Houdini
By Timothy Lai
It seems like yesterday … WHEN I WAS TORN FROM MY CAGE, MY LIFE HANGING IN BALANCE AND I HADN’T EVEN HAD BREAKFAST!! NO! Wait! Wait! That’s not how I wanted to start; let’s back track. Hmmm… I know. I’ll start at the pet store. Hi. My name is Houdini, and I am a hamster. Now you may want to leave this web page after such a horrible start, but once you start reading my tale you will beg me for more. Now where was I? Oh yes, the pet store…
I was born in the back a pet store to a litter of six: five females and a runt of a male, me. By breed, I am a Roborovski hamster: small to begin with for a hamster, yet still much smaller than I should be. All of my sisters were born at 10 cm long, but fully-grown I am only seven. At that time of my birth, I was torn from my cage… (see above). I was moved to a new cage away from my five siblings to where other male Roborovski hamsters were kept. As I was dropped into my new home, all of the other alpha males immediately surrounded me.
The largest one remarked, “He’s the one for the job”, and the others all agreed.
“What job?” I exclaimed.
“Later kid. First, tell us your name”
“My name is Houdini”, I responded.
“Nice name. My name is Harley. If you need anything come talk to me okay?”
“Ok”, I replied. It was nice to have someone I could trust.
There were six other male hamsters living in this cage, including Harley. Harley saw me looking around like a deer staring into headlights and said, “Oh yeah. I forgot to introduce you to the others. We got Jagger, Brogan, Zephyr and Randy.”
“What about me?”, a hamster not much longer than me, but much plumper, called from the corner.
“Oh yeah, and that’s Carl”
“Hi everyone,” I greeted them happily.
I got greetings with varying levels of enthusiasm. Only Carl seemed to be excited to have a new cage member that he was jumping up and down with joy even though he seemed too fat to even stand up. My new dwelling was pretty spacious with three different living floors with an area of 50 by 40. Harley gave me the grand tour. The bottom level had a large fluffy nest in one corner with two bottles of water and huge food bowl (too bad it was empty L, I was starving!). The washroom was opposite and the last corner had a ladder leading to the next floor. The second floor was where the boys usually hang out and relax. It was a large plastic room and in the corner were little beanbags to sit on, a desk and drawer. There was also a chew stick and a box of treats labeled “Everyone but Carl”. Beside that was a small tube connecting to the third and final level. Harley said that Carl couldn’t fit up the tube so this is where they all went for some R&R. The third level had a wheel and plate of glass on top of a mirror, a paper tube and some other toys. Overall, the entire cage was pretty PIMPED OUT! I was starting to feel like I was going to get along here just fine. (Oh no, I’m turning into Harley already!).
Apparently feeding time was at eleven in the morning, and lights out at nine at night. Harley encouraged me to get as much sleep as I could today since tomorrow I would be doing a job for him. Hmmm… sounds interesting… When I got to the fluffy nest that was my new bed, I realized why it was so fluffy. Carl was lying on his back and his tummy covered the whole bottom of the cage. Oh well. I was so tired that I climbed on anyways and fell asleep. I was rocked to sleep by the rising and falling of his big, plump stomach. Soon, the rest of the gang joined me for a snooze, which made me feel safe and protected.
I woke to the sound of Harley counting loudly, “1-2-3 up, 3-2-1 down.” Everyone was doing push ups. At this horrible hour?! I thought. I tried to pretend to still be sleeping, but Harley spotted me before I could close my eyes again.
“Get over here Private Houdini, drop and give me fifty!”
“Fifty? I can’t do fifty push-ups! I have never even tried one!”
“Thirty then Rookie.”
“Nope.”
“At least ten before you are a complete embarrassment to this cage,” Harley whispered. He didn’t want anyone else to see that he was giving me a break.
“OK, fine. Ten then”, I responded getting down on all fours, close to the ground. This was going to hurt!
After I finish my push-ups Harley made me run up and down the cage forty times until I passed out. Then he poured cold water on my face to help me regain consciousness. I jumped to my feet and shook the water off.
“At least your better than Carl was when he joined us. Last year, he couldn’t even climb the ladder!” Harley smirked.
“Thanks,” I said.
“If you want something to eat you better get the top of the cage and wait for the shop owner to pour our morning meal through the top. Everyday you can be sure that it’s arrive right after morning workout as always.”
I looked up at the long climb and almost passed out again. When I finally got to the top rung of the ladder I was just in time to see the owner unlatching the top of the cage and pouring food in. I was so blinded by light that I did not have time to move. Within seconds I was buried by the mob of hungry males and got knocked out by the food. Later I woke up to the other’s trying to wake me.
“He waking up,” announced Harley. The others moved in around me to get a closer look. “Houdini, are you ok?”
Food and my fellow hamsters surrounded me. The others had apparently eaten their way through to find me. Harley told me that passing out twice in one day was not good for my health, so I decided not to remind him that the first time it was his fault. After I ate my fill, I went down to have a drink of water when something slammed into my back. My head hit the side of the cage, and for the third time today, I blacked out. It was 3:30pm when I finally awoke. It turns out that Carl had patted me on the back to say “Hi” since he was worried about me passing out earlier. I thought to myself, if this happens every day, I would end up in a coma!
I looked up in time to see a little girl peering in the bars. She looked about 8 years old.
“I want them all Daddy”, the child spoiledly exclaimed.
“No, you can only have one Veronica”, her father replied firmly.
“But DA-DDY!!!” the little girl whined.
“Fine. I’ll ask the storeowner if we can buy a package. Maybe they’ll throw in some supplies.”
“YAY – Daddy, you are the BEST!!!” the little girl clapped her hands in satisfaction.
The owner heard the commotion and approached the father, “I can sell you the cage, the hamsters, all the accessories, plus their food and bedding that lasts for a month for $500”
“$500!?” the father gasped.
“Half price if you also take Carl”.
“Who is Carl?” the father questioned.
“Carl is that fat little guy in the back corner of the cage.” The owner pointed towards Carl.
“That’s a hamster? I thought it was a rabbit or a fluffy pin cushion!” the father replied in shock, “But, I’ll take the deal”, the father replied quickly before the owner could change his mind.
The little girl was dancing in delight the whole way to the car. When I saw the car, I was speechless. It was huge and silver and must have been over 35 feet long and at least 8 feet wide. The name of the car was painted on the side; it was called “ The Mammoth Limo”. We were placed on what looked like super long sofa. The father sat down in the back where there was a fancy massage chair. The little girl sat down beside us and turned on the radio. There was a TV, a private driver, and rotating compartments in the back for storage. This car was pretty epic.
I should have saved my breath when I described the car because it was nothing compared to their house. The property was at least a thousand acres and the mansion itself took up half of it. We were brought up to the very top of the mansion where there were two rooms; one was apparently Veronica’s room and the other belonged to her older brother, William.
As we entered Veronica’s Carl keeled over and he fainted! The whole room was bright pink, and I mean EVERYTHING: the walls, the bed sheets, the pillows, the carpet, the blinds plus all of her toys! It was like a princess puked all over the room! I then horribly realized that the only thing that was not pink was the cage and us!
The little girl Veronica went to her pink closet and took out a pink can. Oh no, it was a can of spray paint!
“Hold still little hammys,” Veronica squealed, “I’m gonna make your cage look much better!”
“Please, no! I protested.
Suddenly Veronica’s father, the man from the pet store, burst into the room and shouted, “Veronica!” A grumpy looking teenage boy followed in behind. “Your brother needs to learn some responsibility and how to take care of something. You need to give him a hamster so that he can practice his skills,” father demanded.
“But dad!” Veronica pleaded.
“Now!” he hollered.
“Fine,” she whimpered.
Her father left the room, and William approached us. He leaned down and peered into the cage. This boy was about five foot eight and had messy, black hair. He smelled of pizza and had a pair of large headphones around his neck that we soon learned that he always wore as if it was a permanent fixture. Today, he wore a black t-shirt and low-hanging, black jeans with huge pockets.
“They’re kinda cute, I guess,” William mumbled.
“You can either have the fat one or the mini one,” Veronica offered, pointing at Carl then at me.
The boy took one glance at Carl and said immediately, “I’ll take the mini one.”
I allowed my self to be picked up by Veronica and handed over to her brother despite the signs Harley was sending me to bite down on her fingers.
“Here William. Here’s your new best friend, a midget hamster!” Veronica giggled as she plopped me into William’s hands. He immediately placed me in the pocket of his shirt and walked out of the room without another word.
We headed to William’s room. As soon as the door creaked open, a huge wave of sound came crashing down on my ears. A radio was playing heavy rock music at maximum volume. The room was messy there was a closet in one corner a bed in the other and a desk next to the bed. The radio was on the desk beside a Mac computer. There was a pile of pizza boxes next to the desk on the floor. Clothes were everywhere and there was an over flowing garbage can by the door. William closed the door and walked to his desk. He swept everything on to the floor, except for the radio and computer and plopped me down on the clean space. I immediately scurried to the radio and turned the volume down from 100 to 10. The boy shrugged and sat down in the desk chair in front of me.
“So what can you do?” William asked curiously.
Just then one of the many house servants came in and said, “Master William, your father has instructed me to clean out your room.”
William groaned, but picked me up stepped aside. It was amazing how fast the lady worked. In less than 10 minutes the room was shining and squeaky clean. The clothes were folded and placed it the closet, the pizza boxes were gone, the bed was made and everything smelled of lavender. She then brought in another desk and placed it next to the original desk. On it she placed a new cage, a pile of food, bedding and a box of toys for the hamster (me)!
“Here’s your lunch, Master William,” she said placing a pizza box and a pop in front of the computer.
“I advise you to do some research on the little fellow,” she said as she pointed to me.
With a few clicks of the mouse, this tech savvy housekeeper found a site all about hamsters. She then wished us a good day and left. William sat down, placed me beside the pizza box and started to eat. The food smelled overwhelmingly good so I climbed into the box and started nibbling on a slice. William sighed but acknowledged my apparent hunger, so he and cut apiece off for me. As we ate, William studied up on Hamstar12345’s site about hamsters. After he was done reading, he set me one the ground and got out a wheel from the box and set in down beside me.
“Ok, so it says here that you like to run. Show me” he spent the rest of the night watching me climb run and play on various objects from the box then at about 10:00 he placed me in my cage and went to bed. The cage I was in was small. It had only one floor, but it was comfy. It had sleeping quarters, food, water and a washroom. Its no mansion but it’ll do, I thought. I soon fell asleep in the soft bedding. At around 2:00am I awoke to the familiar sound of scurrying. I peered out of my cage to see a group of five hamsters running across the desk. It was Harley, Jagger, Brogan, Zephyr and Randy. As they got closer I realized something. They were all spray-painted pink! Harley peered through the bars and whispered to me,
“C’mon buddy, we are here to get you out.“ Harley whispered.
“Really? But how do we get the cage open?” I asked.
“Leave it to me,” Harley replied confidently.
He leaned over and pulled on a latch on the cage door. The door swung open, and I leaped out.
“First we need to get to the washroom.”
“Why” I asked
“Because I need to wash this pink off me!,” Harley replied
We got to the washroom and I turned on the tap. The other hamsters took washed their lovely pink coating away and dried off with the hand towel. Next, Harley jumped to the floor and opened a drainpipe.
“Everybody in!” he said.
“What? You don’t even know where it goes.”
“Sure I do. It goes out of here, and that’s all I care about,” he gave me a shove, and I fell into the deep dark hole… At this moment the real adventure began.
To be continued…
By Timothy Lai
It seems like yesterday … WHEN I WAS TORN FROM MY CAGE, MY LIFE HANGING IN BALANCE AND I HADN’T EVEN HAD BREAKFAST!! NO! Wait! Wait! That’s not how I wanted to start; let’s back track. Hmmm… I know. I’ll start at the pet store. Hi. My name is Houdini, and I am a hamster. Now you may want to leave this web page after such a horrible start, but once you start reading my tale you will beg me for more. Now where was I? Oh yes, the pet store…
I was born in the back a pet store to a litter of six: five females and a runt of a male, me. By breed, I am a Roborovski hamster: small to begin with for a hamster, yet still much smaller than I should be. All of my sisters were born at 10 cm long, but fully-grown I am only seven. At that time of my birth, I was torn from my cage… (see above). I was moved to a new cage away from my five siblings to where other male Roborovski hamsters were kept. As I was dropped into my new home, all of the other alpha males immediately surrounded me.
The largest one remarked, “He’s the one for the job”, and the others all agreed.
“What job?” I exclaimed.
“Later kid. First, tell us your name”
“My name is Houdini”, I responded.
“Nice name. My name is Harley. If you need anything come talk to me okay?”
“Ok”, I replied. It was nice to have someone I could trust.
There were six other male hamsters living in this cage, including Harley. Harley saw me looking around like a deer staring into headlights and said, “Oh yeah. I forgot to introduce you to the others. We got Jagger, Brogan, Zephyr and Randy.”
“What about me?”, a hamster not much longer than me, but much plumper, called from the corner.
“Oh yeah, and that’s Carl”
“Hi everyone,” I greeted them happily.
I got greetings with varying levels of enthusiasm. Only Carl seemed to be excited to have a new cage member that he was jumping up and down with joy even though he seemed too fat to even stand up. My new dwelling was pretty spacious with three different living floors with an area of 50 by 40. Harley gave me the grand tour. The bottom level had a large fluffy nest in one corner with two bottles of water and huge food bowl (too bad it was empty L, I was starving!). The washroom was opposite and the last corner had a ladder leading to the next floor. The second floor was where the boys usually hang out and relax. It was a large plastic room and in the corner were little beanbags to sit on, a desk and drawer. There was also a chew stick and a box of treats labeled “Everyone but Carl”. Beside that was a small tube connecting to the third and final level. Harley said that Carl couldn’t fit up the tube so this is where they all went for some R&R. The third level had a wheel and plate of glass on top of a mirror, a paper tube and some other toys. Overall, the entire cage was pretty PIMPED OUT! I was starting to feel like I was going to get along here just fine. (Oh no, I’m turning into Harley already!).
Apparently feeding time was at eleven in the morning, and lights out at nine at night. Harley encouraged me to get as much sleep as I could today since tomorrow I would be doing a job for him. Hmmm… sounds interesting… When I got to the fluffy nest that was my new bed, I realized why it was so fluffy. Carl was lying on his back and his tummy covered the whole bottom of the cage. Oh well. I was so tired that I climbed on anyways and fell asleep. I was rocked to sleep by the rising and falling of his big, plump stomach. Soon, the rest of the gang joined me for a snooze, which made me feel safe and protected.
I woke to the sound of Harley counting loudly, “1-2-3 up, 3-2-1 down.” Everyone was doing push ups. At this horrible hour?! I thought. I tried to pretend to still be sleeping, but Harley spotted me before I could close my eyes again.
“Get over here Private Houdini, drop and give me fifty!”
“Fifty? I can’t do fifty push-ups! I have never even tried one!”
“Thirty then Rookie.”
“Nope.”
“At least ten before you are a complete embarrassment to this cage,” Harley whispered. He didn’t want anyone else to see that he was giving me a break.
“OK, fine. Ten then”, I responded getting down on all fours, close to the ground. This was going to hurt!
After I finish my push-ups Harley made me run up and down the cage forty times until I passed out. Then he poured cold water on my face to help me regain consciousness. I jumped to my feet and shook the water off.
“At least your better than Carl was when he joined us. Last year, he couldn’t even climb the ladder!” Harley smirked.
“Thanks,” I said.
“If you want something to eat you better get the top of the cage and wait for the shop owner to pour our morning meal through the top. Everyday you can be sure that it’s arrive right after morning workout as always.”
I looked up at the long climb and almost passed out again. When I finally got to the top rung of the ladder I was just in time to see the owner unlatching the top of the cage and pouring food in. I was so blinded by light that I did not have time to move. Within seconds I was buried by the mob of hungry males and got knocked out by the food. Later I woke up to the other’s trying to wake me.
“He waking up,” announced Harley. The others moved in around me to get a closer look. “Houdini, are you ok?”
Food and my fellow hamsters surrounded me. The others had apparently eaten their way through to find me. Harley told me that passing out twice in one day was not good for my health, so I decided not to remind him that the first time it was his fault. After I ate my fill, I went down to have a drink of water when something slammed into my back. My head hit the side of the cage, and for the third time today, I blacked out. It was 3:30pm when I finally awoke. It turns out that Carl had patted me on the back to say “Hi” since he was worried about me passing out earlier. I thought to myself, if this happens every day, I would end up in a coma!
I looked up in time to see a little girl peering in the bars. She looked about 8 years old.
“I want them all Daddy”, the child spoiledly exclaimed.
“No, you can only have one Veronica”, her father replied firmly.
“But DA-DDY!!!” the little girl whined.
“Fine. I’ll ask the storeowner if we can buy a package. Maybe they’ll throw in some supplies.”
“YAY – Daddy, you are the BEST!!!” the little girl clapped her hands in satisfaction.
The owner heard the commotion and approached the father, “I can sell you the cage, the hamsters, all the accessories, plus their food and bedding that lasts for a month for $500”
“$500!?” the father gasped.
“Half price if you also take Carl”.
“Who is Carl?” the father questioned.
“Carl is that fat little guy in the back corner of the cage.” The owner pointed towards Carl.
“That’s a hamster? I thought it was a rabbit or a fluffy pin cushion!” the father replied in shock, “But, I’ll take the deal”, the father replied quickly before the owner could change his mind.
The little girl was dancing in delight the whole way to the car. When I saw the car, I was speechless. It was huge and silver and must have been over 35 feet long and at least 8 feet wide. The name of the car was painted on the side; it was called “ The Mammoth Limo”. We were placed on what looked like super long sofa. The father sat down in the back where there was a fancy massage chair. The little girl sat down beside us and turned on the radio. There was a TV, a private driver, and rotating compartments in the back for storage. This car was pretty epic.
I should have saved my breath when I described the car because it was nothing compared to their house. The property was at least a thousand acres and the mansion itself took up half of it. We were brought up to the very top of the mansion where there were two rooms; one was apparently Veronica’s room and the other belonged to her older brother, William.
As we entered Veronica’s Carl keeled over and he fainted! The whole room was bright pink, and I mean EVERYTHING: the walls, the bed sheets, the pillows, the carpet, the blinds plus all of her toys! It was like a princess puked all over the room! I then horribly realized that the only thing that was not pink was the cage and us!
The little girl Veronica went to her pink closet and took out a pink can. Oh no, it was a can of spray paint!
“Hold still little hammys,” Veronica squealed, “I’m gonna make your cage look much better!”
“Please, no! I protested.
Suddenly Veronica’s father, the man from the pet store, burst into the room and shouted, “Veronica!” A grumpy looking teenage boy followed in behind. “Your brother needs to learn some responsibility and how to take care of something. You need to give him a hamster so that he can practice his skills,” father demanded.
“But dad!” Veronica pleaded.
“Now!” he hollered.
“Fine,” she whimpered.
Her father left the room, and William approached us. He leaned down and peered into the cage. This boy was about five foot eight and had messy, black hair. He smelled of pizza and had a pair of large headphones around his neck that we soon learned that he always wore as if it was a permanent fixture. Today, he wore a black t-shirt and low-hanging, black jeans with huge pockets.
“They’re kinda cute, I guess,” William mumbled.
“You can either have the fat one or the mini one,” Veronica offered, pointing at Carl then at me.
The boy took one glance at Carl and said immediately, “I’ll take the mini one.”
I allowed my self to be picked up by Veronica and handed over to her brother despite the signs Harley was sending me to bite down on her fingers.
“Here William. Here’s your new best friend, a midget hamster!” Veronica giggled as she plopped me into William’s hands. He immediately placed me in the pocket of his shirt and walked out of the room without another word.
We headed to William’s room. As soon as the door creaked open, a huge wave of sound came crashing down on my ears. A radio was playing heavy rock music at maximum volume. The room was messy there was a closet in one corner a bed in the other and a desk next to the bed. The radio was on the desk beside a Mac computer. There was a pile of pizza boxes next to the desk on the floor. Clothes were everywhere and there was an over flowing garbage can by the door. William closed the door and walked to his desk. He swept everything on to the floor, except for the radio and computer and plopped me down on the clean space. I immediately scurried to the radio and turned the volume down from 100 to 10. The boy shrugged and sat down in the desk chair in front of me.
“So what can you do?” William asked curiously.
Just then one of the many house servants came in and said, “Master William, your father has instructed me to clean out your room.”
William groaned, but picked me up stepped aside. It was amazing how fast the lady worked. In less than 10 minutes the room was shining and squeaky clean. The clothes were folded and placed it the closet, the pizza boxes were gone, the bed was made and everything smelled of lavender. She then brought in another desk and placed it next to the original desk. On it she placed a new cage, a pile of food, bedding and a box of toys for the hamster (me)!
“Here’s your lunch, Master William,” she said placing a pizza box and a pop in front of the computer.
“I advise you to do some research on the little fellow,” she said as she pointed to me.
With a few clicks of the mouse, this tech savvy housekeeper found a site all about hamsters. She then wished us a good day and left. William sat down, placed me beside the pizza box and started to eat. The food smelled overwhelmingly good so I climbed into the box and started nibbling on a slice. William sighed but acknowledged my apparent hunger, so he and cut apiece off for me. As we ate, William studied up on Hamstar12345’s site about hamsters. After he was done reading, he set me one the ground and got out a wheel from the box and set in down beside me.
“Ok, so it says here that you like to run. Show me” he spent the rest of the night watching me climb run and play on various objects from the box then at about 10:00 he placed me in my cage and went to bed. The cage I was in was small. It had only one floor, but it was comfy. It had sleeping quarters, food, water and a washroom. Its no mansion but it’ll do, I thought. I soon fell asleep in the soft bedding. At around 2:00am I awoke to the familiar sound of scurrying. I peered out of my cage to see a group of five hamsters running across the desk. It was Harley, Jagger, Brogan, Zephyr and Randy. As they got closer I realized something. They were all spray-painted pink! Harley peered through the bars and whispered to me,
“C’mon buddy, we are here to get you out.“ Harley whispered.
“Really? But how do we get the cage open?” I asked.
“Leave it to me,” Harley replied confidently.
He leaned over and pulled on a latch on the cage door. The door swung open, and I leaped out.
“First we need to get to the washroom.”
“Why” I asked
“Because I need to wash this pink off me!,” Harley replied
We got to the washroom and I turned on the tap. The other hamsters took washed their lovely pink coating away and dried off with the hand towel. Next, Harley jumped to the floor and opened a drainpipe.
“Everybody in!” he said.
“What? You don’t even know where it goes.”
“Sure I do. It goes out of here, and that’s all I care about,” he gave me a shove, and I fell into the deep dark hole… At this moment the real adventure began.
To be continued…