The Mouse in the Mirror

Chapter Five

Slowly the dust settles.

All is quiet, the little mouse, afraid to move, finds his nose itching and tickling from the dust.

“Please don’t sneeze!” he thinks to himself, “Maybe I’ll be forgotten about.”

Well it was a nice thought and possibly it could have happened, but his nose had other ideas.

It twitched, side to side, the little mouse brought his paw up to his nose, but that just stirred more dust, he sniffed, his eyes began to water, he became aware of a tingling sensation deep in his nose, and then - ah, ah, Aaarchooo!

In the stillness of the dusty fireplace the tiny, little sneeze echoed and was quite loud in fact.

Loud enough, that is, so that the brown heap that lay on top of the Bad Rat, stirred slightly.

The little mouse was so frightened at this movement, that he didn’t react in time to block the next sneeze that sounded twice as loud as the first - AARRCHOOO!

At this, from within the brown, furry heap, a head popped up, displaying two big, brown eyes, blinking non-stop.

The head itself, was the size of the little mouse himself. Below and in between the big eyes, there was a dark, almost-black nose and below the nose, a mouth with two big, buck teeth sticking out over the bottom lip. From the top lip, whiskers shot out, not unlike those the little mouse had himself. At the top of the head and moving about just as lively as the eyes, the little mouse could see two pointy ears.

But what scared the little mouse more than anything else, was the big, bushy tail that unfurled itself from the rear of this animal.

His heart pounded so hard, he thought that it would burst. Just as he was sure he was going to have a heart attack, the big buck-toothed mouth in front of him broke into an almighty grin.

“Well, g’day there matey! Damn if I ain’t lucky I didn’t break any bones.” said the bushy tailed animal, checking himself for any injuries. Finally when he was pleased that he was in okay condition, he focussed his attention on the little mouse.

Again he smiled, “Golly-gosh, you’re the strangest, little critter I’ve ever seen, kind-a cute too. What is ya?”

Still some what stunned at this turn of events, the little mouse didn’t immediately answer.

“Well, you can talk, can’t ya?”

“Yes,” answered the little mouse in his tiny voice, “I’m a mouse.”

“A mouse? A mouse? What’s a mouse? What kind of mouse?”

“Just, I don’t know, just a normal mouse.”

“Well Normal Mouse - Norm, me I’m a Possum, Percy Possum.”

With that the possum extended a large paw, grabbed Norm’s little one, and shook vigorously.

The little mouse, Norm, couldn’t help but smile back at his new found friend.

From bellow Percy, came a low moan.

“Yipes, we better get out of here!” exclaimed Norm, “We don’t want to be here when he wakes up.”

“Yech! From the smell of him, I reckon we don’t wanna be ’ere while he ain’t awake. C’mon Norm follow me, mate.”

So side by side, Norm and Percy left the dusty fireplace and the Bad, (unconscious) Rat behind.



Continue on to Chapter Six
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Copyright © 1994 by Steven Younis.