Read Pluis's book

An example. 3 photos, seven answers, about ten minutes. Yours is made the same way.

• 

  Pluis
• 

  Pluis

  2024

  Pluis

• Pluis

  2024

  For Pluis, who runs all night and forgives the alarm by morning.

  Pluis1

  Breed

  Dwarf hamster

  Born

  2024

  Lives with

  Lars, in Utrecht

  Loves

  Sunflower seeds, hazelnuts

  Fears

  The alarm clock

  Pluis2

• Morning starts with a jump.

  Pluis3

  The Alarm Enemy

  Every morning at eight, the alarm goes off, and Pluis jumps straight into the air. She runs inside without waiting to see what happens next. Lars tried a different alarm once, hoping for peace. It made no difference. That one scared her too. Eight o'clock is eight o'clock, whatever sound announces it, and Pluis meets it the same way every single day.

  Pluis4

• The Real Bedroom

  Officially, Pluis sleeps in the wooden house. That is the story for visitors. In truth she dug a tunnel to the corner behind the wheel, and that is where she actually spends her days, buried under a heap of sawdust with just one ear showing. The wooden house sits empty and photogenic. The real bed is the one nobody built her.

  Pluis5

  

  Pluis6

• The Sound of a Bag

  It does not matter which bag, or what is in it. The tearing sound is enough. Pluis can be fast asleep in her house, and within five seconds she is up against the glass, cheeks already puffed with air before she has seen a single seed. She has never once been wrong about what that sound means.

  Pluis7

  Cheeks already full of air.

  Pluis8

• Things She Gets Away With

  • Walking onto the table
  • Helping herself to the sunflower seeds
  • Doing it while the textbook is open
  • Facing zero consequences

  Pluis9

  The Flatmate's Bag

  The seeds belong to Lars's flatmate, but Pluis has never respected that. She climbs onto the table while he sits there with his textbook open, walks straight over to his bag of sunflower seeds, and helps herself. He does nothing. Not a word, not a hand raised to stop her. She has learned exactly how far she can go, and the answer, so far, is all the way.

  Pluis10

• 

  Pluis11

  The Hazelnut Problem

  Pluis once stuffed an entire hazelnut into her cheek, so full she could no longer fit through the door of her house. She sat there for ten minutes, blocked by her own ambition, until Lars finally got the nut back out. Anyone would think she had learned something. The next evening she did the exact same thing again, cheek bulging, door impossible, lesson entirely unlearned.

  Pluis12
• 

  On Daan's hand. Daan, who doesn't like her.

  Pluis13

  Daan's Hand

  Daan says he doesn't like Pluis. Every evening he lets her sit on his hand anyway. The first time, he held his hand flat on the table and did not move for five minutes, waiting her out. Then he said 'right,' picked his book back up, and kept reading with her still sitting there on his palm, exactly where she'd decided to stay.

  Pluis14

• Who Belongs to Pluis

  Lars

  Comes home from lectures, gets the nut out of her cheek

  Daan

  Says he doesn't like her, holds still for her anyway

  Mama

  Asks after Pluis before asking about the exams

  The wheel

  What she's running on when he walks in, and after

  Pluis15
  LarsDaanMamaThe wheel

  Pluis16
• 

  Pluis17

  Forty grams, climbing like she weighs sixty kilos.

  Pluis18

• The Friday Call

  Lars's mother calls every Friday, and the first time she asked after Pluis before asking how his exams went: 'And how is the little one?' Lars held the phone up against the glass of the tank so she could hear the wheel turning. Now she does it every Friday, exams forgotten until Pluis has been accounted for first.

  Pluis19

  

  Pluis20

• 

  Pluis21

  

  Pluis22

• 

  Pluis23

  Eleven at Night

  Lars's day starts at eight. Pluis's starts at eleven at night. When he gets home from lectures, she is already in the wheel, running. She stops the moment he walks in, looks over to check it's him, and then carries on running, exactly as before, as if he had only imagined the pause.

  Pluis24

• Forty grams, and she climbs onto Lars's hand as if she weighed sixty kilos. The wheel still turns after eleven. The bags in the room are still not safe. Daan still says he doesn't like her, and still doesn't move his hand.

  Pluis25
  

  Second floor, Utrecht. The wheel keeps turning.

  Pluis26

• This book was made for Pluis, from the words and photos of the people who love Pluis.

  bookofmypet.com