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TWO SHORT STORIES BY MARY E CODY
From Sullivan's Short Stories
THE GOOD MOUSEKEEPING SEAL OF APPROVAL
I have just recently moved and among the oh so many items to be placed in its new location was my old charcoal grill. I carefully wheeled it into my new back yard and at the last minute it rolled over a rock I had failed to notice causing the whole works to topple over and spill out the contents: unburned briquettes and a rather amazing mouse nest!
This was no ordinary nest, no siree! This was worthy of a professional decorator. For size alone it would qualify as a mouse MacMansion, for it was about 10 inches square and three inches thick. What held me in stunned wonder though was the array of colors and material the clever mouse had used. The nest was made entirely of wool yarns in lovely colors of red, yellow black, green, and many, many hues. All of which I began to recognize. These were all strands of wool carefully taken from a tapestry my mother had made and had hung for three years in a place of honor INSIDE my house. The grill with the nest lived in my garden shed OUTSIDE all winter.
I had to sit myself down for a while to contemplate just what this industrious rodent had accomplished. A truly amazing feat of dedicated decorating for sure for this was no ordinary house that she had ransacked, it was home to FIVE cats.
I began to picture in my mind a typical night-time raid: a stealthy entry into the house, a look-out posted at the hallway to warn of approaching felines and then the careful consideration of the right color palette for the nest. Then she had to gather up her selections and scurry back outside to the garden shed and into the grill, place them just so and then repeat the process heaven knows how many times..surely hundreds!
I am a fan of the DIY shows on TV and now I wonder if I was alone . Perhaps my stealthy little thieves watched attentively, carefully noting not to match paisley with plaid and arranging their artful selections ala Martha Stewart!
**End**
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A CASE OF MOUSE-TAKEN IDENTITY
An Inky the Mouse adventure
My cage;although still a cage, is roomy enough and nicely furnished with my beroom and a separate kitchenette. I look at it as a trendy loft style apartment. Not bad for a mouse. It is actually an old canary cage. My "kitchenette is really the water and feed trays that fit between the bars of the cage. My "bedroom""is a round plastic jar with the top removed that has been laid on it's side.I am supplied with clean linens once a week so he maid service here is reliable.
My humans seem to really love me. Besides the maid service the food is great too. They indulge my passion for peanuts and take me out for cuddle sessions everyday.
When I remember the suffocating confines of that jammed aquarium in that Pet Shop where my young human found me it makes my whiskers tremble. I am indeed a lucky black,girl mouse. My name is INKY. My young human's friend who rescued the white, boy mouse who also shared that horrible aquarium with me got the name STINKY because as a boy mouse his urine reeked to high heaven...or so the humans thought.
The only scary part of life here is the resident cat and dog house mates. Strangely enough the cats seem to tolerate my presence with bemusement. I guess the rumors and boogie-cat stories I was told as a baby were exaggerated. The real enemy is the DOG, a goofy Irish Setter that looks at me like I am a prime steak.
My cage is kept on a shelf safely out of the dog's reach but it clear that he is looking for an opportunity . The humans know this..thank goodness and make sure I am safe but it makes the cuddle time outside the safety of my cage very whisker twitchy!
One day I got to have a really good mouse laugh at the dog's expense. It was all played out right in front of my safe shelf.
My young human had a home work project that involved large sheets of white cardboard that needed designs painted on them.
My human's Mama decided to help him with the task by laying it all out on the big kitchen floor with little bottles of a black liquid they called India Ink. Being the clever mouse that I am I quickly saw my name origin. That liquid was the color of ME and the bottle in it's small roundness even looked like me!My humans were constantly entertaining in their ways but this was educational as well.
Because of the work going on on the floor the dog had been banished to the garage�another plus for the day All was going well until my human's Daddy came home and innocently freed the dog. A red blur flew out into the kitchen and took one look at the black bottle sitting on the nice white paper on the floor . Mama sized up the potential tragedy and screamed out.
"Oh No, the INK"!
Red dog brain cells heard the word "INK"...close enough to "INKY" and off the silly beast made with the bottle of India Ink in his mouth. This was not a neat operation. On the contrary black liquid sprayed over the nice white paper...black liquid stained the pink mouth of the beast black, not to mention the floor the rugs and the walls as the humans went in hot pursuit of the Setter who truly believed he had his prize...ME...clamped in his jaws! No more comical site could I ever imagine!
After calm had returned to house ;much later, I curled up in my bed and dreamed of silly dogs and the hilarious case of mouse-TAKEN identity.
*End*
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