Oh, God --what had happened now?
I bounded from bed and raced toward the closet, and I heard Carrie wake up and add her yowls to Cory's, not even knowing what he was yelling about. Chris cried out, "What the hell is going on now?"
I sped through the closet, raced up six steps, and then stopped dead and just stared. There was Cory in his white pajamas, yelling his head off--and darned if I could see why.
"Do something! Do something!" he screamed at me, and finally he pointed to the object of his distress.
Ohhh on the step was a mousetrap, the same place we left one every night, set with cheese. But this time the mouse wasn't dead. It had tried to be clever, and steal the cheese with a forepaw instead of his teeth, and it was a tiny foot caught beneath the strong wire spring. Savagely, that little gray mouse was chewing on that trapped foot to free itself, despite the pain it must have felt.
"Cathy, do something quick!" cried Cory, throwing himself into my arms. "Save his life! Don't let him bite off his foot! I want him alive! I want a friend! I've never had a pet; you know I always wanted a pet. Why do you and Chris always have to kill all the mice?"
Carrie came up behind me to beat on my back with her tiny fists. "You're mean, Cathy! Mean! Mean! You won't let Cory have nothin'!"
As far as I knew, Cory had just about everything money could buy except a pet, his freedom and the great outdoors. And truly, Carrie might have slaughtered me on the stairs if Chris hadn't rushed to my defense and unhinged the jaws clenched on my leg, which was fortunately well covered over with a very full nightgown that reached my ankles.
"Stop all this racket!" he ordered firmly. And he bent over to use the wash cloth he must have gone for
just to pick up a savage mouse, and save his hand from being bitten.
"Make him well, Chris," pleaded Cory. "Please don't let him die!"
"Since you seem to want this mouse so badly, Cory, I'll do what I can to save his foot and leg, though it's pretty mangled."
Oh, what a hustle and bustle to save the life of one mouse, when we had killed hundreds. First Chris had to carefully lift the wire spring, and when he did, that uncomprehending wild thing almost hissed as Cory turned his back and sobbed, and Carrie screamed. Then the mouse seemed to half-faint, from relief, I suppose.
We raced down to the bathroom, where Chris and I scrubbed up and Cory held his near-dead mouse well wrapped in the pale blue washcloth, as Chris warned not to squeeze too tight.
On the countertop I spread all the medication we had on a clean towel.
"He's dead!" yelled Carrie, and she struck Chris. "You killed Cory's only pet!"
"This mouse is not dead," said Chris calmly. "Now please, all of you, be quiet, and don't move. Cathy, hold him still. I've got to do what I can to repair the torn flesh, and then I'll have to splint up that leg."
First he used antiseptic to clean the wound, while the mouse lay as if dead, only its eyes were open and staring up at me in a pitiful way. Next he used gauze that had to be split lengthwise to fit such a tiny foot and leg, and then over that he wrapped cotton and for a splint he used a toothpick, broke it in half and taped that in place with adhesive.
"I'm going to call him Mickey," said Cory--a thousand candles behind his eyes because one small mouse would live to become his pet.
"It may be a girl," said Chris, who flicked his eyes to check.
"No! Don't want no girl mouse--want a Mickey mouse!"
"It's a boy all right," said Chris. "Mickey will live and survive to eat all of our cheese," said the doctor, having completed his first surgery, and made his first cast, and looking, I must admit, rather proud of himself.
He washed the blood from his hands, and Cory and Carrie were lit up like something marvelous had finally come into their lives.
"Let me hold Mickey now!" cried Cory.
"No, Cory, let Cathy hold him for a while longer. You see, he's in shock and her hands are larger and will give Mickey more warmth than yours. And you might, just accidentally, squeeze too much."
I sat in the bedroom rocker and nursed a gray mouse that seemed on the verge of having a heart attack--its heart beat so fiercely. It gasped and fluttered its eyelids. As I held it, I felt its small, warm body struggling to live on, I wanted it to live and be Cory's pet.
The door opened and the grandmother came in.
None of us was fully clothed; in fact, we still wore only our nightclothes, without robes to conceal what might be revealed. Our feet were bare, our hair was tousled, and our faces weren't washed.
One rule broken.
Cory cringed close at my side as the grandmother swept her discerning gaze over the disorganized, (well, truthfully,) really messy room. The beds weren't made, our clothes were draped on chairs, and socks were everywhere.