One day in late May, I came home from school and my Dad wasn't home. Soon after he came home with a huge cage with 5 rats. He told me he got them from our friends who accidently left them in a place in there house where it was really hot, and they came back inside and the rats were acting weird and their noses were bleeding from the heat. They gave the rats to my Dad so he could take care of them,and the first one I named was Joey,a white rat with a black head.He breathed very heavily and was skinnier then the other rats.He was the most affectionate one of them all and always came out of the cage when we'd change the food/water. He would climb on our shoulders and never want to come off and whenever we'd come over to the cage he'd look at us and try to get out.We noticed he breathed heavily still, and my parents figured he had some kind of illness.We paid even more attention to him then. On Tuesday, June 22 2010 I woke up really excited because I was going to a waterpark with my friends when my Dad came in and told me Joey died overnight. I was so depressed that I canceled the trip to the waterpark.I went in my garage and he was in a box laying on a small towel. That was the first time I cried in a long time.My Dad and I buried him in my backyard next to where we buried a duck that we tried to save after he got hit by a car.On the rock that we used as Joey's tombstone, I painted a picture of him and wrote R.I.P and stuff about him.Since I never took a picture of him (I wasn't sure if the flash would bother him) I drew a picture of him and put it in my room.We only had him for a month, but we had a great time with him during that month. We still have his brothers, but it's not the same without Joey.We will always miss you and love you Joey! Love Mom,Dad,Dillon and Sean.