Tragedy Strikes

After a week, the babies started to grow hair. One turned out to be brown and white. They named him Chester, Jr. The seven others were all brown, like Frick and Frack. They named them after the seven dwarfs in Snow White. But they looked so much alike that the kids kept arguing about which one was Doppey or Doc or Bashful or Sneezy.

A few days later, Heather woke up Mommy and Daddy, racing into their room, sobbing, "They're dead! They're dead! Somebody killed our gerbils! Why did you let somebody kill our gerbils?"

The exercise wheel had fallen on Chester's head. Beside him lay the dead bodies of three of the seven dwarfs.

"It must have been a freak accident that killed Chester," Daddy tried to explain. "And maybe the mother smelling the blood, in panic and confusion in the dark, hadn't recognized her own babies and had mistaken them for enemies. I really don't know, but it could have happened that way."

Bobby stared in disbelief, "Nothing like that ever happened at Jimmy's."

The whole house was depressed.

That afternoon, they buried Chester and the three little brown ones in a cigar box in the backyard.

The mother refused to nurse anymore, and the other five babies, including Chester Jr., died the next day.

"I hate her," sobbed Heather. "How could she do that to her own babies?"

Mommy and Daddy tried to console her, tried to explain that gerbils aren't people, that gerbils deal with one another in different ways than people do, that you can't judge gerbils by people rules.

"How can you defend her?" Heather sobbed. "I hate her. I hate her. I hate her."

Daddy said, "Maybe it would be best to give away Frick and Frack."

Heather cried even louder and ran to her room.

Nobody petted or played with Frick and Frack anymore. Heather wouldn't go near them. Bobby had to take over the chore of feeding them and changing their water and cleaning their cage. Mikey got involved in video games again.

But Heather kept a close eye on them from a distance -- staring angrily at them from across the room.

When Daddy suggested that they give away Frick and Frack, Heather burst into tears and ran to her room.

Bobby didn't say anything. He was still in shock. Everything had been going so great before -- all according to plan. And now this happened out of nowhere, like in some horror movie.

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