The Adventures of Melissa and Cleopatra: (And Their Friend Katina)

By David J. Hirschfeld

A silly book about the troubles that follow three special pets, whose unique gifts allow them to explore the world of people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483435367

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Chapter 1: Melissa Comes Home

S pencer and Leah Davis lived in the beautiful town of Franklin with their parents, an older brother, Jay, and an older sister, Arielle. Spencer and Leah were twins, with Spencer being nine minutes older than Leah. Leah had bright green eyes and dark brown hair. Spencer’s eyes were sharp brown and he had dark black hair.

It was wintertime, and all Spencer wanted for Hanukkah was a pet gerbil. He wanted a gerbil even more than a new game for his Game Boy, because he thought it would be fun to teach it tricks. Best of all, it would be his pet, just his, and no one else’s.

The Davis family already had a pet dog named Jada but he was the family’s pet. Jada was named after everyone else in the family, except Spencer and Leah. The J was for Jay, the A was for Arielle, the D was for David (which was Daddy’s real name), and the last A was for Andrea (which was Mommy’s real name). The family joked that they should add an L for Leah and an S for Spencer so that Jada’s named could to Jadals. But Jada had been in the house for so long, no one was sure that he would understand his new name!

Our story begins with a trip to the pet store just after the family returned from winter vacation. The whole Davis family went to help pick out a new pet for Spencer. There was a mother gerbil there with lots of babies. One of the babies seemed especially sweet and was playing nicely with the other babies. She was so cute, with light brown fur and white paws. What was odd though was the way she seemed to look straight at Spencer when he talked to her. Spencer immediately feel in love with her. So, it was decided, and that is how Melissa came into the Davis family.

Well, the first thing Spencer did was find Melissa a home in the Davis house. There was no question that she was going to stay in Spencer’s room, but where?

Spencer’s brother, Jay, used to have a pet gerbil too. Her name had been Crystilla. She had died a few years ago and was buried in the back yard. This meant that Spencer had a cage for Melissa.

The cage was really a big plastic box, red on the bottom and clear on the sides. The top came off so that Spencer could play with Melissa and take care of her. Melissa already had toys inside, including a big wheel that went around and around as she ran on it. There were also ramps to climb and a little wooden house to hide in and little rubber balls to play with.

Spencer and Leah set about assembling all of the things they needed to make Melissa’s new home extra special. There was a water bottle, a food box, and some burlap. The burlap was for Melissa to shred into a big ball of fuzz so she would have a little room inside her home to sleep. At the pet store, Daddy had bought special gerbil food and tiny wood chips for the bottom of the box.

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Melissa’s first day was great. She loved her new home. She seemed to understand what Spencer and Leah were saying because she always stopped what she was doing to listen to them. But that didn’t make sense. Everyone knows that gerbils can’t understand people! The pet store owner had said not to play with Melissa the first day too much, or she might become afraid of people. So, as hard as it was, they left Melissa alone and put her cage in the playroom.

The next day was a weekend, and Spencer and Leah planned to spend the whole day playing with Melissa. After getting dressed and having breakfast, they ran to their playroom. Spencer screamed, Where’s Melissa?! She was not in her cage. It seemed that in the middle of the night someone had moved the top of the cage, and she had jumped out.

Spencer and Leah ran to wake up Mommy and Daddy. The whole house had to be searched from top to bottom, in the attic, in the crawlways, in the basement, even all of the closets! Jada, who previously had not been allowed to visit with Melissa, was also enlisted to help find her. There were tears in everyone’s eyes, as everyone expected the worst.

Hours and hours went by with no one able to find poor Melissa. Mommy suggested that they put a big bowl of gerbil food in a dish and watch from the room next door. So they did. Daddy told everyone to be very, very quiet. Sure enough, not long after that, Leah heard a scratching noise. Everyone was watching the dish, holding their breath to see what would happen next.

Well, surprise of surprises, out came Melissa from behind the dresser in the playroom, followed by a cute little mouse with snowy white fur. She had big round ears and a sharp little nose with a sort of button on the end of it. They seemed to be the very best of friends. As they were eating the gerbil food, everyone in the Davis family crept back into the playroom. Neither Melissa nor her friend ran away. The family decided right then and there that Melissa’s friend would become another family pet, this one for Leah. Leah decided to name her Cleopatra.

Melissa and Cleopatra seemed to be very happy to go back to their cage. They made it pretty by tearing up all of the burlap into a really big ball of fuzz, which become their new home.

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Chapter 1 ½: Special Talents for Special Pets

T he first couple of weeks with Melissa and Cleopatra were pretty uneventful. Spencer and Leah loved playing with them. They were so smart—they could learn a new trick after just one lesson! It was almost as if they could understand what Leah and Spencer were saying.

Anyway, it was two weeks after Melissa and Cleopatra had joined the family that Spencer started to think something wasn’t right. It began with what he thought were voices in the middle of the night. He would wake up and hear soft high-pitched voices. As soon as he turned on the light, the voices would stop. He would look around, but no one would be there. He even checked the rest of the house to see if Mommy or Daddy or his brother or his sister might be talking in their sleep, or maybe even a burglar. But everyone in the house was asleep, and all of the doors were locked. So where were those voices coming from?

And yet every night the voices continued. Each time Spencer got up, they stopped. He decided it was time to play a trick to find out where the voices were coming from. The next time he heard the voices, he pretended to be sleeping. He listened very closely. After a few minutes, he realized they were coming from his pets’ new home. Slowly, he crawled out of his bed and crept towards their cage. The closer he got, the clearer the voices became until he could just make out