by Colin Dann
While Sammy lay unhappily on the carpet, the mice chatted amongst themselves about this new predator brought in to disrupt their lives. From past experience they were scornful of the cat’s abilities.
‘Another one to go the same way as his predecessors,’ they said.
‘Here today, gone tomorrow,’ they said.
‘He’s got about as much chance of scattering us as a dog with three legs,’ scoffed one older mouse.
‘Have they left any food for him?’ asked a relative.
‘Let’s go and look. They usually do.’
Sammy’s eyes had remained open. He looked perfectly harmless as he lolled on the floor with his back resting against the leg of a desk. The mice were convinced he had given up any pretence of a chase and eventually some of them, in their quest for the cat’s food supply, ventured into the office where Sammy lay. Sammy heard their skinny little feet and their tinny little voices approaching. These sounds were so familiar he found himself trying to recall why. Then he remembered his days as a kitten in Mrs Lambert’s garden shed when he had made friends with a young mouse called Tiptoe. Now these sounds, identical to Tiptoe’s, brought those days back to him. Sammy was aware of the irony of his present position. Times had changed indeed. He was no kitten, fed by human hand and ready to befriend a mouse. How dare these puny creatures here take him for granted, as if he were of no account? He didn’t give up so easily and they were going to find they had made a mistake. He tensed. His every sense was alert, strained to the utmost to utilize every chance and advantage. Two mice scurried across the floor, pausing to raise themselves on their hind feet as they sniffed, searching for odours of cat food. Sammy was perfectly still, rigid as stone, yet as taut as a drawn bow. The mice strayed too close. Their contempt or arrogance – whatever it was – was their undoing. Sammy sprang. The mice scuttled for their escape route. They were astonishingly quick. One of the dived into the hole behind the skirting board from which they had emerged. The other tumbled after him but Sammy fastened on to his tail. The mouse was yanked free from the wall and Sammy had his first taste of live prey for many a week.
The young tabby was mightily heartened. He didn’t dash about now, alerting every mouse to his presence – he stalked them. He used his wits and intelligence and was no longer content to remain on one floor. He crept upstairs on noiseless feet, his tawny body low-slung, his whiskers brushing the wall. Three more mice were seized before the night was out. As the late winter dawn stole over the city, their companions hid themselves away and held counsel. Sammy the hunter was not to be despised.
9
Cat and mouse
THE MICE IN Penstemon Buildings were an old-established colony and generations of them had lived – and mostly thrived – there. The appearance of Sammy on the scene gave them a lot to think about. For the first time in ages they discovered themselves to be in very real danger and they didn’t like it one bit. They chattered incessantly about what they must do, how they should get rid of the problem, but no one came up with a definite plan. It was apparent that they needed to be more cautious than ever before but, other than that – well, what else was there to do?
In the morning Elsie arrived and promptly toured the offices, room by room, looking for signs that Sammy had done his duty. She ignored the cat, even though he followed her round, eager for a show of friendliness after his long period of solitude. The woman found the remains of four mouse carcasses. Elsie was triumphant. She removed the debris and at last stooped to give Sammy an acknowledging pat.
‘You’ve made a good start,’ Elsie crowed, ‘and you shall be rewarded. But not with too much – you’ve got a long way to go and I don’t want you to lose interest.’
She was true to her word. She put a small quantity of cat food in a saucer and put it in the disused corridor where Sammy had been installed to make his first patrol. The poor cat, whose stomach had had almost nothing in it for two days, leapt upon the food and wolfed it down. Then he began to look around for more. He had become used to the generous portions Lizzie had given him and Elsie’s paltry offering was nowhere near enough.
Elsie watched him, nodding her head as she did so. ‘Yes, you could eat a bigger plateful, no doubt,’ she said to Sammy. ‘But that’s not my policy. We want this place rid of mice. And tonight we’ll let you into the warehouse. You’ll have a field day. I’ll bet you won’t feel hungry tomorrow and then you won’t need any of this tinned stuff.’
Work began and Sammy was permitted to wander about, seeking in vain for that other plate of food he was convinced must have been hidden somewhere else. He looked so puzzled and unsettled that one of Elsie’s colleagues took pity on him and gave him some milk in the afternoon.
‘No good spoiling him, Viv,’ Elsie admonished her. ‘He’s here for a purpose.’
‘It’s only a drop of milk,’ Viv protested. ‘And, poor creature, he looks so – so wild.’
‘He is wild. I told you how I came by him. He’s a stray; turned up out of the blue. How else could I have brought him here? I didn’t kidnap him!’
‘Even if he is a stray I can’t help feeling sorry for him,’ Viv insisted. ‘He doesn’t look at all happy.’
‘He’s not here to be happy. No good making him comfortable, is it? The wretched little mice are too comfortable here, that’s the whole trouble.’
They were less comfortable than they had been, though, thanks to Sammy. Moreover, this cat didn’t seem to have brought with him the benefit of the bowls of food with which the mice had always been pleased to complement their diet. Try as they would, they could find no remnants of cat food anywhere.
The second night Sammy was given access to the warehouse. Amongst the packing materials, the paper, the card, the pallets, and the parcels, the mice of Penstemon Buildings were more active than anywhere else. It was incredible what they considered edible. They raided, and nibbled at everything. The tiniest scrap of food left by one of the packers – crumbs of biscuit or sandwiches or chocolate – were seized. But the paper itself was chewed, too, torn into shreds and either used for bedding or eaten. Until Sammy came.
He chased them along the counter, over the floor, on top of the piles of paper, and in and out of packages and boxes. And he caught them. He caught many of them. The others deserted the warehouse. Defeat and a mass exodus stared them in the face.
Behind the walls, under the floorboards, they raged at the cat who was more than their match.
‘What now?’ they asked. ‘He’ll drive us out. From our home – our hereditary home. There have always been Penstemon Mice. And, where would we go?’
One elder mouse tried to calm the uproar. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘it won’t come to the worst. We won’t quit. We must come to an arrangement.’
‘What arrangement?’ cried the others.
‘An agreement,’ said the old mouse, ‘with the tabby cat. He doesn’t get fed and –’
‘That’s why he eats us!’ piped up a terrified youngster before he could finish.
‘Be quiet a moment,’ said the old mouse whose name was Nip. ‘Listen to me. The cat is starved deliberately so that he hunts all the time. He can’t escape from here. The humans shut him in, don’t they? But supposing we tell him of our escape route? If he’s being held here against his will – and I think he is – he’ll jump at our offer. Then, in return for our secret, he must hunt us no more!’
‘That’s brilliant!’ the mice cried. They were at their wits’ end. But some of them grumbled beneath their breath, doubting it would be so simple.
One of the doubters waited for the hubbub to die down. Then he said cynically, ‘I’m sure we’ll all rush to be the volunteer to talk to the cat.’
There was total silence. Evidently none of them had thought of that. They began to look towards Nip, mumbling amongst themselves that, as he had made the suggestion, why shouldn’t he be the one to do the talking? Nip saw the mass of faces turned towards him, each one with whiskers twitching nervously.
; ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll speak to him. But from a safe place. And, while I’m doing it, the rest of you had better get to work on enlarging our escape passage.’
Under the floorboards, scores of mice sharpened their incisors and then the rasping of hundreds of rodent teeth could be heard as they chiselled through rotten wood and other obstructions to the outside wall leading on to the street. Here where a few loose bricks gave access to the open air an ancient mouse exit had been used in times of necessity by countless animals. Now, however, the loose bricks needed to be removed altogether to enable the tabby cat to make his departure. The mice questioned whether this difficult task should be begun before they knew if Sammy had accepted the bargain. They decided they should hold back until Nip reported back to them. For the present they needed this bolt-hole to be cat-proof in case they themselves turned out to be the ones that would have to leave. . . .
Nip ran under the floorboards, stopping now and then at a mouse spy-hole to check how close he was getting to the cat. Sammy was lying by some piles of envelopes, resting after his exertions. Nip wanted to get as near as he could without in any way endangering himself. At last, at a distance of about the length of a cat’s tail he put his mouth to the spy-hole and, squeaking at the top of his voice, called to the cat.
Sammy instantly jumped up and bounded to the hole. His huge eyes peered through and Nip, terrified, fell back and tumbled over himself in his alarm. But he summoned up all his courage and tried again.
‘Cat, do you hear me? I’ve a pro-prop-proposition to make,’ he stammered.
Sammy glared silently. He could see nothing in the darkness. However, Nip’s squeal, so reminiscent of Tiptoe’s, was perfectly audible. He waited.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ came the mouse voice.
‘What if I do?’ Sammy hissed down the hole. He was giving nothing away yet.
Nip, his fur billowing in the hot cat breath, retreated a centimetre or two. He didn’t wish to be deafened. ‘We can help you,’ he offered. ‘There is a way out.’
Now Sammy was interested. Pinkie, the park, freedom – things he had almost accepted as lost for ever – suddenly beckoned to him again. ‘What’s your proposition?’ he asked.
‘That we come to an agreement,’ said Nip. ‘You give us your word to cease hunting and we – we mice – get you out.’
‘Keep talking,’ said Sammy. ‘Where is this way out?’
‘Under the floor; we’ll show you where. But first, your promise.’
‘Why should I promise first?’ Sammy asked suspiciously. ‘How do I know you won’t lead me up a blind alley?’
‘There’s no blind alley,’ Nip answered impatiently. ‘Listen. Can’t you hear that noise?’ He fell silent. The regular scraping and rasping of mice teeth was easily detectable.
‘Yes, I hear it,’ Sammy admitted. ‘What of it?’
‘The mice are constructing a passage for you to the outside,’ Nip explained. ‘Our mouse runs would otherwise be too small for you. Could there be any better proof that you can trust us to keep our side of the bargain?’
Sammy understood the mice really did mean business. ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I agree not to hunt you any more so long as you conduct me out of this building. But I want something else from you too.’
‘What else? Isn’t that enough?’ Nip squeaked angrily.
‘No, it isn’t enough,’ Sammy returned. ‘Because I need you to give me directions. I don’t know where I’ve been brought; I don’t know this building, and I want to get back to the area I know. How can I do that, even if you do get me into the open again? I’d be lost before I could start.’
‘That’s not our problem,’ Nip snapped. ‘We didn’t bring you here and we don’t know where you come from. This request is absurd and unreasonable.’
‘Then it’s no deal,’ Sammy remarked coolly. ‘I may as well stay here.’ He raised himself and walked away from the hole with an obstinate expression. Stupid mice, they’ll soon come to their senses, he thought.
Nip was stunned. He had been so sure he had found the perfect solution to the colony’s safety. This tabby cat was a ridiculous creature. How dare he make his own demands? The old mouse was furious. Let him remain a prisoner then! But Nip soon realized this would also be the worst possible scenario for the mice. And they would blame him. He crept away from the hole, looking very distressed.
The other mice soon began to gather round Nip, expecting to hear good news. But when they saw his face they became very anxious. A chorus of questions delivered in every register of squeak and squeal resounded in the subterranean mouse galleries. Up above, Sammy heard this new noise which had replaced the sound of gnawing. Nip tried to explain what had gone wrong but it was impossible to make himself heard. At last the voices subsided. Nip related Sammy’s demand in a tone of defeat. Immediately a fresh vocal storm broke over him, this time of protests and accusations. The old mouse seemed to shrink into himself beneath this torrent of indignation.
‘What could I do?’ he asked feebly. ‘How could I direct the cat anywhere? I don’t know where it came from!’
‘Didn’t you ask? Didn’t you ask?’ the mice clamoured in disbelief.
‘N-no, I didn’t,’ Nip confessed humbly.
‘This is incredible,’ said another senior mouse. ‘You had a chance to rid us of this menace and you – you just played right into the cat’s paws – I should say jaws. The animal doesn’t want to leave, it’s too happy decimating our population!’
‘That’s not true!’ Nip cried. ‘The animal admitted it wanted to get away from here. I did my best. I faced the enemy and spoke up. I didn’t notice you leaping to volunteer.’
‘Either way, the chance was lost,’ the other elderly mouse mumbled.
The mice drifted away in little knots, chattering to each other about what the outcome would be. They all foresaw another night of slaughter.
10
Trust and mistrust
BUT FIRST, FOR mice and cat alike, there were the daylight hours to get through. Elsie arrived for work, bringing her dog Smartie with her. A quick count of the dead mice in the warehouse, very few of which Sammy had attempted to eat, told Elsie that her campaign against the mice was proving successful. Sammy was rewarded with nothing more than a saucer of milk. After demolishing it he didn’t bother this time to look for more. He knew better. Smartie came up to him, his tail wagging briskly. To his surprise, Sammy spat at him!
‘Why are you like this?’ Smartie asked, puzzled. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to see me.’
‘Pleased to see you?’ Sammy growled. ‘You’ve been no friend to me. You tricked me on to your floating home so that your cruel mistress could trap me. Look at this place! What sort of life for a cat is this, shut up day and night?’
‘But you’re a hunter,’ Smartie said, genuinely perplexed. ‘I thought you –’
‘Never mind what you thought,’ Sammy snapped. ‘There’s more to a cat’s life than catching mice. When you first saw me I was at liberty to go where I chose, not confined to a few dark and gloomy passages. That’s what you’ve condemned me to with your treachery!’
Smartie backed away, truly shaken by the ferocity of the cat’s words. He was almost convinced that Sammy meant to attack him.
‘I say, this has all been a misunderstanding,’ he muttered awkwardly. ‘I never suspected – I mean, look here, once you’ve rid this place of the mice there will be no reason for you to remain.’
‘Rid this place!’ Sammy bellowed. ‘Have you any conception of the number of mice in this building? There are hundreds. I’ve heard them, gibbering and scratching. Am I to spend the rest of my life here?’
‘I – well, I don’t know. I’m sure my mistress would welcome you back to our boat on the canal, even if you couldn’t quite – er – deal with every last mouse. You’ve made a big difference already, judging by the –’
Sammy wasn’t listening. ‘Canal?’ he repeated. ‘Canal? Is that the
name of the long water?’
‘L-long water?’ Smartie gasped.
‘Where you tricked me,’ Sammy reminded him.
‘I didn’t, honestly – but, yes, that’s what it’s called.’
‘Good. You’ve been of some use,’ Sammy growled. ‘Now get away from me. You and your fat mistress make a good pair. Heartless, both of you. I would rather stay here than come and live with you two. I’d starve on that boat, as you call it. Have you seen how little she feeds me?’
Smartie felt there was no purpose in pursuing the conversation any further. More cowed by the tabby cat’s fierceness than he cared to admit, he was only too glad to disappear and rejoin Elsie. Sammy was left to nurse his sense of grievance and to think about how he could rectify his mistake in rejecting the old mouse’s offer.
That night Sammy set himself to force the issue. An even greater reduction in the colony’s numbers this third night, Sammy calculated, must surely persuade the mice to reopen negotiations with him and, in so doing, almost certainly concede the extra terms he was demanding. But, in fact, the reverse of what he was planning occurred. He didn’t catch a single mouse. He didn’t see a single mouse. He heard them of course. Whispering and prattling in their underground network. But not one mouse dared to show itself. The colony was terrified. The mice had met their match and were keeping on the safe side of the walls and floorboards.
‘We can’t live like this,’ they told each other.
