Fievel in Haiti

When I was growing up my parents kindly allowed my sister and I to raise all sorts of animals. We tried gerbils, hamsters, bunnies, puppies, kittehs!!1!, and Becca even had a guinea pig. Annie had some fish once. I always wanted a horse, but we settled with letting my have horseback riding time every Saturday with Nikki Steidl. That is, until the horse died. And then all my dreams were shattered.

Moving on.

Needless to say, I like animals. In general I don't like to kill things, unless they are spiders or cockroaches. All other animals may live. Especially the cat-sized rats from the depot. Those I don't even attempt to kill.

So a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon the little mouse who had taken up residence in our house, I didn't mind. He kept to his corner and scuttled away if he came anywhere close to me. When Diana came home and moved back in, we started to notice him more. Then we started to notice his...problems.

He moved sluggishly. His fur stood out at odd angles. He looked rather malnourished. I am guessing Mother Mouse never really loved him. We keep our food locked up tightly, so he probably starved much of the time he was here.

One week he made appearances more often and was getting bolder. It was probably the hunger that sent him to madness. He would run under our feet like a crazed lunatic. He would hide under our couch and chair. He would not move when we tried to shoo him away - he stood mighty as an oak...a mangy, matted oak.

Diana wanted to pound him with a flip flop. I told her no, that we just needed to get him to run out the door and close him out. So one night I grabbed a broom and Diana grabbed a tiny tupperware bowl and we set out to capture him. He would run one way and I would try to corral him out of the corners into the bowl. We got him right to the front door, and in a moment of attempting "DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?!", I hockey pucked him into the door.

I have horrid aim, he flew into the doorframe, and scuttled back underneath the fridge. He escaped for that night.

A few nights later, the show down began again. This time we were much more prepared, and I was much calmer, much more focused. I got the mouse to the door and gently guided him out the front door. Success! We helped him down the stairs away from our apartment, where we were promptly greeted by two young boys who live on the mission.

They were very interested in our mouse and set about trying to capture it. I was thankful the mouse was gone, instructed the boys to leave the poor guy alone as he has surely been traumatized, and went back inside. I felt proud of the fact that I had saved the mouse's life and that he may be able to make it in the wild.

That was promptly ruined by the entrance of one of the boys.

"Diana, you don't need to worry. The mouse is far away."

"Oh that's good, where is it?"

"It's up in the sky."

"What?!"

"It's dead?"

"You KILLED it?"

"NO. We were trying to save it, but I accidentally kicked it."

I gathered it had a seizure at that point and died. So much for trying to save it's little life. Probably for the best though, the cats would likely have found him.

That or the depot rats. Those things are monsters.