Marshmallow the Hamster

Author’s Note: Point of View interests me, and I’d like to compare the points of view from different perspectives. I made three different versions of the same story to show how the different people feel about it. The first version is from my brother Connor’s eyes, the second is from my mom’s eyes, and the third version is from Marshmallow’s point of view. The story is about getting Marshmallow from the pet store on September 22nd, 2011.  


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Yay, we’re getting another hamster! It was so sad that Cupcake our other hamster died, and I’m still kind of upset about that. Now our family is receiving another one. I can hardly wait to find one. Mom, Lauren and I have been driving to literally every pet store. This one I have a feeling about, though. I really hope we find a good hamster here because Mom said this was going to be the last one for the day.

My attention was immediately taken away from looking for a hamster to looking at all of the animals at the pet store. They’re all so unique and different. The birds are so colorful, the dogs are so cute, and the fish are so fast.

“Hey, we’re going to ask the worker if we can look at the hamsters,” Lauren poked my arm then whispered, “Except they don’t have any siberian/teddy bear hamsters and they’re all dwarf ones.” She probably meant that Mom doesn’t like the small ones because it’s easier for them to escape. To me that doesn’t make any sense since Cupcake never escaped.

Finally the worker arrived and pulled a cage from the shelf containing a round, gray hamster. Right away it started making pretty much the strangest sound I had ever heard- kind of like what nails on a chalkboard would sound like. This was definitely not the hamster for us. She pulled a second one from the shelf to reveal a cute hamster that looked exactly like a large marshmallow. He was by far the best one we had seen so far. Sure, he was a little skittery but Lauren will teach him to behave better.

The worker started struggling to hold him because he kept jumping from her hands. Lauren was obviously obsessing over him already. “Oh my gosh, he’s so adorable! Mom, he’s totally the one. I love him already! Except what would we name him? I had wanted to name the hamster ‘French Fry’ and then ‘Peanut Butter’, but this one can’t be named that... he’s white!”

“I think he’s good, too! We could name him... Snowy!”

“No... that’s kind of stupid. A lot of hamsters have names similar to that.”

“I know! Marshmallow!” I thought it was a pretty good name.

“That’s PERFECT! We’ll have this one.” The worker placed him in a box for us to check him out. I hope he’s okay in there and doesn’t suffocate or anything! He looks really nervous, but I know he’ll warm up to us.

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Ugh, we’re getting another smelly hamster. No, no I shouldn’t think like that, the kids are really excited to get a new one and it will be good for Connor to learn how to take care of things.

I gripped the steering wheel harder. To me a pet store is pretty much the worst place to be other than jail or something like that.

Still, I’m not on board with the whole “lets get another hamster because the old one died” thing yet. Sure, Cupcake was nice and wasn’t too stupid, but it always scares me to have an animal in the house. Especially after that one time... okay, so there we had two small grayish-blue frogs, one for Lauren and one for Connor. Somehow, one of them escaped and we never found it. I just haven’t had the best experience with animals whatsoever. When I was five or six, at a petting zoo there were cups to feed the goats with. One of them came right for me, so I reached the ice cream cone filled with pellets over my head. That was one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made because right then the goat jumped on me, its front hooves on my shoulders. Even though it was so long ago, I still remember it so clearly- like a newly cleaned window.

The point is that I’ve had the best experience with animals, so I’m not too keen on getting this one.

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Chip has been keeping me up all night with his shrieking noise. I don’t know why he does it because none of the rest of us make that much of an annoying noise! He is such a nuisance. I curled back up in my corner, trying to sleep. Except now it was so cold that I was instinctively shivering which was obviously uncontrollable.

Deciding it would be impossible to sleep, I pressed myself against the glass of my cage, touching it with my front paws. I saw a lone light flickering. If I stared at it for too long, it hurt my eyes so much that they stung. It also smelled like rotting fish baking on a sidewalk.

All too recently I had been pulled away from my warm mother to this dark and gloomy place. I don’t even know what my name is because I was taken from her too quickly. Is this all what life has to offer? This is what I have been thinking until a certain human being came here. Well three of them, actually.

Humans have always come and gone, but this family today took me somewhere in a bumpy box. A voice almost like a dove cooed in my ear, and I knew everything would be alright. Except on the outside I was trembling so much that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Luckily it stopped before too long. A bunch of colors flashed into my eyes. I was suddenly put in a new cage, but one without glass. This one had bars.

Are those... SUNFLOWER SEEDS?! I’m living a hamster’s dream now! This is definitely my kind of family with my kind of life. I knew life had much more to offer!
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