Excitement in the Night

I woke up about one o'clock last night with the clear thought in my head that a mouse had walked up my arm.

As I became a little more awake, I thought 'that's silly, I must have been dreaming....' Then I felt, unmistakably, tiny feet walking down my arm. Cold tiny feet! Whatever it was then stopped on the back of my hand and I felt the lightest lightest brush of something soft on my fingers. At this point instinct kicked in and I jerked my hand to get it off.

I went into the living room where my husband was still awake reading and told him 'A mouse just ran up my arm!'

He looked at me over his glasses. 'Don't be silly, you must have been dreaming,' he said.

I went back to the bedroom and turned on the light. There, sitting on my pillow, was a sleek and elegant brown, well, mousy-brown, mouse.

I called to Robert to 'come, quick!'

We watched the mouse, he or she, sitting on my pillow. It sat just like our cat does, with it's two neat front feet together and it's tail wrapped around them. It was mostly mousy brown-grey, with a lighter tummy and white feet. It had large ears, but they weren't round like in the cartoons, they were more like rounded-off squares in shape. It's eyes were like cartoon mouse eyes, though, black, shiny, and round. It looked all around, then went over to investigate the other pillow, sniffing at the corners and standing up against the headboard to see if it could see over....

Robert's big idea was to go and get the cat.

He put Pepper down on the floor near where the mouse had jumped (a three-inch mouse jumped over two feet), and she walked right over to it. I expected violence, but no, she sniffed the mouse, who showed no signs of fear, and turned and left the room! Kip, our Border Collie watched with interest, but he also made it clear he wasn't getting involved.

So I ran to the Studio and got a clear plastic bin I had just bought. When I got back with it the mouse was sitting in the middle of the floor looking around and I just put the bin down over it. Then I found a large piece of stiff paper which I slid under the bin to trap Mouse inside. We admired him (her?) for a while, then took him outside.

Meanwhile, of course, I will go right on complaining about the mice in the garage getting into my papers.... and yes, I changed the sheets before going back to bed!