Sweetie, Part I

What follows is a modern-day Aesop's fable, the story of what happens to one who attempts to deceive. The characters are me, the deceiver, my son, the almost deceived, and two identical gerbils, the unwilling and witless foils around which the story revolves.

We lost a member of our little family last week. One of my son's two gerbils died. At 2, he'd lived a long gerbil life and died fat - enormously fat - and hopefully happy.

Robby was getting ready for bed last night when he peered into the aquarium that houses the two gerbils.

"What's Checkers doing to Romante?" he asked me, a tremble of fear in his voice.

Checkers, the skinny brown-and-white gerbil, was bent low over Romante, the fat black one. He lay, unmoving, on his back. Checkers was hovering over his mouth, nibbling. Cannablizing her dead roommate, I quickly realized.

"Oh honey, I think Romante's dead," I said.

Robby reached into the aquarium and pulled out Romante's stiff body. "He's cold. Really cold," he said, his face twisting in the first spasm of grief.

I peered anxiously at Romante's face. His chin was a bit red from Checkers' teeth, but she hadn't yet pierced the skin and exposed any flesh. That much was a relief, but my mind raced, searching for the words to explain Checkers' actions.

Personally, I didn't blame Checkers for wanted to extract her pound of flesh. From all that I could see, Romante repeatedly had pushed her head out of the feeding trough over the years, reducing her to a very slight rodent while he ballooned so much it appeared he'd swallowed a golf ball whole. This for her was poetic justice, but not a facet of the circle of life with which I thought my son could yet deal.

I suggested we put Romante's body in a box and bury him the next day. Robby nodded, handing me the body and then reaching into the aquarium for Checkers. He held her close.

"Checkers was trying to breath life back into him," he said.

"Yes," I said. "She was."

The urge to laugh was at war with another to cry. I'd been spared explaining the ugly side of nature by a child's blindingly pure conviction that respect for life extended even to the littlest of creatures.

So it was with his first gerbil. He believes she died of strange, unnatural causes. I hadn't the heart to tell him she was killed by George, the cat he loves so much.

You could say we've had a bad run of luck with gerbils, although these last two have lived to ripe old ages. Checkers, I fear, may now die of loneliness, and Robby says he wants no more after they're both gone.

Perhaps that's because none of them can replace his first gerbil, Sweetie.

Sweetie was a gift for his 8th birthday. She was solid brown, physically unremarkable. I wrapped the elaborate, plastic, multi-colored cage for his party, and we both went to PetsMart to choose its occupant.

Initially, he wanted a hamster. But then, an oh-so-cuddly-looking Teddy bear hamster chomped down on his thumb during a visit to the pet store. The bite was so hard both the PetsMart clerk and I could hear teeth rending flesh. Robby's face was a heartbreaking mix of disbelief, pain and sorrow. At that very moment, a cockatiel peering in from his condo-sized cage gave a piercing shriek. Robby burst into tears.

The Teddy bear hamster, and all his kin, were out. The gerbils, extremely mouselike but amazingly social little rodents, were in.

Robby chose Sweetie, whom even I will admit had a softer, more gentle personality than any gerbil I've since met.

For Robby, it was love at first cuddle. That weekend, he was never without her. He held her while he watched TV, encouraging her to watch with him, sometimes just stroking her head and looking at her face. He taught her to climb stairs and race through a chain of toilet paper rolls. He let her crawl underneath his shirt, laughing hysterically as her tiny claws tickled his belly. Later, he put her down his pants and laughed even harder - but this memory is disturbing so we'll quickly move past it. We took pictures of them together, Robby holding her just under his chin in two firm hands. His grin was ear to ear.

When he left Sunday night to go back to his dad's, he reluctantly placed her in her cage. "Take care of her, Mom," he said.

"Don't worry," I said, disguisng my amusement at his concern. "I will."

Monday evening, I came home to find Sweetie dead in the middle of the living room floor. From all I could reconstruct, George had knocked over the surprisingly flimsy plastic cage. Sweetie's body was whole. There was no blood, no open wounds, no evidence of trauma. George, a domestic cat who had no need to hunt for food, had played with her until she died, I surmised. Likely a slow, painful death.

I flushed Sweetie down the toilet as panic set in. Less than 24 hours after my son had left, his gerbil was dead. How on earth could I tell him? And even worse, how could I tell him that George - in a fit of domestic kitty boredom - had done it?

The phone interrupted my thoughts.

"Mom?"

I froze. My son rarely called me during the week.

"I just called to see how Sweetie's doing," he said.

"Oh, she's just fine, honey," I said.

From the bathroom, I heard the toilet tank refilling. Sweetie was already swirling through the sewer lines, starting a miles-long journey downtown to the wastewater treatment plant.

I hung up filled with utter contempt for myself. Not only had my son's pet died on my watch, I had bald-faced lied to him about it.

I was backed into a corner. There was only one thing to do - I had to find a Sweetie lookalike.

Now I hate to do this to you all, but like the Joel story, this will be told in two parts. It's late. I'm tired. There's a cold, rodent body in my storage unit awaiting a proper burial and likely rotting in this unseasonably warm spring weather. All in all, it's been a difficult couple of days in our small household.

Besides which, this is a rather lengthy story, and out of respect for Sweetie, it needs to be properly told.