by A. N. Wilson
Dad took a great interest in his food at this point. He didn’t seem to hear what Mum was saying.
‘You have to admit it was clever,’ said Kitty. ‘Those tiny little mice, climbing up to the top of the fridge.’
‘I don’t have to admit any such thing,’ said her mother.
Mum was annoyed that neither Kitty nor Dad would help with the mouse problem. Dad refused to talk about it. In Mum’s opinion, he would pretend a menace wasn’t there – until it was too late. But Kitty was even worse, thought Mum. In fact, Kitty had even said, ‘The mice have as much right to be here as we have.’
‘Oh, great,’ her mum had said. ‘So now we have Mice Rights.’
Dad broke his silence on the matter and said, ‘Kitty could be right. I mean, what makes it all right for us to be here but not the mice? Who said that human beings are lords of the universe? What about a bit of live and let live?’
‘Yeah, Mum,’ Kitty had added, with such strong emphasis on the word Mum that it sounded like an accusation.
‘I don’t barge in on the mice and steal their food,’ said Mum. ‘Or make a mess and a stink where they live.’ She stamped her foot. ‘Oh, this is stupid! Neither of you cleans up after them. I’m the one who always does it. And it’s got to stop.’
Every time they talked about mice, this is how it ended.
So Kitty’s mum talked with the neighbours. Anne-next-door-but-one recommended an electrical device that made vibrations the mice didn’t like, so they just moved on.
‘No little corpses under the sink, no smelly dead bodies,’ said Anne. ‘They just go. One minute, a plague, the next – peace!’
But the neighbours called Alan and Rupert said when they tried these devices, they didn’t work at all.
Some people suggested ringing up the council. But Kitty’s mum had tried ringing the council once before.
They had sent a man who put down pots of poisonous sludge at various points. It was not completely unsuccessful. Although most of the poisoned food was left untasted, there were signs, in one plastic plate of poison, of paw marks. Some of the food had been eaten.
Nothing happened for about two weeks; but gradually the most appalling smell began to waft from behind the dishwasher. When the smell changed from bad to unbearable, the white metal dishwasher was moved away from the wall and there they had found an enormous dead rat, which had clearly eaten the poison. In life, rats pong. In death, they do more: the stink is so strong you want to throw up.
All this meant that Kitty’s mum no longer believed in the electrical device and she definitely didn’t want the smell of poisoned bodies. The only options left were traps. There were old-fashioned mousetraps – pieces of wood with springs fastened to them. A bit of cheese tempted the mice on to the wood. But when a mouse came to eat the cheese, it set off the spring and a metal bar snapped sharply down on its body, killing it instantly.
Mum found that idea upsetting. She didn’t want Kitty to see squashed mouse bodies in the kitchen, at the bottom of the stairs, or in the larder.
This just left the so-called ‘sticky-traps’. Rupert, who recommended them, said that his friend Alan believed them to be the best way – ‘the only way’. Mum didn’t want to know how the sticky-traps worked. She simply told Kitty’s dad that if she put these traps down, he would have to ‘deal with’ any mice they caught. He had sighed, but reluctantly agreed.
Their last discussion about sticky-traps had been the previous evening after Kitty went to bed.
‘You’d have to make sure Chum was in her cage,’ said Kitty’s dad.
‘Of course I would.’
‘Only, it would be awful, if we put one of these – these things on the floor and Chum got stuck on it.’
‘Peter, I’m not an idiot.’
And now, Kitty’s mum had been to the hardware shop and bought several sticky-traps for the mice. She had walked into the kitchen and seen the mess – seeds and stickiness and mouse droppings under the table.
Now she was going to use the sticky-traps.
She swept all of the mess into a dustpan and emptied it into the rubbish bin. She didn’t recognise the remains of the sandwich Kitty had bought to celebrate Chum’s return. But she did remember to be careful, before laying the traps, that Chum was safe in her cage. She looked at the cage on its shelf. The two cage doors were shut. There was no sign of Chum, which usually meant she was curled up, warmly asleep in Peter’s sock at the bottom of the cage.
Mum took a packet out of her shopping bag and read the instructions. It seemed very straightforward. She removed the outer wrapping and exposed the sticky floor of the tray. Then she placed the plastic tray, which was about the size of a small paperback book, in a spot where she thought the mice went.
The first trap was easy – the larder shelf next to the cereal packets, where she found holes nibbled in packets of Coco-Pops and porridge boxes. She placed the tray with the quiet concentration of a general planning an attack on the battlefield.
Then she thought she’d put one tray at each of the two entrances from the mouse world to her own, that is, at the bottom of the stairs and under the dresser. It felt a bit gruesome, but once she had caught a few mice, the others would surely get the message and move somewhere, anywhere – just as long as it was away from here.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The New Rivals
‘Maybe if we broke it up.’
‘Couldn’t you pouch it, Furball?’
‘I did pouch some of it.’
Furball felt too shy to admit that the bit of seed sandwich in her pouch had tasted so delicious that she had quietly de-pouched and eaten most of it.
She and the two mokes were hiding under the dresser. They had managed to drag most of the sandwich across the floor. From where they crouched, they could see the Converse of the Giant’s mum moving about the room. They heard angry noises as she swept up the crumbs from under the table.
Buster said, ‘Reckon vats floor-flood what she’s puttin’ vere.’
Nobby and Furball had been concentrating on how to get the various pieces of honey-coated seed through the gap at the top of the skirting board. They had paid much attention to the Giant’s mum.
‘Remember ole Uncle Barney?’ Buster said.
‘Buster,’ said Nobby. ‘We’re trying to take food to Mum.’
‘Up the duff,’ suggested Furball, without knowing what she meant. The two mokes ignored this.
‘And all you can do is talk bout Uncle Barney and the flippin floor-food.’
‘Wanna watch wot you eat off floor,’ said Buster.
‘Yeah. Well.’ Nobby agreed.
‘See vat tray vere…’
Buster was so persistent that for a moment the others abandoned the sandwich problem and came to the edge of the dresser, to the part of the floor in daylight. Not far away, in the corner of the dresser nearest the kitchen window, was a small yellow tray – large enough, say, for four hamsters to stand together on it, side by side. It had a springy-looking yellow surface, a bit like a carpet. Furball thought it looked a comfortable sort of thing, something a hamster could play on.
‘Vat tray,’ said Buster. ‘See it.’
Nobby admitted he could see it.
‘She put vat tray darn,’ said Buster. ‘Now, the other one, the one wot Furball calls Giant –’
‘The Giant,’ agreed Furball. ‘She’s very nice. I’m sure she would feed us all if she could. That’s why I’ve had this idea that we could all live together, in the shed outside Lundine…’
But Buster wasn’t listening. If he had listened, he wouldn’t have believed it for a moment. As if any oom, even the Giant, would offer food and shelter to all the Lundine mokes – that wasn’t what ooms did.
‘The Giant,’ Buster continued. ‘Now the Giant, I grantcha. She might – I’m only saying might mind – might put darn food which weren’t floor-food. No stuff. No stuff wot Uncle Barney et, know whaddeye mean. Safe food. But Ole Converse. Old Gym-shoes…’
‘Giant’s mum,’ said Furball. She felt suddenly that she missed the Giant. Standing there in the half-shadows under the dresser, and hearing Buster talk in tense, excited tones about the dangers of being at large, she thought how much she’d like to be held in the Giant’s gentle hands, to run up her jumper, down her sleeve, and to poke out her pink nose and wiggle her whiskers while all the ooms exclaimed, ‘Chum! Chum!’
‘Ole Gym-shoes put food darn for mokes?’ Buster was saying. ‘Don’t make me larf. Nar. Vat tray. I’m not saying it’s floor-food exactly. Not as such. But vere’s sommat not right. Know whaddeye mean?’
Furball didn’t know what Buster meant. The tray-carpet (or trampoline perhaps?) looked like a toy which the Giant’s mum had kindly placed on the floor. It seemed quite harmless to Furball.
Nobby, who stood beside her, had become tense. He clenched and unclenched his paws.
‘Mebbe Buster’s right nall.’
‘I do not think,’ said Furball coldly, ‘that the Giant’s mum would do anything to harm me.’
‘Mebbe not you, Furba – but mokes. Mokes is different. She’d do summat to arm mokes. Never forget Uncle Barney. Now e et floor-flood. Not sayin it were put darn by Giant-mum. But by an oom. And e copped it.’
‘Not forgettin Aunty Flo in the snapper,’ said Buster.
‘Splat she went,’ said Nobby.
‘I’m sure you’re wrong,’ said Furball. ‘Anyway, I never met your Uncle Barney and your Aunty Flo. They’re only stories.’
‘Yeah,’ said Nobby. ‘Only stories – like Ole Murph what the ooms put in ole, filled it with mud. Only stories. Only see it wiv me own eyes.’
There was silence as the three of them stared at the little tray. Furball knew she was right. She knew the Giant’s mum would never, ever do anything to harm her. She was on the point of proving the mokes wrong, showing them the new tray was harmless, possibly even a toy, by running out and playing on it, when Buster said, ‘Anyway, Furball ole girl, ow bart the grub ven?’
‘Grub.’
‘Give sandwich ole eave-oh.’
After several unsuccessful attempts to squeeze the largest piece of sandwich through the slit at the top of the skirting board, they decided to break it up into small pieces. This was easy for Furball since she was much larger and a better climber than the mokes. Then she pouched what she could, climbed the skirting board once more, and with much squeezing and pushing and puffing and panting, managed to drop herself down in the grey dark dust on the other side.
‘Mum’s garn deepest Lundine,’ Nobby said, leading the way.
(Kitty’s mum had been right – there was a passage under the kitchen floor which led from the dresser to the bottom of the stairs.)
Furball was good at burrowing and she was used to darkness, but she didn’t like the tunnel. It was dirty and dusty and smelly. It was horrid. So she was surprised when Nobby put down his bit of sandwich and exclaimed, ‘Good old Lundine!’
Buster, too, paused for breath and agreed. ‘You feel safe in here.’
Furball wondered if they were taking her up the duff, where they’d said Mokey Moke had gone – because she was ‘spectin’. But every time she talked about it with them, the mokes had squeaked with such wild laughter that she was too shy to say any more. She didn’t know what they meant or what was going on in Mokey Moke’s life, and this made her feel foolish. So she said nothing while the two mokes enjoyed the warm, choking, dusty air. And when they skipped onwards, she followed.
They scuttled and jumped and ran in short darts for what seemed a long time, until Nobby put down his sandwich and squeaked – ‘Mum!’
‘Ere,’ came the familiar voice of Mokey Moke through the shadows.
‘Broughta vister,’ squeaked Nobby, with Buster adding, ‘Nice sprise ferya.’
‘Vister,’ squeaked Nobby again.
‘Oozat ven?’ called Mokey Moke.
All the mokes laughed. Once again, Furball was glad she hadn’t said anything to make her seem foolish.
‘Can’t guess!’ Mokey Moke was saying.
‘Real mystery! Now oo could it be?’ laughed Buster.
In the darkness there were squeakings from a number of mokes. The commotion set off a chorus of very high-pitched moke voices. The noise was almost like the song of the fevvas in the backyard which Furball had heard on her shed adventure.
Mokey Moke was lying in an improvised nest. Furball, Nobby and Buster had scuttled the whole length of the underground passage beneath the kitchen floor. They had reached an area beneath the bottom of the stairs, leading out to the kitchen corridor, and through a gap in the bottom stair soft grey light glimmered on to the scene.
And where Mokey Moke lay in her nest, there were two tiny pinkish-grey mokes nestling at her stomach, sucking her milk. Beside them two other mokes, equally tiny, equally pink, were squeaking that it was their turn to feed.
‘Well ere’s a turn-up for the books, Mum,’ said Nobby.
‘Who’s vey ven?’ laughed Buster. ‘Arencha gointer intradjuice-us?’
‘These are the new Arrivals,’ said Mokey Moke proudly.
‘Only,’ said Nobby, ‘Some of us call em The Rivals.’
It was extraordinary. Furball looked at the thin, but beautiful, little moke babies and wondered where they had come from. Were these what Mokey Moke had been ‘spectin’?
‘Have you been to the pet shop?’ she asked politely.
All the mokes squawked with laughter.
‘Vat’s right,’ said Mokey Moke. ‘Reckon I got a good bargain, eh – gottem free.’
‘We brought you this seed sandwich,’ said Furball.
Almost before she had placed the sticky slab in the dust, mokes from all sides gathered round to grab and bite into it. She approached Mokey Moke and de-pouched some more, then held it out in her clean pink paws for her friend as she lay there, feeding her babies.
‘You’re a good pal, Furball,’ said Mokey Moke.
‘Said old Furball would see us right, Mum,’ said Nobby.
Then Mokey Moke explained that the mokes had become hungry when she couldn’t go with them on food raids. They had a rule – every moke for hisself. It meant that no moke depended on another for food. But in practice the young mokes relied on Mokey Moke to lead them, to show them the best places for supplies. And Mokey Moke kept them in good order. She’d organise two mokes as lookouts, and the others into climbing parties to fetch food from shelves. But when the food supply dried up, several of the mokes had gone missing, she’d said.
‘You must be worried,’ said Furball.
‘Not exactly,’ said Mokey Moke. ‘You can’t keep an eye on em all. Just you wonder where some on them get to.’ Then she looked down at her babies and said, ‘That’s enough for you two Arrivals. Ere. Gerroff. Let someone else ave-a suck for a change.’
‘Would they like some of this?’ asked Furball, holding out in her paw some of the sandwich she had de-pouched.
‘That’s kind of you, love – but leave it a while, eh. They’re a bit young for solids.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Really Worrying Time
‘Where’s Chum?’ asked Kitty.
‘Wherever you last left her,’ said her mum.
‘Mu-er-umum!’
‘She won’t have gone far,’ said Mum.
The whole evening was spent searching for the hamster. It was almost becoming a routine.
‘She’s always come back in the past,’ said Dad as he kissed Kitty goodnight.
Later, when they were in bed together, Mum said to Dad, ‘I didn’t tell Kitty about the traps.’
‘And you’re sure you’ve picked them all up – you haven’t left a trap down there by mistake?’
‘There was one by the bottom of the stairs and one in the larder,’ mum said.
It had been a tiring evening, with the hamster on the run yet again. Mum had remembered to pick up two of the traps she had laid. With all the worry – blaming herself for n
ot checking whether Chum was in her cage, trying to calm Kitty, quarrelling with Dad – she forgot about the third sticky-trap, the one under the dresser.
A really worrying time can keep you awake all night. Or it can exhaust you. Kitty’s mum fell into a deep sleep!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Twelve Paws are Better Than Four
‘They’ll soon be big enough to get food their selves,’ said Mokey Moke. ‘Dusna take long wean a moke.’
As mother of the new Arrivals, she ignored all Furball’s questions about how the little mokes had arrived. Furball was puzzled by the whole business, but found that Mokey Moke wouldn’t let her into the secret. When she asked Nobby and Buster if the pet shop man had brought the young mokes, Nobby had agreed, and said, ‘Oh that’s right, Buster – eh?’
And Buster said, ‘Bring em round in a van, dinny? Drove up into Lundine easy. Passed iz van. Carried out The Rivals. Lovely.’
Furball joined in the laughter. She was a very polite hamster.
But she didn’t understand the joke, and her failure to understand made her feel foolish. The mokes could be rather patronising. Furball only half liked it when they said, ‘Good ole Furbs,’ or ‘She’s better than a show she is.’
But when Furball offered to search for more food, everything was different. The mokes all agreed that no one could pouch a good bit of grub like old Furba. And because she was glad they were pleased, Furball set off once more down the long dusty corridor.
Nobby and Buster offered to join her, and since twelve paws are better than four, she had happily agreed. Besides, Nobby and Buster were now her best friends, and she loved their company, even if their jokes about The Rivals puzzled her.
Furball scudded purposefully down the corridor, intent on reaching the hole under the dresser in as short a time as possible. Nobby and Buster, as always, did things differently. Sometimes Nobby ran ahead. Sometimes he held a bundle of fluff above his head and pretended it was a grey wig.