(no subject)

[seymoure]

3.

This was going to take some thinking.

It wasn’t like just putting together a spandex suit and cape and patrolling the city looking for crime.

It, indeed, this was what he thought it was, Mickey was going to have to do some testing.

He thought he might have wished that baby to fly, but had he really?

He was going to have to test it.

Would it work on anyone?

How about animals?

He would have to get some time at home to think about it.

It wasn’t hard to fake a temperature with the electric blankets, and he was a good actor. He had always known if he was going to have a secret identity he would have to have some acting chops to pull it off, so he had practiced “the method” for years. At least, what he thought "the method" was, anyway.

As soon as everyone had left him alone in his room, he could begin this voyage of discovery.

First, he snuck into his brother David’s room.

David was 2 years older and okay as brothers go. But David wasn’t the issue.

It was Harold.

Harold the hamster was the only pet their parents allowed in the house. He just wasn’t much in the way of pets.

He didn’t do much, other than drink from his bottle and make bee bees.

Mickey moved to the glass container that housed the habitrail.

“Hey, Harold,” he said with actual fondness.

He looked around like a guilty person and then whispered, “How would you like to be a Super-Hamster?”

He leaned on his hands as they grasped the two sides of the chest of drawers that sat under Harold’s home.”

In his mind he was thinking, “I wish Harold could fly”

Nothing happened.

He thought it again, this time with a little more anxious fervor.

Still nothing happened.

Had he been an adult he might have known that things take time and continued. But as a young person he didn’t have the time.

“Must not work on animals,” He thought as he stood back and began to leave the room.

“So long, Harold,” He whispered as he stepped away.

Then it happened.

Like a shot from a gun, something broke the glass of the container, and then the window of the room.

Mickey saw a five inch wide hole in the glass that had separated Harold from the world, and one a little larger on the window going out into the world.

There had been the tiniest “whoosh” that accompanied the twin shattering of glass.

Mickey ran to the window, thinking, “I hope he’s alright.”

At that moment, outside the window, Harold returned and hovered just about a foot from the house.

Mickey smiled at the rodent, and could have sworn the grin was returned.

Then, like a shot, the hamster stopped hovering and fell to the ground.

Mickey gasped and ran out of David’s room.

Watching all the way to avoid Mom, he dashed out the back door and to the spot under David’s window.

There, his fall cushioned by some shrubs, was Harold.

As he picked the pet up, Mickey didn’t think the hamster was any worse for the trip.

He snuck back into the house and hurried up the stairs.

He turned the broken side of the container to the wall and returned Harold his home.

Then he drew the blinds and curtains on the broken window.

He just figured that if he didn’t say anything about it, there was nothing to connect him with the broken glass.

He swept up the small amount of shattered glass from the floor and returned to his room.

“It doesn’t last,” he thought to himself.

This was going to take more thought.

Any way, he could smell soup cooking in the kitchen and knew it had to be for the sick kid.

He turned down the electric blankets to hasten his recovery.

(c) 2005 by C. Wayne Owens