I, Houdini

by Lynne Reid Banks

  It was much like my tubes in the cage, but a bit wider, so that it was much harder for me to brake with my back and feet against the sides. I felt myself literally falling and had to make a sort of half-somersault inside the pipe to slow myself down. This jarred me, which hurt quite a bit, but at least it broke my fall, and after that I was able to control my descent better. After a few seconds, I saw light rushing to meet me, and next moment I was out.

  Chapter 12

  Free! Free! Free!

  I have already mentioned that I am not conceited, but if ever there was a moment for justifiable pride, it was surely now. By my own unaided efforts, by my wit, my skill, my courage, I had freed myself. Who among hamsters could have avoided a feeling of self-satisfaction? Indeed, if I could have danced, I would have, right there on the smelly grating at the bottom of the drainpipe.

  As it was, I lost no time in hopping out and running down the paved passage alongside the house and into the back garden.

  It was midday. Feeling a sudden warmth on my back as I emerged from the shadows of the house, I quickly looked up—then had to close my eyes. I knew it was the sun shining down upon me, but I had not known it would feel so wonderful, like a blessing laid on my fur, nor that I would be quite unable to look this new marvel in the face. Instantly I abandoned my old, cold, pallid God of the night and adopted this evidently much more powerful new one.

  I should add that I am not, even now, truly converted to religion. It’s nice to have some Big Thing in one’s life to send the occasional Reverent Thought or Signal to in time of trouble, but frankly I don’t feel the need very often. I’m too self-reliant. But I did think it worthwhile on this occasion to send a Hope, that cats do not hunt by day.

  I don’t mean, of course, that having sent a Hope to my new God, I relaxed my vigilance—that would never do. I kept a watchful eye all about me as I advanced down the garden; but apart from birdsong above and the minute whispering of little crawling things in the earth below, all was perfectly quiet and peaceful.

  I moved slowly, exploring as I went. The scents and even tastes had subtly changed since I had been Outdoors at Ben’s. There were leaves scattered on the ground now, covering the grass—leaves too dry to be good to eat. But there were many more seeds and berries—I found a whole bush of the sort that had tempted me onto the mantelpiece so long ago, and ate my fill of them again.

  There was something in the air, too, that had not been there before—a mysterious tang, a little like the beginnings of fear, yet somehow not unpleasant but more like the first surge of some great pleasure. I felt, when I had eaten and run about, a new sensation, of mellowness and laziness and warmth. Was it just that I was not used to being up and about by day? Was it simple sleepiness? Perhaps, I thought, as I curled up in a pleasant little nest burrowed in a pile of dry leaves, perhaps it was just that pride I spoke of before. But it surely went deeper than that.

  I drifted into one of the most pleasant dozes of my life. I was too excited, too aware of possible dangers, to sleep soundly, but I did drift off, and I had some strange experiences in my half-sleep, which must be like what humans call visions. I seemed to be carried up into the very mouth of the Sun God himself. There I was, far from my own world, a part of another.

  And the Sun God sent me a signal: Make your nest in a safe place and lay by a store. You must die a little death. But you will not die forever. Only while I am weak and chilly. When I recover my strength, you will get your life back, so fear nothing.

  And I signaled back: I am not afraid.

  With that the Sun God swallowed me up and I became part of him. And it was beautiful.

  Beautiful—but hot.

  I woke with a start. I was half suffocated with a thick, choking cloud that swirled round me. My ears were full of an awful crackling noise. And worst of all, I found myself hemmed in by heat—terrible, glowing heat that singed my fur.

  I jumped about in frenzied jerks, facing all directions in a split second. All around me was something new, something I instinctively recognized as the worst thing in the world. Fire.

  For a few terrible seconds, fear paralyzed me. I watched the red horror creeping around me, forming red bars of the most awful cage of my life. The most awful, and the last—unless I could pass through it and save myself.

  An ordinary hamster would have crouched there, numb and helpless with fear, until he perished. I was different.

  I forced myself to look all around me once more. There was one place and one only where the flames had not yet taken a strong hold on the leaves. One long leaf, its dry edges just fringed with fire and curling upward like a live thing in the smoke, lay before me—a low place in the wall of fire. I couldn’t see what lay beyond it, but I had to take the chance that, in jumping over it, I would land in the heart of the inferno.

  I am not a gerbil—a high jump from a standstill is not part of my natural armory. Still, I had to try. Once more I gathered my hindquarters under me. No, it was impossible! The flames were rising. I must take a run at it! I edged backward.

  Something seemed to catch hold of my little bare tail and give it an agonizing bite. I had thrust it right into a hot ember. Instantly I bounded forward. Blinded by smoke and terror, I felt myself kicking in midair as if to drive myself on, yet I was sure I was jumping to a painful death.

  But no! When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the grass. My whiskers were singed, my tail blistered—but what was that, compared to what could have happened? I crawled further from the heat, trying to control my trembling, then dared to look back. I was still half in my dream, half in a daze of mingled panic and relief. Was it the sun itself that had come to earth to consume me?

  Behind me was my heap of leaves, into which I had crawled earlier to make my safe napping nest. The harmless pile was now a hellish hill of smoke and flame. Standing beyond it, tending it and feeding it with more leaves, was the boys’ Father. It must have been he who had turned my happy resting place into a dangerous inferno and nearly roasted me alive!

  For one ignoble moment I hated him. I thought he had done it on purpose. Then charity and good sense reasserted themselves. Of course not! How could he know I was in there? I had no business to be. The fault, if there was a fault, was mine. I’m glad to say I forgave him instantly for the terrible fright I had had, and for my poor sore tail.

  You may well suppose that, what with cats and bonfires, I might now be quite disillusioned with Outdoors and long for nothing but to crawl back up that drainpipe again. No such thing. My adventures, I decided, were just beginning. I ran to a flower bed and hid in a clump of living leaves. Their coolness was blissful; they closed over me like a gentle wave. Speaking of waves, I was desperately thirsty; but by smelling around I soon found enough water on the leaves around me, though it was not as easy or satisfying as sucking on my bottle.

  Never mind, I thought, I must not be fussy! Never let it be said that Houdini had become soft, spoiled, or decadent through a life of dependence and luxury Indoors. I had passed many tests—tests of skill, cleverness, and bravery. Now it was up to me to show that I could pass tests of endurance and adaptability.

  The first came soon enough. I had been through my ordeal by fire. Next came one by water.

  At evening I woke among the leaves, ready, as I thought, for anything. I felt shivery—a reaction to my narrow escape perhaps. But no. The sun had disappeared behind a heavy lid of blackness that was not the blackness of night, with its brilliant points of light and its gleam of infinite distances, but a dreary, threatening blackness that seemed to hang close overhead. Even as I looked up at it, missing the awesome kindly face of my new God, big drops of water began to splash down upon me.

  As I had not guessed from pictures of the sun that it was hot and comforting, I had not guessed of rain that it was wet and would make me so utterly miserable. In a few minutes I was soaked to the skin and must have looked half my normal size, as all my fur was plastered to me. I scurried hither and thither, looking for shelter. T
here was none—not even a tree, and the bushes, all but leafless, gave little protection from the downpour, which grew heavier and heavier until I was looking and feeling like a drowned rat. The only good thing was that the cold water took some of the sting out of my burned tail.

  After huddling wretchedly against a leaning fence for as long as I could bear, hoping the rain would stop, I summoned up my spirits. “You wanted to live free Outdoors,” I admonished myself. “This is part of it. Come along now! No weakening—” (You see, I had caught myself thinking longingly of my warm dry loft, lined with flannel.) “Be yourself! Take command of the situation! This garden isn’t the whole of Outdoors, you know!”

  Purposeful activity is, of course, the best antidote to cold and discomfort. I made a dash for the back gate, squirmed under it (muddying my belly), and found myself in a dismal alley between high walls. However, right away I was rewarded, for there was a garbage can lid, left off no doubt by one of those careless garbagemen the Mother was forever grumbling about, lying propped against the wall at an angle. In a flash I was under it. I won’t say it was warm or comfortable under there, nor that the smell was exactly enticing, but at least it was dry. For the first time I understood what my boys had meant when they spoke of the pleasures of lying in bed listening to the rain beating on the roof, feeling glad to be out of it and sorry for anyone who wasn’t.

  Chapter 13

  If I had but known the danger I stood in every minute I was Outdoors, I would not have blamed myself for weakness because I wanted, many times, to scuttle Indoors again. I would have thought myself simply prudent and sensible. No normal hamster, raised as a pet, could have survived for an hour. How I passed nearly two nights and days in the open, and lived to tell the tale, I shall never know. Obviously cleverness accounted for a lot of my escapes; yet in honesty I must say that I owe my survival mainly to luck.

  Outdoors is perilous. As for Nature—! No words, even of mine, could describe the horrors I witnessed to someone who had only seen the great world of the Open Air through a window or on a television screen. The violence! The ruthlessness! A continuous nightmare, I assure you.

  Danger, for some creature or other, was everywhere. Even as I sheltered beneath the garbage can lid, I observed the sickening sight of a big brown bird bashing a snail to death against a wall and eating it. Of course such sights became so commonplace before long that I scarcely turned a hair at them, but that first incident made a dreadful impression. Then, just as the rain was stopping, and I was peeping out to see if all was safe, I was appalled to see a great black shaggy animal ambling along the alley, nose down, sniffing out its prey.

  The brown snail-basher flew off, but what could I do? The thing was vast—ten times the size of a cat. I looked with horror at its great jaws, which could very easily have snapped me in two with one bite. Nearer and nearer it came. Should I run? My instincts of self-preservation were dulled through long disuse. One said, “Yes, run! It’s slow-moving, it won’t catch up if you go now!” Another said, “Keep still and it may not notice you!” These two conflicting impulses warred within me for several seconds as the shaggy brute drew nearer. Finally it seemed too late to heed the first, so I obeyed the second.

  That’s what I mean by luck. I soon realized the silly great thing was not interested in me but only in the contents of the open garbage can. If I had run, however, it would doubtless have given chase just for the fun of it and might have killed me for the fun of it too—I really don’t think it had the wit to kill me for any sensible reason such as to get food.… Anyway it was simply bulging with fat.

  It put its clumsy forefeet up onto the rim of the garbage can, and immediately, of course, the can fell over, scattering its contents all over the alley. That was the last I saw of the creature, or anything else, for some time.

  Had I not so recently feared for my life at the teeth of that scavenging animal, I would have been terrified. For there was a crash, and the next second, all was dark—a total darkness I had never experienced before—and I knew I was in a new kind of prison. The fall of the garbage can had knocked my leaning lid flat, on top of me.

  This time I kept my head. Well, I thought, sitting down in the middle where the headroom was greatest, at least nothing can get to me while I’m under here. Still, as time went by I began to get alarmed. I tried to push the thing, but it was too heavy. I tried to raise it with my back—no luck. Then I tried digging under it, but the alley was not sand—it was some kind of hard-packed grit. I could do it, I felt, eventually, but it would be an exhausting struggle. Still, there was no other way out, so I set to work.

  I had never dug in my life. My paws hardly knew the way. And believe me, this was no surface to begin on! Before I’d been at it long, my forepaws were so sore I could hardly go on, and my back legs were aching from being braced against the ground and kicking back the stuff I dug up.

  I could soon see and smell that I had made a little gap, but how I was going to make it big enough to crawl through I didn’t know. My front paws felt terrible, as if they might be going to bleed. I had to stop and give them a rest. And that was when my next bit of luck occurred.

  I heard footsteps, then the creak of the gate. I poised myself for instant flight, for I recognized the Mother’s steps and I guessed what would happen. It did. She stopped, made that tuttutting noise by which humans, especially females, express annoyance, and the next moment the lid was lifted.

  It was now almost night (my luck again!). She saw me, all right, but she was so taken by surprise that long before she could grab me (she had her wastebasket in her other hand), I was off.

  The poor woman actually called me as if I’d been a dog myself.

  “Houdini! Houdini! Come back!” she cried forlornly as I fled down the alley. A pang of conscience smote me, but not very hard. I kept going. At least none of the boys would get into trouble for freeing me. From my observations of human family life, it does no harm, every now and then, for a parent to do the silly thing and give the poor young ones a chance to do the blaming and scolding. Anyway I can never get very concerned about humans when my freedom is at stake.

  I knew she was after me, so I speedily ducked under another garden gate, and long before she panted up, I had concealed myself under a pile of bricks. I was prepared for a long, exciting hunt through the darkness, but rather to my disappointment, she gave up almost at once.

  I waited till her footsteps died away. Then I took careful stock of my situation.

  The garden I was in now was a large one. It contained trees, plants and bushes galore, a large lake (well, I suppose it would be a small pond to a human), a pile of rocks with things growing between them—full of wonderful hiding places—and, best of all to me, a big area of sand, which, I was surprised and puzzled to discover, was already full of little hillocks and tunnels, all well made and smoothly finished, as if specially for me.

  I explored all night, always keeping my ears and nose open for warnings of the approach of danger. Twice I smelled the hated smell of a prowling cat. Once I dashed back under the bricks, and the other time I dived into one of the ready-made sand tunnels. I didn’t know whether cats could dig. I suspected they could, and when this one slouched nearer, I faced up the tunnel toward it, preparing to fight for my life. But it seemed the cat had some other business in the sandy area—personal business—and when this was completed to its satisfaction (I must admit cats have very dainty habits in some things), it slid off into the darkness again without troubling me any further.

  I practiced digging in the sand—a far cry from the harsh labor in the alley—but my paws were too sore to do much even here, and besides, I was growing sleepy. This was odd—it was not morning yet. Most unlike me to lose energy before daylight came. Perhaps it was the fresh air and all my adventures. At all events this wouldn’t do. I must look for a really safe place to sleep.

  I found it in the rock pile, a little cave, its mouth masked with trailing leaves from above. It was dry inside, and I found som
e dead leaves that were not too crackly and rough, and dragged them in for bedding. The last few I brought seemed extraordinarily heavy. Really it was most odd how tired I felt.

  After just nibbling some wet grass for a nightcap, I entered my first Outdoor home. How free and independent I felt! How sweet was the crisp night air, how pleasant the satisfaction of having survived so many hazards! Even my sore paws and tail were no longer simply painful. I gained a sort of pleasure from aches I had got in the course of learning to be a wild animal.

  Chapter 14

  It was quite late the following night before I woke up again.

  Funny, I thought, I went to sleep early, and here I am, waking up long after my usual time. Am I getting old, or what?

  One thing I have never succeeded in working out was how long hamsters live—perhaps because I preferred not to know. The words “two years,” read out of the Enjoy Your Hamster book, meant nothing to me. For all my brilliance I had never learned how to measure time, beyond days and nights. How many of these might constitute a year I didn’t know. But I did know that all creatures age and die, though till a few hours ago I had never seen a dead creature. Perhaps that was why the death of that snail upset me so much.

  Now I lay, still curiously drowsy, in my cave, looking out at the night through the gently stirring leaves that hid me from prowling predators, and wondered if old age was creeping up on me. I hoped not. I was not ready to get old. On the contrary! I remembered the amazing details of my escape from the house and I knew I was in my prime. Yet why this sudden need for extra sleep?

  Well, it was a mystery I couldn’t solve, so I didn’t waste time on it. I shook myself briskly awake. At least I wasn’t losing my appetite! I was famished. I poked my nose cautiously through the screen of leaves and sniffed the night air. It was innocent of any hint of peril. I came out, and after double-checking that all was well, I began my nightly forage.