The Girl and the Mouse, a Love Story

The mouse did not like the little box where it made its home. The box smelled of dust and tobacco and dirty, meaty hands, sweaty from their wanting. Wanting more money, more food, more cigarettes. The box did not smell like the honey and lemon box the girl put the mouse in before she was taken away. 

The girl had golden hair, like a perfect sunset, and big brown eyes. Chocolate eyes, just like the chocolates the girl would steal from the headmistress's room when she was out doing whatever the headmistress did when she was not pestering the girl.

The girl talked to the mouse about where she thought the headmistress went. Maybe the headmistress was a witch and she went out to collect ingredients for her evil potions. Maybe the headmistress was a demon and had to go back to her cage every night before her master found out she was gone. Near the end of the mouse's time with the girl, she got sad, and started suggesting that maybe the headmistress had a secret lover, or visited the grave of her dead daughter. Maybe she had to take care of her sick mother. Maybe she left so no one would see her cry.

But the mouse didn't believe it. He had once, but when the headmistress came for the girl, the mouse saw what the girl couldn't. The mouse had seen the headmistress's wings, her beak, the claws that she dug into the girl's shoulder to keep her from struggling. 

The headmistress was a hawk. A falcon. A bird come to snatch the girl away and feast on her bones.

The mouse had hidden in his little box when the headmistress came in. The woman boomed so loud and fast that the mouse couldn't understand what she was saying. Not like the girl who spoke quiet and slow and didn't jumble her words when she spoke to the mouse. He had a hard time understanding humans, but she had been so kind and gentle and she had treated the mouse like a king. Not like the headmistress. The headmistress had come in, yelling and pounding on the door, breaking it down, ripping up the girl's drawings she'd worked so hard on. 

The headmistress slapped the girl across the face, so hard it left a red mark, and the girl crumpled. But as she cried, she looked over at the mouse, under the dresser where the girl had hidden him, and sniffed. She gave him a little sad smile and a wave, then she straightened her shoulders. She looked up at the headmistress defiantly. The headmistress yelled some more and crouched down, screeching as the mouse, enveloped by rage, jumped at the woman's eyes, scratching at her face. Then the mouse ran as both the girl and the headmistress screeched at each other and at the mouse. The mouse jumped out the window and landed hard in this pile of trash.

And now he was here, in this rank box, trying to get some sleep.

There was a crash and the mouse jumped. A skinny man with matchstick limbs had thrown a big black bag at the pile of trash the mouse was sitting in. The mouse settled back down after a minute, too tired and too hungry to care. 

But then a familiar smell drifted to the mouse's nose. He sniffed again. Yes, honey and lemon. He could smell it under the deep, bone shattering smell of rotting trash. It mingled with the stronger smell of the girl, a mix of sugar and fabric and paper. The mouse pulled himself up and clambered out of the bad-smelling box. He climbed over the other trash, his fur getting stuck on mysterious goo, and his ears twitching every time he made a sound.

When the mouse got to the bag, he found it tied shut. The bag was plastic and sticky, but he chewed through it until the clothes and boxes inside spilled out. 

The mouse panicked as a huge face fell on him. The mouse screeched and failed until he realized the person was a doll. The girl's doll. He remembered her sleeping with it.

The mouse climbed over the doll, still searching for that smell of lemon and honey. He found the box near the bottom of the bag, but it was broken down, flattened to one of the sheets of paper that the girl had kept so pristine. The mouse hadn't seen the paper on his way down. The girl would be so sad when she found out. When she came back. And she would come back.

The mouse waited in that box for many days. He was becoming hungrier and hungrier. He needed to find food. But he had to wait. He had to wait for the girl to come. She would come and give him food. She always had before.

The mouse's stomach felt like a pit. He was exceptionally hungry, and it was even worse since the girl had been feeding him so well. 

Suddenly, the mouse’s nose twitched. He could smell warm cheese and something starchy. The mouse’s nose twitched again. He was so hungry. He needed food. 

The mouse pulled himself up and poked his nose out of the box. He was so weak, it was a struggle, but he did it. He sniffed and wiggled his nose again. Mm. Cheese and bread. It smelled like paradise. But he couldn’t leave the bag of the girl’s things. He’d left the girl once already, he wouldn’t miss her coming back. She needed to be ok. She needed to come back.

He started swaying with longing. He was so hungry…

No. The mouse stayed. He was determined to stay, no matter what, for as long as possible. He would wait for her and she would come.

But as the day went on and the smell of food infiltrated his body, soaking into his skin, the mouse believed that the girl would come less and less, and it got harder to resist the smell of the food as it passed by. He was so hungry he could barely move anymore. He needed food.

After too many days, the mouse was so hungry he couldn’t move a single toe, he could only sit and wait. He was almost ready to give up, to let go and die. He was so tired, and he was so, so hungry. The girl had been gone for so long… but he needed to hold on for just one minute more. The girl would come. The mouse knew it. She would come. She would come. She would come.

The mouse’s eyes drooped. He was so hungry. So hungry… So… tired… and so… hungry…

The mouse pulled his eyes open. Not yet. One more minute. Just one more. 

And as he looked around for the last time, he saw a flash of gold and red! The girl, hair rumpled, face bruised, and clothes disheveled, not like she had been before, but the same sunset colored hair, the same pink, freckled skin, and the same chocolate eyes. She had come! She had come. 

The girl teared up when she found the mouse in her pile of clothes, boney and weak as he was, but she hugged him tight to her cheek, whispering to him. She was here. She was here. 

She took a piece of bread out of her pocket and gave some of it to the mouse, ripping into the rest with her teeth. You’re ok, she whispered, I’m here. You held out so long, you were so strong, and I'm here now. You’ll be ok. You’ll be ok.

She was here. She was here. She was here. She’d made it back to him.