Writing for Fun
January 2020
Pride - Jeff Kebbell
My family and I moved into this house seven years ago. The house had a side entrance and our immediate neighbours, Alf and Kitty who were old, brother and sister and divorced, were neither particularly friendly or communicative.
One Saturday I noticed my daughter, Belinda, going to the garage with a saucer with some pieces of bread and cheese and seed which I fed the birds with. Embarrassed, she explained that she was going to feed the mice in the garage. I followed and sitting on the floor in the centre were a circle of six small, grey house mice. She put the saucer in the middle of the circle and the mice tucked in. ‘Shoo,’ I said and received no response. Outside I said, ‘The mice will have to go, sweetheart, I have nothing against them, but in month or two’s time we will be overrun with them, an infestation.’ Long words had no effect and I could see the tears beginning to form - how do girls do that? I said, ‘I'll get some box traps. The mice won’t be hurt and if we take them to the bottom of the road where there is waste land, which is about a hundred yards away, I understand they cannot find their way back and will set up home elsewhere.’
Before Belinda could move into ‘overdrive’ I left the garage only to find Alf looking over the fence. I explained the situation with Belinda holding a grubby hanky to her eyes. ‘Leave the mice alone,’ commanded Alf and went into his bungalow.
Attacked on two fronts, I went in to seek consolation from my wife. Ever the diplomat she said, ‘Let's wait and see what happens.’ This Neville Chamberlain approach was not what I wanted. At work a plethora of solutions were offered. Air rifles, poison, a home made flamethrower and a low vibration noise machine to burst their eardrums and probably mine, I thought. The box traps seemed the most practical and I bought one from Skeels, the builders merchants.
Despite Belinda and Piers trying to barricade the door and armed with the trap and some cheese, I made my way to the garage. Then Alf appeared. ‘What are you doing?’ I tried to explain amid the uproar that was starting with my
Alf sighed. ‘You'd better come in the house,’ and walked off. He reappeared at the front door and grumbled, ‘Come on, come on.’ We all entered a very old fashioned place and took our seats in the morning room as he called it. ‘Tea, Kitty,’ Alf called out and began his story.
‘There are six mice aren’t there?’ We nodded. ‘Well there used to be six people living in your bungalow. Very odd they were too. They belonged to one of these peculiar religious sects and hardly spoke to anyone. I ignored them but as time went by I noticed how thin they all seemed to get. I should have spoken to them.’ AIf’s voice cracked and to my amazement he brought out a large pocket handkerchief and blew his nose hard, reminiscent of the hooters of the ships on the Thames on a foggy morning. He wiped his eyes and cleared his throat and continued. I wish I had spoken to them and said something.’
Kitty came in with a tray of canteen type cups of tea and some dry biscuits. ‘Well you didn’t and it’s over - why don't you forget it,’ she said.
Alf continued, ‘We didn’t see them for a while and finally I went to the police. They broke in and all of them were in bed, dead, not a morsel of food in the place and threadbare clothes. If only I had said something. If only their pride hadn't stopped them asking for help, I would have helped them.’
His voice sounded a little doubtful and I wondered, ‘Would he have done?’
Kitty came in and collected the cups and uneaten biscuits and said, ‘You'll have to go now.’ We trooped out and Alf shouted after us, ‘Leave the mice alone.’
Several years later, we’re still here and Belinda still feeds the mice. Piers has gone to University and I don’t know how long mice live but these seem to thrive. Perhaps they have their own breeding programme where the actual number living in our garage is confined to six.
I do find that a little odd, don’t you?