Dirty Little Secrets

“Don’t pick him up while I’m gone, okay? It’s only two weeks—he’ll be fine. Just feed him twice a day and make sure he has enough water in the bottle. I’ll clean the cage when I get back.” I wished I could take him with me to camp, but it would be hard to explain to the other junior counselors why I couldn’t leave him at home. All Mom had to do was shove some food in his cage, and with it sitting in the middle of the kitchen, there was no way she could forget. I just kept telling myself he’d be fine.

“Don’t worry about your precious rodent,” she said. “I’ll feed him every day. He’ll be fat and happy when you get home, you’ll see.”

It didn’t work out exactly that way.

“Where’s Petey?” I said as I dropped my suitcase on the kitchen floor, a pile of junk mail filling the space on the counter where the cage had been.

“Oh,” Mom said, looking down at the newspaper she was holding. “I was going to call you, but I didn’t want to ruin your trip. He got out the other day when I was feeding him. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find him.”

“What do you mean he got out?” My eyes searched what I could see of the floor. A tiny hamster could be hiding anywhere in this house. “All you had to do was feed him. You said he’d be okay.”

She put her arm around my shoulders and gave a quick squeeze. “I’m really sorry,” she said. She was looking everywhere except right at me. “I only left the door open for a second so I could cut some more apple, and when I looked back he was gone.”

“He really ran away?”

She nodded. “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere. Probably found a nice, soft corner to curl up in.”

“But he was counting on me . . .” Petey was the first thing I’d ever been in charge of, and I’d let him down. He must have missed being held and stroked on the very top of his head. He must have thought I was never coming back, and he made his escape when he saw an opportunity. A sick, heavy feeling settled in my stomach and made the back of my eyelids prickle.

I got down on all fours and looked under the table and along the wall. “Here, Petey Petey.” I made little kissy noises as I was calling him. “Here, Petey. I’m back. Here, Petey.” Mom got down on the floor too and together we searched everywhere we could, spending the next hour at hamster level trying to find him. But we never did.

Sometimes I would see hamster droppings on the counter or the table, and I took it as his way of telling me he was still somewhere in the house, curled up safe in a little nest he’d made for himself, only coming out at night to look for food. I’d leave a pile of peanuts on the counter for him, and little by little it would vanish, so at least I knew he was eating something.

The sharp smell from the cedar shavings in his cage brought back everything I’d felt that day when I’d come back to discover him gone. Mom must have put the cage back here in case we ever got another hamster, but we never did. It didn’t seem right to bring another living thing into this house when I couldn’t even manage to keep Petey safe. The water bottle was still secured to the side of the cage, but it had been dry a long time.

I carried the whole thing over to the wall where the green bins were stacked. Even if Petey was long gone, the cage was still good. Maybe when all this was over, I’d get another hamster. Or clean it out and give it to TJ. He was about the right age for a pet.

As I set the cage down on the bins, I spotted something sticking out from under the cedar chips. I shook the cage so the chips settled and I could see it better, sticking my face right up to the bars to get a good look. He wasn’t curled up in a ball, but lying out straight under a thin layer of cedar chips. The skin looked dry and papery but still had a few tufts of brown hair clinging to it.

Petey.

“Oh God,” I said. I looked closer to make sure, but there was really no doubt. Petey hadn’t escaped at all. He’d died right in this cage while I was gone, and instead of doing something normal like burying him, or even telling me the truth, Mom must have covered up the cage and left it in the dining room like it never happened. That was her solution to everything—cover it up like it never happened.

My mind raced as I backed away from the cage containing the mummified remains of my only pet. “How could she?” I whispered. She probably forgot about him completely. Didn’t feed him or even give him water. Petey trusted me and I’d totally let him down.

Without even thinking about it, I opened the top of the cage and gently wrapped him in the towel. He wasn’t much more than dried skin and bones by now, but the least I could do was give him a decent burial. Grabbing the shovel, I headed outside, not caring who saw me.