Christmas Shopaholic(106)

A few unbearable minutes pass. My thighs are slightly hurting from my squatting position. But I don’t dare move. David Attenborough’s team don’t complain when their noses get frozen off or whatever, do they? So I shouldn’t complain either.

Even so, I can’t help feeling disconsolate. How has it come to this? This was supposed to be an organized Christmas. A smooth Christmas. Not a Christmas where you end up squatting in a dingy back room waiting for a hamster to get hungry.

I’m just wondering if this is an utterly stupid idea and I should go and fess up to the guy, when I hear a tiny scrabbling noise and I stiffen. I peer through the gloom—and I can see two beady eyes glinting at me! Yes! It worked!

As the hamster nears the pile of food, I have to restrain myself from cheering. I did it! I’m a hamster whisperer! All I need to do now is—

Wait, what?

I peer at the hamster in disbelief as it edges onto the box. It’s a different hamster. It’s the wrong hamster. This one is half-beige, half-white. It must have been hiding somewhere in the stockroom and smelled the food.

What now? My brain whirls uncertainly as I watch the hamster pick up a treat between its paws. (Actually, that is quite cute.) What do I do? Do I trap this one? But I don’t want this one, I want my one. Where’s my one?

As I’m trying to decide how to proceed, another hamster suddenly joins the first. But this is the wrong hamster too. It’s a darker gray-brown color. How many bloody hamsters are there in this stockroom?

I’m quite tempted to go and tell the pet-shop guy he’s overrun by hamsters, only I can’t bring myself to move. Because if those hamsters were lured out by the food, then maybe…just maybe…

I stiffen as I hear a new scrabbling sound on the stone floor—and my heart suddenly leaps. Yes! It’s the beige one! He’s approaching cautiously but then stops dead.

Go on, I silently will him. Go and get the food. You know you want to.

He pauses, and I gaze at him, using every single psychic hamster power I possess. Go on…go on…

After an unbearable minute or two, he starts to move again. Forward…forward…Yes! He’s on the side of the box! In one seamless movement I reach forward and tilt the box onto its base, whereupon all three hamsters, plus the treats, land on the bottom. They’re well and truly contained.

I sink back onto my heels, my heart pumping and my legs twinging with pins and needles. OK. Panic over. I have my hamster. I glance at my watch and feel a wave of relief. I’ve still got time to get home before the turkey arrives. So it’s all good. In fact, it’s all great, because now I have a hamster and a story to tell Luke. (You always have to think of the plus side.)

“I’ve got your hamsters!” I say, marching out of the stockroom, clutching the box—then stop dead.

The place is dark. It’s empty.

I look around in disbelief, clocking the dead till. The sign on the door. The metal grille across the frontage. It’s closed? They closed it? With me inside?

Thoughts start thudding into my head like missiles. What do I do? What do I do? The turkey’s arriving in fifteen minutes. If I’m not there, they’ll take it away again. I need to get out. But how? Call someone. But there’s no signal.

I switch on all the lights, then hurry over to the till to use the landline phone that the guy was using earlier—but the phone’s vanished from the counter. Where is it? Where’s the bloody phone? I try the drawers, but they’re all locked. Oh God…

I hurry to the door and start banging on it, yelling, “Help! Help! Let me out!” But the street is empty. After five solid minutes of shouting and banging, my throat feels hoarse but no one has appeared, let alone come to help me.

And now a series of even worse thoughts starts to thud into my head. What if no one walks past the shop? What if no one sees me? Luke doesn’t know I’m here. No one knows I’m here. I could be trapped here over Christmas. I could miss Christmas altogether, trapped in a shop, with only small animals for company.

As I peer out at the empty street, I feel surreal and a bit faint. I was wrong before. This is the number-one Christmas nightmare. And I’m in it.



* * *



—

Five o’clock comes and goes. Half past five comes and goes. Six o’clock comes and goes. It’s dark outside, and I haven’t seen a single passerby and I’m starting to resign myself to my nightmarish fate. (If I’d known I’d be stuck in a shop over Christmas, I’d at least have chosen one with clothes.)

I’ve started marking lines on my hand with Biro—five for every half hour. Because you have to keep your morale up somehow. You have to give yourself structure—otherwise the insanity gets to you. I’ve seen Cast Away, so I know these things. I don’t want to end up painting a face on a hamster ball.

I’ve also made a careful note of my supplies, and thankfully there’s a water cooler in the corner. I can survive on sunflower seeds—and if they run out there’s always hamster food. If it comes to rationing, so be it.

And in a funny way, the animals are keeping me going, with their brave and comradely spirit. I’ve made friends with them all—the hamsters, the gerbils, the fish—and when this is all over, I think we’ll be bonded for life.

Every five minutes I hammer on the door, shouting my head off—then sink back in despair. This is the emptiest road I’ve ever known. Or maybe it’s just that everyone’s inside, in their cozy homes, watching The Muppet Christmas Carol and singing along, so they can’t hear my cries.