Page 58 of For the Love of Animals

“What’s a sugar glider?”

She slipped out from behind the counter and led me over to a giant cage in the far corner. A fleecy pouch hung in one corner, and she reached inside and held it open so I could take a look. Aww! Two tiny creatures huddled inside, about the size of Hammie but with long tails and a black stripe down the middle of each of their backs.

“They’re so cute! Are they similar to chipmunks?”

“Only in looks. They move more slowly, and they’re actually marsupials rather than rodents. This pair are my personal pets. They come home with me each evening. What pets do you have?”

“Just one hamster.” The whole story of Hammie and Utah de Witt came spilling out, and by the end of it, Penny was laughing like crazy. “So, you see, I need a new wheel so I don’t lose my sanity.”

“Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place. We’ve got wheels in all shapes and sizes. The super-stealthy wheel’s pricey, but it’s our best seller.”

Pricey and big. “I’m not sure that’ll even fit in the cage.”

Penny sucked in a breath. “What are you keeping her in?”

“Uh, it’s made from wire, about this big.” I demonstrated with my hands.

“Hmm… You could do with something a bit larger for her to stay happy. What do you think of this one?”

So, it seemed that size mattered for rodent cages, just like certain other areas in life. And I did want Hammie to be happy.

“Okay, I’ll take it. And perhaps a few extra toys?”

By the time Penny helped me to carry everything out to my car, I’d acquired the cage, the wheel, a blue plastic ball for Hammie to roll around in, and a thick book titled The A-Z of Hamsters. Between that lot and my eBay purchases, Hammie would need her own bedroom soon.

“Why don’t you come to my next pet-lover’s coffee morning?” Penny asked as I shut the lid of the boot. “I hold it on the first Saturday of the month in the café there.” She pointed at Eats and Treats two doors up.

“I don’t know…”

“If you’re new to the area, it’s a great way to meet people. And they’re a nice bunch. When it first started, I thought ten people might show up, but at least forty come every month now.”

Apart from school events, I hadn’t done anything social since the incident, as I’d taken to calling it. And I knew my ex hadn’t held back. In my blacker moments, I might have stalked him on Facebook, then cried a lot. Last week, he’d taken his nasty, back-stabbing new girlfriend on a minibreak to Paris. They’d climbed the Eiffel Tower, eaten dinner at a posh restaurant, and snapped selfies at Versailles while I spooned down Häagen-Dazs and wondered if I’d ever meet another man who wasn’t A) eight years old, B) an irate father complaining that Tarquin had an ink stain on his trousers, or C) a colleague. I might have relaxed rule C if any of them had been vaguely attractive or even available, but Mrs. Loxton always hired men with rings on their fingers to stave off any rumours of impropriety.

Penny gave me a nudge. “Come on, you know you want to.”

Maybe, just maybe, I’d meet some new friends. “Okay, I will.”

CHAPTER 4

THAT EVENING, I gingerly lifted Hammie out of her inadequate cage and placed her in my lap. Penny had assured me that hamsters rarely bit hard, although she might have a little nibble just to see what I tasted like. I held out one of the Apple Snax.

“Hungry, little one?”

She took a bite, then grabbed the whole thing and stuffed it away in her cheeks. Cute. Once she’d run up and down my arm and, yes, taken a small chunk out of my thumb before turning her nose up in disgust, I loaded her into the ball to run around while I set up her shiny new home. For the moment, I’d moved it onto my coffee table. But I could buy Hammie her own table in the sales, and rearrange the furniture a bit, and… Okay, the idea of having a hamster was growing on me. I felt happier today than I had in months.

That good mood continued right the way through the next day while I chatted with my new online buddies and rounded up the ingredients for Christmas dinner. My parents were on a cruise, and my little brother was currently in the Antarctic doing research on sea ice, but I still wanted roast turkey.

And roast turkey I was going to get. Every day for the next month if Sainsbury’s had anything to do with it. Special offers meant I ended up with a whole turkey, five kilos of potatoes, three jars of cranberry sauce, half a dozen melons, thirty-six mince pies, and a Christmas pudding the size of a football.

“Good thing I’ve got freezer space, isn’t it?” I told Hammie as I stacked all the food away. My tiny semi-detached house only had two proper rooms downstairs, but I’d kept the family-sized fridge-freezer after my break-up and squeezed it in alongside the table and chairs I’d bought from IKEA.

Hammie didn’t answer, of course, but when I went back into the living room, I found her running around in her new and thankfully silent wheel.

“Do you want to come out to play?” I asked, then rolled my eyes at myself because I was talking to a freaking hamster. Good grief.

I took her silence as a yes and laughed as she ran across my lap and up the arm of the sofa. So adorable. I set her down in my lap, only for her to repeat the manoeuvre, this time adding in a backflip at the top. Aw, she— Flipping heck! What was that? I stared in horror at the peanut-sized appendage protruding from her bottom as she struggled to right herself. Did Hammie have a tumour? Or some sort of prolapse? Quick—where was the nearest vet?

Fingers trembling, I consulted Google, then lifted Hammie back into her smaller cage and hurried out to the car. Sobs threatened to escape as I climbed in behind the wheel. I may have only had the little critter for a couple of days, but I’d grown quite attached.

---