Hamster Magic Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Lynne Jonell

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Brandon Dorman

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jonell, Lynne.

  Hamster magic / by Lynne Jonell ; illustrated by Brandon Dorman. — 1st ed.

  p. cm. — (A Stepping Stone book)

  Summary: When the Willows move into a new house, Celia, the youngest of four children, traps an enchanted hamster, who reluctantly agrees to grant the children one wish in exchange for his freedom.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89672-9

  [1. Hamsters—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Moving, Household—Fiction.]

  I. Dorman, Brandon, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.J675Ha 2010 [E]—dc22 2009049076

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  To Devin, who reminded me that kids still believe in magic—L.J.

  Many thanks to Julia Hoffner, who lent me her hamster!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Chapter 1 Hammy the Third

  Chapter 2 What a Hamster Wants

  Chapter 3 What a Hamster Needs

  Chapter 4 The Great Hamster Speaks

  Chapter 5 Magic Beneath

  Chapter 6 Out of Time

  Chapter 7 Lucky Willows

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Hammy the Third

  It all started when the hamster escaped. Everyone thought it was Celia’s fault.

  “It was not my fault,” she said. She looked at her big brothers and sister. She opened her blue eyes wide.

  “Don’t bother to make puppy eyes,” said Derek, who was eight and impatient to be nine. “They don’t work on us.”

  “Puppy eyes only work on grown-ups.” Tate was almost ten, and pretty, but she didn’t like other people to talk about it. She flipped her dark brown ponytail over her shoulder and peered into the empty hamster cage. “How come you left the cage open?”

  “I didn’t!” said Celia, stamping her foot. “I turned the latch like always, right after I fed him!”

  Abner, who was the oldest and felt the burden of this, wiped Celia’s eyes. Then he gave her shoulder a gentle shake. “Dry up, will you?”

  “And help us look for Hammy,” said Derek. “We don’t know all the hiding places in this house yet.”

  But the hamster was nowhere to be found.

  “That was our third hamster, too,” said Tate, curling up against the dryer like a cat. The four of them were in the laundry room, the last place they had tried. “The parents will never let us get another one.”

  “They’ll blame me,” Abner said gloomily. He drew his knees up to his chin. “They’ll say I’m responsible. Or if they don’t say it, they’ll think it.”

  This was true, he felt, and not only because he was the oldest. He had been named after an elderly relative who had been some kind of hero a very long time ago. A painting of this relative, with a sword, hung in the museum in the city. Ever since Abner had been taken to see it, he had felt that he carried a heavy load.

  “You’re not responsible. Celia is.” Derek kicked at a laundry basket, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He scrubbed at his straight, bristly hair and wished he could kick something more satisfying. A football, for instance. But football was best with a bunch of kids—and his friends were far away.

  The move had been the hardest on Derek. Just one week ago, the Willow family had left their comfortable old neighborhood, with its houses jammed right up next to each other. Derek had played a last game of street hockey, trying to ignore the men who were loading a moving van in his driveway. And then Mr. Willow honked the horn of the family car, and Derek climbed in and watched through the rear window until they turned a corner and his friends were gone.

  “It’s only for a year,” his parents had said. “And you’ll love the house. It’s right in the country with lots of room to run around. Woods! A river!” But what Derek wanted most was a block full of kids who might want to toss a football, or shoot baskets, or play a little baseball down at the park.

  After a long drive, the moving van had rumbled across a stone bridge. The Willows’ car followed it over a narrow river and up a long, winding driveway to the top of a hill. And there was the house, three stories high, with a sprawling front porch and a toolshed and a big old barn, where they parked the car.

  A thin belt of woods circled the house. When Derek ran to the edge of the trees and peered down, the few houses he saw were far away. True, the river was nearby. It curved around the base of the hill, and in one place it even widened into a swamp, which looked like fun. But there were no close neighbors at all.

  And now there was no hamster.

  “I’m telling you, I shut the latch!” Celia blinked three times, hard. She didn’t want everyone to think she was turning on the tears.

  “We don’t really need a hamster,” said Tate, without conviction. She picked at the ragged edge of her sweatshirt. “Lots of kids go through life without one.”

  “We need something alive,” said Abner. “We can’t get a good pet—like a dog—until we show we can take care of a little stupid one.”

  “Hamsters aren’t stupid,” said Celia. She blinked twice more. “And Hammy the Third was the smartest of all.”

  “So why did you go and lose him, then?” said Derek.

  Celia was crying at last, but under the stairs, where no one could see her. It was true that she could turn on the tears as needed. But when she was crying for real, she liked to be private.

  She really did miss Hammy. Unlike Hammy the First, he did not hide and snuffle under a cloth all day long. And he was not stupid enough to walk off a table when she let him out for a little exercise, like the hapless Hammy the Second. No, Hammy the Third was different.

  Maybe it was because they hadn’t gotten him from a pet store. They had found him on moving day. He was cowering in the cellar behind a bag of Woofies dog biscuits the previous owner had left behind. A corner had been chewed open and a biscuit pulled out, and Celia thought this was clever of Hammy.

  A hamster that had lived on its own just had to be smarter, in Celia’s opinion. Hammy the Third was an alert little rodent who always listened carefully when she talked. He had never talked back, but Celia was sure that was only because he was shy.

  She had been trying to teach him how to open the door of his cage. She had thought he would be grateful. And if a hamster was grateful, maybe he would say “thank you.” And then he would not be shy anymore, and she would have someone to talk to who was littler than she was.

  Celia wanted that very much. She was tired of being the baby of the family. But now that Hammy had opened the door of his cage by himself and escaped, she was still the baby—only hamsterless.

  Celia stopped crying, hiccupped, and sniffled twice. Her last snif
fle seemed more like a squeak, for some reason. She paused, thinking about this, and the squeak came again.

  It was close. It sounded like Hammy.

  Celia felt around in the dark beneath the stairs, where the suitcases were stacked in a row. The squeaking was louder now, and she heard a small bumping noise. She put her ear next to the small suitcase her mother used for short trips and listened. It sounded very much like a tiny voice squeaking “Lemmee out! Lemmee out! Lemmee out!”

  Celia sat back on her heels. Then she went to find a flashlight.

  It took a long time, and she ran into her mother, who made her pick up some toys she had left out. Then her father told her to fetch him some masking tape. Next, Derek caught her in the hallway and pretended to punch her, and she had to pretend to punch him back or he would say she was soft. But at last she was under the stairs once more, shining the light on the small suitcase.

  The bumping had stopped, but from within the case came a faint sound of panting. Celia snapped open the latch and lifted the lid. Inside was a small, golden, slightly sweaty ball of fur.

  “What took you so long?” said the hamster. “It’s not my fault the lid fell shut!”

  Holding the pocket of her pants firmly closed, Celia climbed the stairs to the third floor. This was where the children’s bedrooms were, one on either end of a long open space with five windows. Above, wooden rafters held up a high, slanting roof. This room was the best thing about the house, they had all agreed, and it was theirs to set up as they liked. They called it the Loft.

  They hadn’t finished with it yet, though. Abner was putting together shelves out of bricks and boards, Tate was sorting books to put on the shelves, and Derek was digging in a box of sports gear when Celia came through the door.

  “I found the hamster,” she said. “And he talks.” She pulled Hammy gently from her pocket and held him out with pride.

  Tate and Abner glanced at each other. Derek, less careful of her feelings, dropped a hockey stick and snorted.

  “He does!” Celia prodded the hamster with her finger. “Say something, Hammy.”

  The hamster looked annoyed. He lifted his back, twitched his nose, and was silent.

  Derek laughed out loud.

  Celia lifted the hamster up and stared him right in the eye. “Talk,” she said sternly. “You know you can do it.”

  They were all laughing now, even Abner. Celia ignored them—not an easy task—and whispered in the hamster’s tiny ear. “There’s no use pretending you can’t. You already talked, and I heard you. It’s not a secret anymore.”

  “Give it up, Seal,” said Tate, calling Celia by her baby name. “And, Derek, it’s not that funny. Stop rolling on the floor. You’re full of dust.”

  Abner hauled Derek up and brushed him off. “You almost had me, Celia. Put him back in the cage, and this time, lock it.”

  The hamster gave Celia a pleading look.

  Celia recognized the hamster version of puppy eyes. “I don’t feel one bit sorry for you. Hamsters that won’t talk belong in a cage.”

  The hamster snuffled pitifully.

  “Besides, I saved your life,” Celia pointed out as she tried to stuff the hamster through the cage door. “You probably owe me three wishes or something.”

  The hamster squirmed in her hand, bracing himself against the wire frame. “Only one!” he squeaked. “One wish only! And it has to be approved by headquarters!”

  CHAPTER 2

  What a Hamster Wants

  There was a couch in the Loft. It was big and shabby, and the previous owner had not wanted to move it. But the children didn’t mind its drab brown cover with the faded red dots. It was comfortable, and long enough to hold all of them. And it was on this couch they sat as they stared at the small rodent on the floor.

  Derek found it easy to believe in a talking hamster. It took a little longer for Tate. And Abner was still doubtful, some time after it had become clear to the others. But in the end they all understood that they were four very lucky children, for hadn’t Hammy mentioned a wish?

  “Only it’s got to be approved by the Great Hamster,” said Hammy, pacing nervous circles on the scarred wooden floor. “And she’s not going to like it.”

  Derek tossed a sofa cushion into the air and caught it neatly. “Who’s the Great Hamster?”

  “And how do you know she won’t like it?” Tate pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and patted it into a soft nest for the hamster. “You don’t even know our wish yet.”

  “We don’t even know it,” added Abner.

  “It’s not the wish,” said Hammy. He stopped his pacing and rubbed his paws over his cheeks, ruffling his golden fur. The white patch over his eyes gave him a worried look. “She won’t like it that I was caught.”

  “That wasn’t your fault,” said Celia at once. She got off the couch and knelt beside him.

  “Yes, it was,” said Hammy miserably. “I wasn’t supposed to go near the house. But I couldn’t resist those dog biscuits! So crunchy!”

  “Hey, I have an idea!” Derek dropped the sofa cushion and leaned forward. “What if you just don’t tell the Great Hamster? Then you could give us our wish right now.”

  “Don’t tell?” Hammy sat back on his haunches and gave this idea some thought.

  “You didn’t tell her you were going to our cellar to eat dog biscuits,” Celia pointed out.

  “Yes, and look what happened!” Hammy cried. “I got caught!”

  “By four very nice children,” soothed Tate. “And we would never hurt you.”

  “But are you going to let me go?” The hamster blinked his brown eyes and sniffled twice.

  The children glanced at the empty hamster cage. It sat on a packing crate near the window. The late-afternoon sun shone between the metal bars of the cage and laid a crisscross pattern along the floor.

  “Um—” said Celia.

  Derek wouldn’t meet Hammy’s eyes. He took a tennis ball out of his pocket and began to pick at the lint.

  “Of course we want to let you go,” said Tate carefully. She twined the end of her ponytail around her finger.

  “We can’t, though.” Abner bent over the golden hamster with a worried look. “We’ll get in trouble.”

  Hammy squeaked in alarm, looking past him.

  “No, really, we will,” said Abner.

  “Will what?”

  All eyes turned to the doorway of the playroom, where Mother stood.

  “Uh …,” said Abner.

  “Will take care of our hamster,” said Tate, who could think on her feet. She scooped up Hammy from the blanket, scraped his clinging paws from her fingers, tucked him gently into the open cage, and shut the door.

  “I hope so,” said Mrs. Willow, smiling. “I’m afraid you have been rather hard on hamsters so far.”

  In the cage, Hammy reared back, looking suddenly distressed.

  Abner stood up. “We’ll take good care of this one, though.”

  “We promise,” said Tate.

  Derek and Celia nodded eagerly.

  “Good,” said Mother. “But you shouldn’t let him out anymore. Hamsters are fast, you know. They can run and hide and trap themselves in very dangerous places.”

  “We didn’t take him out,” Celia said. “He undid the latch all by himself.”

  Mother fished in her pocket and came up with a safety pin. “He won’t be able to undo this,” she said as she fastened the door to the wire cage. “Now take my advice and keep your hamster safe in the cage.”

  The children looked at one another.

  “What about when we clean the cage?” asked Tate. “Can’t we take Hammy out then?”

  “Yes, of course, but be very careful not to let him go. If you want a bigger pet one day, you’ll have to show you can take care of a smaller one.”

  Abner sighed.

  Mother gave his shoulder a pat. “Don’t forget to get washed up, all of you. Supper is in twenty minutes.”

  The door shut be
hind her. Hammy pressed his furry face against the wire mesh of the cage. He looked at them meltingly from his big brown eyes.

  “I can’t take this,” said Abner. He turned his back on the hamster and stalked out to the bathroom across the hall. The others heard the splash of water as he washed his hands.

  Derek grabbed his hockey stick and began pushing the tennis ball back and forth along the floor, not looking at Hammy. “How can we keep him locked up? He talks and everything.”

  Chewing on the end of her ponytail, Tate curled up on the couch again. “I know. It’s like putting one of us in jail.”

  Celia crouched next to the cage and tried not to cry. She wasn’t going to do it twice in one day, no matter what. But when Abner came back, she clutched at his arm. “Please, Abbie. We have to let him go.”

  “Oh, I suppose,” said Abner bitterly. “I might as well say goodbye to ever getting a dog, though.”

  Tate shrugged. “Look on the bright side, Abs. At least we get a wish first.”

  “And if you set me free,” said Hammy, “I will let you have your wish right now. I don’t think we need to bother the Great Hamster … and you probably don’t want to go all the way to the river and get your feet all sandy.…”

  “So what are we going to wish?” Derek flipped the blade of his hockey stick, and the tennis ball hit the wall with a thwack. “I wish—”

  “Don’t say it!” ordered Abner. “Don’t say the words ‘I wish’ until we’ve all agreed. Right, Hammy?”

  “That would be best,” said the hamster. “Just to avoid any accidents.”

  Derek shrugged. “Okay, then, let’s just tell our ideas. I say a swimming pool.”

  “With a twisty slide!” said Celia, clapping her hands.

  “How about horses?” Tate bounced on the couch, making the springs creak. “One for each of us!”

  “I could wish for a dog,” said Abner. “If Mom and Dad would let us keep it.”

  “I’d rather have a motorbike,” said Derek. He picked up the tennis ball and tossed it from hand to hand. “Or all my friends here for a visit—Hey!” He sat up straight. “Why don’t we say we want to go home? Back to our old neighborhood!”