Where’s Hammy?

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write a story involving one or more of the following: a pumpkin, a cold wind, rustling leaves, a scarecrow, candy wrappers, someone in costume.

Today’s tale comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit series Corgi Capers. She is drawing a corgi a day over on social media. You can follow at facebook.com/corgicapers or find Val Muller on Instagram at Instagram.com/mercury_val.

 

Where’s Hammy?

by Val Muller

 

The leaves rustled on the darkened sidewalk as another porch light switched off. The older kids were skipping home, where their dad waited, and I stayed behind to wait for little Beth and her Aunt Julia. Julia was carrying Beth’s bulging candy bag, and Beth skipped down the sidewalk, swinging her arms wildly, obviously high on sugar, one of her hamster ears flopping crookedly down toward her chin.

“Julie, how much candy did you give the three year old?” I asked.

“Lots!” Beth said, grabbing the bag from her aunt and peering in to show me. Then she gasped. “Where’s Hammy?” The nightmarish question in the high-pitched toddler voice echoed of a scene from a horror film. All that was needed was a dolly zoom shot: the toddler, the leafy sidewalk, the missing hamster.

All would not be well.

I looked up at my sister. “Where’s Hammy?”

“Hammy?” she asked. “It was just us.”

“Yeah, it was you and Bethy and…”

“Hammy!” Beth said.

“Oh. You mean the stuffed animal.” Julie looked around calmly. Childless, she clearly did not understand the gravity of the situation.

A cold wind rustled more leaves on the sidewalk. “Mommy, I’m tired,” Beth said, lifting her arms to me. I picked her up, and she snuggled in, but we both knew something was wrong. “I need Hammy and then let’s go home to bed.” She did not yawn. There would be no yawns until Hammy was found.

“Um, I’m sure she’s here somewhere,” Julie said.

“Hammy’s a boy,” I reminded her.

“I mean, he. He’s around here somewhere.” She forced a laugh.

A group of kids ran toward us, then stopped a few feet away. “Look, candy!” they called, pointing to the ground. They all dove to pick up a candy wrapper that turned out to be empty. Unfazed, they tossed the wrapper and continued on.

“Did you see a hamster?” I called, picking up the trash.

They did not answer. One of the boys, this one wearing a reaper costume, picked up a Jack-o-lantern from the end of a driveway and tossed it into the street. It splattered, the battery-powered candle illuminating the pumpkin guts on the pavement. The kids laughed maniacally and turned down a street, their laughter echoing like demons through the emptying night. Halloween was quickly degenerating. There would be nothing else tonight except mischief, and tomorrow there would be only pumpkin guts and Christmas sales everywhere.

I was getting annoyed.

I should have warned Julie. Hammy is the thing. The thing you can’t lose. The universe. The everything.

“Hammy is like Linus’s blanket,” I blurted.

Julie stopped short. “Oh.”

Silence. We had both grown up on Charlie Brown. Now she knew.

“Where’s Hammy?” Beth whispered. Tears were close. The sugar was the only thing preventing a breakdown, and that crash was imminent.

“We’ll find him,” I said. Heat prickled my neck despite the cold wind. I knew we needed a backup Hammy, but we were waiting for a Black Friday sale. That would come too late.

For tonight, we had to find him.

Beth was known to put Hammy in all manner of places. He’s been in our mailbox, he’s been in her clubhouse outside until midnight, he’s been in carseats and in trunks, in toyboxes and even in the fridge once. He’s been strapped to a swing in a park, and luckily many merciful souls left him alone until we came back for him. But tonight—the kids tonight were full of mischief. They were likely to tear Hammy apart or roast him in a lit Jack-o-lantern. We had to find him before the hellions.

Hammy likes to push buttons on elevators and doorbells, he likes to look in piles of leaves, he likes to climb trees. Hammy has been found in all manner of places, and tonight, everyone’s yards were like cluttered attics, with Halloween décor and Autumn leaves everywhere.

I glanced at the neighborhood.  Another porch light turned off. It was after 9, and it seemed even the houses sensed it was time to shut down for the night. This was the quiet part of Halloween night, the spooky part, the part where the summer months clock out and the cold, dark months take their turn.

I shivered. “Let’s go backwards. When do you remember having Hammy?”

Beth jumped out of my arms. “He was everywhere! We got so, so much candy.” She started to babble about all the kinds of candy she got, but I took her hand and walked with Julie back down the street.

We searched leaf piles, we searched inside witch’s cauldrons, we searched inside mailboxes. Nowhere.

A lone group of adults was having a fire pit in their driveway. “Want a s’more?” they asked.

I gave in. The warmth, the friendliness. If I just sat there, maybe Hammy would just materialize. To sit somewhere warm, to have someone hand me something delicious without me having to make it or think about it…

In two seconds flat, Beth was covered in sticky chocolate and marshmallow. “This is yummy!” she squealed.

At least the sugar would delay her meltdown another few minutes.

The couple made small talk – they were cousins of the house’s owners, staying for the long weekend. “You don’t get much wholesomeness in these parts, do you?” one of them asked. Turns out, they were from the Midwest. They weren’t used to the cutthroat lifestyle some places on the East Coast can force upon you. I wondered whether we made the right call, taking the jobs we did and staying in the east.

“Look, now Hammy can have a s’mores too!” Beth shouted. She pointed to a giant scarecrow display in the middle of the lawn. The scarecrow was holding one of those orange trick or treat pumpkin buckets, and sure enough, Hammy was peeking out over it, watching the whole thing. Julie and I smiled at each other and finished our s’mores.

After a quick wipe-down, the toddler cuddled the missing friend in her arms. As I picked her up for the walk home, she yawned, the sugar rush peacefully leaving her body. It was the dark time of night, the cozy time, and we were all due for a good rest.

*

The Spot Writers:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/
Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com
Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com
Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/