“We can’t just run away! We have to do something!” Andy cried.
“We’re not running away,” Evan called back to her, turning a corner. “My father’s sculpture—it’s in the auditorium.”
“Huh?” Andy’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Evan—have you totally lost it? Why do you want to look at your father’s sculpture now?”
He burst through the auditorium doors and ran past the dark rows of seats toward the stage. Several pieces of sculpture had been set up there.
“Evan—I don’t get it!” Andy cried, right behind him.
“Look,” Evan said breathlessly. He pointed to his father’s work near the back of the stage. “My dad’s sculpture. It’s just like a hamster wheel—see?”
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at it.
“It’s a big metal wheel and it spins,” Evan explained as they pulled themselves up onto the stage. “Come on. Help me drag it back to Murphy’s room. It’s big enough for Cuddles.”
“Whoa!” Andy cried. “You want to bring Cuddles a wheel? What for?”
“To distract him,” Evan replied, grabbing one side of the big sculpture. “If we can get Cuddles running on this wheel, it will give us time to figure out where to keep him. And it will stop him from chewing the whole school to pieces.”
Andy grabbed hold of the other side, one hand on the wheel, one hand on the platform. “Maybe Cuddles will run so hard, he’ll lose weight. Maybe he’ll shrink back to his normal size,” she said.
Luckily, the platform was on wheels. They rolled the sculpture toward the stage door at the side. “I just want to distract him,” Evan said, tugging hard. “I just want to give us time to think, to make a plan.”
“Wow! This is heavy!” Andy cried. They rolled it into the hall. “Heavy enough for Cuddles, I guess.”
“I hope,” Evan replied solemnly.
By the time they rolled the sculpture to the classroom, the crowd of frightened kids and teachers had grown even bigger. “Make way! Make way!” they both shouted, pushing their way through the crowd.
They set the wheel down in the center of the floor and gazed over at Cuddles. The hamster had two teachers cornered, their backs pressed against the chalkboard. It was gnashing its huge teeth at them, slapping its pink paws together as if eager to fight them.
Evan gasped when he saw Mr. Murphy’s desk, crushed flat on the floor.
“I—I called the police!” Mr. Murphy cried, his face beaded with large drops of sweat. “I begged them to come. But when I said it was a giant hamster, they didn’t believe me! They thought it was a practical joke!”
“Stand back, everyone!” Evan cried shrilly. “Stand back—please! Let Cuddles see the wheel!”
The giant hamster turned suddenly. The two teachers scrambled away from the wall. Kids and teachers screamed and hurried toward the door.
“Maybe he’ll run on the wheel for a while,” Andy explained to Mr. Murphy. “Then we can figure out what to do with him!”
“He—he sees it!” Mr. Murphy cried breathlessly.
Cuddles stared down at the wheel. His stub of a tail thudded loudly against the chalkboard. He dropped heavily to all fours and took a lumbering step toward the wheel.
“He sees it. He’s going to it,” Evan murmured softly.
A hush fell over the room as everyone stared at the hamster.
Will Cuddles climb inside? Evan wondered, holding his breath.
Will he run on the wheel?
Will my plan work?
The hamster sniffed the wheel. Its pink nose twitched. It uttered a low grunt.
Then it raised itself back onto its hind legs. The hamster’s massive shadow fell over the room.
With another disgusting grunt, it picked the sculpture up in its front paws and raised it to its face.
“No!” Evan cried. “Cuddles—no!”
The metal clanged as Cuddles bit into the wheel. Evan saw deep tooth marks in the aluminum. Cuddles bit down again. Then, seeing that he couldn’t chew the wheel up, he pulled it apart, holding the sculpture in his paws and twisting it furiously with his teeth.
Then he tossed the mangled wheel away. It slammed into a window, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
“Back to the drawing board,” Andy muttered to Evan.
Evan shook his head glumly. That plan was a bust, he told himself. Now what?
He didn’t have time to think about it.
He heard shrill cries and shrieks of terror.
“Put him down! Cuddles—put him down!” Mr. Murphy was screaming.
