I went to collect Maddie from her friend’s house the other day.

Every time I go, I have to ask directions. I know what it looks like, but the gene which makes me an abominable listener means I never listen to the answer. Each time I go, I divine my way there.

The door swung open, and there stood my daughter, and a little something else.

In her hands was a gerbil with revolution in its eyes.

Staying still was not on the agenda, and Great Escape was the order of the day. It eyed the open door with a missionary zeal, for somewhere out there, surely, must lie the possibility of procreation.

If Maddie had only spoken binary, she would have giggled until she fell over.

But mercifully she didn’t. She would, however, like a gerbil, as she informed me on the way home. I permitted myself a shudder. Not because I don’t love anything rodent: quite the reverse. I love the pitter patter of tiny feet.

I discovered gerbils in my fourth year at senior school. My long-suffering parents came out with the eternal one sided contract: yes, you may have gerbils, as long as you look after them. You feed them, you clean them, you ensure they do not escape.

Reader, I do recall feeding them. I feel others may have assisted me on the cleaning front. But the next few years were a procession of crazed escapes, the like of which my bemused siblings had never seen.

The underwear drawer was their favourite haunt, because its contents, once ruthlessly shredded, made the perfect bedding. I would open the drawer, having once located and replaced the gerbil in its swedish condo, and find small snugs set up in corners, made of silk and cotton wool and stout Marks cotton.

They had an alarm call with which current hosts will be over-familiar. It is a double-thump. They actually jump off the floor, bodily, two feet at a time. Effortlessly. Oh, for such muscular control.

But what we hear, when they do this, is a perfectly timed piece of comic commentary. Look out, chaps, danger on the starboard bow. Schoolgirl owner registering on radar. Look sharp. Run, boys, at the speed of sound.

Except that, despite what the pet shop said when you bought them, hands on heart, they aren’t just boys, are they? They’re girls, too. And with the greatest of regret, girls and boys come out to play.

Prolific is not the word, rampant is. Females can produce a litter once every five weeks. And while the more moderate mothers take the Chinese approach with a modest five pups, those over here prefer quantity, sometimes managing up to twelve. Number crunching reveals that’s a possible 120 gerbils in any one year.

Persuading the pet shop to take their offspring back is an art in itself.

The worst ones are those which hail from my beloved mother Russia. Tiny enough to get through most bars, they approach life with a crazed application worthy of those vast Steppes. And they’re grumpy: I received many a nip from tiny hurricanes who belonged, in truth, on those great Soviet plains.

Their energy was unsuitable, and we became accustomed to incongruous silhouettes on the pillow in the dead of night, and thump-thumps in cupboards and compartments where there ought to be hushed silence.

When it was time for me to fly the nest and head to university, it was clear a more suitable companion must be found.

We didn’t have to look very far. The answer lay in a rotund, affable syrian hamster named Ben.

Ben was the tortoise to my gerbils’ hare. He took his time with teutonic methodical bumbling charm. He would not be hurried, but he was happy to sit in a hand, sniffing around, taking the air.

He was affluent as hamsters go, with a house in the Home Counties and a seaside pad. We would travel between, him in a spacious hamster travel box on the train. If there was an absence of other passengers he might come out and take the air. And always with the air of an absent-minded professor, on his way to the library.

Strictly, in my student house, he was not supposed to exist.

Our imposing Indian landlord, who measured almost seven feet in his Turban, had cannily insisted on a No Pets clause.

But he remained out of sight for the majority of my stay.

I say, the majority: there was one occasion in which my landlord and my right-hand-rodent came whisker to whisker.

He had arrived to collect the rent (My landlord, you understand, not the hamster) and stood talking affably with us in the kitchen, discussing this and that. We stood reverently, as one does when one is a student and the man who owns one’s house is before one.

I and a house mate happened, serendipitously, to look down.

And there, bright-eyed and on his way to the library, was Ben. His perfect fur clashed violently with the turquoise plastic-tiled floor. It was only a matter of time before our august visitor followed our horrified eyes to the forbidden furry friend.

Rarely have reflexes worked with such dexterity. My friend grabbed a large saucepan and put it, upside down, on top of Ben. Visuals denied. Crisis over.

Except that, unsurprisingly, Ben disagreed with such drastic action. He set about burrowing through the plastic tiling, making enough racket to equal six council workmen digging a big hole.

We spent the next ten minutes in abject angst. If my landlord noticed, he did not comment. He made his excuses and left, and we rehoused my small companion, and breathed again.

I have always had a love for our tiny furry friends, particularly that little vole who fuels stories from my childhood.

But if maturity has taught me anything, it is that these little things have a habitat. And that’s where they are most at home.

So, in answer to Maddie’s question: we have a cat. We have a dog.

But rodents: they belong in a little labrynth, somewhere in the Sahara desert, living life on the wild side.

It is for these, and not the underwear drawer, that they were created.