Pet Disasters Read online

LOST!

  ONE BROWN

  HAMSTER

  Reward $20

  Mason was contributing the reward money from his saved allowance. It was the least he could do. Though, actually, as far as fairness went, the person paying the reward money should have been Brody. All Mason had done was utter the fateful words, “Maybe we should take him out of his cage and play with him.” Everything else had been Brody’s idea. But Mason didn’t want to make Brody feel worse than he did already.

  “He’ll come home, I know he will,” Brody said as the two boys sat lettering their posters at Mason’s kitchen table. They had already searched for Hamster all over Mason’s backyard and front yard and side yard.

  Brody sniffled as he copied their message onto the tenth piece of cardboard. Mason’s father had a huge stack of cardboard saved from every shirt he’d ever bought. “He’ll come home, won’t he, Mason?”

  Mason didn’t know what to say. “Maybe.”

  Brody sniffled again.

  Mason corrected himself: “I mean, sure.”

  They couldn’t use the photo of Hamster in his pirate costume. In the photo, all that could be seen of Hamster was his stubby tail on the far right side of the picture as he jumped out of sight.

  Mason had thought about putting on the poster that Hamster was last seen wearing a red bandanna and a black eye patch. Those things would definitely make Hamster easy to recognize. But Mason had a feeling that Hamster had taken them off by now. Hamster had turned out to be smarter than Mason had given him credit for. Hamster had clearly been more successful at avoiding a Christmas-card photo than Mason had been.

  An hour later, the two boys headed out from Mason’s house, carrying a stack of twenty posters, a roll of masking tape, and a box of tacks.

  “What do we put them on?” Mason asked.

  “Lampposts. Or stop signs. Anything, I guess.”

  The two boys taped a poster on every lamppost and stop sign within three blocks of Mason’s house, until almost all their signs were gone.

  “Should we go home and make some more?” Brody asked. “How far do you think he went?”

  Mason shrugged. He had no idea. Maybe hamster behavior would always remain a mystery.

  As they were tacking their last sign to a last utility pole, a dark-haired girl pedaled by on her bike. She pulled up beside them: it was Nora.

  “What’s the sign for?”

  Before they could reply, she answered her own question by simply reading it.

  “I bet he’s somewhere in the house. Lost hamsters are almost always somewhere in the house. You can put a little bit of flour on the floor near where you saw him last, and see if there are any hamster footprints in it, and find him that way.”

  “He’s not in the house,” Mason said.

  “We saw him go out the door,” Brody added.

  “I never heard of a hamster going outside.”

  “Hamster was—is—an extra-smart and adventurous hamster,” Brody told her.

  “Then he’s probably in your yard. He probably found a hiding place. Hamsters are naturally good at hiding.”

  “How do you know so much about hamsters?” Brody asked Nora. “Do you have a hamster?”

  Nora shrugged. “I read a lot of books. Don’t you read books?”

  Mason did read books. Even though he was a good reader on his own, his mother also read aloud to him all the time, old-fashioned books she had liked when she was a girl. None of them were about hamsters.

  “I think we need to get home,” Mason said. “It’s almost suppertime.”

  “Hamster will be hungry!” Brody almost wailed.

  “There are lots of things for him to eat outside, right?” Mason asked Nora. “Can hamsters eat grass?”

  “Yes, or seeds or bugs. But—well, they can also get eaten.”

  As soon as she said it, the look on her face showed that she wished she hadn’t. Brody gave a low moan.

  Back at Mason’s house, the sight of Hamster’s cage, with its abandoned food bowl and silent wheel, was depressing. Before dinner, Mason’s father carried the empty cage to a shelf in the garage, next to Goldfish’s empty bowl. The shelf was now full. Mason hoped his parents would notice that there was no room for any further pet equipment.

  “I’m sure he’ll come back,” Mason’s mom said, with false cheeriness, as the three of them sat down to eat. Mason’s parents were having pasta Alfredo. Mason was having macaroni and cheese from a box. Mason’s mother used to complain about having to fix him macaroni and cheese, but now she seemed used to it.

  “Don’t get his hopes up,” Mason’s father said to Mason’s mother.

  Did Mason hope Hamster would come back? He did want Hamster to be all right, wherever he was.

  After supper, Mason looked one last time under the bushes near the back door in case he saw a very small brown animal hiding there. He didn’t.

  That evening, it was quiet in the family room without the ceaseless whir of Hamster’s wheel. Quiet and peaceful.

  Mason did hope his parents wouldn’t get him any more pets. That much he could hope for.

  At art camp the next day, Dunk strode into the room with a knowing smirk. He waved a torn piece of cardboard in Mason’s face. Mason could see it was one of their LOST! ONE BROWN HAMSTER posters.

  “Is this your stupid hamster?”

  There was no point in lying. Mason nodded.

  “Hamster’s not stupid!” Brody said. “He’s a hundred times smarter than your dumb dog. You better put our poster back where you found it. It’s illegal to take down other people’s posters. You can get arrested for doing that.”

  Was that true? Mason glanced over at Nora. She shook her head slightly.

  “It is!” Brody insisted. “You could go to jail, Dunk!”

  Mason wasn’t going to get his hopes up about that, either.

  That day the art campers were going on a camp trip, walking three blocks from Plainfield Elementary to the fast-flowing creek that ran past the public library. Each camper carried a folding easel, canvas, and paints.

  “We’ll be painting outdoors, in the open air,” Mrs. Gong told them. “The way that Monet painted his haystacks!”

  She had shown them pictures of the painter Claude Monet’s haystacks. Monet was a French painter who liked to paint the same thing over and over again, at different times of day, in different seasons. Mason was sympathetic to the idea of repetition: pick one idea and stick with it, instead of having to find new ideas day after day after day. But why a haystack? he wondered. If you could pick anything in the world to paint over and over again, why pick a haystack?

  Though, what else would you pick? Mason couldn’t think of anything he’d like to paint over and over again. Actually, he couldn’t think of anything he’d like to paint at all.

  Down by the creek, under the shade of the cottonwood trees, the campers set up their easels. Some kids, including Nora, took a long time to find the place with the most perfect view. Mason saw Nora systematically surveying the possible views from every direction, slowly revolving to select the most advantageous viewpoint.

  Brody carefully climbed across three rocks in the creek and set up his easel on a big flat rock out in the middle of the water. Mason set his up as close as he could to Brody’s, but safely on dry land. He was relieved that Dunk’s easel was far away. Dunk was the only camper who stood facing away from the water altogether.

  Mason started painting a tree. His picture of a tree looked more like a tree than his picture of Hamster had looked like a hamster. It did help to have the thing he was painting right there in front of him.

  The tree had one long branch growing out over the water.

  Mason painted one long branch growing out over the water.

  The branch had a bunch of green leaves on it.

  Mason painted a bunch of green leaves.

  “Nice work!” Mrs. Gong said. He hadn’t realized she was standing next to him. This time she didn’t have to make guesses about w
hether he was painting a tree or a telephone pole.

  Mason allowed himself the thought, Maybe art camp isn’t so bad, after all.

  He hoped he wasn’t jinxing anything by thinking it.

  “Beautiful, Brody!” Mrs. Gong gushed; she was gazing over at Brody’s painting from the safe distance of the shore. Mason noticed that she was still wearing her smock and her beret. He had thought maybe she would take them off before going out in public with normal people.

  “You’re really capturing the way the sunlight is shining on the water,” Mrs. Gong told Brody.

  Brody beamed.

  Mason looked at Brody’s picture, too. It was good, definitely good enough to win the art contest and be shown in a museum, even in a museum in New York City or Paris, France. It was harder to paint water that looked like water than to paint a haystack that looked like a haystack. Maybe that was why Monet had decided to keep painting haystacks over and over again.

  There was some kind of noisy commotion over where Dunk was painting. Or maybe it was just Dunk yelling something. “What is it?” Mrs. Gong called over to Dunk. “What’s going on?”

  “A hamster!” Dunk shouted. “I just saw Mason’s hamster!”

  Mason started to run in Dunk’s direction. Brody leaped off his rock to follow him. As he jumped, his foot caught one leg of his easel and sent it flying into the swift-flowing current of the creek.

  “My picture!” Brody wailed.

  But Brody left it behind and raced toward Dunk. “Where was he?” Brody gasped as he reached Dunk, just steps behind Mason.

  Dunk didn’t answer.

  “Which way did he go?” Mason asked.

  Dunk burst out laughing. “I was just kidding, you guys,” he said.

  Looking bewildered, Mrs. Gong was by their side, putting a comforting hand on Brody’s shaking shoulder. Mason tried to tell her what Dunk had done, but he was too angry to get all the words out. Nora finished the story for him.

  “Dunk,” Mrs. Gong said reproachfully. “That was a very unkind thing to do. And now Brody’s beautiful painting is ruined. Tell Brody you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, Brody,” Dunk said.

  “And tell Mason you’re sorry, too.”

  “I’m sorry, Mason.”

  Dunk sounded sincere. But he had sounded sincere when he had yelled out about seeing Hamster, too.

  Mason had been wrong: art camp was terrible, after all.

  5

  Mason wanted to turn on the TV, but he couldn’t find the remote. So he needed to get up and walk over to the TV. But he couldn’t get up and walk over to the TV, because asleep on his lap, purring as loudly as a motorboat, was his new pet, Cat.

  Cat was gray and white. She apparently liked his lap, or she wouldn’t have been purring. Mason knew Cat was a she, because the lady at the shelter had told his father so.

  Mason did not feel like purring. It was a hot day, and having a cat on his lap made him feel hotter. Mason’s house had air-conditioning, but his mother never wanted to turn it on, because she thought air-conditioning was bad for the environment. She didn’t seem to realize that extreme, oppressive heat was bad for Mason.

  He suddenly realized that he also needed to go to the bathroom. Soon.

  “Cat!” Mason said, hoping she’d wake up and jump away.

  Cat didn’t open her eyes. She probably couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own purring.

  “Hey, Cat!” Mason tried again, louder this time.

  No response.

  He tried poking her, not hard enough to hurt her, just hard enough to make her decide to sleep somewhere else.

  She made one sort of squawking sound. Then she started purring again.

  “Cat, I need you to get off my lap so that I can go to the bathroom.”

  Could he just stand up and dump her onto the floor? That seemed rude. Besides, it might make her scratch. Or bite. Or do whatever cats did when they were annoyed.

  Mason’s father had come home with Cat yesterday, the same day Brody’s picture had fallen into the creek and Mason had decided to hate Dunk forever. All evening, Cat had hidden under the couch in the family room, coming out to eat and use the litter box only when everyone else in the house was asleep. Mason was pretty sure his parents weren’t going to expect him to have anything to do with the litter box. He had taken one quick look at it, sitting in a corner of the mudroom by the kitchen door: a plastic box filled with grainy gray stuff, where Cat would poop and pee; then someone would take a plastic scooper and scoop out the poop and wet clumps of pee-soaked grainy gray stuff and throw them away. It sounded to Mason like a good job for one of his parents.

  Mason had let himself hope that Cat was going to be as agreeably unexciting as Goldfish.

  Then, this afternoon, Cat had emerged from under the couch and started meowing around Mason’s legs, whapping at his bare shins with her waving tail.

  And now she was sleeping on Mason’s lap.

  Mason had told Brody all about Cat, but Brody hadn’t seen Cat yet because when he had been over yesterday evening, Cat had still been in her secret hiding place. Right now Brody was at home with his sisters, Cammie and Cara. Mason should get up and call Brody and tell him to come over. But Mason couldn’t get up to call Brody or turn on the TV or go to the bathroom, because Cat refused to budge and Mason didn’t know how to make her budge.

  It was going to be a long afternoon.

  Half an hour later, Mason’s legs were both asleep and he had to go to the bathroom so much that he could hardly stand it.

  Luckily, at that moment Brody came in through the back door. He and Mason went in and out of each other’s houses without bothering to knock.

  “Hi, Mason,” Brody began. Then he stopped at the sight of Cat on Mason’s lap. “Oh!”

  Brody went down on his knees next to the couch, stroking Cat’s fur from her head down her back, reaching around to scratch the fur under her chin. “Can I hold her? Please?”

  Mason nodded with relief. Brody scooped Cat up into his skinny arms and sat down on the couch. How did Brody know things like how to put a bandanna on a hamster or pick up a cat? At first Cat struggled to get away, but then she settled down onto Brody’s lap, as contented as she had been on Mason’s.

  After he got back from the bathroom, Mason plunked himself down next to Brody and Cat on the couch, remote in hand, and turned on the TV. Usually he watched cartoons, but sometimes he watched cooking shows to prepare himself for whatever repulsive meal his mother might be planning to make next. He also liked the show about how different kinds of candy and cookies were manufactured, though he hadn’t yet managed to catch the episode about Fig Newtons.

  His legs were finally starting to have feeling in them again.

  “She’s so soft!” Brody said as he continued to pet her and she continued to purr, loudly enough that Mason could hear her even over the volume of the TV.

  Cat stretched out one paw against Brody’s chest, as if she were petting him, too.

  “She’s purring!” Brody said, as if he had never heard a cat purr before. Maybe he hadn’t. Until two hours ago, Mason hadn’t ever heard a cat purr, either. “She likes me!”

  Then Brody sneezed.

  A commercial came on, so Mason changed the channel to another station that had cartoons.

  Brody sneezed again.

  Mason looked over at Brody. Brody’s eyes were red and watery, as if he had been crying, but he hadn’t been crying. Even Brody wouldn’t get so emotional just at the sight and sound of a purring cat.

  “I think I’m getting a cold,” Brody said.

  Brody sneezed four times in a row.

  “I’d better go home so you and Cat don’t get it.” Brody sniffed sadly. “I don’t want Cat to get sick when she’s just getting used to her new home.”

  “But …” Mason looked at Cat. Brody couldn’t get up to leave if Cat was asleep on his lap.

  Gently Brody picked Cat up and set her on the couch cushion. He scratch
ed her one last time under the chin, and she stretched out her white paw again. How did Brody know how to do things?

  “Oh!” Brody said, gazing down at Cat. “Look at how cute she is! Look at her paw!”

  Mason looked at Cat’s paw. He supposed it was cute, if Brody said it was.

  “I hope you feel better,” Mason told Brody. He hoped it for Brody’s sake, of course, but also for his. He didn’t want to have any purring cats on his lap again anytime soon.

  “Me too,” Brody said. “We’re doing pottery in art camp tomorrow, remember? I don’t want to miss pottery! And I have to be able to come over and play with Cat. Mason, I really think she likes me. I mean, not as much as she likes you, of course, because she’s your cat. But I don’t think she would have stretched out her paw to me like that if she didn’t really like me, do you?”

  Brody sneezed three more times as he walked toward the door.

  Before Cat could take up residence on his lap again, Mason hurried off to the kitchen to see if he could find himself a snack. He made sure to take a nice long time finding it. It wouldn’t take very long to locate the bag of Fig Newtons and pour himself a glass of milk. But to prolong the snack, today he might be adventurous. He might spread a saltine with peanut butter. He might squirt a Ritz cracker with some cheese spread from a can.

  The next morning, Brody came over to Mason’s house to pick him up so they could walk together to art camp. Brody’s cold was completely gone, and his eyes looked clear and normal again.

  But now Mason’s eyes felt heavy. Cat had insisted on sleeping on his bed all night long, which was a hundred times more disturbing than having a hamster running on a wheel right next to your head. Mason liked to sleep with one leg straight and one leg bent. It turned out that Cat thought the perfect place to sleep was in the crook of Mason’s bent leg. As soon as she settled there, he had an overwhelming desire to turn over and sleep with the other leg straight and the other leg bent, but there she lay, purring her motorboat purr.

  Then at four a.m., she started meowing in hopes that he would get up and give her food. Finally, at four-thirty, he gave in. But he couldn’t fall back asleep after that. Every time he was almost asleep, a long cat tail would brush against his face, as if Cat were deciding whether she might like to plunk herself down to sleep right on his head.