Help...I think I might have just killed the kids' guinea pigs...

[anais]

I know this will sound really trivial after some of the stuff on the board, but...I think I might have just killed the kids' guinea pigs. I went to give them some fruit earlier and pushed it under the wire of the run. I've just been out to put them to bed and they've gone. Out under the wire. I feel awful. What am I going to do? I've gone to get a torch so I can look for them and it doesn't work and I've got no b**y batteries to go in it, I've gone out with an electric light and stretched it as far as I can, but the garden's not secure on 2 sides - it goes into other gardens and they're either gonna be eaten or get out onto the road and be squished. What am I going to tell the kids???? OMG I can't believe this is happening, on top of everything else at the moment. Life is shit.

Glad they turned up anais! I have a bit of a funny story. Years ago me and boyfriend were looking after friend's child's hamster. They left it at our house. One night it escaped. We hunted high and low but feared that it had got outside. The family were due back the next day. We felt awful having to tell them that their hamster had run off due to our neglect. So we decided to tell them that it had died and we bought another one for hte child. Obvsioulsy we didn't try to fool the child that it was the same hamster and he seemed to realise that hamsters died and was happy with the new one and they took it home.

A happy ending.

... then a couple of days later I heard this scrabbling noise behind the sofa and blow me it was the hamster! It hadn't run away at all and was obviously just hiding somewhere. So we had to keep a 'dead' hamster that didn't belong to us... and hide it in the cupboard when the family came round!