A mouse in the house

    There was a short - but loud - shriek from the kitchen Wednesday night followed by the sound of dancing feet and an exclamation.
    A mouse - which Josep and I had seen earlier in the day and ignored because, well, it's just a mouse - had run across Elena's feet and she was not happy about that.
    "We need to rent a cat," she said moments later. "We have a mouse in the house."
    I said I don't think you can rent cats here in the Land Down Under and Over a Bit.
    "The SPCA," Elena said.
    No, I replied, I don't think even the SPCA would rent us a cat. Besides, I pointed out, we now live in a forest on the side of a mountain so there are bound to be all sorts of critters sharing our space from time to time.
    "You think this is just normal? That a mouse comes with the territory and we just accept that?" she asked. Her voice fairly dripped with skepticism.
    Well, yeah, I replied as she shook her head and muttered something in Catalan.
    Sensing that she was not in a house-sharing mood when it came to the subject of mice - and maybe men as well at that particular moment in time - I told her that we'd buy a mousetrap when we went into town Thursday to do the grocery shopping.
    "I still think a cat would be better," she said.
    Turns out she was probably right because this is one very smart mouse: It's probably, in fact, the Einstein of Mousedom.
    On Thursday it took Josep, his cousin Elena and I a little while to find a mousetrap at the Countdown in Lower Hutt but, thanks to a helpful customer service rep, we did. Two, in fact. When we returned home Josep and Elena spent a little while trying to figure out how to set it without losing any fingers in the process. There were a couple of near misses when the trap sprung before they were ready but I am happy to report that no fingers were harmed in the attempt. Eventually, baited with cheese, one trap was set in the kitchen, the other near the piano in the living room.
    Soon, Josep promised, there would be one less mouse in the world.
    Not so, as it turned out.
    About four hours later, as I was washing the supper dishes, I glanced down at the mousetrap.
    The cheese was gone.
    The trap had sprung but there was no mouse in it.
    Undaunted, Josep and Elena checked the trap near the piano. It still had cheese.
    The mouse, Josep declared, had just been lucky.
    He and his cousin Elena re-set the trap in the kitchen... fewer near misses that time than their first attempt at setting it. They decided, after some rapid-fire discussion in Catalan, that it should go back to its original hiding place. Confidently, they used a pencil to push it back under the sink, certain in the knowledge that when we awoke this morning the trap would have done its job: The mouse in the house would have shuffled off this mortal coil to join its ancestors in mousy heaven, or wherever the souls of dead mice go.
    That was not, in fact, what happened.
    The cheese was gone.
    The trap had been sprung.
    The mouse was not, however, trapped.
    It had once again defeated humanity and its technological wizardry.
    "No way," Josep's cousin Elena said as she stared down at the empty trap.
    "Way," I replied and, for just an instant, I thought I heard a tiny mouse snicker from behind the walls. Probably just my imagination...
    "I think we need to name this mouse," Elena said after a pause. "I think he might be with us for awhile."
    I think she's right.