MOUSE IN THE CLOSET

   Like she did every night, Grandma knelt with me beside my bed and listened to me say my prayers. Then Daddy came to tuck me in, giving me a big hug and growling as he rubbed his sandpaper jaw against my cheek. I giggled as always, then turned over as he shut off the light and closed my door to just a crack so I would have light from the front room while I was falling asleep. Except that night I couldn't get to sleep. I was restless and not sleepy at all, so I laid there straining to hear the sounds from the television. I couldn't really hear anything though because Grandma and Daddy always kept it low once they put me to bed so it wouldn't disturb me. But because of trying so hard to hear the television, I heard the tiny sounds coming from the closet.

    It took me a while to figure out I must be hearing a mouse. I remembered Daddy saying just a few days earlier we had mice, and he put mouse traps all over the house. He put one in my closet, too. And now the mouse was in there and any minute it might get caught in the trap. I laid there feeling scared for the poor mouse, wondering what I could do to save it from the trap. Finally I figured out what to do. Grandma frowned a little and Daddy said to hurry up when I came out of my room into the front room and told them I had to go to the bathroom. After turning the corner out of the front room, I went to the kitchen instead of the bathroom. The matches were in a box on the window sill. I could just barely reach them so I was careful not to knock them down or make noise getting some out of the box. I was just as quiet opening the drawer where the candles were kept. After putting them securely in the waist band of my panties, I snuck quietly into the bathroom and flushed the toilet. Grandma and Daddy both smiled as I went past them back to my room, and Daddy said not to let the bedbugs bite. I promised I wouldn't.

    When I closed my door I pushed it all the way shut, not leaving a crack for the light. If Grandma and Daddy noticed I guess they just thought the television was bothering me. I waited on my bed for a few minutes to make sure neither one of them was going to come in to ask about the door. When it seemed safe I went to the closet, quietly opened the door, pushed in among the winter coats and old clothes hanging there, shut the door softly behind me, and sat down on the floor. It took me a few minutes in the dark to get the candle and matches out and figure out how to get the match lit. I broke the first match scratching too hard agains the wall, but the second match worked. Then I breathed too hard while I was trying to get the candle lit and the match went out. But finally, on the third match, I got the candle going and started looking for the mouse.

    I was too late. The mouse was already caught in the trap. And it wasn't moving. I sat there for a long time, trying to figure out if I could get it out of the trap, and if I did, would maybe its Mama come find it and help it get better. But I didn't think so. I was pretty sure the mouse was dead, and I was getting ready to cry. I could tell 'cause my eyes were starting to feel scratchy and burny.

    Later I figured out it was the smoke that made my eyes feel so bad. That was a relief 'cause only sissies cry. But right at the moment, while I was sitting in the closet looking at the dead mouse, I wasn't aware of the smoke. Or of the clothes that were burning. All I was thinking about right then was the dead mouse and how much its Mama was going to miss it. Or did Mama mice miss their babies? And how did I know this one was a baby? And how come my eyes were burning so bad?

     I stopped wondering about the mouse and my eyes when Daddy pulled me out of the closet. He was rough doing it and I dropped the candle. Daddy seemed real mad. He kind of shook me, looked intently at me for a brief moment, threw me on my bed, pulled an armful of clothes out of the closet, and ran from my room and out the front door, then he was back real fast and gone again with another armful of clothes. As I watched, I realized some of the clothes were burning. How did that happen?

    By the time Daddy got all the clothes out of the closet and Grandma had taken the pan of water she didn't need after all back to the kitchen, I had figured out maybe the candle had started the fire. When Grandma hollered from the kitchen to Daddy that I ought to get a spanking, I knew she was right. But Daddy didn't spank me. He looked at me with those sad eyes he got every time I did something bad, and asked me how come I started the closet on fire. I told him I didn't. I was just trying to save the mouse. I started crying telling Daddy about the poor dead mouse and how its Mama was never going to see it again. Daddy looked in the closet then and saw the mouse caught in the trap. He sat on the bed and held me in his arms while he told me we would bury the mouse in the yard the next day and leave some cheese there so its Mama could find it and know it was buried okay and that way not have to go on looking for her baby forever 'cause she'd know it was dead. Then Daddy said next time I wanted to see something in the dark to tell him so he could let me use his flashlight and that way I wouldn't start any more fires with candles. And he told Grandma I didn't need a spanking 'cause I promised never to go in the closet again with a candle or matches. Grandma was mad and said Daddy was spoiling me rotten but that there was no sense in arguing with him 'cause he was as stubborn as any old jackass she ever saw.

    Daddy just smiled and hugged me closer. But before he tucked me in bed again and gave me another growling whisker rub, Daddy made me promise a second time not to ever play with matches or candles. I promised. Then, after all the excitement of the mouse and the fire, I went right to sleep.

BACK                                                                                                                                   NEXT