moving day (flash fiction)

       The movers would be there first thing in the morning.  Finally getting out of this hell-hole.  What anybody could possibly see good about living in Los Angeles was beyond her.  Packing was therapy—she cleaned out as much as she could.  Not that a lot could accumulate in just two years.  Resentment could accumulate. Being dragged from home to the west coast with two little girls who needed their grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins; yeah, resentment definitely needed to be cleaned out before going home.
      “Mama?”  The young voice came from the far end of the house.
“Mama’s a little busy back here.” Her oldest was not yet 9. “What is it, honey?” The dramatic pause should have clued her in to impending disaster.
      The kids had chores—clean out their bedrooms, throw away a third of their things.  Four year old Keri played with her barbies quietly which kept her out from underfoot. Kim’s job was to walk the dogs and pack their stuff, change the cat litter and take her stuff to the neighbor because the cat wasn’t going, and clean the hamster cage. The hamsters were headed to her best friend’s that evening after Dad got home.
“There are pink jelly beans coming out of Snowball and he’s chasing Skipper!  The jelly beans are wiggling all over the cage! Skipper is trying to hide behind the barrel— Snowball ran through the wheel. No!       He just caught him!  He’s tearing him up!  MOM!”
The giant cage filled the small bay window just off the kitchen by the back door.  Skipper and Snowball lived together in a spacious cage, well fed and watered.  Today their usual energetic exercise was a fight.
      Kim, the consummate story teller, hollered to her mother and took the water bottle off the side of the cage, to keep it from leaking any more water everywhere.
“This better not be one of your stories!”  She was seriously not in the mood. “Are you making this up, Kimberly?”
“No ma’am! It’s the truth, I swear! There are wiggling jelly beans—eight of them! And they’re bright pink!” It was a funny sight and it made her laugh.  But she knew it was serious.  Those hamsters were stirring up the shavings into a whirl of smoky cedar.  “Want me to call Dad?” she hollered.  “They’re gonna kill each other in there!”
Mama did not have time for this nonsense. Kim had a penchant for rhetoric and having hamsters was their father’s idea.  Mama stopped what she was doing and stormed from the master bedroom through the house, negotiating packed, stacked and empty boxes like an obstacle course. Kim fidgeted at the hamster cage.
      “There’d better be wiggling pink jelly beans in that cage, young lady.”
Kim stepped aside and gestured toward the cage.
      Mama froze. Who knew female hamsters lose their mind in the chaos of domestic life and try to kill their mate? Suddenly she shifted back into action. “We gotta get Skipper out.” She searched the kitchen for the goldfish bowl.
      Kim frowned at the cage. “I thought they liked each other. I thought they were both boys.  Dad said they were both boys.  Boys can’t have babies.”
      Mama grabbed the goldfish bowl off the trash pile. “Exactly!” she screamed. Her patience had been thinning all day. “This is crazy!” She grabbed a soup ladle off the counter to scoop out poor Skipper who already looked pretty shabby. This was the last straw. “Go call your father!” she snapped. And when I get my hands on him I’m gonna scratch his eyeballs out!