To say that Karl was upset by the death of his hamster Bruno would be an understatement. He cried for three hours straight when he saw Bruno torn to shreds by his brother’s pet rat Clive, and could only be consoled once his mother got home from work. Since then the waterworks had been on and off, his brother constantly telling him to grow up and his mother reminding him that he still had his other hamster Deano. But he’d had Bruno for over three years and he had been his favourite, due to his abnormally big front teeth and extra long claws, whereas he’d only had Deano for a less than a month and compared to the livewire that Bruno was, Deano was just fat and lazy.
He would have still been deeply affected by his grief and having nightmares if Deano hadn’t surprised him and given birth to a little of 9 pink blobs.
He kept these 9 pink blobs a secret from both his mum and brother. Coincidentally, he was also learning about Mendel and his pea for the first time in his biology class and after some quick research to see how long hamsters were pregnant for (10-15 weeks) and how long it took them to reach sexual maturity (12 weeks), he formulated the start of a plan, operation Big Bruno.
His goal, ultimately, was to create a super hamster through selective breeding. He focussed on enhancing the teeth, body, and claw size. Keeping it secret was easy. The hardest part was releasing those that didn’t possess the correct traits, which he only did once they were fully grown so that they had a fighting chance of making it out in the wild. During these times, Karl told himself that it was survival of the fittest, and look at the progress he was making. After only three generations he was noticing the desired features were becoming bigger and more prominent on more and more of the offspring.
He persisted over the course of two years. Every now and then, a generation would throw in an anomaly with freakishly long claws or teeth that were almost too big for the mouth, or a huge hamster, a giant in comparison to its siblings. Karl selected these and finally he had a hamster that was as big as a rat. He called it Bruno’s Revenge.
Clive was still alive and kicking but his brother was no longer interested in him. Nonetheless, Karl waited until his brother was out and then dropped Bruno’s Revenge into Clive’s cage. At first, both creatures faced off, then Bruno’s Revenge raced towards Clive, surprisingly quick and aguile for a hamster of his magnitude, and backed him into a corner. After a brief staredown, Bruno’s Revenge pounced and tore Clive to shreds.
Later that night, when his brother was sound asleep, Karl crept into his brother’s bedroom, placed Bruno’s Revenge on the duvet at the foot of the bed, then quietly crept back to his own room and pretended to be asleep.