Joey needed bedding. Hamster bedding, blue this time. I chose Chow Hound over Petco because they have adoptable cats there to pet. They had a little black cat on the tether that day who got to roam semi free for awhile whilst all the other cats in their little cubicles look on in jealousy, until it’s their time on the tether. I tried to pick her up but when I held her she reached back towards her bed with her little paws, and I let her down. Two little girls started walking in my direction, towards the cats. Kids freak me out, so I made my way towards the hamster supply aisle which was my main reason for the trip. Sorry, Joey, they were all out of blue. I picked out a pretty light yellow, although I can’t imagine that he cared; I’m pretty sure hamsters are colorblind. I walked up to the checkout. There was a woman ahead of me buying dog food, and another ahead of her buying a bag of crickets and a 50 pack of mealworms. She was the mother of the two girls that came in to see the cats. I can’t imagine what kind of pet they had at home. A lizard of some kind? A snake? It just seemed odd for that little peaceful family. I looked at the bag of crickets. They were jumping around the bubble bag like popping corn. What a terrible way to go, I thought. Live your life in a bag and then get put in a cage for a death match you’re not going to win. Awful. Finally it was my turn at the checkout.

“Did you find everything ok?”
“Mmmhm, thanks.”
“Do you have a couple of hamsters?”
“Just the one.” I smiled at the thought of my little buddy and his chubby white cheeks.
“Yeah, one of ours ate the other last night.”
“Umm…what?”
“Yeah, Violeta ate Seeds last night.”
Violeta what? Seeds who? Since when are hamsters cannibalistic? “That’s terrible!”
“Yeah, but it’s fair. Seeds ate Pookie before Violeta ate him.”
I stared blankly at the cashier as eternity passed by.
“Yup well ok have a good day.”
“Yeah…you too,” she quickly handed me the bag of bedding and awkwardness.

“Joe-Joe!” Back at home, I smiled and stuck my hand in the dwarf hamster’s cage. He poked his little head out from underneath his new yellow bedding. “Hey bud bud! You miss me?” He sniffed my vulnerable fingertip with his tiny pink nose, then bit me full force, with his pointy buck teeth.  I withdrew my hand in horror, wondering whether he was just irritable…or tasting me.

Luciana, 20 (April 23, 2008)

One
Six
Seven
Zero
Eighty
Fourth
Avenue

We moved out into the country when I was five, and that was the first thing I was expected to learn. It took my brother mere minutes to lock our address and phone number into his photographic vault of a memory. Something I will never have. My mom would ask me every day if I knew what our address was. I was busy being present at said address. Racing around the barns, chasing cats, playing in the woods behind the farm. I remembered nothing.

She then thought a safety video might be a good idea. This tutorial was a stranger-danger video, and suddenly it wasn’t just about an address. Those numbers were the key to safety. The world was rife with strangers. Fires. Guns.

NINE
ONE
ONE
(That much I knew)

There was a song in the video that kept repeating; “Know-Your In-side Information.” I don’t know if it was the tone in which they sang it, the loud, early 90’s graphics or the scenarios where kids died by fire, kidnapping or violent intruder because they didn’t know how to call 911 and tell the operator where they needed help…but I became terrified of this “inside information.” I felt that if I never learned it, I would never need it.

If the song had been more along the lines of, “Trust your gut,” I would have understood. One day some time later, when I was patiently watching for frogs to pop up in the small creek at the end of our driveway, I looked up to see an old car drive creep past, circle around the dead end of the road I lived on, and slow to a stop across the creek from me. The window was down, and the driver was an older, scruffy man. He spoke to me, asking directions to a place I can’t remember.

What kind of adult needs directions from a child?

“I don’t know.”
“I have a map. Can you come over here and show me?”
I was standing now, wondering if he would dare enter the driveway.
“I don’t know,” I repeated.
“Just come over here.” He grinned at me, and his teeth were the last straw. I pictured him throwing me into the back of his car. The knot in my stomach was on fire, and I turned to run. There was a back door to the house but I wasn’t sure if it was unlocked. I ran all the way through the grass to the front, up the cement stairs and through the front door, locking it behind me. When I looked out the window, the car had disappeared. No video had ever taught me to do that.

You can be book smart, and know your ‘inside information,’ or you can be street smart, and trust your gut, knowing that bad things are going to happen no matter what.

Luciana, 23