We have already lost one of our gerbils. Squeaker McSqueaken died Tuesday night, after suffering what appeared to be a broken hip. Squeaker was definitely the alpha male in the pack and had a tendency to do wild acrobatics trying to escape from the cage. He would try to jump a foot in the air when the cover was off to get out, he would jump to the wire mesh cover and climb like a monkey and try to chew his way out. We cannot verify this, but we suspect he was doing just that and fell on his wooden house and broke his left hip one day. Fiora put him in his gerbil ball so she could clean out his cage and he was limping, cold, and could barely open his eyes. Jared held him to warm him up, but it death was imminent, a couple hours later he stopped breathing. The kids were all three crying and upset that evening, it was a sad time.
Squeaker was Fiora's gerbil.
But the next morning they seemed to accept it, and were already talking about getting a replacement. We had a funeral for Squeaker and by then the kids were joking during Jared's eloquent soliloquy. Jared said, "Here lies Squeaker, may he rest in peace" and Savanna quickly added, "more like may he rest in pieces, he broke his bones." And Fiora asked "will a bunch of gerbil trees grow right there where he's planted?" Weston was more realistic and wondered if a bunch of night crawlers would get him. Hopefully his plastic sandwich-meat-container coffin will protect him from the worms.
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