Once there was a girl named Sally. Sally loved hamsters.
One day her mother said, “Sally, I have a present for you!”
“What?’’ Sally said.
’’Look in this box,’’ Sally’s mother said. Sally’s mom was holding a big brown box. Sally opened the box and inside the box was a cute hamster. The hamster was a brown cinnamon color.
Sally said, “Oh, I’ll name you Cinnamon the hamster.” Her mom gave her a hamster pack and a guide, but Sally already knew a ton about hamsters. But she still read the guide, just in case. She let the hamster run in a spinner. Sally fed Cinnamon lettuce and carrots. And she took Cinnamon out for walks. And she gave Cinnamon a school, called Cinnamon school. When Sally went to school, she left Cinnamon a cardboard cut out of her so he wouldn’t be lonely.
One day, when Sally was taking Cinnamon for a walk he slipped out of her leash. Cinnamon didn’t realize he was out of the leash. Sally didn’t realize he was out of the leash either. When Sally looked at her leash, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Cinnamon wasn’t on the leash!
When Cinnamon looked, he was in the bushes. But Sally didn’t see him in the bushes. They were very tall bushes. Sally looked everywhere. She looked in one of the bushes, but she didn’t look in the bush Cinnamon was in because she didn’t realize there was another bush. Her mother was at the supermarket and her father was working, so Sally realized she would have to act like Cinnamon so that he would come to her. But she would have to read a book all about hamsters first. The guide! She put food out at night, but Cinnamon didn’t come to her. The bushes were so high that Cinnamon couldn’t smell.
Cinnamon fed on lettuce, because there was lettuce in the bushes, and he thought that those bushes were the woods.
And then her mom called and said she wouldn’t be back for a week because she was going to San Francisco for her work. And her dad would be working all day.
So Sally thought, if she was going to find Cinnamon she would need him to come to her. She walked all over the neighborhood singing her Cinnamon song. “Cinnamon, oh Cinnamon!” She sang up and down the street. But the bushes were too thick and high that Cinnamon couldn’t hear it.
Then she saw the bushes that Cinnamon was in were rattling. She thought that it just must be ants. She went to check the bushes, but when she looked, Cinnamon thought it was a hungry lion. When she looked he ran outside the bushes, then he came back when she was done looking.
Cinnamon was scared. Sally was scared too. She didn’t know what to do.
She thought she should wear her night vision goggles. But since the bushes were very thick, she couldn’t find him. Then she called out, “Cinnamon! Cinnamon!”
Cinnamon thought it was a snake because he only heard “Sssssssssisss”, so he thought it was a snake. And some of the leaves were cinnamon colored, so he camouflaged in them whenever Sally looked.
Sally was very discouraged. Then she said, “Maybe mom was right. I should have read the guide all the way through.” She had thrown the guide out when she was just half way through. “Maybe I’ll live my life without Cinnamon. Mom is going to kill me when she finds out.”
Cinnamon ran out of carrots and lettuce in the bush. So he went into the real woods to find some food. Mom got home and Sally said, “Can I go to the woods to see what kind of uh, leaves there are?’’
“Sure,’’Sally’s mom said. But Sally was actually going to look for Cinnamon.
It was summertime and Sally was moving in 62 days and she had to find Cinnamon before then. So when she went into the woods she realized she would have to be like Cinnamon again, which didn’t work last time but she was willing to try again. She saw Cinnamon’s footprints but ended up following a tiny cat that wasn’t Cinnamon and it scratched her. While Cinnamon was trying to find some hope and some food, the cat that scratched Sally came right in front of Cinnamon and it was really big. It was a ginger cat with orange stripes. The cat chased Cinnamon through the woods and out of the woods and back into the woods. He made himself a little hole to hide him and the cat couldn’t get him. Anyways, Cinnamon came out of his little hole and looked around. He wasn’t a very good climber so he couldn’t climb. He was a very good jumper though. Cinnamon wandered accidentally into bullet ant territory. And Cinnamon didn’t realize, but then a bullet ant started chasing him and Cinnamon knew about bullet ants because he went to bullet ant school. Cinnamon jumped over twigs and left and ran very fast but the bullet ant could probably outrun him. He jumped over a big pile of dirt and the bullet ants couldn’t get him.
When he saw the ants leaving, now Cinnamon was really scared. He trembled. When he got out from behind the dirt pile, he started to shake, partly because it was really warm. He didn’t like being warm. He needed to be room temperature. Finally Cinnamon found some lettuce on the ground and it felt very good to eat. Cinnamon started now to find his way home to Sally. He thought he heard her voice but he only heard hummingbirds. Meanwhile, Sally felt hopeless. Just then, Sally saw Cinnamon! Cinnamon ran to Sally. Sally kissed Cinnamon.
The end.