Page 57 of For the Love of Animals

“Just sell anything you don’t want on eBay. Last year, I made enough for a holiday to Lanzarote.”

CHAPTER 2

THAT EVENING, I missed the finale of Strictly Come Dancing while I surfed the internet. Who knew you could buy so much cute stuff for hamsters? A sleeping pouch shaped like a giant strawberry, a tiny fort, even a little car for them to roll around in. Before I knew it, I’d ordered one of everything for Hammie, who peered down at me from the dining table in between stuffing her cheek pouches with food and running on her wheel. I’d started thinking of her as a girl, mainly because the way she twitched her nose reminded me of my Auntie Bernice, who suffered from chronic hay fever.

Although I had to admit, Hammie’s little snuffles were a lot cuter.

“Maybe you’re not so bad, little one,” I told her that evening before I went to bed. After all, it wasn’t her fault she’d been dumped on me. She just waggled her whiskers and stuffed another peanut into her cheeks.

That night, I found out one of the downsides of having a nocturnal pet. The noise. The flipping noise. I could cope with the rattling of the bars and Hammie scuffing through her food dish, but the vibrations from that bloody wheel went right through my core, and not in a good way.

I tried stuffing cotton wool in my ears and burying my head under the pillow, but it was no good. At five a.m., I stumbled out of the bedroom and removed the thing, much to Hammie’s sadness.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

Twitch. Twitch.

“It’s just that I can’t sleep.”

Twitch. Twitch.

“You can have it back in the morning.”

Except she’d be asleep then, wouldn’t she? And what if she got fat through lack of exercise? Could hamsters suffer from obesity? A quick internet search suggested it was possible.

“I’ll buy you a new wheel. A quieter one. How about that?”

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.

CHAPTER 3

AT NINE A.M. on December twenty-third, I loaded myself up with caffeine and joined the Rodent World internet forum. And my first post?

Help! Do silent wheels exist?

I didn’t expect to get many answers, but by the time I’d washed up my cereal bowl and stacked it back in the cupboard, the computer was pinging away as though it’d learned Morse code. Wow. Over twenty replies, and most of them recommended the “super-stealthy” wheel—a silver contraption that looked as if it came off a spaceship. The messages kept coming, welcoming me to the forum and asking about my pets.

I glanced over at Hammie’s cage on the end of the dining table. She’d gone to sleep now, leaving a scattered trail of multicoloured hamster kibble in her wake.

Well, my parents brought me up to be polite, so I could hardly ignore these people, could I? I took a deep breath and tapped out my first message, a “thank you” for all the help so far.

By lunchtime, I’d got absolutely no preparation done for Christmas, but did have three recipes for home-made critter treats, detailed instructions on how to clean out Hammie’s cage, and the address for my nearest stockist of stealthy wheels.

“Who knew a virtual community could be so helpful?” I muttered to myself as I opened a tin of soup for lunch.

Normally when I wasn’t at school, the doldrums hit by noon, and I spent the afternoon curled up under a blanket, torturing myself by watching romcoms as I rued the sorry state of my love life. But this afternoon was different. Talking to new people, even via the computer, had pushed a little of the darkness away.

And I really, really needed to buy Hammie a new wheel in order to get some sleep tonight.

Penny’s Pets was located in the next village, its bright front window filled with cat beds and dog treats and colourful hanging bird toys. The bell jangled as I pushed the door open, and when I got inside, animal chatter filled the air.

“Can I help?” the blonde lady behind the counter asked. Penny? Yes, according to her name badge.

She looked about my age, but her eyes still had that sparkle mine had lost when I walked in on the two most important people in my life doing the dirty with each other.

“I’m looking for a wheel.”

“Hamster? Gerbil? Chinchilla? Sugar glider?”

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