A girl, Serena Palmer, lives in Wakefield, Yorkshire, with her family and a young pet, a hamster named Fidget. He is famous all over the neighborhood, because he can suddenly fall down your neck if you come to visit the Palmers. Although an hour ago I was sitting in a locked cage — Fidget seems to be protesting against bondage and constantly strives not just to escape, but to hang around, scaring eyewitnesses every now and then. The hamster is not stupid and objectively fearless.
Serena’s mom says that it remains a mystery to them how this little mischievous monster gets out of the cage. What if the rumors are true and the spirit of the legendary illusionist Houdini really got into him? No, rather, there are genes of werewolves or ninjas in the blood of an ordinary hamster — Fidget loves not just to escape, but to climb where you least expect him to suddenly pop out and scare.
Excuse me, but what’s so scary about a hamster smaller than a palm, even at an unexpected meeting? So the brat tries to climb up the ventilation pipe under the ceiling and land from there for nothing! The family even had to cover the floor with a thick and soft carpet, in order to avoid injuries when landing at the young adventurer. It doesn’t cost a Fidget anything to climb half a meter under the floor, get through the wall into another room or get out of a hole that no one suspected existed.
The hamster manages to escape from the box, in which there are no visible cracks, and is found where there are no holes to crawl through. In fact, the girl was looking for a pet more than playing with it — bad, Fidget, bad! How do you even stay alive if you’re constantly risking your life?
The only reliable clue is the kitchen. The hamster is constantly being pulled there and there are not uncommon situations when mom cooks dinner, hears the clatter of paws on metal, and then a Fig moves out from under the ceiling through the ventilation box on the belly – right on the stove. And if Serena can’t find her pet again, she says «Mom, he ran away again» and they wait for him to return in the kitchen. This went on for quite a long time, until the reason for the hamster’s aggressive love of freedom suddenly became clear.
In the pet store, their complaints about the hamster suggested that he simply did not have enough adrenaline and a place to play. The family changed Fidget’s cage to a spacious one filled with swings, ladders and toys and… a miracle happened, he didn’t run away anywhere. Fidget has finally turned into what the girl wanted to see him: an affectionate, playful hamster who is not averse to sleeping in her pocket or palm. And all the irrepressible energy Fidget now comfortably spends in a new, chic cage. And why didn’t they think of it before?
