Paul Gallico - Manxmouse

‘Eat him, you shan’t!’ the mother scolded. ‘How many times have I told you never to touch anything that isn’t the right colour, taste or smell, or all three? Whoever heard of a blue mouse? Can’t you see that this one would make you sick? Honestly, everything I say or try to teach you seems to go in one ear and out the other.’

‘But I’m not poisonous!’ Manxmouse protested. ‘Really I’m not. Please, I promise you, you can eat me with the utmost safety. I didn’t know I was blue, but if I am, I can’t help my colour. It’s quite harmless.’

House Cat Mother drew back from him and said indignantly, ‘Well, I never heard of such a thing. A mouse actually asking to be eaten! That just proves he’s bad and is trying to trap us. Come away at once, children!’ And, herding them together, she rushed them out of the room, leaving Manxmouse rather forlorn.

Was there really something the matter with him? And was it true that he was blue? And if so, what was wrong with that?

He remembered the pond across the road and thought that the thing to do was to go there and have a look at his reflection in it. He had hardly left the door of the cottage and proceeded to the side of the road, when once more there was a rush of air and a pounce, and he was caught up in a pair of powerful jaws.

And this time it wasn’t a kitten but a ginger cat with but a single eye, the one Billibird had called Street Cat, or old One-Eye.

‘Ha! Gotcha!’ growled One-Eye. ‘Thought I’d be sleeping, didn’t you? They all fall for that one. Well, that’s your tough luck. Goodbye, mouse! Some cats start eating at the head of the mouse, but I don’t. I like to start with their tails as an appetizer and work on up, leaving the best part to the last.

And with this he put one great paw on Manxmouse’s head, when he suddenly leaped back with a cry of, ‘What’s this? Why, you haven’t got a tail!’

‘Haven’t I?’ said Manxmouse. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

Old One-Eye was upset. ‘You’re a Manx Mouse,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you say so? You should have told me immediately! Supposing I’d eaten you? You belong to Manx Cat, and Manx Cat would have been furious with me if I’d eaten his mouse.’

Manxmouse said, ‘But I don’t understand! It’s all so confusing! Who and what and where is Manx Cat? And where will I find him?’

Old One-Eye backed away still further, his fur standing up and his tail twitching. ‘Phew!’ he said. ‘That was a narrow escape for me.’ And then, ‘Never you mind. You’ll soon know the answer when you come across him. One thing I can tell you, you’ll never get away from him. Manx Mice are meant to be eaten by Manx Cats. Enjoy yourself while you can.’ And with that old One-Eye slouched off into the gardens behind the houses.

The pond across the street beckoned Manxmouse and he went over to see what he was really like.

It all seemed to be true. The breeze had died away and the surface of the pond was like a mirror as Manxmouse crept down to the edge between two tall rushes and looked in. He was blue and, indeed, had no tail. He turned this way and that to make sure of the latter – there was no mistake about the blue part – and even got himself afloat on a lily pad to be able to see better behind himself. He had just caught a glimpse of the little button where his tail should have been, when a deep voice rumbled, ‘There’s no use in your looking further, youngster, there isn’t one,’ and then it added, ‘Burrp!’

Manxmouse looked around and saw a huge grey-green frog with popping eyes squatting on the bank watching him.

‘That,’ said Manxmouse, now prepared to make the best of things, ‘is because I’m a Manx Mouse.’ For it was clear to him at last that that was what and who he must be, since everyone had been calling him by this name. It had not come as too much of a shock to him. For he thought that the world must be full of Manx Mice like himself and had no idea that he was the only one in existence.

‘Can you swim?’ asked the frog and burped again.

‘I’m not sure,’ replied Manxmouse.

‘Well then, you’d better get back off that lily pad. Manx Cat wouldn’t like it if you were to drown. Burrp! Burrp!’

Manxmouse did as he was told because he didn’t fancy drowning either, and then he said, ‘Just who is this Manx Cat everyone is talking about? And where would I meet him?’

‘Ho, ho!’ rumbled the frog. ‘That’s a good one! The Manx Cat is a cat without a tail, and the first time you see him you’d better start running. Plain cats eat plain mice; Manx Cats eat Manx Mice. There you are, that’s the rule.’

Manxmouse had now managed to creep back on to the shore and was sitting up wiping some droplets of water that had got on to his whiskers, and shaking his feet.

‘You’re certainly the queerest-looking specimen I ever saw,’ commented the frog and added three burps for good measure. ‘No tail, blue all over and as for those ears – oh, burrp!’

Good-natured as Manxmouse was, he was becoming just a little fed up with comments on his shape and colour and so he said, ‘I’m very sorry, but I can’t help how I look. And, for that matter, don’t you think you might appear a little odd yourself, with your eyes sticking out so that they’re practically on top of your head?’

The frog now produced the largest of all his burps and said, ‘Eyes on top of my head, eh? Well, I’ll tell you something, youngster. It might be better for you if yours were, too, because you never know where trouble is coming from next.’ And with that he dived, plop, into the pond and disappeared. It broke up the surface and sent ripples out in every direction. When they washed up on to the shore where Manxmouse was sitting, his image looked very funny and wavy indeed, like standing before one of those crazy mirrors at a fun fair. One moment he was fat and the next lean; his ears long and then short.

Then suddenly the reflection was darkened by a shadow, a great beating of wings, and a splash as something plummeted out of the sky and seized Manxmouse in talons of iron. The next moment he was flying dizzily through the air, with the earth spinning and tumbling about him. Feeling giddy he closed his eyes and did not open them again until there was a bump and he felt himself once more on ground.

He heard a voice say, ‘Now then, we’ll just have a look at what we’ve got here.’

Gazing up, Manxmouse saw the head of an enormous bird with bright yellow eyes and a cruel, curved beak.

Peering down, the bird of prey inspected a creature such as he had never seen before in all his days of hunting from the sky. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘what on earth are you? No tail, funny feet, ears like a rabbit and blue all over. Are you mole, vole, mouse or shrew?’

Manxmouse, who was being terribly squashed, gasped, ‘If you could just let me go a little, sir, I’d …’

‘Oh, sorry!’ said the hawk, for such it was. ‘Of course! I’d forgotten about my undercarriage. It’s a bit powerful,’ and he relinquished his grip.

Manxmouse sighed with relief and said, ‘I’m a Manx Mouse and everyone says I’m going to be eaten by a Manx Cat. But for a moment I thought I was going to be eaten by you.’

‘Well, I never! Why, it would be a shame to eat you. I’m probably the only hawk who’s ever caught something like you. Nobody would ever believe me. There I was at 3,000 feet, on a nice thermal – you know what a thermal is, don’t you?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Manxmouse admitted. For this was something his creator, the ceramist, would not have known either.

‘Well, it’s an up-current of air caused by heat rising. Catch a good one and you can float on it for hours. I was looking for a meal when I saw that frog. Clever fellow, he was too quick for me. I’d already started my dive – it’s automatic, you know – and then I saw you.’