“I think he needs more variety in his diet,” she said to me. Then to Oscar she added, “Don’t you, little guy?” in the kind of high-pitched cutesy voice girls use to talk to babies or stuffed animals. I rolled my eyes.
“He’ll eat anything,” I said with a shrug. “But I don’t think he got any fruit or vegetables while I was away.”
“I better get you something then,” she told Oscar in the same dumb voice.
Jenna jumped up and headed to the kitchen. I shook my head, watching her scurry off. She was still annoying, but somehow she no longer seemed so bad.
In a couple of minutes, Jenna was back, followed by
Mom. Their arms were piled with food.
“What do you think he’d like?” Mom asked, holding out an apple and a plastic container of leftover pasta.
I laughed.
“Well, a tiny piece of everything, I guess.”
That night, Dad checked in on me when I had Oscar out on my bed. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“Pretty good,” I told him.
He glanced at Oscar, who was peeking out of his hiding spot under a fold in my duvet cover. Oscar twitched his nose at Dad.
“Inquisitive little guy,” Dad commented.
“Yeah. Curious, but cautious,” I said.
“Hmm,” Dad said as he turned to go.
I wondered what he was thinking, but it was hard to tell. He didn’t seem to dislike Oscar, but I wasn’t sure he liked him either. Only a few more days left until I had to take Oscar back to the shelter. Was there any chance Mom and Dad would change their minds by then?
The rest of the week went by too quickly. On Wednesday, at the animal club meeting, Erika said she’d heard that the SPCA now had custody of the animals they’d seized from the pet store. That meant that the animals we’d been looking after were now available for adoption.
The girls thought this was good news.
“Now Missy and the others can get real homes,”
Mercedes said.
But all I could think about was losing Oscar. Friday after school I’d have to give him up.
“There’s no guarantee they’re all going to find homes,”
Erika pointed out. “What if no one wants them?”
“We can help find homes for them,” Annie suggested.
“Good idea,” Mercedes said. “We can put up posters around the school and at the community center and the grocery stores.” Her voice began to rise with excitement.
“We still have some time today,” Erika said. “We could start working on the posters now.”
“I’m no good at drawing stuff,” Jake interjected, looking over from where he stood by Daisy’s habitat.
“You can’t be any worse than me,” Sean told him. “You don’t have to be Rembrandt to get the message across.”
“What do you think, Conner?” Erika asked. “You haven’t said anything yet.”
I shrugged.
“I guess I don’t want anyone to adopt Oscar,” I admitted.
“Unless it’s me.”
By Thursday afternoon I was feeling sick at the thought of having to give up Oscar. Jenna was already practicing the piano when I got home from school, and I was only slightly cheered by the thought that I didn’t have to practice anymore.
At suppertime I sat at the table, poking at the food on my plate with my fork.
“Conner, why aren’t you eating?” Mom asked. “You don’t feel sick, do you?”
“No,” I said, shrugging. “I guess I’m just not hungry.”
Mom and Dad gave each other a look across the table.
Jenna, who sat opposite me, looked up and mouthed the word Oscar, with a questioning look on her face.
I shrugged again, but Jenna knew she’d got it right.
After supper I went straight to my room. No one objected.
“Hey, Oscar,” I called out, kneeling down beside his cage on the floor.
At the sound of my voice, Oscar scrambled up to the roof of his little house and stretched out his twitching nose to greet me. I let him smell my fingers for a moment; then I opened the door to his cage and lifted him out.
I held him in my hands, savoring the feel of his soft warm body. His tiny heart beat against my skin through his fur. I lifted him up to my face and looked him in the eyes. Our noses touched.
What was he thinking in his little rat head? Did he sense anything different about tonight? Would he mind being back at the shelter? Would he even notice it wasn’t me coming to feed him anymore?
I sighed and set Oscar down on top of my bed. I hoped he’d be adopted quickly at least, and that his new family would be kind to him and let him out of his cage for exercise.
Oscar stood for a moment in the middle of the bed, sniffing the air. He wasn’t as afraid as he had been when I’d brought him home two weeks ago. I wrinkled up the duvet cover to make him a tunnel, and he ducked into it.
I’d made a long, twisting wrinkle, and I placed a Cheerio at the far end, wondering how long it would take him to discover it there.
I sat down on the bed, carefully, just as Oscar’s pink nose popped out of the opposite end of the tunnel.
He snatched up the Cheerio and disappeared again. I couldn’t help laughing. That was the great thing about Oscar: He always made me laugh. Just looking at his kinked whiskers was enough to make me smile.
It was hard to put Oscar back in his cage that night. I put it off as long as I could. I left him on my bed when I went to brush my teeth, closing my bedroom door so that he couldn’t get out of the room if he decided to climb off the bed. When I got back to my room, Oscar was sitting on my pillow, as if he too was ready for bed.
“Sorry, Oscar,” I said, picking him up. “I don’t think
Mom would be too happy if I let you sleep with me.”
I placed Oscar back in his cage, added a few treats to his food dish, checked his water, then reluctantly closed the cage door. When I stood up again, my eyes were caught by the thick book lying on my desk. I hadn’t picked up The Complete Guide to Dogs since I’d gotten Oscar. I hadn’t even thought about wanting a dog for two weeks. After Oscar went back to the shelter tomorrow, things would go back to how they had been before. No pets.
Maybe some things had changed. It felt like Mom and Dad were finally seeing me—not just who they wanted me to be. That felt good, but at the moment it did little to raise my spirits. By tomorrow night, Oscar would be gone.
Return to the Shelter
I got Oscar’s cage and supplies all ready to go in the morning before school. After school, Mom would pack them into the car, pick me up from school and drive us to the shelter.
All day at school it was hard to concentrate. Erika and Mercedes kept flashing me looks of sympathy, which made things worse. Other people caught on and wondered what was up.
Once Jake elbowed me in the ribs and teased, “Your girlfriends are looking at you.”
“Shut up! ” I told him a little more loudly than I’d meant to. Miss Chien gave me a warning look, and I slumped down in my seat.
It was the kind of day I’d normally wish would end quickly. But today the end meant giving up Oscar. It wasn’t the same for Erika and the others. When Erika brought her rats back to the shelter, she would still have three dogs at home. Mercedes said she’d miss her foster hamster, but she was looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep. Annie claimed she would not miss her rabbit at all, since he didn’t seem to like her anyway, and it would be a lot safer for the rabbit back at the shelter. He’d chewed through so many electrical cords at her house, her parents were more than ready to be rid of him.
When the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, it jangled through my body. Slowly I packed my homework into my backpack and dragged my feet out of the classroom. Mom was waiting for me with the car in front of the school.
I climbed into the passenger seat, mumbling a greeting. Craning my head, I saw that Oscar’s cage sat on a towel on the seat behind me.
I faced forward again and sat stiffly as the car pulled away from the school.
After a couple of blocks of silence, Mom glanced over at me and frowned.
“You really don’t want to give him up, do you?” she asked.
I shook my head, though I thought the answer was pretty obvious.
“I was afraid this would happen,” Mom went on. “Your dad and I talked last night—about the possibility of keeping him.”
My heart leapt and I spun to face her. But she was shaking her head, her forehead still furrowed.
“I don’t know,” she continued. “We do agree that Oscar’s not a lot of trouble, and you’ve been taking good care of him…There’s the extra garbage from his cage, which I don’t like—”
“But I put it out before you even see it,” I said, quickly.
“I know. But there are times when we’ll be away on holiday.”
“One of my friends could look after him then,” I pressed, not sure if I should dare to hope.
She continued to frown.
“I’m still not happy with the way you went behind our backs,” she said. “And I don’t like rewarding bad behavior.”
I looked down.
“I know,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought him home without your permission, and I shouldn’t have let the shelter think I had it.”
But was I sorry? I felt bad about disappointing Mom and Dad and about breaking their trust. But I was glad that I’d had Oscar—even just for two weeks.
Mom turned the car into the shelter parking lot and pulled into a vacant spot. Slowly I climbed out of the car and opened the back door. Oscar stood up to greet me.
“Hang on, Oscar,” I whispered as I picked up the cage.
He scurried into the safety of his house.
Mom opened the door to the shelter, and I maneuvered through it, then carried the cage up to the front desk.
“What can I do for you today?” a young man greeted us.
“Umm…I’ve been fostering this rat,” I made myself explain.
“Oh, that’s right,” the man interjected. “Mini told me to expect you kids.”
He looked at Mom. “So you’re bringing this one back, are you?”
I swallowed.
“Yeah,” I began. But Mom put her hand on mine, halting my words.
She took a deep breath.
“No,” she said. “We’d like to adopt him.”
My mouth dropped open, and I think I might even have gasped. The man looked us both over and grinned.
“All right, then,” he said. “I’ll get the contract.”
As soon as he turned away, I twisted around to look into Mom’s face.
“For real?” I asked.
Mom sighed again and smiled, nodding her head.
“At least he doesn’t bark,” she said.
I laughed. I’d forgotten how loud the barking of the dogs in the kennels sounded when you first visited the shelter. Right then it was like a muffled off-key chorus.
The man returned to the counter with a sheet of paper.
“Well,” he began, “I assume you already know how to provide a good home for the rat, since you’ve been taking care of him for…what has it been?”
“Two weeks,” I said.
“And you’ve got permission from your landlord, if you’re renting?”
“We have our own house,” I said. “And yes, I’ve got permission.” I nodded toward Mom, and the man smiled.
I have it this time, I thought, still feeling amazed that my mom had changed her mind.
Mom leaned over to sign the contract, agreeing that we’d take proper care of Oscar.
“He’s all yours,” the man said.
I took a firm grip on Oscar’s cage again and lifted it off the counter. Mom laughed when she saw my face. I guess I was smiling pretty much from ear to ear. As we turned to leave, Erika’s dad walked through the door and held it open for Erika and Mercedes, who held cages in their arms.
“Aren’t you headed the wrong way?” Erika’s dad asked after saying hello.
“No,” I said, still grinning.
Erika and Mercedes looked from my face to my mom’s and then back to the piece of paper in Mom’s hand.
“You’re adopting him?” Erika asked, her eyes wide.
“Apparently,” Mom answered, as if she didn’t quite believe it herself.
I nodded, trying to get my goofy grin under control.
But then Mercedes squealed and attempted to hug me, knocking her hamster’s cage against Oscar’s. I could feel my face turning red. Everyone laughed, but I didn’t mind.
Erika’s dad was still holding the shelter door open, so we said goodbye and headed through it. As I walked to the car with Oscar close to my chest, my whole body felt light and free.
“We’re going home, Oscar,” I whispered.
While doing research for this book, Jacqueline Pearce fostered a rat named Oscar from an SPCA shelter. Jacqueline is the author of Dog House Blues, Discovering Emily, Emily’s Dream and The Reunion, all published by Orca. She lives in Burnaby, British Columbia, where she and her cat are responsible for keeping uninvited rats out of the house.
Truth About Rats and Dogs Page 10
