The Writer's E-Zine Home

Writers' Village University - F2K: Free Fiction Writing Course - ePress-online
Writers' Village University Membership Information

Fiction Short Story

by Celia Jones

The Stout-Hearted Mouse

A loud clap of the cat door and several short, sharp squeaks interrupted my television watching. Charlie, my large tabby cat, undoubtedly had ‘a prize’ for me in his jaws—a live possum, rabbit, mouse or rat. Dreading the worst, I met Charlie in the kitchen as he proudly deposited a gray mouse at my feet. The last thing I wanted was a rodent taking up residence in my home, and I had visions of mouse droppings in the cupboards and cereal pouring out of chewed little holes.

I screamed at Charlie to pick up his prey and take it back out the way he entered. Being the recalcitrant cat that he is and highly offended by my ungrateful attitude, he turned and walked off in a huff with his tail in the air, feline equivalent to “giving the bird.”

The mouse and I momentarily eyed each other off. It was an unfamiliar thing to be standing so close to a live mouse. I glimpsed a bit of surprise in his bead-like eyes and a twitching of his pointy ears as Charlie exited through the cat flap. No doubt he felt incredibly lucky to be spared the usual painful end for a captured mouse—clamped between the cat’s jaws, dropped, battered around like a clockwork toy before being impaled on hooked claws and eaten alive.

With a quick glance at the retreating cat and then at me, as if to say, “Well, lady, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll dash before that needle-toothed Hitler changes his mind,” the mouse became a dark blur heading for the space under the couch.

Moving the couch just sent the gray flash down the passage toward my cluttered bedroom, where he could safely hide for years. “Great!” Now my night would be spent listening for scratching, waiting for little feet to run over my face while sleeping and afraid to get up to visit the bathroom!

After a fitful, jumpy sleep, I awoke relieved that the mouse never appeared in the night. I opened the curtains and was struck with the sight of a large dark worm swimming in my pool. Going outside to have a closer look, I saw that it was my very bedraggled fugitive mouse, nearing the end of his energy reserves as he frantically treaded water. I couldn’t help but feel pity for this tiny creature as well as admiration at how remarkably he clung to life. With the skimmer net, I picked him up and unceremoniously dumped him in the garden. He breathed heavily and shook in exhaustion and relief.

A few hours later, taking my bicycle out of the shed for my ride, the mouse appeared near the back gate. Though his coat was still ruffled, it had dried and looked almost velvety. On seeing me, he played it safe, and squeezed his small body into the space between the weathered, rough, paling fence and the gate. Just his head, wire-thin tail and delicate, white paws were visible. As I watched him, he wedged himself deeper into the space and casually observed me.

An hour later, I found him still there in his scratchy shelter, seeming even more relaxed. Despite a day of being hunted, abducted by a sharp-clawed monster, nearly eaten, drowned and dumped on the ground, he sported a contented expression on his tiny face. The sun glinted off the long whiskers, and I saw it was true; this little survivor’s face said, “Ahh, life is good!”

© Copyright 2003 Celia Jones


About the Author
Celia Jones earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors at U.C., Berkeley in 1969 and immigrated to Australia in 1972, where she taught high school until retiring five years ago. She has been published in two anthologies on Parkinson’s disease (When Parkinson’s Strikes Early and Voices from the Parking Lot) and will have her story, Weighing In, published next year in the anthology series, Chocolate for a Woman’s Soul.