Snowball

Little Nettie Yule was minding her business one sunny, Spring day, in the playroom of her home in Kansas City, Missouri. She needed some quiet time away from her younger sister Ethel who was being particularly bothersome that day.

Nettie was not interested in playing with dolls like all the other girls her age. She was far more interested in animals. Her parents, not at all interested in taking on the responsibility of a dog or cat, had just a week before brought home two hamsters, one for each of their little girls.

Nettie and Ethel were delighted with their new hairy, little friends. Nettie especially. She named her hamster Bear, for bears were her very favourite type of animal and she had been terribly disappointed when she did not receive a bear for Christmas a few months before.

Ethel named her hamster Snowball. Within a few days though, Ethel became disenchanted with poor Snowball who was much smaller than Bear. To little Ethel, Snowball seemed downright lazy. She couldn't understand why Bear was always running on the wheel while Snowball just slept in the corner of the cage.

On this day, Nettie, in an attempt for peace and quiet decided to sneak off to the playroom where the hamster cage was. She wanted to play with Bear and Snowball.

She approached the hamster cage with a spring in her step but as she got closer she stopped short. Something didn't appear right. Bear was sleeping in the corner that Snowball was usually in but Snowball was nowhere to be found. Nettie looked closer. She opened the cage and poked at Bear with her finger. Bear stirred. It was then that Nettie noticed there was some blood on the Aspen bedding of the cage. She looked Bear over. There was some blood on his mouth and on his tiny left paw.

It was then that Ethel burst through the door of the playroom singing "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe". She may have only be five and three quarters but she knew just how to push her sister's buttons.

Ethel stopped singing when it appeared that Nettie was not about to pay her a lick of attention. Nettie was just sitting there solemnly, staring into the cage.

Ethel rushed up to join her sister's side and peered into the cage. "Where's Snowball?" Ethel asked. Nettie didn't answer. "WHERE'S MY SNOWBALL?" Ethel wailed. Nettie looked at her sister very seriously and put her hands on Ethel's little shoulders. "I'm afraid it looks like Bear might have eaten Snowball." Her lip quivered and a single tear rolled down her pink, shining cheek.

Ethel just stared at her. There was no readable emotion written on the little girl's face. She turned back to the open cage, reached in and plucked the sleeping Bear up. She held him in Nettie's face and said loudly, "FINE, this is my hamster, Snowball!"

"But!" Nettie jumped up, wild eyed. She was frantic. "You didn't even like Snowball. Yoooouuu never played with her! I loooove Bear! Give him back please!"

Ethel looked at her sister coldly and said, "No" as she turned her back and walked confidently out of the room.