the tail of a little mouse

NaNoWriMo Entries 2007 – also NoJoMO

Archie opened his left eye reluctantly, then shut it again. He was trying to sleep and concentrated on getting comfortable. The only thing was, try as he might, something was prodding him in the back and something, ah, something was sticking in his neck and pushing and prodding and …

“Gah ok, ok,” he groaned. Both eyes open now, he stretched out his left paw and his whole body shuddered as he pulled himself out from under his brother. “Can’t you find your own spot?” he grumbled at his sister as he slid out of the hole where he had been resting and disentangled himself from her back paw.

“Sure,” replied Gina, “but Archie, your spot is always warmest and anyway, you’ve been sleeping for ages. Give the rest of us a break would you.”

“Hm. How does my sleeping stop you lot from having a break?” muttered Archie.

“He he,” giggle Gina. “You don’t know how badly you snore. There’s just no peace around here when you’re sleeping,” she said, squeezing past Archie, climbing over other sleeping bodies and wriggling herself down.

“Ha, well it doesn’t seem to have stopped anyone else from sleeping,” retorted Archie, but when he looked back, Gina was already fast asleep, snuggled in among his other brothers and sisters.

‘Well,’ thought Archie. ‘Not much point in arguing with her anyway.’ And he sat back on his haunches, licking his paws and rubbing them over his fur. He hadn’t worked out if this cleaning habit was because he hated to smell, or whether it was just boredom but anyway, there wasn’t much else to get up to in this confined environment.

It was three weeks since he’d been moved into this place. It was different from where he’d been born and to be honest, he didn’t go a bundle on it. Instead of wire bars he could chew on, the area was confined by some sort of smooth see-through wall. He couldn’t climb the wall or anything and there was nothing here really to play with. No spinning wheel, no nothing.

Yeah, actually, come to think of it, he really didn’t like it much here. He hated those faces that came around and looked in on him regularly and ‘oohhed’ and ‘ahhhed’. What was that about? And above all, he hated the animals – humans his mother told them they were called – that came round and felt the need to bang on the wall with their big fat smelly fingers. No, he really didn’t like that at all, particularly when he was trying to sleep. Couldn’t they see that? Ha, no respect, honestly.

The worst thing was at night. At night there was nothing to do at all except fall over his brothers and sisters. And to be honest, he missed his mum. He really missed his mum.

Archie thought back to mum. She had been so gentle and caring, nudging him and keeping him warm. She’d never complained when he wanted milk, even though his teeth had already started growing and sometimes he was sure that he and his brothers and sisters hurt her. She had been really lovely, mum, snuggling up with them all, wrapping her tail around them or just rolling them all up in a ball. And then, one day she came over all sad and wouldn’t talk to Archie, wouldn’t talk to any of them. She just retreated to the corner of the ‘cage’ and wouldn’t be drawn. The only thing she had said was to make sure they kept themselves clean and to make sure they always did their business away from their food and water – especially their water, just like she’d always told them.

And then, well, then the hand had come and lifted them all out of the cage. One by one they’d been put in a dark box and the last Archie had seen of his mum was her back turned towards him and her washing her ears frantically. Yeah, Archie, his missed mum badly.

There had been much more room in the cage too. Actually, it had been a fun place to grow up, plenty to play with, plenty to chew on. But here, where they’d been put together since the black box, well here it was very hot, there was a bright light that was always burning and they couldn’t get away from it and there was no air and nothing to do. Just dead boring.

Suddenly Archie became aware of movement outside beyond the light and o

f voices.

“Which one then?” asked a lady’s voice.

“I don’t know. Can’t I have two, mum?” asked a younger voice.

“No Justin, you can’t,” came the reply. “Just one I said, otherwise we’ll be having lots of baby mice in a few weeks and your father will go crazy. I’m already going to have to explain one mouse away. He won’t be happy you know.”

“Yes, but mum, you promised!” exclaimed the boy.

“Yes I did Justin, and its ok. You can have a mouse, but one only. Which one is it to be?”

Archie, bobbed his head up. He had been cleaning his ears, but now he stopped and listened. What was happening?

Suddenly the roof was lifted from the room he was living in and he thought of running for cover. He rushed towards the pile of bodies in which his brothers and sisters were sleeping.

“This one?” asked a deep voice, as a hand grabbed him.

“Yes, that one. He’s cute!” replied the boy.

“Right, come here you critter,” boomed the voice as the hand lifted Archie out of the room and into another dark box.

Archie huddled down. He was frightened. He had never been apart from his brothers and sisters and here he found himself in a dark box with no lights, all alone. It was cold after having been beneath the big light for so long. Cold and something else. An emptiness and fear.

Outside the box, the voices became muffled.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” the young voice asked.

“A boy probably but it’s hard to tell at the moment,” answered the booming deep voice. “He’s only six weeks old. We got him in last week – well, him and his little family there. You sure you don’t want a playmate for him?”

“Absolutely not,” replied the lady sternly. “We don’t want to be having little ones now.”

“Ah, well ma’am, if that were to happen, then you’d just bring them here and we’d sell them on for you. Just like this little fellow,” the deep voiced boomed.

“Oh Mum, can we? Can we?” piped up the young voice. “That would be really fun.”

“No. No thank you. One will be enough Justin. Remember what your father said already,” asserted the lady. “Now, we need to find something to keep him in. You can’t keep him in a shoe box you know.”

Archie felt the earth moving beneath him. Alone in the dark, he spread his paws out to stop himself from falling over but the slid on the inside of the small box. What was this? Why weren’t any of his brothers or sisters coming? Was he really going on his own?

The moving stopped and Archie shrank down into the bottom of the box. He hated being in the dark. Gina had never minded. She said she could see better in the dark than in the day, but he hated it. He hated even more the feeling that he was completely shut inside this contraption, and more to the point, he was shut in on his own.

“Oh cool mum,” shouted the young voice. “Can we get this?”

“Let me see Justin,” answered the lady’s voice. “Oh my goodness, no, have you seen the price?”

“Yes, but it would be cool. Look at all the colours and all the tubes that link into each other. He’d have a great time.”

“Yes, I’m sure he would,” replied the lady. “And your father, not to mention the bank manager, would kill me. Its way to expensive. What do you think of this?”

“Well, I think its really boring, compared to the other one, but at least it isn’t tiny,” replied the boy.

“Ok, let’s go then.”

The movement began again, the box swinging around and Archie hanging on inside for dear life and feeling somewhat sea-sick. He tried to hang on to the floor, or to slide into a corner and stay there, pressed against the walls but he found that harder and harder. He tried to be brave about what was happening and to tell himself that he was going off for a new adventure. I mean, this wasn’t so different to the trip he’d made recently when he’d been taken from his mum. The only difference was that this time, he wasn’t going with his brothers and sisters.

Inside the box, Archie could feel a growing feeling of fear rising. For the first time in his short life, he realized that he was completely alone and he didn’t know where he was going. He would have rather argued with Gina than find himself on his own. For the first time, Archie knew what it felt like to be scared and lonely.