Frankie was a gerbil.
When the Maxwell's first brought him home from the pet store, Frankie was very young and had never been away from his family before. His new home was big and strange and frightening. Mother Maxwell hushed her children, who had clustered around Frankie's cage and were exclaiming, "He's so cute!"
"He's scared," she said. "Let him get used to his new home, and then you can make friends with him."
The children went to sit down, looking over at Frankie. Frankie scratched behind his ear, and nibbled on the wood chips in his cage.
Now, a month later, Frankie loved nothing better than playing with the Maxwells. He would climb down Dustin's shirt, and sit in Lisa's hand and eat sunflower seeds. Mother Maxwell would give him lettuce when she opened a new head, and Father Maxwell always gave him toilet paper rolls to chew.
One day, Father Maxwell came home with a surprise for the children. "Dustin, Lisa! Come here! I have a surprise for you!" Lisa bounded into the room, a smudge on her face and her braids coming undone.
"Ooh! What is it?! What is it?!"
Dustin, who was getting to that age were appearance was more important, sauntered in with his hands in his pockets. "Yeah?"
"This!" And Father Maxwell pulled something out from behind his back. It was a book about gerbils. "So we can all understand Frankie," he explained.
Lisa hopped up and down, excited, while Dustin raised his eyebrow. Lisa stuck her tongue out at him.
"Now, now. Lisa, that's not polite," Father Maxwell scolded.
"I don't have to be polite to HIM. He's my brother!"
"I'll show you!" And Dustin grabbed Lisa and gave her a noogie, messing up her hair even more.
"Kids!" Their mother had just come into the room, drying her hands on a towel. "Ben! You shouldn't encourage them!"
Father Maxwell held out his hands helplessly. "Come on, kids," he said. "I think I smell dinner."
After dinner was done and cleared away, the family sat down together while Lisa read from the gerbil book. Mother and Father sat on the couch with Lisa on the floor between them, because Lisa almost never sat on furniture, while Dustin flipped channels on the TV and Frankie nibbled on some seeds.
"Look!" Lisa exclaimed. "It says here that they have GERBIL shows!"
"Gerbil shows?" Father asked.
"Yeah! Like the doggy shows on Animal Planet!"
Dustin covered up his chuckle by pretending to choke.
"Go get a drink of water, dear," Mother said, glancing at him.
"I'll bet Frankie could be a show gerbil! He's the prettiest gerbil ever!" Mother and Father both looked over at the family pet, who twitched his nose and stared at them.
"I don't know, Lisa…" Father started.
"We don't know anything about showing gerbils, honey," Mother told her.
"I'll bet there's something about it online!" Lisa jumped up and fairly ran to the computer, tapping her foot impatiently when she had to wait for something to load.
Within a week, Lisa had already made plans to enter Frankie in a gerbil show. That Saturday, she anxiously called the convention center to ask them about entering. Her parents awoke to find her on the phone.
"Yes. Uh-huh. Well, thank you anyways," she sighed as she hung up the phone. "They want money to enter," she explained to her parents.
"An entrance fee?" her father asked.
"Yeah…" She sighed again and went upstairs to get dressed.
Her parents looked at each other. "What now?" Mother asked.
"When we were little," Father started, "we had a neighborhood dog show because we saw the Westminster on TV. Maybe they can have a pet-show with the kids down the street."
"Honey, that's perfect!" She stood on her tip-toes and kissed his cheek. "I'll go tell Lisa."
Lisa insisted they hold the show as soon as possible, so the Maxwells set up their yard the following Saturday, and on Sunday, it was packed with neighborhood kids and their faithful pets. Dogs paraded around and barked at each other. Terrie Crawford's shepherd Tiger chased the McDowell's cat up a tree. It didn't come down until lunch, when it smelled Terrie's tunafish sandwich.
During the afternoon was the Best Gerbil competition. Lisa set Frankie on the picnic table. "Anybody else?" she asked, looking around. Everyone shook their heads.
"I've got a guinea pig," Betty Bradshaw volunteered, "but I don't know anyone else with a gerbil."
"Looks like Frankie wins by default," Father Maxwell said, heading Frankie off before he could wander off the table.
"No," Lisa said suddenly.
"What now?" Dustin crossed his arms.
"Frankie wins," Lisa started, "because everyone else was too scared of losing to bring their gerbils out!" Everyone chuckled. "I always knew you were the best, Frankie!"
Dustin rolled his eyes.