Hamsters Rule, Gerbils Drool Read online

  Hamsters Rule, Gerbils Drool

  Kris Langman

  Post Hoc Publishing

  Hamsters Rule, Gerbils Drool

  Copyright © 2013 by Kris Langman

  ISBN: 978-0-9820927-7-4

  Post Hoc Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without permission of the author except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Excerpt from Hamsters Rule the School

  Excerpt from Logic to the Rescue

  Chapter One

  Melvin stirred uneasily in his pile of sawdust shavings. The snuffly snores coming from the twin bed across the room were disturbing his rest. He crawled out of his nest and trundled down an orange plastic tunnel to a distant corner of his Hamster Habitat. Diving head first into a pile of cedar chips, he squirmed until only his chubby rear-end was visible. He twitched for a few seconds then settled back into sleep.

  Melvin should have counted himself lucky. The snores of his owner, Miss Sally Jane Hesslop, who was eleven years old as of last Tuesday, were much quieter than usual due to Sally’s head being buried under her Xena Warrior Princess bedspread. All that could be seen of Sally was a long strand of blonde hair with a wad of pink bubble gum stuck on the end of it.

  The morning sun finished clearing the fog from San Francisco bay and lit up Sally’s bedroom window. The light revealed quite a mess: Legos, comic books, sneakers, mismatched socks and a spilled can of Hungry Hamster Snacks were scattered across the floor. Sally was a firm believer in keeping all of her belongings in plain view. In an emergency (and most mornings were an emergency, as Sally had a talent for being late for school) precious time could be saved by getting dressed from the clothes on the floor.

  This morning Sally’s peaceful slumber was destined to last only a few more brief moments, for Robbie was out of bed and on the loose.

  Robbie was Sally’s four-year-old brother. He was famous up and down their neighborhood for his ability to eat anything dirt-related. Mud, clay, sand, litter box filler, anything lurking in the bottom of a flowerpot or fish tank, all were fair game. When it came to dirt Robbie was an omnivore. Though, of course, he had his favorites. The light fluffiness at the heart of the vacuum cleaner bag, the tasty compost at the roots of his grandmother’s roses – these were special treats for special occasions, to be savored slowly and washed down with a good quality grape Kool Aid.

  Today Robbie was up at his usual time of six a.m. He tiptoed into Sally’s room, a stealthy menace in his footie pajamas and bike helmet. This helmet was a permanent item in Robbie’s wardrobe. Robbie was fond of banging his head on things, so his father had started putting a helmet on him as soon as Robbie got out of bed.

  Giggling softly and wielding a large rubber spatula, Robbie crept up to the snoring Sally. He pulled back the edge of the bedspread with one chubby fist and brought the spatula down with a satisfying thwhack on top of Sally’s head.

  “Aaaah!” Sally bolted upright, her scrawny arms swinging wildly as she tried to ward off her assailant. Her oversized Xena T-shirt billowed out, making her eighty-pound frame look twice its size. A yellow post-it note which was stuck to her forehead fluttered in the breeze as she whipped around and grabbed the spatula from a chortling Robbie. Sally rained down a barrage of blows with the spatula onto Robbie’s bike helmet. Robbie made a dash for the door, knocking over a stack of comic books. He was almost to safety, inches from escape, when he miscalculated the distance between the door jamb and his head. He bounced backwards off the door, his helmet taking most of the punishment, tripped over a half-built castle made of Legos, and toppled over onto the carpet with his feet in the air.

  Sally leapt out of bed with a wild war cry and rained rubbery blows down on Robbie as if beating a stubborn batch of dough.

  “Sally Jane, are you out of bed yet?” The voice floating in from the hallway sounded in desperate need of coffee. Sally’s father’s dearest dream was to sleep in past six a.m., a dream which was destroyed on a daily basis by Robbie and his spatula. Robbie had assigned himself the task of family alarm clock and he took his job seriously. If the first whack on the head didn’t wake his target at six on the dot then Robbie would tirelessly whack until he got results. Mr. Hesslop had tried hiding the spatula in the back of the cereal cupboard, but Robbie had just switched to whacking with the toilet brush. Mr. Hesslop had quickly decided that he preferred the spatula, the toilet brush tending to catch in his hair.

  Sally gave Robbie one final blow then grabbed his pajama feet and dragged him out of her room. “I’m up, Dad. I’m up,” she shouted, leaving Robbie lying on his back in the hallway. Sally darted back into her room and slammed the door. She yawned, scratched her ear with the captured spatula, and surveyed her wardrobe. Her favorite pair of jeans, only slightly muddy around the knees, hung off the end of her bed. She pulled them on and selected a pink T-shirt from a pile under the window. As she pulled it over her head the post-it which was stuck to her forehead fluttered to the floor. Sally scooped it up and read it aloud.

  “Charlie Sanderson must pay. Skedyul revenge for recess.”

  Sally’s blue eyes narrowed to slits, and she smacked her palm with the spatula.

  “Right. It’s payday, Charlie. Today, after third period.”

  * * * *

  “Okay, Robbie. You’ve had enough. Come and drink your juice.”

  Robbie, crouching over a scraggly fern which an aunt had given them for Christmas, ignored his Dad. He reached into the depths of the flowerpot and pulled up a fistful of loamy soil. He carefully picked off a ladybug which was crawling on his thumb and then crammed the dirt into his mouth.

  Mr. Hesslop sighed. He grabbed Robbie off the floor and plopped him into a chair at the kitchen table. Mr. Hesslop was a taller version of Sally Jane. Both father and daughter had dishwater blond hair, blue eyes, long skinny arms and legs, and pointy elbows. Short, chubby Robbie, with his dark hair and brown eyes, looked completely unrelated to his Dad and his eleven-year-old sister, a fact which Sally mercilessly exploited. She had convinced Robbie that he was on loan from the bank that their Dad worked at, and that he could be returned at any time if she just said the word. Robbie had responded to this threat by reducing Sally’s spatula wake-up calls to once a week. His Dad still got the seven-day-a-week treatment though. Robbie guessed correctly that his Dad loved him too much to pack him up and lock him in a bank vault.

  “Robbie, you’ve got to stop eating dirt.” Mr. Hesslop grabbed a paper napkin and wiped Robbie’s muddy mouth. “Remember what Dr. Tompkins told you? If you don’t stop you’re going to have a tree growing in there.” He tickled Robbie’s stomach.

  Robbie giggled. “Tree in tummy.”

  Sally wandered into the kitchen, bumping into the refrigerator. Her long, straight hair hung in front of her face like a curtain. She had attempted to braid pieces of it, and the attempt had not gone well. One braid sprouted from the top of her head like an overgrown onion. Another looked like it was growing straight out of her ear. She sat down at the kitchen table, one hand tangled in the rest of her unbraided hair, the other grabbing for a box of Cheerios.

  Mr. Hesslop passed her the milk. “Sally Jane, why don’t you let me help you with your hair? I’ll make you look real pretty.”
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  What could be seen of Sally’s face under her hair looked suspiciously like it was rolling its eyes. “Daaad. I’m not trying to look pretty. I’m doing Xena braids. See, if you’re in a fight you don’t want your hair in your face. You can’t see good.”

  “What fight?” Mr. Hesslop said sharply, his thin nose pointed at his daughter like a fox on the scent.

  Sally smiled innocently. “I was just being hypometical, Dad. Sheesh.”

  “Hypothetical,” said Mr. Hesslop. “Robbie, don’t do that.” He grabbed Robbie’s juice glass, which was now half empty. Robbie had poured the rest onto the floor and was straining against his father’s arm, eager to get down from the table to study (and taste) the effects of orange juice on dirty linoleum at close range.

  Melvin waddled into the kitchen, his fluffy orange fur dusting a path along the un-swept floor, his nose twitching for food. He disappeared under Sally’s chair, dodged her swinging feet, and settled in front of the puddle of orange juice. His tiny pink tongue darted out and lapped at lightning speed, aware that even Mr. Hesslop with his lazy housekeeping skills was unlikely to leave a bonanza like this lying around for long.

  Fortunately for Melvin, Mr. Hesslop was distracted by the sound of a knock at the front door. He set Robbie down and went to greet their visitor. A few seconds later he reappeared with Darlene Trockworthy, their next-door neighbor. A peroxide blond with heavy blue eye-shadow, a too-tight dress and too-high heels, Darlene occasionally babysat Robbie and Sally. Darlene and Robbie were best friends, mainly because Darlene let Robbie eat as much dirt as he wanted, but between Darlene and Sally it had been war from the start.

  Darlene slid into a seat at the kitchen table, aiming a kick at Melvin on the way. “Is that rat loose again?” she asked, her mouth full of the toast she had grabbed off of Robbie’s plate.

  Sally glared at her. “He’s not a rat, you dingbat.”

  “Sally, watch your manners,” Mr. Hesslop said sharply.

  “Bill, the kid’s rhyming again. I thought you said she’d grow out of that.” Darlene pouted at Mr. Hesslop, her bright red lipstick spattered with toast crumbs. The whole neighborhood knew that Darlene had her “sights set” on Bill Hesslop, but so far he had resisted her advances.

  “She’ll grow out of it eventually,” said Mr. Hesslop. “It’s just a phase. Robbie, don’t do that.”

  Robbie had climbed off his chair and was sitting on the floor, rubbing Cheerios in the dust on the floor before eating them.

  Mr. Hesslop picked him up. “I’ll clean up Mr. Dirt Devil here and drop him at his preschool. Can you take Sally?”

  The look Darlene shot Sally clearly said that she’d like to dump Sally in San Francisco bay. Darlene sighed heavily. “Yeah, sure.” She pointed a warning finger at Sally, a long red fingernail raking the air like a claw. “But no rhyming, kid. I mean it. One Iambic what-ya-ma-callit and I’m selling you to the slave traders. They’ll ship you to Nebraska and make you shuck corn ’til you’re eighty.”

  Sally smiled at her sweetly. “Your wish is my command. And your head is filled with sand.” Sally scooped Melvin up, put him on her shoulder, and marched out of the kitchen.

  “Put that rat back in his cage.” Darlene yelled after her. “And if you’re not ready in ten minutes I’m leaving without you.”

  Chapter Two

  Sally and Darlene maintained a careful no-touching distance as they headed down the hill to Sally’s school. When a bike rider on the sidewalk forced them to shrink the gap between them they automatically sprang apart again after the bike had passed, as if repelled by a magnetic field.

  Darlene examined her makeup in a compact mirror as she teetered along, causing oncoming pedestrians to grumble as they jumped out of her way. Sally practiced karate kicks, viciously attacking the most dangerous looking trash cans and mailboxes along their route, her backpack flopping wildly on her shoulders.

  Halfway down the hill a posse of poodles suddenly rushed out the front door of a tall apartment building and made straight for Sally. Sally threw herself down on her knees and scooped up the scruffy little white poodle which was leading the pack. The little poodle yapped excitedly, licking Sally’s face. The other three poodles were tall, black, and dignified, with the fur on their heads shaped into elegant topknots. They sniffed at Sally’s backpack and at Darlene’s shoes. One of them lifted his leg and took aim at Darlene’s stiletto. Darlene shrieked and jumped back.

  “Brutus! No!”

  A chubby little girl about Sally’s age ran up to them and grabbed the peeing poodle. She had black curly hair and large dark eyes. She was wearing a plaid skirt, a starched white blouse, and black patent leather shoes which looked extremely uncomfortable. “Brutus, you bad dog! Sorry, Miss Trockworthy. My Mom’s trying to train him not to pee on everyone, but he forgets sometimes.” She herded the poodles back up the front steps of the apartment building. “C’mon Brutus, Caesar, Nero, and Fluffy. You can’t come to school with us. Poodles are not allowed. Go back upstairs.”

  Sally waved goodbye to Fluffy and stood up, dusting off her knees. “Hi, Katie! Are you ready to rumble?”

  The chubby girl looked at her in confusion. “Huh?”

  Sally skipped around Katie, chanting. “Charlie’s a boy, so he’s not too bright. We’ll shout with joy when we win this fight.”

  Katie picked up the book bag she had dropped during the poodle roundup. A worried frown crinkled her pale forehead. “I don’t know, Sally. Remember what happened the last time you got into a fight at school? Billy Lauder’s tooth got knocked out and Arnold the Iguana ate it and had to go to the Pet Hospital. I don’t want Arnold to go to the Pet Hospital. He doesn’t like it there. Remember the time I put my Mom’s Lilac Mist hand lotion on him because he looked dry? I thought it would make him feel better, but it turned him all pink and he had to go to the Pet Hospital so they could make him green again. Arnold hates being pink. Pink is a girl’s color, and Arnold’s a boy iguana. Mr. Zukas says so. So you shouldn’t fight.”

  Katie looked ready to cry. Her large eyes grew red-rimmed and shiny. Sally patted her on the shoulder and handed her a wadded up Kleenex which she pulled out of her backpack. She resumed skipping in circles.

  “Arnold’s not going to the Pet Hospital this time,” said Sally. “I have a new Secret Revenge Plan, and there aren’t any iguanas in the plan.”

  Katie sniffed and wiped her nose. She followed Sally and Darlene as they continued down the hill. “Oh. Well, I guess it’s okay then. I’m glad Arnold isn’t in your new Secret Revenge Plan, cause iguanas don’t like fighting.”

  They reached the bottom of the hill and turned onto a narrow side street lined with gingko trees. The sidewalk was covered with fan-shaped gingko leaves. Sally swooshed at them with the toes of her sneakers, sending the leaves swirling like tiny doves. Katie carefully stepped on the bare patches of sidewalk, keeping her shiny patent leather shoes free of leaf mush. Up ahead the street was jammed with cars disgorging kids with backpacks. The kids ran into the fenced-in playground of Montgomery Elementary School, a three-story brick building with sturdy granite columns flanking its front door. The building had a basketball court on one side and a cluster of crooked pine trees on the other side.

  “Okay, you two,” said Darlene, finally closing her compact. “Get lost. One of your parents will pick you up after school. Don’t know which parent. Don’t care.” She sauntered off, popping a wad of gum into her mouth. Sally stuck her tongue out at Darlene’s retreating back.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” said Katie, gasping in horror. “My Mom says that kids should always show adults the proper respect.”

  Sally snorted. “Darlene’s not an adult. She’s a doofus.” She skipped around Katie, chanting. “Darlene, Darlene, she’s not too keen. She’s the biggest dunce you’ve ever seen.”

  Katie turned red. She quickly looked around to make sure that Darlene hadn’t heard. Darlene was examining her nails as she walked away, completely oblivious to the
kids dodging around her on the sidewalk. Katie breathed a sigh of relief and followed Sally into the school building.

  * * * *

  “Okay, everyone settle down!” Mr. Zukas’ deep voice boomed over the chaos in his fifth-grade classroom. He gave his sweater vest a firm tug and strode to the front of the class. “Get to your desks, pronto. Tommy, get your foot out of Kyle’s mouth. Patricia, give Tiffany back her shoes. They’re too small for you anyway, you clodhopper.”

  Thirty kids rushed to their seats with a sound like elephants tap dancing. Sally threw herself into her assigned seat in the front row of desks. Katie lowered herself demurely into the seat directly behind Sally. Arnold the Iguana calmly surveyed the classroom from his cage at the back.

  Mr. Zukas opened a fat textbook. As he slowly searched for the page he wanted Sally started to fidget. She squirmed like an eel, sat on her hands, and finally couldn’t contain herself any longer. She raised her arm and began waving it furiously back and forth. Mr. Zukas ignored her and turned another page.

  Never one to be discouraged, Sally climbed onto her chair and waved both arms wildly like a pint-sized airport worker guiding a jumbo jet into a parking space.

  “Sally Jane Hesslop,” sighed Mr. Zukas, not looking up, “get down off of there before you break your neck. Not that I would mind, but the principal gets grumpy when students kick the bucket.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Zukas,” said Sally, climbing down. “I just had a question. Can we have more discusses on evolution? Cause I looked it up on Google and a Google person says we came from tadpoles. I think it would be cool to be a tadpole. I had a tadpole once. I kept it in a Sprite bottle. After I drank the Sprite, of course. But then my brother Robbie drank the tadpole. Are we having fish sticks for lunch today?”

  Mr. Zukas rubbed his forehead, looked longingly at the clock, and sighed again. “I haven’t checked the lunch menu today, Sally. It’s posted on the cafeteria door. You can check at recess. And no, we don’t come from tadpoles. We are primates, which means we are related to the great apes. Our closest cousins are the chimpanzees. All of which I told you yesterday, and which you’d remember if you’d been paying attention. Now, class, open your history books to page thirty-four. The Pioneers. They crossed the Great Plains in covered wagons. Conditions were harsh. They had to hunt for their food.”