seemed more relaxed and even let the young Mallow playfight with him and ‘throw’ him (Mallow was a tiny pipsqueak and Derfel was enormous.  There was no doubt that when Mallow threw Derfel onto his back, Derfel was totally letting him.  In fact, the only rat other than Derfel I’ve ever seen show such good humour to babies was actually Mallow when he became the older male).

Unlike the cartoon Dervel, there was no reason to believe that Derfel was below average intelligence.  He learned several ratty commands and, although never a brave rat, he was a loving pet and friendly towards humans.  Si taught him to jump from the sofa onto his lap – a remarkable feat of trust when you consider that Derfel probably couldn’t see where he was expected to land.  Derfel was always a daddy’s boy.

Sadly, Derfel developed mycoplasmosa – a common lung infection in rats which frequently proves fatal.  He had been to the vets many a time for treatment (on one occasion with an awful vet – the vet broke the injection’s needle off inside Derfel and accidentally punched me in the face!  The needle was safely removed).  However, in July 2005 we realised that there was nothing else we could do for him and that he was now suffering.  Even sadder was that Stitch had also been suffering from cancer and was also beyond help.  Si and I made the sad decision to let both our little friends go.  Derfel and Stitch travelled to the vets together and departed from this earth together.  It was a dreadful time.  Our only consolation was that they were finally friends at the end, cuddling up with each other as soon as they met again for the first time in eight months.  Perhaps they hadn’t hated each other quite so much after all.