Recently I rediscovered said story, and I find it quite entertaining, so I will make it open to the public.
Here goes, a sample of my prehistoric writing:
P.S. If you don't have time to read it, or simply don't want to, then feel free to not read it and skip to posts waaaaay down there.
Bartholomouse
Bartholomouse stared intently at the perfectly square piece of cheese placed carefully on top of the metal square which would release the hard cold bar that was so notoriously known for crushing the life out of many a mouse. How had Mousculease defeated the Nemean Cat? How did Jason and the Argomice avoid the rat poison and retrieve the Golden Cheese? How did Mousdini escape all of those mouse traps? Bartholomouse knew all the stories; they had done it through their great strength and cunning. “But how can I get to the cheese without that hideous trap snapping my neck like a twig?” He thought to himself. “I know I’m not fast enough to get it before the trap is sprung.” He looked around the room for something else to eat, but he already knew there was nothing. Suddenly his eyes fell upon a small bouncy ball. Could a simple child’s toy be the answer to fighting starvation? It was certainly worth a try. He scurried over to the ball and rolled it toward the mousetrap, hoping against hope that this time his idea would work. SNAP! Sweet success! The trap could only snap once, and this time its victim was not a mouse.
Back in his mouse hole he started to boast to his brother that he, Bartholomouse, had discovered how to defeat the dreaded mousetrap. “I have the cheese to prove it!” He concluded, holding up his delicious prize.
“I want to see for myself.” His brother demanded. “You could’ve gotten that from anywhere.”
“I promise I got it from the trap, but if you really must see, I can do it again.”
“Good, there’s that really annoying one by the back door that we always have to go around. It would be wonderful to be rid of it.”
Bartholomouse eagerly lead the way, and upon arrival, scanned the area for something to use to trigger the trap. His eyes fell upon a small stick which he picked up with his mouth. “Ar ou aachig?” He mumbled.
“Pardon?” Inquired his brother
“Sorry” he said, spitting out the stick. “I asked if you were watching.”
“I sure am.”
Bartholomouse carefully picked up the stick and demonstrated how to hit the mechanism to make the trap spring.
He was a big shot now. After demonstrating his incredible feat several more times for different mice, his fame spread like butter on toast. Currently Bartholomouse was at a party held in his honor, where the Mouse Mayor himself was present. He went over to the buffet table and helped himself to more cheese. “Bartholomouse!” yelled his friend Tomouse over the Micecal Jackson music. “The Mouse Mayor wants to talk to you!” Bartholomouse was scurried up to the stage where the Mouse Mayor awaited him. Then, the room grew silent as the Mouse Mayor addressed him. “Bartholomouse,” he said, with a grin so big that both of his teeth were showing. “You have surprised us all with your incredible cunning and daring. Therefore, we have decided to bring you on as our new Head of Mousetrap Removal Squad. The previous Head of Mousetrap Removal Squad is… uh… on vacation. In heaven. There was a great squeaky cheer from the crowd and many mice scuttled over to congratulate him.
Very soon all of the mice in his department were very well educated on how to remove traps. No trap was able to last long in Bartholomouse’s kitchen! Now, every time that the metallic SNAP was heard, instead of being gripped by fear that another mouse had lost his life, the mice knew that a trap had just been conquered. Spirits rose, and so did the number of mice. Then, one day, the traps were gone. The Humans simply stopped putting them out. In fact, the Humans seemed to have completely given in, because they put out little plastic boxes with food in them. They were giving the mice free food. Oh, but the Humans were cunning, and crafty, and cruel. Bartholomouse’s squadron soon found out that when a mouse entered a box to obtain the free food, he would be unable to exit the box.
Soon Bartholomouse found himself snout to snout with the Mouse Mayor yet again. “We need you to solve this problem Bartholomouse.” The Mouse Mayor stated.
“I know, I’ve been thinking! This trap is just so tricky!”
“Well how did you defeat the last one?”
This got Bartholomouse thinking. “Well, I… I made it capture something other than a mouse. But that won’t work with this one, because it can capture more than one thing.”
“Well,” said the Mouse Mayor disappointedly, “please try and find a solution. We can’t let these mechanisms murder many more mice.”
With that he left Bartholomouse alone to think. “We can’t let them capture more mice…” He repeated to himself. “can’t let them capture…” And just as it had for the first trap, an idea came to him. He ran over to the nearest one of the box traps to test his theory, and saw that one of his friends was trapped inside. “This better work.” He thought to himself, as he selected a large splinter of wood on the wall and ripped it off with his teeth. He went over to the trap and opened the door, then propped it open with the splinter. The mouse ran free. Oh yes, it had worked. He figured out a way to “Not let them capture more mice.”
Soon, with much partying and celebrating, things were going along perfectly again. In fact, the Governor of Mousity had personally presented him with an award for his cunning, and told him that he had saved the lives of thousands of mice. More parties were thrown in his honor, and there were even songs written about his great mouse mind. However, barely a week had passed before he was summoned by the Governor and told that yet another trap had come into existence. This time it was a bucket full of water with a bridge across. There was a piece of cheese on the bridge, and when a mouse went out to get it, the bridge would tip to one side and the mouse would fall head over tail into the bucket and drown. By now, Bartholomouse had figured out a system for defeating the traps. First, he would figure out the threat, then he would figure out how to remove it. Within a day he had discovered that the way to beat this trap was simply to tip the bucket over. No mouse could drown in a puddle of water on the floor.
Several months, and several traps later, Bartholomouse was revered above even the greatest of mouse minds. No trap was too much for him. He soon was able to figure out how to render a trap harmless in under an hour (his record was thirteen minutes.) Mice were flourishing as they never had before. There were literally millions of them in Bartholomouse’s home town now. The country was practically overrun. Most of the humans had left the country to find somewhere a little more… sanitary. A couple had stayed though. A few brave souls had decided that they should fight the mice. They had nearly run completely out of trap ideas, and nothing seemed to work in the slightest. Finally, they held a very important meeting. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Said the leader of the Humans.
“But can we pay him?” said one of the others.
“We’ll use all our gold. That’s the one thing the mice haven’t eaten.”
“I’m sorry about your mother, by the way. But you have to admit, she smelled like old cheese.”
It was settled. By the end of the meeting, the letter was in the mail. The Pied Piper would be arriving within a few weeks.
Bartholomouse was stricken with fear. He could not do it this time. There was no way to defeat the Pied Piper. He had heard the stories. He knew how the Piper would lure mice into the mountains and trap them all and leave them to die. He had to evacuate. He had to leave. He needed to get out before the Piper came. “But I have complete confidence in you.” Finished the Mousident. “I’m excited to see how you defeat the Piper. We hired a professional cameramouse to video your solution and the whole thing will be live on channel 5 tonight.”
This time he was trapped. His brain could not think of any solutions. Steal the flute? Impossible. Kill the Piper? How? He just couldn’t think of anything. His time was running out. The Pied Piper was supposed to arrive later that evening. He just had to tell everyone that he couldn’t think of a way to defeat the Piper. But he couldn’t. Everyone believed in him. He was too important, too clever, too famous to warn the town that he couldn’t stop the Piper. He was terrible, he knew everyone would die. But he couldn’t let everyone think he was incapable of doing something for once. He was trapped between a cat and a hard place.
All of a sudden, he was graciously saved from his terrible thoughts. He heard the most beautiful music floating toward him on the air. Nothing mattered to him but that music. He had to follow it. And so he did. All of the mice in the town seemed to be thinking the same thing. Everyone, from the Mousident down to the smallest mouse baby was completely trapped by the music, scurrying to find the source of the wondrous sound. It was like cheese in the form of music. It reminded a few of the older mice of the classical music that helped them navigate their way through mazes they had been trapped in. They were led down the road, over the bridge, and out of the town. They were led right up into the mountains and into a cave. Then there was nothing. The music was gone, the light was gone, the Piper was gone, and the cave entrance was gone. They were all trapped inside the mountain.
Indeed, for the third time in a single day, Bartholomouse was trapped. He had never been trapped before, but now he was trapped beyond escape. The cavern was in uproar. Everybody knew what had happened. Bartholomouse had failed them. “I will get us out.” He thought. “This is my fault, I will set it right.” And with only one thought in his head, escape, freeing these mice, he started digging. Seeing what he was doing, the other mice joined in. They were slowly but surely eating away at the wall of dirt that used to be the entrance to the cave. Literally. Yes, because they had so much practice eating human food, with of its artificial preservatives and sweeteners, they were able to digest rock and earth as if it was mush. They feasted for an entire day, but there was always more dirt. Soon, mice started to grow weary (and fat) and give up. “This is madness!” squeaked one mouse. “You have killed us all Bartholomouse!” But Bartholomouse just ignored him and kept digging. He dug, and dug, and ate, and dug some more. Before much more time had elapsed, he was the only left digging. But still he kept on. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, until finally, too weary to continue, he collapsed, but not before he saw the light and heard the joyous cry of freed mice. “His plan to dig out had worked after all!”
There was only a sliver of light penetrating the cave, but that was enough. The mice gave all their effort in one gigantic rush at the soil, and they were through! The wall of earth gave way and the legions of mice poured from the face of the mountain. Soon the scene was empty, all except for one mouse. Bartholomouse’s still form, lying on the ground just outside the cave. There he lay for several hours, before finally mustering the strength to wake. He opened his eyes, then stared toward the village where all of the other mice had returned to. The mice that he had just saved, yet again, from the Pied Piper none the less, who would be bound to have a large festival planned in his honor. He would be more famous than ever. He would be a king, an emperor. Then he paused, and he thought for a moment, before scampering in the opposite direction. He decided to go somewhere where he was not famous. He never wanted to be trapped again, no matter whether it was by wall, thought, or fame.
There is a very important moral to this story: A mouse a day keeps the doctor away, and just about everybody else too. Or maybe the moral is: A trap in time saves nine. But the most important moral to this story is: No matter what happens,
The End
This is sooooooooooooooo good!! :D
ReplyDeleteVery, very clever. I mean it. BUT! If I have to read one more word with "mouse" tacked on somewhere...I will not be held responsible for the consequences.
ReplyDelete