Stella, Come Back

I can't believe it. It hardly seems possible. One minute, I'm laughing about some silly misprint, and Stella, she's eating my toenails. The next, Stella's gone, just this sad little butchered thing in a towel, and who cares about misprints?

I took her down the vet's last week--it was nothing, though, not even worthy of mention. She was getting this lump out, this tiny wee cyst under her left foreleg. It was just under the skin, sort of thing, and so small I could hardly decide whether it was an essential, but hitherto overlooked, part of pouched rat anatomy, or whether...well, anyway, I took her in, and they'd nipped it out in a minute. We were there and back in an hour. She wasn't even groggy. She was running about, as healthy as you like. I mean, even this morning, there she was, full of beans. She was eating my bacon. I'd saved it all week for a big bacon sarnie, but she begged so assiduously....

I'd gone to bed, though, and Stella was in her cage, when they rang back from the vet's. They'd said they were doing some tests, and all, making sure it wasn't malignant, but I wasn't bothered. How could it possibly be? This great fat rat, stuffed with cancer? Not a chance.

"It is malignant, I'm afraid."

"It can't be. I mean, you should see her. She's--"

"I saw her. I know. It can't have spread far, if at all. Just bring her down, and I'll have a look."

So I did, and he did, and there were bigger lumps, underlumps, all round her belly. He said they must've grown since last week. (How could they? How is that possible?) I said to get them out. He said he'd try, but he was out in an instant: "It's everywhere."

And then there was this horrible scene, where I behaved like an arse and Stella died anyway. There was cursing and arm-waving and impassioned cries of "Get it out! Get it out! I don't care what it costs!" (except now that it's all over, I do care; it cost a whole lot. I had them hack her apart for an hour, the poor thing.) I might've said breakfast would be pointless without her there to steal it, and that life's grand adventures would be over, and why bother eating without her silly beggar's grin to disturb me? I don't know quite what I said, but I expect the vet does, and his assistant, and everyone else in the waiting room.

Then--oh, there's a then! It gets worse. Once I'd finished demanding that the vet bring her back from the dead ("Shock her! Shake her! Do anything! I don't care! Just bring - back - my rat!"), I insisted on seeing her. That was where the sad little butchered thing in a towel came in, and it was also when I realized I was being an arse, so I settled my bill and went home.

It was my fault, and all. I remember the precise moment I ruined everything:

Vet: You might still consider having her spayed, even if you don't mind her temperament. It does a lot to reduce the risk of cancer in rats.

Me: Oh, cancer's more of a domestic rat problem. Giant rats aren't like that.

Maybe I fed her wrong. Always with the table scraps, the wee beggar! It can't have been good for her. I bought all that special food, the expensive stuff, just for her. I bought fresh plums just yesterday--who'll eat them now? Why'd I have to let her taste my awful cooking, when she had all that? And pizza, she was always having pizza. It was those burnty bits on the bottom. Mother warned me about those. Carcinogens in dough format, she said.

At any rate, I went home eventually, without Stella. I cleaned out her cage one last time, and hunted for a box to put in it. I forgot, for a moment, see. I was putting a box in for her. She liked having boxes in. She'd drag all this junk in there, paper and breadcrusts and toys, and build nests the size of pillows. (Big pouffy pillows, too, not the sorry old flat things you get in hotels.)

Then (it still gets worse, alas!), there was the old lady. I was taking out the last of the cage-rubbish: the newspaper, the box that she'd slept in--Stella, that is, not the old lady--the remains of her latest teddy-bear, all divided in two bags. I was dragging the bags across the courtyard, maybe panting a little, and this old lady came along and insisted on carrying them for me.

"I couldn't ask you to!", I wheezed.

"Oh, there's no weight to them," she cried, and hoisted them like the sad bags of newsprint they were.

"Thanks very much," I said, watching some eighty-year-old swinging these bags I could hardly lift.

"Stella," I thought, "last week, I was wondering if you'd eat me when I died." The old lady heaved the bags into the skip, apparently without effort. I made wheezy nose noises and fumbled about with my key.

Stella, come back. What use is the Rat Room, bereft of its Rat?