by Bruce Hale
“Hold still, buddy,” said the nurse. He peered into Fuzzy’s ears, eyes, and mouth. “Good so far,” he muttered, setting him down again. “Now, let’s see if I still have one of those special thermometers …”
When he heard that, Fuzzy involuntarily clenched his lower cheeks. He remembered all too well how vets take a pet’s temperature.
Just then, Mrs. Gomez poked her head through the doorway. “One of the kindergarteners had an accident on the playground. Could you …?”
“On my way.” Abandoning his quest for a thermometer, the nurse glanced around the room. He cleared out some boxes of bandages from the top tub of a three-tiered storage rack and tossed them aside. “Okay, mister.” Lifting Fuzzy off the exam table, Mr. Wong set him in the tub. “You stay put while I’m gone.”
The nurse hustled out the door, pulling it shut behind him. But it didn’t quite close.
Shweek-shweek-shweek squeaked Mr. Wong’s sneakers as he hustled down the hall. The door hung open about two inches—more than enough for some daring rodent to squeeze through and investigate.
Fuzzy grinned.
It just so happened that Daring Rodent was his middle name.
Rearing up onto his hind legs, Fuzzy peered over the edge of the little tub the nurse had left him in. Hmm. Too far to jump. He cast around for an exit path and noticed the metal frame that supported the three storage containers.
Perfect.
Clambering over the edge, Fuzzy wrapped his arms and legs around the rod, sliding down like it was a firefighter’s pole.
Schoomp! He landed safely on the nubbly carpet. Scurrying over to the door, Fuzzy put an eye to the crack.
“—Appreciate your seeing me again.” A nasal voice as sharp as two-year-old cheddar cheese filled the short hallway.
“Not at all,” came Principal Flake’s voice.
A second later, two pairs of legs flashed into view just outside the door. Fuzzy ducked back out of sight.
“This issue is not going away,” said Sharp Voice, “and I’d like to know your plans for dealing with it.”
“Let’s discuss this in my office, Mrs. Krumpton,” said the principal.
Fuzzy risked another quick peek. A tall, blonde woman in a fancy leather jacket and burgundy slacks was being ushered into the room across the hall. She towered over the shorter, thicker, older Mrs. Flake.
Time to spy. Maybe the two women would drop some kind of clue about the class pets’ fate.
They stepped into Mrs. Flake’s office, and the door shut behind them. Suddenly, their voices were muffled, like moles having an underground chitchat.
Wiggling whiskers! Fuzzy would have to get much closer if he wanted to hear.
Ever so slowly, he nosed into the gap, nudging open the nurse’s door. When his head was sticking out, he quickly scanned right and left—and froze.
Tok-tok-tok. Down the hall strode Mrs. Gomez, her thick heels rapping out a rhythm. Fuzzy waited until she’d rounded the corner and resumed her seat before even twitching a whisker.
After one last check, he pushed the rest of the way through the door. The hallway was deserted. Across the corridor he scooted.
Fuzzy pushed on Mrs. Flake’s door. No luck. It was shut tight. Placing his ear up against the wood, he caught muffled conversation.
“—Can’t believe you haven’t taken action yet,” came Mrs. Krumpton’s piercing voice. “This is a serious threat.”
“A threat?” The principal sounded skeptical. “That sounds rather—”
“These animals have no place in school. No value. They’re distracting and dangerous and full of disease.”
Fuzzy growled low in his throat. Lies! All lies! Pets were loyal and helpful and—well, okay, maybe he did have that case of mange mites once, but it went away.
“I appreciate your concerns,” said Principal Flake. “And I’ve discussed them with the teachers who have pets in their classrooms.”
“Talk is cheap,” said Mrs. Krumpton. “The PTA wants action!”
A chair creaked. “Look, please try to understand,” said Mrs. Flake in a reasonable tone. “Classroom pets are a longstanding tradition here at Leo Gumpus. They’ve even been approved by the school board.”
“The board can change its policies.”
“True,” said Mrs. Flake, “but you don’t overturn a school’s traditions without getting input from all affected parties.”
“Talk and more talk.” Mrs. Krumpton’s voice had more sharp edges than a sculpture made of scissors. “Sounds like you’re not confident of your authority. Are you the principal or not?”
A throat cleared. “Really, Mrs. Krumpton. There’s no need to be rude.”
“I’m not rude—I’m direct,” said the PTA woman. “One of your precious pets caused an accident, and my friend’s son was injured.”
Fuzzy’s cheeks went warm with the sudden realization. She was talking about him.
“From what I’ve heard,” the principal said, “it was only a bump on the head. This sort of thing happens every day on the playground. You can hardly blame the pet.”
Fuzzy bit his lip. No need to blame the pet; the pet was blaming himself.
“I find your whole approach very disappointing,” snapped Mrs. Krumpton. “I don’t believe you’re giving this the weight it deserves.”
“I can assure you I am,” said the principal.
“Actions speak louder than words. If you don’t do something about this by next week, I’ve decided to call an all-school meeting to change the pets policy.”
Fuzzy’s hackles rose. This was serious stuff. How could one little incident lead to so much trouble?
“You can’t do that,” said Principal Flake.
“Oh, no?” said Mrs. Krumpton. “I am the PTA president.”
Mrs. Flake’s voice grew steely. “And the PTA serves under the principal’s authority.”
A chair scraped in the office. “You don’t want to get into a tussle with me over some silly animals,” said the PTA woman. “I’ve got friends in high places. It could end quite badly.”
“For whom?” said Principal Flake in a voice colder than a January moon.
The women sounded closer—too close.
Fuzzy jumped, jolted out of his guilty reverie.
Footsteps scuffed. The door could open any second. Galvanized with fright, he darted across the corridor just as the office doorknob turned.
“I look forward to hearing of your plans to protect our children,” Mrs. Krumpton was saying as she stepped into the hallway.
Fuzzy only just managed to slip into the nurse’s room in time. He sagged against the doorframe.
“Caring for students is our top priority. Thanks for coming in,” said the principal in a tone that managed to sound like Go stick your head in a bucket of goo even if the words themselves were technically polite.
When Fuzzy peeked through the crack, he saw the PTA president stalking away, her back stiffer than a concrete cardigan. Mrs. Flake stared after the woman, her expression troubled.
Returning to the storage rack, Fuzzy tried to scale the metal rod back up into the tub. He discovered why firefighters take the pole down but the stairs up. On his third time sliding back to the floor, he heard a footfall behind him.
“Ah, we have an escape artist,” said Mr. Wong. “Naughty guinea pig!”
Busted. Fuzzy sighed.
A pair of warm hands closed around him, lifting him into the air. “Emily, honey, go sit on that chair for a second,” said the nurse to a tearstained kindergartener. “Mr. Fuzzy and I have one last piece of unfinished business.”
Fuzzy wondered what that could be. The nurse had given him a pretty thorough examination already.
Cradling him on his back like a baby, Mr. Wong reached for a small thermometer with a handle. “Just relax,” he said. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Fuzzy gritted his teeth and clenched his cheeks, recognizing a little white lie when he heard one.
Waiting through
the rest of that long day was like trying to stay cool on a bed of coals. It was seven shades of awful. How could things have gotten this bad, this quickly? That mean PTA president really had it in for them, and she seemed to be forcing a showdown with the principal—all because Fuzzy had tried to help Malik.
His stomach churned and his throat felt tight. If Fuzzy could have undone his actions, he would have. But since he couldn’t, at least he could figure out how to deal with the situation.
Or not. Three hours of thinking produced only a throbbing headache.
Maybe Cinnabun or one of the others would know what to do. Fuzzy sure didn’t. After school, he accepted his usual treat from Mr. Darius with good grace, but all his attention was focused on solving the problem.
“What’s wrong, little buddy?” said the janitor, stroking his back. “You seem a million miles away.”
“I’m in a heap of trouble,” Fuzzy moaned, even though he knew the man couldn’t understand.
Mr. Darius shook his head. “Sometimes I really wish I could speak guinea pig.”
“Me too,” said Fuzzy. “Every single day.”
When the janitor had moved on to the next classroom, Fuzzy performed his usual escape routine. He trotted through the crawl space toward the pets’ clubhouse, burdened with his bad news.
When he told the others what he’d overheard in the office, the reactions were as predictable as a sunrise.
“She what?” yelped Igor.
“After all my years as a class pet, they want to throw me out into the cold?” said Marta the tortoise.
“No way, no how!” cried Igor.
“Humans.” Vinnie made a face like biting into a rotten mango. “Ya just can’t trust ’em.”
“That witch deserves a lash of my tail!” growled Igor.
Cinnabun raised her paws in a calming gesture. “I don’t think whipping the PTA president will change her mind.”
“Maybe not,” said Igor, “but it’d cheer me up.”
“What in the wide world of sports does this woman have against us?” squawked Sassafras. Fuzzy shrugged guiltily. He just couldn’t bring himself to tell her that his actions had inspired Mrs. Krumpton’s anti-pet campaign.
Through it all, Mistletoe remained silent, eyes huge, both paws clapped over her mouth.
“Are you okay?” Fuzzy asked.
The mouse shook her head. “If they kick me out of school, Mr. Broxton will take me back to the pet store.”
“So?” said Vinnie. “There’re worse fates.”
Mistletoe’s eyes welled with unshed tears. “Not for me. Mice are a dime a dozen. The pet store will probably sell me off to get fed to a—a snake.” She glanced at the boa. “No offense, Luther.”
“None taken,” he said. “You are pretty yummy looking.”
The mouse blanched.
“Kidding, kidding,” Luther said. “Thisss boa never eats friends.”
Fuzzy wrung his paws. “Can we stop talking about who’s eating who, and start figuring out how to keep us all from ending up back at the pet store?”
“Thinking caps on!” squawked Sassafras.
Cinnabun pouted prettily. “But what about our charm campaign?”
“It’s just not enough,” said Fuzzy. “Principal Flake is on the fence. How else can we convince her?”
For a minute or two, the clubhouse was silent as the pets paced, scratched themselves, or stared into space, thinking.
Then Marta raised her head. “A hunger strike,” she said.
“Say what?” Luther asked.
“Mrs. Twain likes to watch documentaries,” said the tortoise. “We saw this one about a human named Gandhi, how he would fast to protest unfairness.”
Igor’s eyes goggled. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “This dude deliberately didn’t eat anything?”
“It’s called nonviolent resistance,” said Marta.
The iguana snorted. “It’d never work. Being hungry would make me violent.”
But Cinnabun had that light in her eyes that signaled she was considering the idea. “I like the nonviolent way.”
Vinnie scoffed. “I don’t usually agree with Turkey Neck over there,”—he hooked a thumb at Igor—“but I gotta say he’s right. This bunch? Goin’ without food?”
“Why ever not?” said the rabbit.
Half the room had plenty of reasons why not. She let the pets rant for a while, then rapped her gavel on the president’s podium (actually a thick copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare).
“Are y’all saying you wouldn’t pass up a few meals to save our way of life?” she asked.
Sassafras hung her head. “Well …”
“That’s exactly what I’m sayin’,” said Vinnie. “It ain’t natural.”
Cinnabun nodded. “And that’s precisely the point. That’s why it would get their attention.”
“I don’t know …” Igor screwed up his face.
Fuzzy felt like he needed to weigh in. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea in the world, but it was an idea. “I think it could work,” he said. “Why don’t we try it?”
“Just for Friday and the weekend,” said Mistletoe quickly. “What’s the harm?”
Twirling her gavel, Cinnabun said, “Brother Fuzzy has made a motion that we hold a hunger strike to achieve our goals. All in favor?”
Slowly, reluctantly, most of the pets raised a paw, a wing, or a tail. Only Vinnie and Igor abstained.
Bomp, bomp! The gavel pounded. “Majority rules,” said Cinnabun. “Motion carried.”
Sassafras made a face. “When do we start?”
“Tomorrow morning,” said the rabbit president.
“Then I know what I’m doing tonight,” said Vinnie.
“A pig-out to end all pig-outs,” said Igor. “Let’s munch!”
* * *
The next morning, it took every ounce of willpower Fuzzy had to turn up his nose at his food dish full of sweet timothy hay. Every fiber of his being urged him to stick his face in the bowl and gobble, gobble, gobble. Instead, he just walked away.
“Hey, Miss Wills,” said Kaylee, who was on feeding duty that week. “Fuzzy doesn’t want to eat.”
With a frown, the teacher paused her science lesson. “Really?”
“Yeah, he won’t touch his food,” said Kaylee. “And the hay is super fresh, too.”
“That’s odd,” said Miss Wills. “He’s never done that before.”
“So maybe he’s sick,” said Amir.
Miss Wills shook her head. “Mr. Wong said Fuzzy was just fine, everything normal. Unless …”
“What?” said Abby.
“Unless something’s seriously wrong, and he couldn’t detect it.”
Someone gasped. Fuzzy rolled his eyes. The only thing wrong with him was that his stomach was growling like a cave full of bears after a long winter. This hunger strike wasn’t quite going according to plan.
“Should we take him to the vet?” asked Spiky Diego.
Miss Wills walked over to the cage and regarded Fuzzy gravely. He tried his best to look healthy and bright-eyed.
“Let’s give him until the end of the day,” she said. “Maybe he’s just having an off morning.” Returning to the front of the room, Miss Wills resumed her lessons.
As the hours crept onward, Fuzzy’s hunger pangs grew worse. It felt like a tapeworm was twanging away on the strings of his gut. And no matter where he went in his habitat, no matter how he tried to distract himself, the sweet smell of the timothy hay followed him everywhere.
Eeeeat meeee, it called. IIII’m taaasteee!
Fuzzy gritted his teeth against temptation. He chewed on his wooden block, but all that did was get his belly juices flowing. He told himself, Don’t think of hay, but of course that guaranteed that hay was all he could think about.
Finally, Miss Wills and the students went to go eat lunch—lunch!—and Fuzzy was left alone with his thoughts and his gurgling gut. Taking up a position in the cage as far from the
hay as possible, he tried to think calming thoughts.
But hunger had left him lightheaded. He began to hallucinate. Fuzzy thought he saw Geronimo the rat, former president of the class pets, waving to him from the teacher’s desk.
“No need to punish yourself,” said Geronimo.
“I thought you’d retired to a farm,” said Fuzzy.
“Nobody’s around,” said the rat. “You’re all alone. Who would know if you took just a teensy taste of that hay?”
Fuzzy’s empty belly weighed in, saying, Listen to the rat.
“But we’re on a hunger strike,” he protested. “We all promised not to eat anything.”
The rat hallucination chuckled. “Do you think those other pets are going hungry? I bet Igor didn’t last two minutes.”
This was true. Igor would eat anything. One time, Fuzzy even saw him snacking on an eraser, which Fuzzy was pretty sure had no nutritional value.
“No, I shouldn’t …” said Fuzzy. “I promised.”
Geronimo grinned his crooked grin. “What would one bite hurt?” And then he faded away, leaving only a faint impression of whiskers in the air.
A sudden hunger pang, sharp as a fresh X-ACTO blade, wracked Fuzzy’s poor tummy. A thought struck him. What if humans could fast but guinea pigs couldn’t? Maybe it was actually dangerous for him to go without food for too long.
How would I know? he thought. I’m only a rodent.
Fuzzy looked over at the hay. So fresh, so tempting. He glanced back to where Geronimo’s apparition had been. Could the rat be right?
What would it hurt to have just one sprig of hay? After all, he could go right back to fasting afterward, and nobody would ever know …
Whistling under his breath, Fuzzy ambled in the direction of his food bowl. As he passed by, he leaned over and took just the tiniest nibble of hay.
Wiggling whiskers!
It was good. It was amazingly good.
More! roared his stomach.
Fuzzy glanced around. The room was still empty. The sweet taste filled his mouth, making his taste buds dance the boogaloo. Surely one more bite wouldn’t be such a big deal. He nibbled another mouthful of hay.
And another.
And another.
Fuzzy’s head spun. The world narrowed to just the sight and taste and crunch of hay.