Hamster Down the Drain

Maybe we were just really tired, I don't know. We just didn't shut her box, and off we went to bed. Later in the night I got up for a drink and noticed the lid off her box. I peered inside - sure enough, no Happy!

Ok, I thought, I've done this before! I pulled the wood panel off the wall, sure she would be tucked away inside there like before - but no sign of her, it didn't even look like she had been there. I tried the other wall, nothing except a plastic bag in there - vaguely wondered why there was a plastic bag, but not worth spending time over.

Then I noticed the kitchen door was open. Had I just opened that when I went to get a drink? Could she be in there? I took a quick glance around the kitchen, noticing the open pipe-hole (drain) in the floor next to the sink ... surely not? I put a plastic washing-up bowl over it to make sure she didn't go down it while I continued to look.

Back in the lounge room, searching in vain, suddenly I heard the wash-bowl on top of the drain hole bouncing around. I ran into the kitchen and picked up the bowl just in time to see her tiny pink stub of a tail disappear back down into the murky depths.

I had read that with Russian hamsters, who are great escape artists, what you do is lay a trail of peanut butter - which they love and can smell from great distance - and book-steps up to their box, which they hopefully then fall into and cannot climb back out. I found a stick of wood which I lay from the drain up to the top of her box, coated it with peanut butter, and sat down on a chair in the kitchen to watch and wait.

I could hear her all over the place in the drain pipes. What if she follows it all the way down to the ground floor and into that deep watery hole outside? What if she's not back by morning and I want to have a shower? Could she show up in the bathroom drain? I tried to follow the sounds, but couldn't work out where she was.

If only I could make her smell the peanut butter from down there ... I got my hair drier and blew hot peanut-butter-flavoured air down the drain. No reaction.

After two hours of useless silly ideas I decided "that's it, she's gone", and went back to bed to wander through endless weird hamster-hunting dreams. I woke up at first light thinking "that's it, she came back!" only to remember that was a dream too. I wandered into the kitchen - nope, no sign of her back in the box. Maybe she doesn't even like peanut butter, after all she's Syrian not Russian.

Would I dare to have a shower? Which drain would she be in by now? I sat down to have a cup of tea and mourn the loss of my little friend.

Then I heard a rustling in the plastic bag behind the wooden wall panel. There she was, silly thing, trying to make a nest in a crackly plastic bag instead of her own warm box. She used to be a golden colour, with a white saddleback stripe. Now she was drain-sludge grey! I wonder how long it will take her to lick her colour back?

She stood tall on her tiny back legs to sniff at my hand as I reached out for her, unafraid as ever. Glad to see me? I don't know. Not fussed apparently. I was certainly glad to see her.