Quality time with my sister: chasing a mouse

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the phenomenon; cats that bring their owners’ mice as presents, but believe me, it’s true. Our cats can go freely in and out of the house due to their cat door. We close it at night to make sure no such presents can be brought inside. This usually works very well until last night.

Because the cat door is closed at night, the cats meow in front of it when they want to get in. Yesterday I went down to let Flexie in and did not realise she had something in her mouth. It was dark and I couldn’t see her all that well. She did not act out of place either so I simply went upstairs. Once there, and with my cat there a well, she suddenly was acting out of place: circling around my desk, tail high up in the air and swinging, her constantly sniffing her nose. She was very playful but not the kind of playful she is when it is just a toy. I didn’t believe it though. We blocked the door it should be impossible for a mouse to get in. Since she kept on being playful I could ignore it no longer and so the chase began.

I knew where the mouse was because of my cat, but it took me 30 minutes to see something small move and to more or less confirm that yes, there was indeed a mouse. He hid under my desk and my desk is so close to the ground that you cannot fit your hand under it. My desk has two sides, one with drawers and one with an ‘open’ space meaning that once you got the mouse out of, let’s say the right side, he’d simply flee to the left side and you could start all over. Then there was also the danger of the mouse fleeing to under my bed. I don’t suppose I have to explain why I wouldn’t like that to happen.

In a few minutes time, half of my room had been turned upside down. I had taken old hardcover books and made some sort of fence, border, with it so that the mouse could never go to the other side of the room where my bed was located. After this, I tried moving my desk so that my cat could catch the mouse and get out but for some reason he could hide well enough every time. When I had moved the desk a few times too many, my cat left and hid under my mom’s bed in the middle (thank you very much -.-).

I kind of needed the other cat, the hunter: Poekie. So I called upstairs and asked if he was there. “Why?” my sister yelled back. I told her there’s a mouse, not expecting her to come down and help, but she did, in her nightgown. I got a spade from the garage and handed it to her. The idea was to get the mouse out under the desk so that it would run her way and then she could… do something. I moved the desk and she started to scream and then I freaked out because shit and so I ran and jumped past her onto the hallway, panting and asked: “what, why, where is he??” – “I don’t know- there- he moved- I’m scared!! Hahahahahaha.”

Mental note to self: if you do not want to panic, do no come close to your
sister in ‘scary’ situations.

This went on for a while till we got the mouse to go from the right side to the left… My sister then got a new genius idea. We put old magazines to all the sides of the left side of the desk except for the back and front. She placed a box in front and the idea was that we were going to push the mouse from behind into that box. She pushed and I held the box, but then she freaked out again, jumped up and away from behind whilst screaming and… well. It was unsuccessful. I think she hit posts instead of the mouse though. I guess the mouse wasn’t even there anymore by then.

A little bit later we thought he had moved under the carpet because we noticed a bump, which we had not seen before. She held the spade and I told her to hit it.

“No, no, I can’t, I don’t dare to.”
“Just do it!”

After she lifted up the carpet but there was no mouse underneath. Turned out it was some sort of tiny ball?? Then I had a laughter attack because weren’t we scared of a little tiny ball. Two hours had passed by then. The carpet got covered in sand due to the spade, magazines were spread across the floor, the screen of my computer had been moved, as well as every other device and lamp on top of the desk and- it was a big mess. We decided to give up. It was 1 AM and we desperately wanted to sleep. I did.

 

My sister went back upstairs and I snuck into my bed, but then my cat decided to show up again. She went to the desk whereas I thought: if you are going to search for it, search under my bed because the mouse is not under the desk anymore (we checked by lifting it). However, my cat’s senses are great for detecting a mouse. The mouse had hidden himself inside the desk, which explains why we couldn’t find him anymore. I followed Flexie and moved the books. The mouse shot out, brushed past my hand and caused me to scream and dive away, then run and jump into the hallway again. I am a true hero, I know. Wait till you read about me and an encounter with a spider. I thought it was really hopeless by then. The mouse had gone towards my bed and I wasn’t sure that the fence of books had really shielded him off. Both my cat and I could not spot the mouse so I went back to my bed.

YES YES YES THE MOUSE IS OUT OF THE HOUSE (AND STILL ALIVE) #VICTORY

— Malou (@Miilru) April 30, 2015

Flexie left the room. 2 minutes later a little grey thing ran out of my room onto the hallway. Needless to say, I got out of bed and went after it. He now ran freely over the hallway, then went into the bathroom. I blocked more parts in the hallway with books to corner him. Another cat came home and helped me in my chase (poor mouse). Once I got the mouse out of the bathroom my cat and I cornered him and miraculously enough I managed to get him inside of the box. I covered it with books and managed to carry the mouse all the way outside. It might have been better if I had killed him, but I couldn’t do it.

Damn was I happy once the mouse was out of the house. If it hadn’t been for my sister I would have given up hours ago, aka. right, when she told me Poekie was not there. So thank you for sticking around so long. We finally had some real sister quality time, but I don’t think we’d like to do this again anytime soon.