Super Best Friends, Ashley Alongi

It had started with child abuse. Or perhaps it was a symbolic sign telling me he was ready to leave the nest. Maybe. But for the sake of the story we’ll call it child abuse. Behind the Plexiglas window of the cage there she was, unmistakably the mother of all the little ones running around. In other words….fat. And there he was, much smaller , brown with big black eyes, inching over towards her. And like any loving mother would, she pushed him over with her head and let him fall over failing his tiny arms and legs about. That’s when I knew he was the hamster for me.
Thinking back on it now, following him with my finger probably wasn’t the most effective way of keeping track of him, but whatever way I did he was the one who wandered into the tiny cardboard box. This unnamed creature was enjoying all the comforts of gong to a new home. A brand new cage and food in the backseat. My mom had even put on the cars AC, which was a rarity. And yet he felt the need to squeak the whole way home. And that when the name Squeaky was born.
He spoiled me. After he was gone I couldn’t understand why the other would do certin things, like fall asleep in my pocket. Thinking back again, he probably was a narcoleptic. Every small thing he did excited my 9 year old self. The first time he walked from hand to hand, the way he put food in his cheeks to the dance he did when he peed. Everyday I would take him out for hours, most of the time forgetting he was there, catching him just in time before he would run under my bed , never to be seen again. He probably would have been fine though seeing as how he and the cat had come to a mutual agreement that if they didn’t bother one another they would be cool.
The day he died I can remember perfectly. He had a bloody nose that morning, but that wasn’t odd because he has been getting them more and more lately. I remember leaving him sitting on my mother, calling to him as I went down the stairs to school that I would see him later. I remember that day at school, someone had sunflower seeds at lunch and I had brought some home for him. But when I reached home I found my mother standing in the driveway to tell me that after three years and four months of companionship, that Squeaky was dead. Not believing I rushed upstairs to see him with a tissue draped over him like rodent CSI had shown up. One of his eyes was open and his body was rigid. This was not the Squeaky I knew. I refused to pick him up having m mother burying him in the front lawn while I watched from the window. But as she brought the empty cage upstairs I took on of the sunflower seeds from my hand and buried it next to his grave, Not only because he was my first pet, but because however lame it was, he was my first best friend.