Hamster Magic (5 page)

“So chewy!” Celia closed her eyes in bliss. “Yet so crunchy!”

Hammy squeaked again, a sharp series of chirps.

“Okay.” Celia snagged two more doggy treats with her small, four-fingered paw and tucked them in Abner’s pocket with Hammy. She looked up at her brother, her whiskers quivering. “You should try one, Abner. They’re so sweet! So tasty! So—”

“I get the idea,” Abner said grumpily. “But let’s go.” He got a good grip on the scruff of her neck and urged her up the stairs.

The night air was cool, and the sky was flecked with stars. High above rode the moon, and the three children looked about them with wonder. They had never been out so late before.

But Celia was a hamster, and she wasted no time in looking at the stars. She darted across the yard and into darkness.

“Hey!” Abner’s whisper was hoarse. He took off after his reckless sister—and then he tripped. Luckily, he remembered to twist so
that he fell on the side where Hammy wasn’t. The little hamster was only shaken, not squashed.

Abner had landed heavily on his shoulder and wrenched it, and twisted his knee. He lay on the ground, his pajamas getting damp from the grass, and wished most passionately that he weren’t the oldest. If he were the youngest, he could throw a tantrum and refuse to go one more step, and no one would think anything of it.

“What do we do now?” asked Tate. She took Hammy from Abner and soothed him, petting the fur between his ears with a careful finger.

Abner struggled to sit up. What should they do now? It wasn’t much good going to see the Great Hamster without Celia. “I think,” he said slowly, “that we should—”

“Hey!” Derek scrambled to his feet. “Look!”

In the moonlight, Derek’s pointing finger could be clearly seen. Abner looked, and saw a black shadow rapidly coming near. It panted like an energetic dog.

“Everybody grab her when she comes by,” Abner said, his voice low. He got into position, his sore shoulder forgotten. Celia galloped past, pale in the moonlight like some kind of furry ghost. But when Abner leaped, his knee gave way under him, and he missed her by inches.

Tate hadn’t moved at all. “Don’t look at
me
,” she said. “I’m holding Hammy.”

Abner was too busy nursing his knee to answer. Still, when a sliding, grunting sound came to his ears, he looked up. There was the shadow of Celia again, only she was moving much more slowly. And dragging behind her, hanging grimly on to one hind leg, was Derek.

“Good man, Derek,” said Abner. “Celia, stop this minute and let him get on your back. No, I don’t care if you think he’s heavy. You need something to slow you down.”

They all went on toward the river. Derek’s weight kept Celia to a walk, and he was happy to ride. “You’re my horse,” he said, gripping the loose skin behind her ears. “And I’m going to call you White Streak.”

“I’m a
wild
horse,” said Celia, and she began to buck.

“Settle down,” snapped Abner. His shoulder hurt, his knee was making him limp, and he was in no mood for any nonsense.

They walked on in silence. The only sounds were the whisper of their feet on grass and the buzzing of night insects. Stars twinkled around the edge of the sky, where the moon was not so bright, and the air was cool and magical.

When they came to the tall row of cypress trees that marked the edge of the road, they followed them down a slight incline to the
river, which chuckled and murmured in between sandy banks.

“Now,” said Abner, “does anyone have any string?”

No one did. “Why do you need it?” asked Tate.

Abner shrugged, wincing as his shoulder moved. “How were you going to get Hammy to lead us to the Great Hamster once we got here?”

Tate frowned. “I don’t know. I guess just put him on the ground and tell him to go find her.”

“Not good enough,” Abner said. “What if he decided to run away? No, we’ve got to use some kind of leash.”

“But he’s a
person,”
said Celia, her whiskers bristling. “He talks. You can’t just treat him like a
pet.”

“He doesn’t talk anymore,” said Abner. “And we still need a leash.”

Tate, after a moment’s thought, pulled the ribbon from her ponytail and held it out to Abner. “Is this good enough?”

Abner examined the long, thin ribbon. It was soft yet strong. “Perfect.” He tied a loose knot in one end and threaded the other end through the hole in the middle. Then he slipped the loop over Hammy’s head.

“Now,” Abner said, “this won’t hurt you. It’ll just make sure we don’t lose you in the dark. But don’t try to run away, or you might get choked.”

Hammy at once headed up the bank, away from the river’s edge.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Abner firmly, lifting the hamster back down. “No trying to avoid it. You said she lived by the river, and
we would get our feet sandy, and here we are. She’s got to be close. So just stay on the sand and head for her burrow, and we’ll call her.”

Softly, one after the other, the children called, “Great Hamster! Great Hamster!” And though Abner felt half-foolish, and Tate a quarter so, they went on calling, and kept Hammy from climbing the banks in his attempts to escape. Derek called, too, but Celia wouldn’t. She paced along the top of the low bluff above the sandy bank, because something about the water made her feel very uncomfortable.

At last, tired out, Abner stopped. He sat down on a fallen log, and everyone else dropped where they stood. Tate cupped Hammy in her hands. “Why won’t you lead us there? You know where she lives.”

Hammy, looking desperate, squeaked.

“I’m sorry you can’t talk anymore,” Tate went on, “but really, Hammy, you can do better than this.”

“He’s just a coward,” said Abner bitterly. “He’s scared of the Great Hamster, so he keeps trying to run away.”

The little hamster squeaked again and again. Celia, above them on the bank, stopped her pacing and listened. Then she squeaked back.

Hammy, after one startled moment, erupted in a flurry of shrill chirps. He waved his paws and stamped his hind feet in Tate’s palm.

Celia looked down at her brothers and sister. “He’s been trying to lead you all along. The Great Hamster does live near the river, but she’s not right
next
to it. Hamsters hate water.”

“The book did say that hamsters were desert animals,” said Tate thoughtfully.

“Celia!” Derek scrambled up the bank, grinding sand into the knees of his pajamas. “Can you speak Hamster now?”

Celia hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t really tell what the words are. It’s more like I just know what all the squeaking
means.”

“Well, we’d better do what Celia says.” Tate climbed the bluff and set Hammy on the ground once more. “Okay, Hammy, go.”

Abner followed unhappily. If Hammy was just pretending, they would never find the Great Hamster. But if Hammy had been trying to lead them to her all along, then Abner had made a big mistake, and been mean to Hammy as well. Neither option made him feel good, and his knee hurt most abominably.

They were in sand still, only it wasn’t right by the river. They kicked through soft, sculpted dunes on the raised land of the upper banks. Scrubby grasses poked out of the sand, and here and there was a tree with twisted roots that showed above ground.

“Hey, I didn’t know this was here!” Abner said, looking around at the dunes with interest. “What a cool place to play!”

“Hammy knew it was here,” said Tate, and Abner felt ashamed. And then, suddenly, he felt even worse, for a shadow rose out of a hole in the ground. It cast a longer shadow before it, from the moon at its back.

It was a hamster, larger than average (though not nearly so large as Celia). It stood on its hind legs and folded its paws across its furry chest. “Who,” it said, raising its voice strongly, “has put a leash on my child?”

“Who has put a leash on my Forvten?” demanded the Great Hamster again, her voice stern and terrible.

The children looked at one another blankly.
Forvten?

“You mean Hammy?” said Derek.

The Great Hamster’s fur stood out straight, and she seemed to increase in size. “Forvten,” she repeated, leaning on each syllable, and her long front teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “He
is the fourth child of my tenth litter. Four-of-ten. Forvten for short, and certainly not
Hammy
, whatever you may think.”

“Oh,” said Derek.

“He never said he minded being called Hammy,” said Celia from behind the others.

The Great Hamster seemed to notice the very large hamster for the first time. She reared back and studied Celia, looking her up and down. “I don’t know you,” the Great Hamster said at last. “Are you from Hollowstone, or do you come from Away?”

For the second time the children exchanged glances, and Tate asked the obvious question. “What is Hollowstone?”

“Not ‘what,’ ” snapped the Great Hamster. “ ‘Where.’ Right
here
is Hollowstone, and burrowers who live here are not ordinary anima—” She bit off the word and puffed out her cheeks.
“I don’t want to answer your questions until you answer mine.”

Abner felt himself flush. “It’s my fault. I put the leash on Ham—er, Forvten. And I’m not sure where Hollowstone is, exactly, but we live in the house on the hill.” He bent down, feeling both guilty and annoyed, and fumbled with the knotted ribbon around Hammy’s neck.

Released, the small hamster squeaked, and squeaked again. He scampered to his mother and leaned his head against her side.

The Great Hamster patted his back and listened as he squeaked some more. Then she looked up. “I see,” she said. “You made a very foolish wish, a wish that was almost too big for Forvten. He granted it and drained his power. And now you think I can do something about it.”

“Can’t you?” begged Abner.

“Please?” added Tate.

The Great Hamster pulled at her whiskers, frowning. “No. You’ll just have to wait until it wears off.”

“But it will wear off, then?” Abner took some hope from this. “When?”

“I don’t have any idea,” said the Great Hamster. “We burrowers don’t make the magic. We just let it soak in. Once it’s used, it has to build up again.” She looked down at her small and shamefaced son. “It will be awhile before Forvten can even speak again, I’m afraid. But with any luck”—here she gave him a fond little shake—“he might have learned his lesson.”

“Ham—Forvten didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” said Abner, remembering that he had promised to say this.

The Great Hamster put her paws on her hips. “He knew the rules. Get all wishes approved first. He should have told you that.”