It was just another ordinary evening at the Miller household. The smell of dinner filled the air, and the sound of the TV droned on in the background as Sarah and her family sat around the kitchen table. But tonight, something was different. Something strange lingered in the air—an odd electric charge, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Sarah’s younger brother, Ben, had been acting odd all day, flipping through an old book he had found in the attic. She hadn’t paid much attention to it, chalking it up to his usual curiosity. But as she set the table, she noticed something was off. Ben was whispering to himself, muttering words she couldn’t understand, and his eyes were wide with excitement—or was it panic?
“Ben, what are you doing?” she asked, half-laughing.
Ben looked up at her, his face pale. “I think I messed up,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I… I might have done something to Dad and Mom.”
Before Sarah could react, a soft, high-pitched squeak filled the room. Her father, once sitting at the head of the table, suddenly froze. His features began to shrink, his clothes hanging loosely around him as he dropped to the floor. He shrank and shrank, fur sprouting along his skin, until in a matter of seconds, her father was no longer a man—but a tiny, wide-eyed hamster, twitching in confusion.
Sarah’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “Dad?” she whispered, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
But before she could process it further, another squeal echoed through the room. Her mother, who had been stirring the soup, turned in confusion as her body began to shrink as well. Her hands curled into tiny paws, and her face grew rounder, her nose twitching as fur overtook her skin. In mere moments, Sarah’s mother had transformed into another hamster, her soft brown fur matching her father’s.
Sarah stood frozen, her heart pounding as Ben slowly looked up from the book in his hands, eyes wide with fear.
“I—I didn’t mean to, Sarah. I was just trying to fix the blender. I thought I could make it work… but the spell—it went wrong.”
The room seemed to shrink around her as Sarah took a step back, her mind racing. She looked down at her parents—now no taller than her knee—scurrying around the kitchen floor, their tiny paws fumbling at the fallen forks and napkins. They were hamsters. Her family was hamsters.
Her brother began to pace nervously, clutching the book. “I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t even know how it happened.”
Sarah swallowed, her own hands trembling. She stared at the tiny hamster forms of her parents, their innocent, confused eyes blinking up at her. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to fix them.
And then, as if on cue, the sound of the front door creaking open echoed through the house.
“What’s going on in here?” Sarah’s older sister, Emma, stepped inside, and her voice faltered as she took in the sight. “Mom? Dad?”
All Sarah could do was point to the hamsters. The bizarre scene left them both speechless. The weight of the spell, of Ben’s mistake, had never seemed so heavy.
As Sarah knelt down to pick up the tiny, squeaking hamster who had once been her father, she realized something: her family was still here, even in this strange, new form. But everything was different. Life was no longer as simple as it had been before. The magic had changed them. And now, it was up to Sarah to figure out how to bring them back—or if they ever would return to what they once were.
English