More and More and More Gerbils

A week later, Heather woke everybody up at five in the morning. "It's a miracle! A miracle!" she shouted.

"What?" asked Daddy, drowsily. "What could be a miracle at five in the morning? Have you cleaned your room?"

"No, Dad. No. You know that could never happen. It's the gerbils."

"Did they turn into butterflies?" asked Daddy.

"No, Dad. There's six new ones. Six of the cutest little red hairless babies you ever saw. And I saw it happen! I got up to get a glass of water just as the babies were coming out of her. It's absolutely the most miraculous thing I've ever seen in my life."

Once again, one baby grew brown and white hair. They automatically called him Chester the Third. The others all looked like Frick and Frack.

This time there was no talk of giving away babies when they grew up.

Within two months, the babies were having babies of their own, and Daddy had to buy another cage -- another 10 gallon fish tank with a screen on top.

Two months later, just as all those babies were getting big enough to have babies, the original Frick and Frack both had more babies. Daddy had to buy three more cages.

"Way to go, Dad," Bobby encouraged him. "Soon we'll break Jimmy's record."

"What is Jimmy's record?" Daddy asked cautiously.

"Twenty-four cages," answered Bobby.

"No way," said Daddy.

But Bobby smiled proudly. He was back in control again.

Then more babies were born, again and again. Buying new cages became a regular event, like buying groceries.

"This is getting ridiculous," said Mommy. "Soon every table and bureau in the house is going to have a gerbil cage on it."

But despite himself, Daddy was getting more and more interested. He and Bobby went off to a pet store and came home with box after box of plastic tubing and connectors and special plastic exercise wheels. For an entire weekend, they struggled with the tubing until it connected all the cages in a vast maze that stretched from Heather's room, through the upstairs hall, down the stairs into the living room and dining room.

Now everybody, including the neighbor kids, took new interest in the gerbils, watching them learn to climb up and down and around. They especially liked to watch gerbil mothers take their newborn babies into the special exercise wheel compartments and build nests for them there.

Three months later, they had twenty-five gerbil cages -- one more than Jimmy -- and were running out of places to put them.

That was when Daddy decided they had to be firm, that they couldn't just let these gerbils multiply forever. "There has to be a limit," he told Mommy and Bobby. He was trying to build up the courage to do what he felt must be done, even though he didn't really want to do it. And he was practicing lines that he knew would be very hard to say to Heather. "Hard as it may be, we have to set a limit and give some gerbils away as new ones are born. It's one thing to have a gerbil. And it's something else altogether to have hundreds and hundreds of gerbils."

Just then Heather came rushing in to say, "The Harrison's cat had kittens! Three of them! I want the brown and white one!"

"I want the one that's all brown," said Mikey.

"I want the black and white one," added Bobby with a smile.

"Since when do you want a cat?" Daddy growled at Bobby.

"I've always wanted a cat. Haven't I, Heather? Haven't I always said I wanted a cat?" he asked innocently, looking forward to a new adventure.

"Yes, Daddy," Heather quickly agreed. "He did say so. Lots of times he did. We all did. We want all of them. That way they won't be lonely. Can we, can we, please?"

"Yeah," added Bobby. "If each of us has one, we can have races."

"Yeah, races," said Mikey. "I love races. Let's do it now."

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