the murder on the bedroom floor
The other nasty little fact from this ordeal was that Aoife, our youngest Jack Russell, was the one responsible.
It was 4 am in the morning and I was, of course, in bed. Greg was in work, on a 9 pm till 6 am shift. I awoke to hearing Reilly jump off of Clare's bed ~ which in turn, made Aoife jump up and hop off of our bed. She gets very unsettled with any nighttime noises while she is sleeping. So I figured she was going to herd Reilly back into Clare's bed and that would be that. Instead, I heard a big commotion on my bedroom floor. Since the lights were off and I didn't have my glasses handy, I really couldn't tell what was going on. So I hung off the side of the bed to get a better look. We have a very high bed, one of those reproduction 18th century four poster beds, so I was practically falling off the bed due to the height. All I could see was Aoife pouncing all over some foreign object. Assuming it was a spider or something of the sort, I basically was just saying, "Aoife, leave it! Get back into bed!" I noticed Reilly watching from the other side of the room. It all seemed far too bizarre/surreal. And not just due to the fact that it was 4 am. I tried unsuccessfully to pull Aoife off of whatever she had, but once I finally got a good grip and pulled her back onto the bed, I figured I had better have a look on the floor. In what little light that was coming through the bedroom window, I saw whatever it was, was furry. My first thought: a mouse had gotten in. Aoife was desperate to get back onto the floor. Once my eyes adjusted a bit better, I noticed that the thing on the floor was black and white. Not your typical outside field mouse. I then realised it was Oliver.
I got Aoife in the doggie kennel, at which point she is hysterical to get back into the room and proceeds to bark like a mad thing. (How all that ruckus never woke Clare I will never know) I immediately phoned Greg in work and told him Aoife apparently got to Oliver, who obviously escaped from his cage, and I think she really hurt him. Thankfully, he got me to work up enough nerve to turn the lights on and have a peek. Oh it was Oliver all right, and he was not alive. All I could think of was, what do we tell Clare?
I put a face cloth over him and scooped him into a box. I then placed him on the top shelf of our bookcases for the time being. I was able to divert Clare in the morning when she awoke, but right before leaving for school I told her quickly I felt it was a better idea to just bring in a photo of Oliver for Show and Tell. After all, the whole thing would take up a lot of time, everyone would want to pet him, and Show and Tell WAS only for about ten minutes...they wouldn't want to be late for lunch, would they? I then had to whoosh her out of the door before she ventured over to see a very empty cage with no Oliver to say good-bye to.
I worried all day about what to say to her. After school, Greg and I simply sat her on the bed, told her we had some bad news and Oliver had died in the middle of the night, and that was that. She cried, of course, and asked to see him. So we brought him down off the shelves, she pet his head (I made sure not to expose his lower quarters since there was a wee bit of blood) and asked if we could have another hamster. We did not tell her how exactly he died. She would be furious at Aoife. Some things are better left unsaid till she is what, say 18?
My mother was insistent on burying Oliver in her flower bed, seeing how we will not be in this house for years to come. My family has a weird thing about keeping pets with us and not leaving them behind. (And yes, we realise he was a hamster, but he was our pet and a part of our family and we loved him.) The concern was that they were not coming up here until Tuesday of this week for Thanksgiving, so the only thing we could do was freeze Oliver to keep him from spoiling, so to speak. So that evening we rewrapped his cloth, put him into two freezer bags and put it all into an air tight Rubbermaid container. Poor little thing. Now every time we open the freezer we all have to say hello to him.
I can't say I hold too much of a grudge on Aoife. She is terrier and terriers are ratters. They hunt any rodent, and any other living creatures they can get to, really. Our rodent escaped, she saw an opportunity, therefore she took it. She is quite the hunter herself, she comes from a much stronger line of hunters than Reilly, I suppose. Reilly likes to go after birds and squirrels, but he knew Oliver was our pet and was quite gentle with him and would also play with him. On the other hand, Aoife had been after Oliver since day one, so we would have to put her in the kennel whenever we had the hamster out. At any rate, no more hamsters. No matter how hard Greg and Clare are going to try to convince me, I am not going through that again. No indeed. I mean it. Really, I do!
