Nothing would do Nathan's new owner but that he had to write a second letter to Santa Claus, which is father promised to send special delivery, asking for new items to keep his new pet happy.
Nathan thought bitterly that he would be happy if he could go home and resume his old life as an ordinary 17-year-old boy. Instead, he was spending Christmas as the pet of a kid! He was left in the boring glass tank for hours at a time. He was only removed when Bobby wanted quality time with his pet, which usually meant carrying the tiny, frail mouse around the house in his sticky hands or letting his little pet crawl over him.
On Christmas morning, Nathan rode to the family room in the pocket of Bobby's blue pajama top. He got to witness the boy as he tore into several packages wrapped in bright red and green paper. "Look at this," Bobby told his new pet. "We got you a fun wheel. You can run around on it all day long!"
The prospect didn't exactly fill Nathan with holiday glee, but he had to admit that it would be something to do to break up the long hours of monotony.
The last gift that Bobby unwrapped was a plastic ball. The two halves of the sphere opened, and in an unexpected demonstration, Nathan was plucked out of the boy's pocket and dropped into one of the large plastic halves. Bobby snapped the other half back into place and dropped the ball onto the floor.
"Now you can run around the house, and we don't have to worry about you running away or dad stepping on you," Bobby explained.
Nathan realized that if he ran, he would rotate the ball and send it shooting across the floor. But he was still trapped, confined within the large plastic ball.
"This sucks!" Nathan thought.
As he rolled around the floor, he wondered if that was his future. Life as a pet mouse, his freedom curtailed, all because of a whim.