I jump out of bed. I am no longer half-asleep, and though I am not naked, I am blurry-eyed and not mentally ready to be upright. I push that aside, I don’t really need to see properly at the moment, my main concern is to wake up and focus on the mission: save the mouse from the torturous affections of Jenson the Cat.

We run down the stairs and set about Phase One: Location.

This is easily done, the cat is joining in the fun and he has a better idea of where the mouse ran and can, hopefully, smell the fear. Having the cat participate though is not as helpful as one may think. So I grab the cat, grab his treats and take the wiggly bundle of paws upstairs where I lock him in the bedroom with a little pile of treats to keep him quiet and distracted.

Phase One complete; we, have located the mouse. He is under, or behind, the wooden storage shelves under the dining room table. He is obviously scared but in one piece. Brown and

We move into Phase Two: Containment. actually quite large.

Moving the unit out slowly at an angle, we try to peer around it. It’s mildly annoying as the shelving is full off stuff, but it is a light unit and the mouse is staying behind rather than under it giving us a path against the wall to use to herd the mouse through.

 

At this point, I am going to pause the story, our house guest needs a name. I can’t keep calling it ‘the mouse’ can I? So, I am going to call him Fievel.

Yes it’s obvious. No I don’t care.

 

Ok … so little Fievel is hiding behind the shelving unit. He is scared, huddled against the wall behind a sock; we don’t clean behind here often so a sock really isn’t a surprise.

We manage to block its path off one way, but it’s a crafty little mouse and jukes past me as I try to block the other side, runs out and under the kitchen trolley cabinet next to us. Fine, it will hide under this cabinet and we will restart the blockade here instead.

I was wrong.

It’s not there. We check the route back, it has definitely not gone back to the safety of the sock.

Crap.

We look around the living room so more, try and get into Feivel’s mind and the route he would have take, but we can’t find him.

I go up to let the master hunter return into the hunt. He is sitting happily under the bed waiting to be liberated.  When the door opens, he gets up, waits for a head rub and then before I can change my mind legs it down the stairs.

The assumption we are working with is that bringing Jenson back into the mix will help us with the Phase Three: Phase One revisited; AKA Location, location, location. He doesn’t. He is convinced Fievel is under the cabinet where he last saw it before being taken off the board.

However, us lesser hunters are pretty sure it carried on past the trolley unit and dove under the gap under the closed door beyond and from there into the cupboard under the stairs. It’s a big cupboard, there is a fridge to the left as you go in blocking the entrance to the rest of the, very cluttered, cupboard behind it. There is no way to get to the mouse now, but then the cat can’t either and as its now gone 3 in the morning we close the cupboard door and decide to go back to bed and deal with it in the morning.

Its 4am, after an hour of trying to sleep again I’m finally getting to the tipping point into sweet dreamy oblivion, when Jenson pipes up that he wants to go back out …. I want to boot him in the bum on the way out but I restrain myself and let him go unmolested into the night, except its 4am and light outside. Even being generous, I can’t call it night any more. I sigh and close the door. I still have a couple of hours until I need to get up for work maybe I can spend them asleep?

 

 

Day Two  (8^th)

It’s the year of Covid-19, so I currently work from home in a home not designed for it. My desk is set up in the living room, opposite what is charitably called the kitchen, but is more box

 room with a cooker, sink and a couple of cupboards in. Jenson is home, he appears to have forgotten all about Fievel and after breakfast goes back outside to sleep in the weeds and be

 bitten by as many insects as he can.

I haven’t forgotten. In fact, I can hear it in the kitchen moving around. I was sure it is in the cupboard but after some investigation, it appears that it ran down the side of the oven and is

 now behind the kitchen cabinets.

It seems to like the sound of my typing and gets scrabbly whenever I set about doing more that a few words. Guy emerges a few hours later and I try to convince him the mouse is now in the kitchen. I even try and take some audio of the noises coming from the kitchen but he is not convinced. Especially so when Jenson comes home and plonks himself down on his lounger under the TV and goes to sleep. There can’t be a mouse in the house still or else Jenson would still be on the hunt. Right?

I know it’s in the house though so I order a humane trap and some peanut butter, the mission is still the same: Save Fievel.

 

 

Day Three (9^th)

Last night bough another night of cat antics. Though this time they did not involve mice, as far as I know, just an indecisive cat who has decided that though we are locked in the house, he can come and go as he pleases.

I am tired, I come down in the morning to let Jenson in and give him breakfast, as normal. Upon opening the door I notice my little chilli plant, who sits on the window sill, who just 2 days before had just graduated up to a big pot. Who was potted in blood and soil, I stabbed myself during the re-potting. The little plant I have been watching each day as it turns its face to the sun, has been decimated … murdered!

I burst into tears. Was it an angry cat, or a hungry and scared mouse that did it? We will never know but my poor little chilli was casualty of a war he was not part of and is mourned to this day.

Guy is confused and annoyed at my crying waking him up, thinking the cat was dead rather a baby plant. He goes back to bed grumpy. I, after waking up and pulling myself out of teary tiredness, start work.

We find a loaf of bread left in a box on the floor has had some large nibbles taken out of it so we know the mouse is at least well fed and from the

After watching Jenson try to dive behind the cooker for the 5th time, I try placing more boxes around the front of the oven to stop him making another attempt to try to get to Fievel. The mouse trap and peanut butter have both arrived so we load it up and pop it behind the boxes and all three of us keep watch to see if the mouse takes the bait.  noise in the kitchen is once again active. Only problem is that today Jenson has remembered, or maybe caught the scent of the mouse again, or is just in the mood to pick up where he left off and also wants to catch the mouse. I find trying to distract him from the kitchen is a side quest I am not good at.

He doesn’t.

Later that night, while I am finally asleep and out of the way, the boys decide to take matters into their own hands. After catching the scent of Fievel, Jenson leads my husband on a merry chase around the downstairs rooms. With the human pulling half the kitchen and living room out so the cat can get in and take a look to see if they have located the fugitive. They both fail.

However, they think they have pinned down his location and Jenson stands guard in the living room all night, just in case.

 

Day Four (10^th)

 

Yep, I’m still going.

Day four and we still have a mouse loose in the hoose… er house. I know about the hunt from last night already as Guy gave me the run down when he came to bed, there is also a loaf of bread in the middle of the room next to the trap. With Jenson standing guard all night neither have been touched. I am unsure where Fievel is but I normally hear him moving around about while I’m working, with Jenson handing over guard duties to me as he sleeps upstairs, I move the trap to a better location, where I think it still might be, next to the cooker with more boxes

But, cats are too smart.

After a nap Jenson rejoins the watch. I didn’t realise there was a gap in my cardboard fortifications and he watches from a spot that takes advantage of this. I am in blissful ignorance of this fact, even with Jenson fully exposed and not hiding his intentions, I am not paying enough attention, when there is a sudden flurry of movement. The mouse!

It all happens so fast, Jenson springs up, bats the offending box aside, and grabs the mouse. Mouse squeals in fear. I jump up before I even know what’s going on, Jenson who has already legged it halfway across the room, opens his mouth and drops the mouse. Feivel lands on the floor with his legs splayed out, takes a beat to realise he is free, skids around and legs it back to the kitchen. I grab the cat and run with him upstairs to Guy’s office, I have no idea what to do but I couldn’t just let the cat run off with the mouse.

And then it is over. The mouse is once again hiding.

That night the boys hunt again and try to lure the mouse out. I am told there are couple of close catches, including one where the mouse ended up in my trainer but they ultimately failed to follow through and gave up. Guy leaves the cat guarding downstairs again, where he sits in the hopes the mouse will up and walk into his mouth.

Bored and wanting to prove he is still a good hunter Jenson insists on going out at 3am. I can’t be bothered to listen to his whining and let him out leaving a window open again so he can come back when it inevitably starts raining.

Only half an hour later I hear him meowing, bleary eyed I go down to let him in thinking he is being lazy and refusing to come through the window.

But, I turn the corner into the living room and there he is sprawled in the middle of the room with …. another mouse.

This is small, grey and definitely not Feivel, he is also less lucky. Both its back legs appear to be damaged, the poor things is pulling itself round on just it front paws trying to get away from the monstrous beast. Looking at me with inky black Disney eyes, all the while the cat thinks it’s a wonderful game, he is hunting with mummy and he starts batting the mouse around. I grab a box and, making it seem like I am playing too, manage to scoop up the mouse on to the box lid, he holds on to the side for dear life with his only working paws while I run barefoot into the rain intending to set him down under a bush gently so he can at least die in peace somewhere, but he wiggles free and drops into the grass.

I can’t see where he went but he is a least free and I go back inside and give Jenson some treats, he did manage to catch a mouse after all. I figure that after hunting Fievel with daddy earlier he was annoyed and went to get a new mouse to play with. He had to meow for me to come down, how else would we know what a good hunter he is. He is still looking under the dressing gown thinking the hunt is on when I pad back upstairs to bed.

 

Day Five –  11^th

The trap is still down, the cat is still prowling. Though in all the wrong places. The house looks like a tornado has been through, and it has, in the form of too hunting men, one slightly furrier than the other, who pulled out everything they could to try and find Fievel and then left it there, just in case the mouse appears and they can pounce.

Last nights new mouse is no longer in the grass so am hopeful he found his way home to die with his family. Fievel seems to have moved to a different cupboard in the night at some point and now appears to be in the one right night to me. While I watch wondering what to do now, I see him run out and dive behind some draws next to the cupboard. I take the opportunity to move the trap and bait it with extra bread at the entrance hoping to lure it with soft fluffy pillows of carby goodness. I watch and wait.

I can’t see the trap where it is but I hear the mouse take the bread and listen to it eat it. I hold my breath, is it finally over. Suddenly he rushes out, slips past the trap and plunges back into the cupboard.

I re-re-bait the trap, and wall off the door, there is no way it can get out now and the only food source is the bread and peanut butter packed in the end of the trap. On goes another day of watching the cat trying to figure out how to get in and checking the trap when his back is turned. The mouse makes a lot of noise, at one point we hear the trap activate, I jump up and check and yes, the trap has activated! But, without the mouse in it!

This mouse is wily it must have climbed on top of the trap to try and get out of the hole in the door (yes there is a hole in the door, the gas man took the vent away and never came back, but it too is blocked off)

At a loss we think maybe the trap is too small as it is quite happy to take the bread from the entrance but doesn’t follow the whole trail of bread to the back , maybe Fievel is just too large a mouse. I go back to Amazon and order a bigger one to come tomorrow.

 

Day Six (12^th)

Another morning, another check to see if we have a mousey winner.

Last night the trap had 3 pieces of bread leading from the entrance to the back. One of them dipped in water, the mission has not changed the mouse mustn’t die. This morning all 3 pieces of bread were gone, and the trap door had closed. But the fucking mouse wasn’t in there! It had taken all the bread, and knocked the door down and still eludes us. There I was worried about Feivel being teased and tortured but the little bugger is teasing us!

I think it either managed to drag the bread out without triggering the trap, it managed to activate it by climbing on it yesterday after all so it could have done that after getting the bread. Or the trap is too small / the mouse too light to have triggered when it went over the plate …. or the trap is shit and it managed to wiggle out – maybe again cos its small and the mouse – or least his tail – may not have been all the way in so the door was unable to close? Either way, the well-fed mouse is not there.

Sitting at my desk I don’t hear Fievel moving around like I normally do, there is one scrabbly noise but in an entirely different place and only happens once. I write it off as being the

 next door neighbours, who make a lot of odd noises.

After a while of not hearing anything from the blocked of cupboard I begin to wonder if Fievel managed to move after all. It normally makes a lot of noise and moves around when I am typing … but today it is suspiciously quiet.

Late afternoon, while still waiting for the new traps to arrive, Jenson is suddenly very interested in another area of the living room. I try and move him away but he is insistent that he needs to get behind these boxes, which just so happen to be where that one tiny noise came from earlier.

Again the cat ends up locked in the bedroom, he would be quite the fuzzi handful otherwise, I set about carefully moving the various bits in the alcove out little by little until there is Fievel! He takes one look at me and legs it …again.

This is becoming a bit of a repetitive pattern. I try to assure him that I am trying to save him and the longer he spends in my house the more likely Jenson will be the one to track him down and that is unlikely to end well.

As I try to figure out where he is now Amazon arrive with the 3 new large traps. These are far bigger, I open them all up and stuff them with bread and peanut butter and I release the cat!

Jenson is not stupid, or least he has now learned the scent of this mouse, so when he gets very interested in the corner of the living room under the elliptical machine I sit down next to him and try to see as well. Of course, he does not like this! Mummy once again interfering with the hunt! He swipes at me and tells me in no uncertain terms where to go.

I place the loaded traps around the area, if he tries to leave his hiding place Fievel has few options but to go past and hopefully investigate the delicious smells from one of the traps. We sit down to watch Netflix, Jenson sits on his lounger to watch us and the cupboard where he once again believes the mouse to be.

SNAP!!

We all jump. I cautiously get up and head to the trap that made the noise and there he is, Feivel, scared and running back and forth in the trap but he is alive and unhurt and most importantly, inside the trap!

I put my shoes on and head to the back door, slipping through and closing it gently behind me so no furry noses can follow, and I head to the very back of the overgrown jungle of a garden. Poor little guy is running back and forth and trying to get out of the end he came in from, he’s not stupid but he is terrified. I coo and talk to him and reassure him that I am rescuing him from a far worse, cat shaped, fate.

I find a nice overgrown area and I bend down and open the door. He doesn’t wait, a brown blur shoots out of the entrance like a cork from a bottle and delves deep in the undergrowth. I feel guilty about tricking him esp when he could finally reach the peanut butter but he’s safer out

 there right now and has hopefully learned a good lesson in how to keep away from my the stripey shadow that roams the garden.

I take all the yummy peanut buttered bread out and place it further back in the hope that he will come back and get one last treat.

It’s been a few weeks and Jenson still can’t come to terms with the fact Fievel is gone.

One day I was sat here, working again, Jenson was fast asleep behind me dreaming little cat dreams, when he abruptly got up and went over to

 stand in front of the cooker waiting for a mouse that is not there.

He doesn’t trust me anymore. He takes daddy on mouse hunting trips in the garden and plays with mice he finds out in the grass but he won’t 

bring any home while I’m there. Well apart from one recently, but he didn’t realise I was still up, the door was open, Guy was out there smoking and Jenson came running up to the door with a little mouse in his mouth took one look at me and dropped the mouse who ran to safety immediately

I would like to think we all learned a lesson this week, but I know better than that! 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE: One year on.

Jenson still likes to bring mice home, he is much better at not letting them run free after so much practice. He likes to bring mice home to hunt with daddy, but I am permitted to join in. He has learned that he is not allowed them in the house and, beyond the odd attempt to sneak in, he will call from the back door so we can go out and play with him. Or so he thinks. As soon as he drops a mouse in the grass we ‘hunt’ with him by showing him the opposite direction the mouse has run in and getting him to hunt them in the wrong place. This often works, we have saved more mice than we have lost. Sadly  he does sometime bring them home already dead. He is always sad about this but does show us that he tried. I bury them in my rose bush. I hate it, but he doesn’t kill many and I always apologise to their little broken bodies.

Twice now he has bought home very large and thankfully very dead rats, I am hoping this is how it stays!