Welcome to Dead House (10 page)

I pressed the
POWER
button and popped a round orange candy into my mouth. “Want one? They’re really sour.” I raised the phone to Lexi.

She made a disgusted face and shoved my hand away. “You know sour candy makes me puke. One candy and I’ll puke all over your shoes.”

“Thanks for sharing that,” I said. I popped another one into my mouth. Then I tucked the phone into the pocket of my T-shirt.

It was a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon. We’d been back home for a week. I met Lexi after her tennis lesson at City Courts, and we were walking toward my house.

She wore white tennis shorts and a silky gray vest over a white T-shirt. Her hair was still damp from her tennis game.

A blue-and-red neon sign over a little store caught my attention. It was glowing brightly even in the strong sunshine.
LITTLE SHOP OF HAMSTERS.

“Is that a new pet store?” I asked.

I didn’t wait for her answer. I tore across the street. Two teenagers on bikes swerved to miss me. They screamed some rude words and shook their fists at me.

I love pet stores. I eagerly peered through the glass door, but I couldn’t see anything inside. I pushed the door open and stepped into the shop. Lexi hurried in right behind me.

The store was dark inside. The air felt hot and steamy. It smelled like a barn. Like straw and dirt and farm animals. A slowly spinning ceiling fan made the deep shadows dance in front of us.

“Whoa!” I let out a startled cry as I nearly bumped into a glass wall. I blinked and let my eyes adjust to the dim light.

An enormous display case filled the center of the shop. It had glass walls on all four sides and a glass top. A narrow sliding wire door was placed in one of the glass walls.

The case was taller than me. It had to be at least six feet tall. And it was nearly as wide as the store.

From inside the walls of glass, eyes stared out at me. Dozens of tiny black eyes. The case was actually a cage! It had
hundreds
of hamsters packed inside.

Hamsters poked their noses against the glass, gazing out at Lexi and me. Behind them, hamsters scampered through the wood shavings that covered the cage floor.

What was that strange squeaking sound? Hamster wheels. I counted eight or ten of them, with hamsters running hard, making them spin and squeal.

Hamsters were chomping away in the long row of food dishes on the sides. Others ran through long, twisting plastic tubes. One big guy was trying to climb a side of the glass cage. Two hamsters were wrestling in a food dish.

“Lexi — it’s like a big hamster circus!” I said.

She pressed her hands against the glass and peered in. “You mean like a hamster
city!”
she said. “The cage is bigger than my bedroom!”

“They are totally cute,” I said. “Look how they wrinkle their noses.”

She poked me. “Hey — check out the funny front teeth. That one looks just like you, Sam!”

“Ha-ha,” I said, poking her back. “What a weird store. No dogs or birds or anything. Just hamsters. Hundreds of hamsters.”

“Look. That one found a piece of carrot,” Lexi said, pointing. “And the big brown one is waiting for him to drop it. Ready to pounce. This is a total riot!”

I watched a cute little gray hamster running on a wheel. The squeaking wheels were the only sounds in the shop, except for the hum of the ceiling fan.

“My parents won’t let me get a dog,” I told Lexi. “They say I have to prove I’m responsible first.”

“Like I don’t know that,” Lexi said, staring into the cage. “Sam, you’ve told me that a thousand times!”

“But maybe they’ll let me get a hamster,” I said. “You don’t have to walk a hamster or anything. It doesn’t take much work.”

Lexi started to answer. But her mouth dropped open and no sound came out. Her eyes bulged.

I turned and followed her gaze. And then I gasped as I squinted into the dim light and saw what she was staring at.

An
enormous
hamster — gigantic! — taller than Lexi and me — crept out from behind the cage. It walked on
two legs,
in a strange, shuffling motion.

Its glassy eyes — as big as tennis balls! — gazed straight ahead. Its huge front paws swung low at its bulging sides. Its fur ruffled by the wind from the ceiling fan.

It turned. It SAW us!

And its big paws thudded softly on the floor as it headed right for us!

“No!” A sharp cry escaped my throat.

The creature’s huge eyes didn’t blink. They stared hard at Lexi and me, glowing darkly.

The giant hamster moved in and out of the shadows cast down from the spinning ceiling fan. Lexi and I backed up against the glass cage. And watched it slowly advance, step by step.

And then it reached up with its big white front paws and lifted off its head.

Lexi and I burst out laughing.

A man in a hamster costume! He held the head in front of him. His face was red, and his forehead was dripping with sweat.

“Hot in this thing,” he said.

His curly black-and-gray hair was drenched. He had dark eyes, a big round nose, and a bushy black mustache that looked like a paintbrush.

He set the hamster head down on the front counter. “Like my new store?” he asked. He pulled his arms free and climbed out of the costume.

“I’m Mr. Fitz.” He was short and thin, but he had a deep voice. He put a white apron on and struggled to tie the straps. “Your names?”

We told him.

“Do you wear that costume all day long?” Lexi asked.

He picked up a towel and mopped his face and hair. “No,” he said. “Just sometimes. It’s an attention getter.”

“Sure is,” I said. “You really got
our
attention!” I decided not to tell him he nearly scared us to death!

“I wear it outside the shop to attract customers,” Fitz said. “When you have a new store, you have to work hard to get people to notice you.”

He shoved the costume under the counter.

“I like your store,” I said. “It’s totally cool.”

“Sam is really into animals,” Lexi said.

Fitz nodded. “Is that so?” He opened the wire door to the glass cage. A few hamsters turned at the sound. The rest went on with what they were doing.

Fitz reached into the wood shavings and pulled up a hamster in each hand. Then he turned and handed one to Lexi and one to me.

My hamster was white with brown spots down his back. He squirmed in my hand. I almost dropped him. His pink nose twitched, and he gazed up at me with bright black eyes.

Lexi rubbed a finger down the back of her hamster. He was all white, except for a scattering of little brown spots on his face. They kind of looked like freckles.

“I love their fur,” she said. “So soft.” The hamster tried to nibble her finger. She turned it around in her hand.

“Totally awesome,” I told Fitz. He motioned to the little guy, who was trying to climb up my arm. “Do you want him, Sam? They’re not very expensive.”

“I wish,” I said with a sigh. “I’d love a hamster. But my parents won’t let me have a pet.”

“He has to prove he’s responsible first,” Lexi chimed in.

Fitz eyed me. “You’re not very responsible?”

“Yes, I am,” I said. “It’s just … they want me to prove I’d take good care of a pet.”

Fitz nodded. “Well, you can come back here anytime and play with them.”

The hamster tickled my hand with his nose. I handed him back to Fitz. “Thanks.”

Lexi petted her hamster a little more, then she carried him to the cage and set him down. We started to the front door.

But Fitz stopped us. “Hey — want to help me give them water? I’ve got a lot of water bottles to fill.”

He pulled two glass bottles from behind the counter.

“Sure,” I said. I took one of them from him. “What’s in this bottle? Just plain water?”

“It’s called Vito-Vigor,” Fitz answered. “It’s vitamin water. You know. Like you buy at the supermarket.”

He handed Lexi the other bottle of Vito-Vigor. Then he led us to the back of the cage. “Pour the water into these tubes,” he said. “It runs into their water bottles.”

I tilted the bottle and poured water into the tube that stuck out of the back of the cage. I could see it flow into the bottle on the other side of the glass.

“You have to go inside the cage to feed them and change the floor shavings,” Fitz said.

“Look at them all staring up at us. They must think we’re
giants
or something,” Lexi said.

“Maybe they think we’re
monsters,”
I said. “Maybe they’ll have nightmares about us.”

Lexi laughed. “Sam, I
already
have nightmares about you!”

We filled all the water bottles, then handed Fitz the empty Vito-Vigor bottles.

“Well, thanks for your help, guys” he said. “Come back anytime.”

The bell on top of the front door jingled as we walked out. We turned and started toward my house.

Lexi had a strange smile on her face. She had her arms wrapped tightly around the front of her vest.

We walked a few blocks, then she stopped. Her eyes flashed and her grin grew wider.

“Here, Sam,” she said, “here’s a present for you.” She held out her hand.

And I let out a scream. “Lexi — are you CRAZY?”

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BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
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HOW I GOT MY SHRUNKEN HEAD
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First printing, February 2010

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