Santa said, "Remember that hamster you had in grade school?"
"Oh, yeah, ol' Frisbee. I guess his name was really Fluffy, but after
that week I had to take him home to take care of him, he was ol'
Frisbee," Jack says with a wicked childish gleam in his eye.
"Yes, and exactly how did you take care of Fluffy?" asked Santa
pointedly.
"Well, I set up in this maze in my pop's lab. He had this old
hydraulic press over 3000 lbs per square inch of pressure, and I sort
of routed the maze into it and put a hamster treat in the center. I
wanted to see if Fluffy was smart enough to get the treat without
getting squashed," Jack explained with a fatalistic shrug. He added,
"He wasn't, but he made a cool Frisbee."
"Your father let you play with his lab equipment?"
"Nah, my pops died before I was born. Mum kept it locked up, but I
found the key. I needed a place to go when my creepy Uncle Francois
came to visit, and my big brother Phillipe was away at "boarding
school" " Jack said making quotation marks with his hands. He added,
"We all knew he was in a nut house. Sometimes I think Uncle and mums
should've been there too. Obsessed with bugs, the lot of them." He
shakes his head.
Santa double checks his paperwork as he looks over at the hamster that
used to be a man, and due to his self-absorption hasn't noticed yet
that he's a hamster. Let's see, "Jacques Delambre - son of Helene and
Andre Delambre (born posthumously). Hm. Cross-reference son of human
fly. Oh, yes, now I remember. Ooh, you were that Jack."
"What do you mean were Jack? I still am!" Jack shouts thumbing his
furry chest with his paw. "Eek! What have you done to me?" he
exclaimed looking down at his tiny hamster body.
"I guess no one ever told you about your father and his experiment to
transmit matter electronically, or how he died?"
"What the fuck does that have to do with me being a hamster!"
"Ah, well, your father got his genes mixed with a fly's. They actually
made a couple movies about it. Your mother sold the rights to pay for
her boys' upbringing. Most people never knew it was a true story.
Anyway your father with his fly head and arm made love to your mother
before he was crushed in the hydraulic press. That's when you were
conceived."
"Wait! My uncle said a spider bite killed my pops!"
"Oh, well his head was on the fly's body, and he was caught in a web,
but when your Uncle Francois struck at the web to kill the spider he
was the one who squashed your father. That split body thing meant he
died twice. Anyway you're not entirely human, you got some fly DNA in
there. Probably explains what you did to Frisbe-errr," Santa shudders.
"Okay, so I'm a mutant fly guy, why the fuck do I look like a friggin'
hamster!" squeaked Jack angrily.
"Ah, well, you don't need a lot of backstory. Suffice it to say,
Santa's going to put you back in time to when you took Fluffy home,
and this time you'll be Fluffy."
"Say what!" Jack yelps as Santa's gloved hand picks him up by the nape
of his neck and carries him through a candy striped doorway in the
middle of the room. He's in his old school room, and there's the
hamster sleeping in his cage. Santa opens the cover and snatches out
Fluffy and drops Jack in closing the lid.
"Nooooo!" squeaks Jack.
"I wouldn't talk too much if I were you, hamster boy. You don't want
to end up on the dissection table do you?"
"Yikes!"
The bell rang, and he heard his old teacher's familiar voice.
"Alright, children, recess is over. Line up in an orderly fashion
while I open the door."
The sound of a key in the lock distracted Jack for a second. When
looked back at Santa he saw the shimmering figure in the candy cane
doorway fade into nothingness. He was alone in his old classroom. The
door flung open and he recognizes his own young eager face looming
over his glass prison.
"You know what, Fluffy, tonight you're coming home with me. We're
going to have so much fun together!" beamed the young Jack with a
familiar evil gleam in his eye.