The Mouse who has a Castle

At the house where the little girl in the wind used to live there’s a mouse living all alone in his cave, which is not really a cave because it’s inside the brick wall, but nevertheless he calls it so. He is more special than other mice for being bright pink while others are of a dirty grey colour, that makes him stand out among them, and they are jealous, and they don’t want to talk to him, which unfortunately upsets the pink mouse a lot – he is one of those easy-going, friendly, talkative mice. He wants to meet his friends and talk about things he likes, like morning dew and orange sunsets and tea stains and boxes neatly stacked on each other and sitting on two chairs and books on the floor and cheese and cheese and more cheese and endless supply of cheese and knocking on hollow walls and music from afar and mild headaches and throat closing up and being emotional and things in tubes and flashing lights; and things he dislikes, like neon colours and muffled sounds and people saying goodbye and headaches and people saying sorry and clothes hidden in wardrobes and magazines and how people always draw speech bubbles and how they can’t erase the speech bubbles to take back what they said and unhurt others. 


The little girl often felt sorry for him and gave him a lot of cheese, A LOT more than he could eat. Obviously she can’t give him cheese now because she doesn’t live there anymore, and that also saddens him. One day he found himself being chased away by other mice, and he thought, ‘OK, I’m not going to want to hang out with them anymore, I’ll just go home and eat all the cheese by myself’, which was impossible – the girl gave him A LOT of cheese, he decided not to eat them but to use them as bricks to build a cheese castle instead, one with forts and moats and lots and lots of windows. And from then on he lives happily ever after in his cheese castle. Maybe one day he’ll eat his way out and you’ll be able to see him. Just remember he’s bright pink, so you’ll know straightaway if he’s the right mouse.

H.N.