"Oh, look at that one with the cute, pink tail, it's so sweet!" Amy clenched her hands together and squealed with delight.

"Did you see that little guy body slam the other one? Now he could play football!" I was getting excited, too. These little fellows definitely had possibilites as far as I was concerned.

Mom was standing as far away as she could from us. She looked dubious. She wasn't sure about any of this. She didn't want to get too close to what she kept calling "monster rodents".

We were standing in the middle of Polly's Petarama, a pet store that had recently opened up in town. It was Amy's birthday, and Mom had told her she could get a goldfish. Amy had said that she wanted a rabbit but Mom had said with our three dogs and two cats that we had enough animals. Somehow, once we had gotten in the pet store, Amy had managed to get Mom to stop at the hamster section and we were watching the cute little brown and white creatures playing.

There were several of the wiggling, little hamsters in a big aquarium. They were climbing over each other and clawing at the glass. The other hamsters were tryng to sleep in a corner despite the chaos.

"Oh, look at that one!" Amy squealed again, pointing at another hamster.

It looked the same as all the others to me.

"It's saying, 'take me home...take me home'," Amy was doing her best begging act on Mom, "Oh, please, I'll take care of it. I'll never ask you for anything ever again."

"No way," Mom said firmly as she pulled Amy away from the hamsters, "Now, let's go back to the goldfish."

A sales clerk who had been watching our group came up to us. She reached into the aquarium and said, "These little guys are easy to take care of and are cheap to feed. They make great pets for kids. Here, hold one." She handed one of the wiggling hamsters to Mom.

Mom doesn't like mice so I wasn't sure how she'd react to one of their relatives. The look of terror I expected never crossed her face. Instead, she looked down curiously at the little multi-colored hamster. It was soft and warm as it sat in Mom's hand. It looked at her with it's beady, black eyes and it's long whiskers tickled her fingers.

"Please, Mom, pleeeeaaassee," Amy was jumping up and down. She could see that Mom was beginning to weaken, "I'll pay for it with my allowance."

We walked out of the pet store with Mom and I carrying the hamster cage, bedding, food, hamster book and vitamins and Amy was happily carrying the hamster in a small box.

When we got home, Amy set up the plastic hamster cage. After carefully placing the cedar shavings in the bottom of the cage she then filled up the water bottle. Next, she filled the dish with food and then placed the wheel on the floor of the cage.

"What's the wheel for?" I asked.

"It's to give it exercise," Amy picked up the step-by-step instruction book, "See, here's a hamster that's on a wheel," She showed me a picture of a hamster who was going so fast on the wheel that his feet were a blur.

Amy carefully set the hamster into it's new home, "Hope you will like it here, little one."

"What are you going to call it?" I asked, stroking it's soft fur with my finger.

"I don't know yet," She said thoughtfully. We both watched it explore it's new home. It certainly was lively, "I'll have to think about that."

Later on that evening, Amy was carrying around the hamster, cradled in her two hands. She walked into my room and spied me reading a comic book in my bed. With a evil grin she walked over to me.

"What do you want?" I asked her, setting the comic book down and not trusting her for a second. Quickly she put the hamster on my neck and it's sharp toenails dug into my skin.

"Get it off!" I yelled.

Amy reached for it but the hamster raced for freedom under my shirt.

"AAAAAAh!" I yelled, feeling it's prickly claws on my back, "It hurts! Get it off!"

Amy was laughing hard as she pulled the little creature out from under my shirt.

"Well, I guess that settles the question of it's name," She held the hamster close to her face, "From now on, your name is Speedy."

A few weeks later Mom had just finished washing the dishes one evening after dinner when Amy came in with her hamster cupped in her hands.

"Speedy wants to say hi to you, Mom," She held the hamster up to Mom.

"Yuck! That hamster stinks!" Mom looked at the little fat creature, "Why does it stink so bad?"

"I don't know," Amy shrugged her shoulders, "Maybe it needs a bath."

"What does the hamster manual say about bathing these guys?"

"It doesn't say anything about that," Amy held the hamster out to Mom, "Here, you wash it."

I watched as Mom put the stopper into the sink and then ran a couple of inches of warm water into the basin. She set the wiggling hamster into the water. It clawed against the sides of the sink in protest. Mom put a drop of liquid dishwashing detergent on it and gently lathered up the creature. Being careful not to get any soap around it's head, she rinsed it off, dried it with a towel and, after smelling it, gave it back to Amy who had watched all of this with a great deal of interest.

"That's much better. It is like washing a cup," smiled Mom.

We found out after a few months that after hours of boredom hamsters can chew through plastic. They mainly work on the corners or any part of the plastic with an edge. A hamster's main goals in life seems to be eating, sleeping and destruction. Speedy concentrated on destruction the most because he had a purpose: freedom.

"Look under the bed," said Amy, "I'll check the bathroom."

I checked behind the dressers. There was no telling where Speedy had gone.

We looked all over the house and then waited a couple of days to see if the hamster would show up. Mom finally had Amy call the pet store.

"What did they say?" called out Mom from her art studio.

Amy had just spoken to the store clerk, "He said to get it's mate and put it in a cage on the floor. Make steps using books leading up to the top of the cage. When the hamster sees it's mate it heads for home."

"Well, Speedy doesn't have a mate so I guess that's out of the question," Mom sighed.

"The man did say that someone had just dropped off a hamster in a cage at the pet shop. They will give it to us free."

"Free? Why is it free?" Mom was immediately suspicious.

"I don't know," Amy shrugged her shoulders, "The man just said it was free."

"I need a hamster," I was ready for this, "I'll take care of it and I won't lose it."

"The last thing we need is another hamster," Mom was adamant.

This hamster was much easier to set up. This one was a male hamster, the pet shop owner told us after Mom made sure we knew it's sex and anything else she could think of to ask him about hamsters. It was already in it's own cage so all we had to do was set it on the floor outside Amy's room.

"They don't even know each other," Amy protested, "Besides that, how do we know that Speedy is a female?"

Mom and I were making steps using books and Legos that gradually ended at the top of the open cage. Mom wasn't paying any attention to Amy, "Now did the man at the pet store say the female hamster would go to the male hamster or that the male hamster would go to the female hamster's cage?"

I couldn't remember. I was just happy to get a hamster. I was envisioning the Lego buildings that I could build for it to explore. I would set out the Lego men and watch the giant monster wipe out a Lego city with one giant blow.

The cage sat on the floor for two days before Mom gave up and I got to set the cage on my dresser.

Mom even tried setting up her camcorder on the hallway floor outside Amy's room. She set the camera on 'record' and let it run for a ocuple of hours, hoping to see Speedy run across the room on the videotape. That would at least let her know if the hamster was still upstairs.

Mom said that watching that videotape was ridiculously boring. She even put the VCR on 'fast forward' but gave up after a while. The hamster would have to be on it's own for now.

Speedy had been missing for a week when Mom was working in her studio one morning and we were at school. She heard a scratching noise. Mom wasn't sure if the house had been invaded by mice or if it was the missing hamster.

With dread, she moved some of her paintings that were leaning against the wall. Speedy was looking up at her with it's beady eyes. It didn't even try to run as Mom picked it up.

"You poor little thing," Mom cupped the hamster in her hands, "I bet you're hungry and thirsty."

We were very happy to see Speedy when we got home from school. The hamster was sitting in it's cage like a prairie dog with pecans Mom had given it stuffed way back into the pouches inside it's mouth. Speedy, I knew, was making sure that the next time it escaped it would be ready with food supplies.

"Let's see if Speedy and Chip get along," I suggested. I had named my hamster Chip because he reminded me of a chipmunk.

We lifted Speedy into the new hamster's cage. Holding our breaths we watched and waited. The hamsters sniffed each other. It took only a few seconds and the two were wrestling, holding each other with a death grip and making clicking sounds. I tried to grab Chip but the two seemed to almost be glued together. In a fit of panic, Amy grabbed Speedy and shook off Chip with a sideways jerk.

"Whew! Well, I guess they're not lonely," Amy said, putting Speedy back into it's own cage.

"It says in this book that two of the same sex don't get along," I picked up the manual and studied it, "Do you think that this means that they are both males?"

"Good guess, Einstein," Amy walked into her bedroom and slammed her bedroom door shut.

It didn't take Chip very long before he had started chewing his way out of his cage also. I put books against the side of the cage where he had chewed a hole but he still managed to get out. I grabbed him before he could get very far. Next, I stuffed my socks in the hole of his plastic cage. That seemed to do the trick.

During the night I put Chip in the closet. Chip seemed to feel the need to jog at night on his wheel. The rattling kept me wake and everyone complained about the noise. I tried waking him up during the day so he would sleep more at night but that didn't do any good. He still needed a midnight run.

That morning I opened the closet door to say hello to Chip. He was laying on the floor of the cage with shreds of sock all around him. He wasn't moving. I grabbbed the cage and raced down the stairs to the kitchen where Mom was.

"He's dead! He's dead!" I shouted, putting the cage on the kitchen counter.

Mom carefully studied the lifeless body of the hamster, "Poor little thing," she murmured sympathetically, and then looked at me, "I'm sorry, Kevin."

Mom took a closer look at the cage, "What is all of this white stuff next to it on the floor of the cage? It looks like cotton."

I explained that I had stuffed my socks into the hole the hamster had chewed to keep him from escaping. Amy had come into the kitchen and was watching us.

"You idiot!" she exclaimed, "The hamster chewed up the sock and must have gotten all clogged up with it. The poor thing is stuffed!"

If it weren't for the fact that I was responsible for the death of my hamster, I might have laughed at that but, instead, I was feeling pretty miserable.

Mom set the cage outside in the screened-in porch and I went upstairs to my room. This was an awful day and I felt lousy. I had committed murder. I should be locked up in jail.

After a while, Mom went to the porch and checked on the hamster. She stared at the little body for a few seconds and heard it wheeze softly. The sides of it's body moved slowly in and out. Mom picked up the limp body that was no longer warm.

"Kevin!" Mom yelled upstairs as she brought it into the house, "Come down here."

I reluctantly came down to the kitchen where Mom was holding Chip in her hand.

"He's still alive," Mom told me, "But just barely."

I looked at the hamster, it's eyes were half open and it was laying on it's stomach.

"What can we do?" asked Amy who had just walked in, "Mom, you've got to do something."

Mom picked up the phone and called Dr. Strong, the veterinarian.

"What seems to be the problem?" Dr. Strong's assistant was on the phone.

"Well," Mom was not sure how to begin, "You see, we've got this hamster who seems to have eaten my son's socks."

"I'm sorry," The assistant's voice cracked, "Did you say you have a hamster who ate some socks?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," I could hear Mom's voice become almost apologetic, "The little thing is barely breathing. It sort of chewed up my son's socks and now it's all clogged up with them."

Mom couldn't hear anything from the other end of the phone for a minute.

"Hello? Hello?" Mom was urgent, "Is anyone there?"

"I'm sorry," The assistant's voice was shakey. Mom could tell that she had been laughing. She cleared her throat and told Mom that she had just talked to the vet and he had said that there was not much that could be done for the hamster.

"Well, so much for that," Mom hung up the phone and looked at our sad faces, "Let's see what we can do--but don't get your hopes up. Even the vet said not much can be done for Chip."

First, Mom tried gently tapping it on the back, trying to dislodge the cotton from deep inside. Then, she tried gently blowing breaths into it's nose from about six inches away. Still nothing.

The little hamster's face was pathetic as it's half-closed eyes gazed at us.

We stood at the hamster's grave next to the house. I had tied up the dogs so they couldn't bother the gravesite. I had had a hard time digging through the hard soil because we hadn't had much rain this winter. Mom, Amy and I said a prayer for the poor little hamster, and I wedged a cross that I had made out of popsicle sticks on top of the grave and put rocks around it

Weeks after the guilt from Chip's untimely death had finally lessened somewhat, I could finally talk about Chip's unfortunate demise. Amy said we should have named the hamster Socks. I said that that wasn't funny--not that much time had past since Chip's death. All Mom said was that she couldn't believe she had cone CPR on a hamster. Meanwhile I had watched a TV show about piranhas. They were awesome! I wondered how Mom felt about my keeping fish in my room?

Go back to Chapter 3
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