Death dealing

I learn today how there is yet a thread of woolly feeling not yet cut away from the dead Grit heart, because by 5pm I am brought to tears by a paralysed mouse. Not any old mouse obviously - not one that shiftily slips around the skirting board after nightfall, finds the trap and swiftly snaps out of time and place - this is Pet Mouse, two years in, two years of care, all come to the inevitability of the dead end.

In my defence, I wasn't expecting it. I was just dropping Squirrel off to her sleepover. Instead of the normal greeting (cup of tea, celebratory game of Cluedo), I was met by a family coming-to-terms with a tiny skinny bag of inert fur, a feeble grasping claw, and one glassy eye.

I cried. It wasn't the mouse. It was watching how the family household stopped while San held that ridiculous scrap of next-to-nothing. That possibly touched my weakness. How humans can care, tenderly, over life's tiniest scraps. Maybe I had forgot how people did that. San cradled the mouse in her cupped hand. Mouse was wrapped in a lint duster, warmed in case the chill shivered on her bony body. She lay with one paw held out and one blind eye staring. Her live side twitched and her good eye blinked. San stroked her carefully, nose to tail with her thumb, and held a pipette of water to the tiny whiskery mouth.

When I come home I watch Sparky, the Grit family hamster, here under my disapproving gaze. She is industriously spinning on her wheel, happy on her rounding road to nowhere.

How I'm not looking forward to that day of Pet Hamster Death. How I hope, when it comes, that I never did succeed in cutting off that woolly touch of care and understanding for all tiny things beloved by children. I pray I don't emerge that morning, late, too many unobtainables jumbling against my over-ambitious to-do list, to thoughtlessly blurt, 'What? The hamster's not moving? Must be dead. Leave it in the cage and I'll chuck it in the garden later.'

The deed is done

I may have lost my mind. The left brain and right brain have finally parted, gone their separate ways and are now unrecoverably on non-speaking terms. They leave a whistling gap between them.

The children have burst into the void, busy filling up the space with a selection of their finest plots and plans.

Yes, it is now perfectly sensible to bring a hamster into the house to love and care for.

I am sure, once upon a time, I maintained an absolute unshakable fixed line on that. All pets are madness. When the left and right brains were working in happy harmony, there it was: no living creatures in cages, no pets, no responsibilities to squeaking creatures with big eyes, no, no, no, no matter how cute.

But now it is. The deed is done. Sparky has a bowl, a name, a patch of straw for beating the bounds and three ladies in fixed adoration attending to its every furry twitch.

You are right. This is a Bad Idea

My line on pets has stayed constant for years. No.

No pets. NO PETS.

NONONONOPETS.

Except.

Shark says she wants something to love. She says she tried loving a fuchsia plant but it was not very rewarding and it died.

I said that was too much love. Fuchsia plants do not like watering as if you are reenacting tropical storms over Hong Kong. Back off a little with the love.

Anyway, everyone knows that fuchsias are fickle. It probably would shrug its leaves and say love is a thing, as any spirit, free. That is a truth of life. I don't know. Go and love a geranium.

Shark says she has tried, but the problem with vegetation is that it does not have a heart. Can she have a fish.

No, of course not. Keeping anything with a heart in a tank, cage, hutch, prison, is against my principles. You would overlove it, then neglect it, and we would have a big shout about responsibility, CRUELTY, SUFFERING and DEATH. Better to avoid all that in the first place and love all things, free.

Shark has said this is truly hard to bear, especially when she would like the opportunity to be responsible and show how sensitive she can be to the needs of creatures with a heart.

I have put my fingers in my ears. Arguments that shift the moral ground back to me are usually quite difficult to endure. Better to avoid them all in the first place.

So the way I have thought about it, is this. (Shifty.)

Hello Sam, and all you lovely home educating families within a short drive of Shark, Squirrel and Tiger!

I bet your children would like the opportunity to love a pet and show you how responsible they can be!

But we all know that keeping a pet is a big responsibility! (Too big for me.) Yet I would like Shark and her sisters to know this responsibility too. (There have been tears.)

How would a travelling hamster sound? He would be like a Flat Stanley (only hopefully Not Flat).

Hammy would live with us while we are in England, where he would be overloved with juicy treats, home-made hamster assault courses, and where I will safeguard him against reenactments of tropical rainstorms.

When we are absent, Hammy comes to live with you!

Sounding good, no? (Stay with it.)

When you feel Hammy has brought enough qualities of pet responsibility to your home and is in danger of overstaying his welcome, you can assist the next welcoming family and pass him on!

(Good grief, it is sounding really bad now.)

Just think what benefits Hammy can bring to your education! He could have his own blogspot! Your child can write his entries for him! (Aha! Excuses for literacy! I might have a foot in the door here.)

Think of the Design and Technology opportunities for those Hammy exercise courses! You can do Physics! Science! Natural History! The Personal, Social and Something Else! (Even I can feel the desperation in those exclamation marks.)

But take a moment and consider this exciting opportunity! Then only tell me how much of a brilliant solution to satisfy everyone is this!

(Quickly, before I come to my senses, the deed is done and, in anticipation of your happy agreement, posting pictures of Hammy, the NOPET hamster.)