Whats small furry and eats cheerios

Peter Stewart

And so I had my first pet. He wasnt even supposed to be mine, I was only supposed to be looking after him while his rightful owner, my sister, was away on holiday for a week. I enjoyed looking after Spike - his name - for this short period.

The week passed, and I knew Spike would have to be returned, so I was slightly down for a couple of days. I wondered how long it would be before the doorbell rang and my sister would be there, ready to reclaim her hamster. But that moment never seemed to come. The days passed, but Spike was still there in his cage in the living room, nibbling away on a bit of cereal, or running in his wheel. One day I heard my mum talking to my sister on the phone. I listened in, and the moment I heard Spike I feared the worst. My mum put the phone back in its cradle.

So? I said resignedly.

Well, my mum said, She says we can keep him a bit longer if you like, since you seem to like him so much. From that moment on, Spike was ours, and would be forever.

Spike really was just your average hamster. He was small, golden in colour, and liked to eat. However, your average hamster may not have had quite the same diet as Spike did. Every time I opened a box of Cheerios or Shreddies in the morning for breakfast, his wee black beady eyes would light up, in the knowledge that he was sure to get some pushed through the bars of his cage. In fact he would eat anything; toast, cheese, crisps, biscuits, chocolate: all would be stuffed into his pouches for consumption later. You may think that this varying diet would be bad for a hamster, but Spike seemed to guzzle it all down without any side effects at all. He was also very acrobatic for a hamster - every so often you would glance over at the cage and he would be halfway up the bars, spread-eagled, clinging on for dear life. There would be a point where one of his paws slipped, and he fell backwards on to the wood shavings of his cage floor. But he never was hurt. Not Spike.

We used to let him run around the carpet freely while we cleaned his cage. This, predictably, resulted in him getting lost several times. One day he would be discovered scrabbling about behind the fridge in the kitchen, or exploring the tiny gap between the radiator and the floor. Even when we blocked out one of his favourite haunts, he would find another, even harder to reach place to hide. But we always found him. We would never lose Spike.

Then came a day when Spike wasnt the only pet in the house. We got a dog, as my mum and I in particular were very fond of them. This didnt affect Spike too much initially, but when the two met for the first - and only - time it was something of a showdown. Our dog, Toots, inquisitive as ever, headed for the cage on the table, where Spike lay sleeping in the corner, as he often was nowadays. The slow rise and fall of his now fawn chest (the gold had been fading slowly) had alerted Toots to the possibility of another living thing on her territory, and in went the snout to investigate. The hot air blowing from the nostrils of the dog must have been like a strong gust of wind to Spike, who woke with a start. Now, if you woke up to a strange creature with a head three times the size of your whole body, you would be scared. Not Spike. He padded over to the edge of his cage, and sniffed the air, his tiny nose working overtime to identify the source of the warm air rushing through his living space. Thinking back, Spike was probably slightly blind by that point, but we didnt know that at the time. Toots was extremely interested, examining the hamster from head to toe. For a few seconds my two pets simply stood there - Toots looking and Spike sniffing. We waited with baited breath, wondering what Toots reaction would be. But then the dog turned away, Spike seemingly deemed to carry no threat, and the hamster returned to a corner of his cage to curl up once more.

No life, no matter how small, how big, how important, can last forever. We knew Spike had been getting old, but I hadnt really contemplated the day that must come when he would no longer be with us. I must have been in Primary 4 or 5 the day it happened. Every morning I would go downstairs for breakfast before school, and there would be Spikes cage on the living room table. He never came out until the Cheerios box opened however. So that morning didnt seem to be any different. I wandered lethargically into the kitchen and to the cupboard for my cereal. I opened the flap at the top of the box and plunged my hand into the box, taking care to rustle the bag as I always did to arouse Spike. I poured the Cheerios into my bowl, the pieces making a noise against the ceramic edges. I poured the milk, and had already taken a few mouthfuls before I realised anything was wrong. I suddenly realised that Spike hadnt been woken by the noise, so over I went and tapped the bars of his cage with my spoon. Nothing. I fished a Cheerio from my bowl and flicked it through the bars, onto the pile of sawdust in the corner that he always burrowed into at night. I expected to see his little nose appear, twitching curiously at the prospect of breakfast. But the small piece of cereal just lay there; Spike still hadnt woken up.

By now, I feared the worst.

My mum appeared at my side. I met her eyes, and then I knew what she was going to say before she said it.

No matter how you are introduced to the concept of death, it still hurts. Whether it be a close relative, a friend of a friend, the news of a soldiers casualty in Iraq. A hamster. It isnt easy at any age. How the news is broken to you is neither here nor there. The simple fact that you will never see or hear that person (or animal) again is surely why death is so unbearable. And it doesnt matter which life has ended - if you were close to that life, a part of you goes with it.

Every life should be celebrated. Every one. Big, or small.