#2
"Kirk! Spock! Stop it!" the little girl with ponytails bent down to the cage and gave it a shake. But the enraged guinea pigs inside didn't seem to notice. They kept running around and squeaking, occasionally launching an attack at each other. The shavings were flying around them, the water bottle they had bitten through was dripping, the little wooden house overturned and pissed on and hay scattered all over the place.
"Alright, that's it. The damn gerbils are out of here," the girl's father stepped into the room, taking charge of the situation. The 'gerbils' in question nonetheless continued wreaking havoc in their own little rodent way, happily oblivious to the threat.
"Noooo, Daddy!" the girl whined theatrically. "They just need to get used to each other."
At that, the beige guinea pig started chattering its teeth ominously. The man approached the cage and frowned at the pets in undisguised disgust.
"They smell."
"No, that's not trueee," the girl looked affronted. "I will change their bedding, I change it every week."
The man just shook his head.
"It teaches me responsibility." the girl pointed out reasonably.
Meanwhile the beige guinea pig butted its head into the black one which in turn grumbled and attempted to mount its adversary and bite its ear. Another skirmish ensued.
"We should have bought just one," the man said, frowning at the contending rodents. "Pick one, I'll just go return the other. The woman in the pet shop lied to us anyway when she said they wouldn't fight."
"No, Daddy, pleeease, I want both."
"Well, they're just gonna kill each other if we keep them together," the man resisted."Let's keep this one," he pointed to the beige pig, "the red eyes are cool."
The little girl considered her options for a while and then she simply opened the cage, reached inside and unceremoniously grabbed the black guinea pig before it could realize what was happening. She stood up, holding it in both hands and lifted it up close to her father's face.
"Look how cute he is. We can't just give him away."
Black beady eyes looked back at him. The animal twitched its whiskers and sniffed at him with its little nostrils.
"Alright, alright. We'll keep them both," the man not unexpectedly gave in to the pleas of his little girl. "But we'll get another cage."
"Thank you, Daddy," she said and when her father bent down to her, she kissed his cheek.
Thus the next day, just as the beige and black guinea pigs were enjoying a quite moment of grooming each other's fur and purring in satisfaction, a dark shadow loomed over them and a rough big hand descended on the beige one. It gave a shriek of alarm and scurried away - but since the space it could move on was rather limited, it was eventually caught and carried across the room to a brand new cage that would be occupied by it alone.
So, no more close interaction for these two little guys.
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I suppose nobody's seen THIS coming, right?
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