Bella Sitting: A Cautionary Tale

Elizabeth's Pre-K class acquired a class pet in January. Bella the dwarf hamster was adored by the class but unfortunately within weeks of her arrival, she escaped from her cage in class. For 4 days they searched for the little gal and Elizabeth gave me the grim report each day when she arrived home as it seemed the hamster had vanished. On Day 5, a miracle was reported as one of the cleaning ladies found Bella in the back of a cabinet in the classroom and returned her to her cage. Now, I know what you're thinking -- did they actually find Bella or did Ms. Kaye just buy a substitute? She was, in fact, the real Bella and how lucky we were that it was our turn to host the little escape artist just days after her return.

As you can imagine, Bella's first weekend at the Dean home was a bit like a prison stay. She was limited to the playroom or Megan and Elizabeth's room and my simple rule was that the bedroom door had to be closed before the cage door was opened. My fear was that we would have a loose rodent in our home and with our open balcony she could quickly vanish forever.

Bella had a fine weekend in our home and seeing how comfortable Elizabeth was holding her and caring for her gave me a twinge of regret that we have no pets of our own here. Elizabeth would especially love having a pet and she clearly relished being the authority on all things Bella-related. Apparently hamster care has advanced a bit since my days of owning one because I didn't know you could give them a bath with this cool bath sand someone invented.

We sent Bella back on the bus that Monday morning with kind words about her behavior and I informed Ms. Kaye that we would be happy to have her again another weekend.

Bella and Elizabeth During Her First Visit

Bella arrived on Elizabeth's bus last Friday afternoon for her second weekend stay. Since she did so well the first time around and the girls all loved her, I was more relaxed during her visit. I kept the door rule but didn't worry as much about her fleeing our home. Sadly in the end the poor hamster would have been better off escaping!

Elizabeth, Emily and I came home together last Sunday afternoon from Megan's bake sale. Megan had a play date and Brian had gone into work (the first of his wacky work shifts for the week). I asked the little girls to give me about 20 minutes to clean up the kitchen (Joyce is off Sundays) since it was a sugar disaster from preparing for the sale. About 5 minutes into my cleaning, Elizabeth announced that Bella was awake and asked to get her out to play. I reminded her about keeping the door closed and thought no more about it. Shortly after that, Elizabeth came into the kitchen and said, "Mommy, Bella got hurt. She's bleeding." I picked up Bella and saw some blood at the edges of her mouth and a bit on her fur next to her feet. Elizabeth said she and Emily were just holding her and had no idea why she would have bled.

I placed Bella back in her cage and she never moved from the spot where I placed her. We had joined the distinguished club of families who killed the class pet. Lovely.

I felt awful about what had happened and so did Elizabeth. The sad part was that she didn't understand what had hurt Bella and I felt responsible for the death of the class pet. Elizabeth cried in her room for a few minutes and then cheered up and played with her dolls. Emily just thought Bella was sleeping and I didn't let her think otherwise at first. I left her in the cage all night and didn't want to do anything with her until everyone left for school the following morning. But Elizabeth knew she was dead and I knew she would tell her classmates as soon as she arrived Monday morning. I couldn't just replace her with a Bella impostor.

I sent the dreaded email to Ms. Kaye Sunday evening and received the nicest note from her shortly after, telling me how likely it was for something like that to happen to Bella in a class with youngsters and not to lose sleep over it. And she called on Monday morning to tell me that when the children arrived at 8am,  Elizabeth announced, "Bella died." They went through the grieving process and by 8:05am, they wanted a new hamster. :)

In the meantime, Brian kindly took care of Bella's remains for me since he had missed the hamster drama while working Sunday night. When the girls all arrived home from school that day, I had cleaned the cage and Elizabeth wanted to know what I had done with Bella. I told her I had given her to our property's gardener because he knew what to do with animals who had died. She seemed pleased with that answer and then Megan added, "yeah, she's probably in the garbage can." Thanks for your support, big sister.

Everyone else seems to find humor in the tale but that has escaped me so far. And of course other mothers breathe the sigh of relief that it didn't happen on their watch. After discussing it with friends, I suspect one of the girls squeezed her too hard without realizing what they were doing and that was it for the cute little hamster. I still feel bad.

The new hamster, Luke Skywalker, made his debut in the class just a few days later so the kids have a new pet to love. Needless to say, we won't sign up for any weekends with Luke. I may be scarred for life!