The Vicious Vacuum

I swear, the day Jenette died started out perfectly normal.

It was three p.m. on a Friday, and we were in Teitra’s bedroom, waiting for her to come home from school. Sunlight filtered hesitantly into the room from the window above Teitra’s bed. Those tiny little specks you see in the light floated around. The world looked as if it had a filter over it, toning the colors down, making everything murmury and quiet, like a cup of tea on a muted afternoon. 

Since Jenette and I didn’t have much to do, I just whistled and looked around. The room smelled like a flower that was a shade of off-white. Books were scattered about the floor like turtles sunbathing on logs, the logs being piles of old homework. The ceiling fan was running—although goodness knows why, since no one but us was home—and Jenette was sitting across from me, cracking a few sunflower seeds and eating them carefully. 

“Good?” I asked, pausing for a moment in my whistling. 

Jenette regarded me with her black eyes. “What?”

“I said, are those good?” 

“Oh, they’re okay. I like chia better.”

“Chia!” I stuck my tongue out and grabbed a nearby piece of mango. 

Jenette shrugged and stuffed another seed into her mouth. 

“Did you even finish the last one?”

“No, I like to savor the flavor.” Jenette paused. “Hehe, that rhymed.”

I rolled my eyes and nibbled on the mango. That’s when we heard it.

The vacuum.

“NO!” Jenette and I both shrieked. We looked at each other in panic.

“What do we do?” I yelled.

“Hide!” Jenette screamed, and promptly fled into an empty paper towel roll in her cage Teitra would put there sometimes for her to chew on.

I squawked fearfully and flew around my cage. I banged into the white bars surrounding me and fell to the floor as the terrifying vroom sound got closer and closer.

The door banged open. Teitra’s dad stomped into the room, murder in his dark eyes. He began mercilessly vacuuming the floor, sucking up dust and half-finished homework assignments alike. I couldn’t hear over the vacuum’s ear-splitting noise, but I could see by the movement of his mouth that he was muttering.

I wailed and lay, cringing, on the metal floor of my birdcage, as the man moved with heavy, angry footsteps around the room. 

I looked over at Jenette. She’d exited the paper towel tube and was burrowing deep into her bedding, no doubt to lessen the horrendous sound. Soon, her entire body was covered.

Teitra’s dad switched the vacuum off. My heart cried relievedly. He looked around the room.

And his eyes fixed on Jenette’s cage.

“Filthy mouse,” he muttered.

“She’s a hamster!” I said in indignation, but he didn’t seem to hear me.

“Yesterday. Literally yesterday I asked, I told my freaking daughter to clean out this blasted cage. And did she? No!”

“She had homework!” I protested.

He continued to glare at Jenette’s cage, an aquarium with a screen top. Then, without warning, he ripped the mesh lid off and started up the vacuum.

“Wait!” I screamed. “Jenette is in there!”

He ignored me and moved the hose of the horrendous machine into Jenette’s cage.

“Wait! Wait! She’s still in there!”

Scrhhhh. The yellow wood chips were sucked into the tube. He moved the hose around the aquarium, getting closer and closer to the mound where she was buried.

“Wait!” I shouted, clawing at the bars of my cage. “She’s still in there! You’re going to kill Jenette! Wait--”

Floomp.

The mound disappeared.

I shrieked. Teitra’s dad frowned but let the vacuum run.

“No,” I sobbed, “...no…”

Finally, he switched the device off, but not before vacuuming the remaining wood chips from the cage. He removed the dust bag surrounded by its plastic casing, opened it up, and peered through the dirty grey contents.

I already knew what was in there. I envisioned Jenette’s familiar furry orange and white splotches and winced.

“What the hell?” he muttered, reaching his hairy hand inside. He pulled it out, and lo and behold--Jenette, limp in his palm.

I screamed.

“Shut up, bird!” he yelled at me. I fell quiet, except for the occasional sobbing.

He fingered the hamster in his palm. “What do I do now?” he muttered.

Oh, I don’t know, maybe TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS! I thought.

He stared at lifeless Jenette for a few moments, then set her down on Teitra’s bedside table and grabbed the bag of bedding from the floor. He poured some into the cage, randomly moved his hands around in a pathetic attempt to arrange it, and set Jenette down carefully inside.

You really couldn’t’ve been carefuller, oh I don’t know, WHEN SHE WAS ALIVE?

Apparently, Teitra’s dad wasn’t telepathic. He placed Jenette’s hidey house over her dead body and put the wire screen on top of the cage. He looked around the room, as if fearful that someone had seen it--I had, I’d seen it--but, apparently not considering my experiences or opinions to be of value, he gathered up the vacuum and left the room.

“Jenette,” I whispered tearfully. One of her pink paws was sticking out from the entrance to her little house. I tore at my feathers in anxiety. “What will Teitra think?” I wailed. “I just lost my best friend! Jenette, come back to me!”

But alas, Jenette was completely dead.

I paced around my cage, my claws clicking on the round metal bottom. I flung my food dish dramatically across the room, spilling some seeds outside the bars of my cage. “What will happen when Teitra gets home?” I wailed. “I’ve just witnessed a murder, and I’m the only evidence!”

The bedroom door creaked open.

I stopped wailing and cocked my head curiously at it. Slowly, Teitra’s dad crept in, a devilish look on his face. “How could I have forgotten?” he cooed. “After all, you’re the one who saw the whole thing!”

“What--” I began suspiciously.

“Here, birdie birdie,” he said evilly, reaching for the door to my cage.

I gasped. “NO!” I screamed, flying around panickedly.

He unlatched the door and reached his disgusting hand towards me. I dodged it and flew out. I considered going for the eyes, but already he was again grabbing for me.

I heard a strange noise. We both turned our heads to look at it, and it was Teitra, standing in the doorway clearing her throat.

“Dad?” The hint of a laugh danced on the edge of confusion. “What are you doing in my room?”