Roxy Mark II is dead. I hoped I’d never have to write those words, but there’s no doubt about the matter. I don’t mean our replacement hamster has escaped like the first one (current whereabouts unknown). I mean she’s expired. She’s not resting. She’s passed on. She is no more. She has gone to meet her maker.
I first learnt the news when I was travelling in East Africa a couple of weeks ago. Caroline called in a state of panic to say she ‘thought’ Roxy was dead.
‘She’s not moving,’ she said. ‘I forgot to feed her. D’you think she’s died of starvation?’
‘Oh Jesus,’ I replied. ‘Not another one?’
‘Sasha’s right, isn’t she? We’re pet serial killers.’
That was my eight-year-old daughter’s verdict after Roxy II went AWOL last month. Coming on top of losing our cat and then losing Roxy Mark I (I left her cage door open), this was her withering conclusion.
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