Again, as he often did, Mr. Leach held up a paw to stop the apology. “Nathaniel, I am going to offer you a new tidbit of wisdom, which you may tuck away.” Mr. Leach stood up on his hind paws and dramatically gesticulated with his tiny front paws. “Urgency has a way of collapsing or condensing time. Urgency has a kind of purifying effect on our actions, and in this case, it is your friend, old boy. You have the time you need. Engage … and extract.”
He remained quiet for a moment, looking hard at Nathaniel as if willing him to remain silent so his words would sink in and, more importantly, ring true. Then Mr. Leach opened wide his tired eyes and slowly nodded as if to reaffirm the truth of the words he had just spoken. “Now go, Nathaniel,” he added as he patted him gently on his back.
Nathaniel’s keen sense of smell detected the scent of death as he approached the small door to the crawl space under the McCorkles’ house. It was no longer a matter of if some of the mice had lost their lives but whether any of them were still alive. As he made his way inside, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and noted the space appeared empty.
“Wendel!” he yelled. Nothing. “Wendel!” he called again. Then calling Pip’s name and finally Ricketts’s name each several times forced him to wonder if there were any survivors, or perhaps they had now deserted the place.
Just as he approached the PVC pipe that led up into the house, the gruesome deeds of the Exterminator came into focus. Traps lay spread across a plastic sheet that now covered the dirt floor of the crawl space. Every one of them held the broken body of a mouse, crushed in the lightning-fast snap of the trap’s jaw, breaking their back and killing them instantly. He walked slowly by each of the traps, containing the bodies of the mice he had known, although not by name. He felt numb. There were other mice, who had obviously eaten from the little boxes of poison pellets, spread throughout the crawl space. They lay still, eyes wide open, their tiny bodies rigid, foam spilling from their gaping mouths. It was all unimaginably horrible. He wandered back and forth between the dead, unsure of what to do next.
“Wendel!” he called again. “Pip! Ricketts!” But no answer.
Walking toward the hatch that covered the entrance to the crawl space, a sliver of sunlight found its way through the crack through which they entered and exited. In the glow of the light cast on the floor of the crawl space sat Wendel and Pip, huddled together. Wendel kept turning his head one way then the other, as if trying to home in on a familiar sound.
“Nathaniel!” Pip spotted him and shook Wendel. “Nathaniel’s here!” she said excitedly.
“Yes, good, good.” Wendel stared blankly ahead, waiting for the sound of his voice. “Nathaniel?”
“I’m here,” Nathaniel answered. As Nathaniel approached the two, other mice began dropping onto the floor of the crawl space from the insulation above them, gathering behind Wendel and Pip.
“I thought you had all been exterminated. Thank goodness you’re still alive,” Nathaniel sighed, relieved.
“We are, but many, I’m afraid, are not,” Pip explained. “Terrible deaths!”
“I know,” Nathaniel said quietly. “I saw.”
Just then, Ricketts shoved his way past the crowd of mice gathered behind Wendel and Pip, his eyes wild and afraid. And of course, Rutger Loft was a few steps behind him, mumbling unintelligibly. He twitched and appeared very nervous as he approached the three of them.
“I’m sure that was the last of it,” he said un-convincingly.
“No doubt, the last!” echoed Rutger Loft, whose eyes appeared to be rolling around in their sockets as if unhinged.
“The Exterminator must believe we are all dead, and I think he will leave us alone now. I mean, how could he possibly think otherwise?” He grinned and nodded as if to signal agreement with his own words. Then he scanned the others, who eyed him skeptically. Ricketts looked around at the sea of faces and swayed back and forth as if unable to stand still. Rutger Loft grabbed Ricketts’s leg to steady himself, and Ricketts shook his leg as if he had just seen a spider cling to it. In a moment, Rutger Loft was splayed on the ground, with Ricketts staring at him, unsure of what he was looking at.
“Are you all right?” Nathaniel examined Ricketts uneasily. “You didn’t eat any of the food from those boxes down here, did you?”
“Uh. Why?” Ricketts’s eyes darted from Nathaniel to Pip to Wendel.
“Because it’s poison! You dope!” Pip blurted out.
“Easy, little Miss Parsley!” Ricketts fired back angrily. Then, quickly gaining his composure, he added as if he were talking to a small child, “Well, I just think the important thing to recognize at this point is that this is all over now. I don’t think we need to overreact. There won’t be any need to flee. I think it will be safe now.”
The gathered mice stared expressionlessly, which annoyed Ricketts, who exploded, shouting at the mice, “Listen to me, you fools! I am the only one who can keep you safe!” Ricketts suddenly seemed unsteady on his feet, and his eyes were blinking wildly.
Engage and extract, Nathaniel thought to himself even as he was concerned about how Ricketts’s cowardly behavior might endanger the remaining survivors.
An older female mouse behind Wendel spoke up. “I think he’s probably right. I think the threat has passed, and we’ll be safe now. I … I’m sure the Exterminator has moved on. The McCorkles surely think we’re all dead. No doubt about it.”
As Nathaniel looked over the assembled mice, he shook his head in disbelief as he watched one head then another and another all nod in agreement. What, he wondered, will it take to convince these impulsive, naive, and gullible creatures that if they don’t act, they will die?
“You can’t really believe what you just said!” Nathaniel objected. Standing on his hind legs, he pleaded, extending his front legs and appealing to them to come to their senses. “Look, you’re scared. I get that. It makes perfect sense. I know your custom … or rather your nature is to remain close to home, but home has become dangerous. You can’t stay here and expect to survive!” He implored the survivors. Yet no one dared speak.
“You know what’s up there?” he asked, pointing toward the PVC pipe. “Of course you do! You can smell it. Dead mice. That’s what’s up there. Their backs broken by the spring-loaded traps designed to kill mice. They … members of your own community are up there having died in a pool of their own vomit because they wanted to believe that the worst was over and those food containers placed so conveniently throughout this lovely crawl space were put out as a ‘gee, we’re sorry’ gift by the Exterminator.” The mice remained silent.
Nathaniel thought, Engage and extract… Engage and extract. “Wendel.” Nathaniel leaned over to gauge how Wendel was managing all this. Engage and extract, he thought again to himself. Then, in the flash of a second, he knew it was time for him to back away and for Wendel to step up. “Wendel,” he said softly, “your community needs its leader.”
Wendel looked at Nathaniel, unseeing yet understanding what was in his heart. And he smiled warmly and spoke to Nathaniel quietly. “You are, and always will be, my dear friend, Nathaniel. But I believe that you have discovered leadership to be far less attractive than you hoped it would be. Is this why you’re turning to me now?”
And the moment these words reached his ears, Nathaniel felt the unusual sensation of a deep grief, a sense of loss. It was a sensation very different from feeling melancholy or blue. Why? he wondered.
As Wendel stepped forward, he watched the young mouse, his face burned and disfigured, his eyes without sight, stand tall on his hind legs and turn to Pip. He nodded to her, and she stepped forward.
“We are all afraid,” she began. “But we’re in this together, right? Alone, I know we’re small … maybe not so important. Well, together, we aren’t just mice! We’re pests!” she laughed. “We can’t allow our reputation as pests to be damaged by something as stupid as a fear of
moving on. What kind of pest scares so easily, huh?
“And listen, don’t be angry with Nathaniel or Wendel or Ricketts. Nathaniel has extended his paw in friendship, first rescuing Wendel, then keeping watch over Jid in his final hours. He’s shown himself to be a friend to the community. And while his efforts to protect Wendel may have been mistaken, there’s no question he was looking out for one he regards as a brother. I have come to see this with my own eyes. And Wendel, who no longer sees with his eyes but with his heart, has confirmed these truths.” Pip looked over at Wendel, whose head was bowed, listening to Pip’s moving words.
After a few moments of silence, Pip stepped back, and Wendel came forward and stood on his hind legs, extending his front legs toward the growing crowd of frightened mice as if extending arms preparing to embrace them all. “I know you are frightened, as am I. I am here as the leader of this family. I am your Jid. And I urge you to trust me as you did our Grandfather before me.”
The assembled crowd began whispering to one another, and the buzz filled the crawl space.
“Not … not … not …” Ricketts squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. “Not so fast, Wendel.”
“Ricketts,” Wendel answered. “Your fear has diminished your capacity to speak either logically or with any authority. You have eaten the poison pellets merely because you wanted to believe what was clearly untrue. Indeed, your words were lies dictated by nothing but fear: You suggested it was safe to remain here, not once but many times, resulting in many deaths … You believed that no one would ever wish to poison you, that the Exterminator had abandoned his mission to eliminate us all! Ricketts, you believed your own death was impossible. And yet here you are … now dying simply because of your fear, having to lie down because you are afraid to stand up.”
Remarkable, Nathaniel thought, as the content of Wendel’s words mattered less than the self-confidence, strength, and compassion he projected simply through the tone of his voice. Yet this only seemed to intensify the grief he was feeling. Nathaniel felt a strange mixture of melancholy, pride, and blissful solitude as he was caught up by the sound of Wendel’s voice.
Unexpectedly he then felt the sensation of a fog lifting and giving way to an unfamiliar clarity that came from God knows where. What suddenly came into sharp focus was how very much he wanted to be recognized as the savior of this small community. He longed for the adulation of the survivors for having identified the Exterminator as the source of their woes, for being the one who had brought the good news of a place they could go to be safe. He wanted to be the one who led the remaining members of the community to sanctuary at Salvador’s small farm. This was his moment, the culmination of his journey. He was fulfilling what his purpose in life was, and others were getting in his way. It didn’t make sense that his efforts to engage and extract should lead him to see the folly of his efforts when it should have led him to grasp the lead.
Even as he admitted these things to himself, he struggled to contain the anger he felt toward Wendel. He was aware of the experience of shame for the anger, for stealing from Wendel the mantle of leadership that he, and he alone, had earned. How many times had he imagined the mice cheering him as he led them from danger and death to safety and a life of abundance. And yet along with these thoughts were others that were uninvited and unwelcome, that belittled his silly fantasies and delusions of becoming the savior of the community. Birgit was right to call him out for making Cielo Creek his little project, designed to soothe his aging and wounded ego … his growing awareness of his diminished importance as he grew older.
He whispered to himself, “Engage and extract. Engage and extract.” What had he done wrong? He was at odds with his own thoughts, the paradoxical experience of contradictory emotions existing side by side and at the very same moment. Could it be that his interpretation of engage and extract was so narrow he missed the point of Mr. Leach’s words? Perhaps. Engage and extract was more than simply better understanding the world around him but also truly understanding himself as a part of that world, not its center.
Have my efforts to engage and my attempts to extract the precious truth from my surrounds simply been a means of discovering what is glorious in me? Has this been an entirely selfish endeavor? As he pondered these final distressing thoughts, the sound of Wendel’s voice again became clear, and he could discern the words, although he was confused by the actions of the crowd that surrounded him and Wendel and Pip and … Who was that? He blinked hard and shook his head as if to wake himself from the apparent trance he had been in … but yes, it was Mr. Leach.
“Well, well, well.” Mr. Leach chuckled. “First we thought we were going to lose Ricketts, but thank goodness for the wisdom of my dear grandmother, the famous herbalist who produced such a wondrous and highly sought-after cookbook of remedies to poisonings of all kinds. So Ricketts is back to being … well, Ricketts. But then YOU!” He pushed his face up close to Nathaniel’s. “You seemed to leave us, old boy … heh heh. Your body remained here, but you … well, you made a hasty and unexpected trip to some other place … heh heh. At first I thought you were playing possum, as I taught you many years ago, heh heh. You had everybody worried, and you missed all the lovely expressions of gratitude from Wendel and Pip, and so many members of Cielo Creek. But you were by any measure clearly absent, heh heh. Hmm!” Mr. Leach grabbed his chin with his paw and smiled, his needle-sharp yellow teeth visible. “Could it be that you were busy extracting? Hmm?”
Before Nathaniel had even a moment to answer, he heard Wendel shout to a much larger collection of mice than Nathaniel remembered ever seeing before. “And so I give thanks and gratitude to Nathaniel, to Birgit, and to all their wonderful family members who helped in our time of greatest need … who we will never forget. And to Pip, who, when we arrive in our new home, I will ask to become my wife and your Jida.”
The crowd of mice cheered. Wendel looked over the crowd without seeing, and Pip looked at Wendel with a big smile.
“And finally, my dear family,” he said, addressing the crowd, “thank you all …” Wendel extended his front paw in a sweeping gesture toward the mice listening to him. “Yes, to you who have found the courage to make this extraordinary journey to our new home with the man known as Salvador, I say let us begin!”
And with that, the mice began filing out of the crawl space through the crack in the small door and out into the winter-brown grass at the side of the McCorkles’ home.
Where had all these mice come from? Nathaniel wondered. Looking over at Mr. Leach, puzzled, he asked, “Why so many?”
“Heh heh. Leadership, my boy. He is the chosen one, is he not? He is the one that his community has wanted to follow … and not just the Cielo Creek community but those who have surrounded it, where Jid’s children and their children have lived.”
Nathaniel nodded slowly, again lowering his eyes as he recalled his misguided ambitions … no, he thought, his attempt to snatch the leadership role from Wendel under the guise of his concern for Wendel’s well-being.
Then Mr. Leach added, “Ease up, old boy. Leadership takes many forms, and leadership that springs from humility is a great gift.”
“You mean … mine?” Nathaniel looked at Mr. Leach, puzzled, as the mice began solemnly processing by them on their way to a promised new home.
“Oh, my dear sir!” Mr. Leach exclaimed. “Especially yours! It took you a while to find it, but when you stepped aside even as your desire to be their leader still burned, you became a true leader. You see, mate, your efforts to engage and extract took you to the place where it always does … yourself as part of the world … as part of the whole. Your engagement with others brought you to an awareness of both them and yourself. What you extracted from this relationship was the truth, that leadership of the mice belonged to Wendel, or I should now say Jid. The leadership you were unaware of but demonstrated nevertheless was in stepping aside and lifting up Jid before his new family
. Finding purpose is not at all the same as discovering fame. Many who are famous have no awareness of their purpose. Fame is often simply a seductive distraction that lures us into a maze of confusion.” Mr. Leach scratched his chin and chuckled. “Heh heh. Sometimes the answers to life’s big questions, even after we have stumbled over them, remain unknown to us because they are not what we thought they should be.”
“So, that’s it?” Nathaniel complained. “That’s all there is? What I needed to learn was to simply get out of the way so that Wendel could become Cielo Creek’s Jid?”
“Oh, c’mon, mate! Engage and extract. Think for a moment!” Mr. Leach scolded Nathaniel as he rapped on his head. “How many times have I said it? Use your noggin, lad!”
“Ouch!” Nathaniel complained, more frustrated with Mr. Leach’s double-talk than the knock on his head.
“Consider this, dear sir. When I said that another’s epiphanies cannot belong to you, and you complained that you had gone on a long journey with our deceased friend Niles, I didn’t mean that you were ‘epiphany-less’ … heh heh. I simply said you cannot hijack for yourself another’s hard-earned discoveries.”
Mr. Leach was up on his back legs again and pacing back and forth. Nathaniel knew this meant he should brace himself for another confusing monologue. So he played his part and looked at Mr. Leach confusedly.
“Extract, my boy, from your experience with Niles. Was it not you who invited Niles to look beyond the fence of his master’s backyard?”
Nathaniel shrugged.
“If you had not made your way into that dog’s life, he would have known nothing. You helped open his eyes. You led him from darkness into the light!” Mr. Leach paused, knitting his brow. “Maybe that was a bit over the top, but you were his guide, my friend. The one who stayed by his side, who tended him when he was sick, and sought him when he was lost.” He smiled warmly.
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