It was an average Saturday at Laura's house. Her parents were at a company loyalty seminar across town, and wouldn't be back for two days. The house was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that you could barely hear the squeaks of the Ham-Ham friends crawling through the secret passage up to Laura's room to find their buddy.

Hamtaro's thighs glistened in the morning sunlight as he diligently ran up his hamster wheel. Laura couldn't help but briefly pause from her 48-hour marathon of textbook memorization to notice how well-defined his furry, rodent legs were. She chewed the end of her pen and took brief, furtive glances at his tiny arched back as he heaved gasps halfway through his daily cardiovascular workout.

The wheel ran down to a gentle halt as Hamtaro wiped his brow, removed his wrist weights, and took liberal sips from his miniature Aquafina. A strange blue light surrounded him and then engulfed his whole body. The next thing he knew, he was in a strange white room. Hamtaro looked around and wondered where he was. Soon he would have all of his questions answered.


**********


Sam looked around, unable to figure out where he had leaped this time. Where was Al? Always gone at the wrong time. He was in...some sort of giant cage. It was like a huge replica of the kind you keep a pet mouse in.

"I...must've...leaped into...an actor this time," he surmised. Sam sat down in the pine shavings and scratched his head. Being out of plain sight, Laura started wondering what Hamtaro was doing. She put down her pen and peered over his cage. Sam could see the dark shadow eclipsing the bright light, and held his hand over his eyes as he stared up to see what was darkening the set. The gentle eyes of the giant fifth-grader beamed back as his own.

"Oh, boy."


**********


A door slid upwards suddenly, and the whooshing noise startled Hamtaro. An aging, poorly-dressed man walked in and nearly sat on him.

"Er, oops. Sorry, there. I thought the room was empty."

Hamtaro stared at him blankly.

"Oh, right. You don't speak English. Well, if you can understand me:"

Al bent down and yelled very slowly at Hamtaro, "I AM AL. YOU ARE IN THE FUTURE. THE YEAR IS 1999. YOU HAVE SWITCHED BODIES TEMPORARILY WITH A QUANTUM LEAPER NAMED SAM."

Hamtaro didn't know what was going on. This strange man was telling him he was in the future, yet if the year was 1999 then he was three years in the past.

"I'm not getting anywhere with him. I hope he doesn't ruin the couch." Al thought. He decided to give up on explaining anything to Hamtaro and see how Sam was doing.

The door slid up again as Al left. Hamtaro wasn't sure what was going on, or what "quantum leaping" was. But he knew that the only way he was going to get out of this place alive was with a swift military strike. He slipped quickly through an air vent in the floor and crawled blindly through the maze of shafts.


**********


Sam's heart was beating one hundred times a minute, which was at least 7 beats faster than normal for a hamster. Laura had picked him up and he sat on her bed perplexed by the events unfolding before him. He was some sort of rodent. A hamster, or maybe a tailless mouse. He couldn't help but defecate on the girl's comforter several times out of fear. Just as things couldn't seem any worse, Al showed up.

"Al! What am I doing here?" Sam yelled.

"Uhhh, we don't know yet, Sam." Al looked around at the ornate, pink bedroom. It reminded him a lot of his own as a child. "There's a 50% chance you're here to save Laura's life."

"Laura."

"The uh, little girl there."

"Oh, right. How, why, how am I inside...of a hamster?"

"We're still working on it. Heads up, Sam."

Laura came back to the bed. She crawled under the covers and grabbed Hamtaro with both hands.

"It's time, Hamtaro." She pushed him under the blankets. "Show me the magic again."

"Al!" Sam yelled.

"What, Sam? What? Just do," he made gestures with his hands, "what she wants."

"You have to be kidding, Al. I can't do that kind of a thing."

"Can't do it? Are you crazy, Sam? Do you know how many opportunities you get in life to fit your entire body inside of the vaginal cavity of a 12-year-old Asian girl? Two or three. Maybe four if you're stationed overseas."