Christopher Mouse: Chapters 5–7

With Anna gone I sank into listlessness and depression.

Life at the pet shop had lost its zest.

My friends tried to cheer me up, the Parrot by offering to recite the most notable poems of T. S. “Howling Mad” Schwartz, the Hamster by proposing a lecture series on the techniques of modern literary criticism.

I heard the Hamster sigh and say in a melancholy voice, “You’re the one he wants. Bad luck for me—good luck for you. Congratulations!”

The Parrot, showing extraordinary tact, remained silent.

After a while the Hamster called out, “Christopher, what’s the matter with you? The boy is here to buy a pet. Don’t stand there like a statue—you’ve got to respond! Show some animation, verve, esprit de corps! Do you want to lose the chance of a lifetime?”

After a while the Hamster called out, “Christopher, what’s the matter with you? The boy is here to buy a pet. Don’t stand there like a statue—you’ve got to respond! Show some animation, verve, esprit de corps! Do you want to lose the chance of a lifetime?”

I began to go through my paces with as much enthusiasm as I could muster; I trotted up and down, pretending to be lively and eager.

After that we’ll call the transaction completed, and the sale bona fide and down in the books!

I must confess that I felt contemptuous of my new owner as he carried me out of the shop.

What a simpleminded boy he seemed to be, letting himself be swindled out of his few dollars by Doc, without a murmur of protest or, what was worse, without the slightest suspicion that the pet shop owner had taken advantage of him.

Every second of the journey he held the box carefully, in a manner far different from that of Mrs. Crimmins. It was clear that he was concerned about my well-being and wished to have me jostled as little as possible.

“I wonder,” mused Freddy.

As a mouse grows older, experience teaches him to be wary of the future, to take nothing for granted about the days to come.

I enjoyed comforts and luxuries—more, I was sure, than most white mice ever enjoy. I was unlucky in only one respect: I did not understand how precarious my position was.

I grew careless about pleasing my owner; I assumed I would always be indispensable to his happiness.

At night, when he let me out to exercise, I was as friendly to his younger brothers as I was to him. Impartiality was not wise.

It was Saturday morning, and I lay half in and half out of my cardboard house, nibbling on the remnants of a hazelnut while I tried to decide whether to curl up and go to sleep or take a run around the cage.

He was a shrewd one—making up all that nonsense about my whiskers. But I was certain his tricks would do him no good.

His admiration was intense, and for a moment I felt a rush of panic as I saw him wavering.

I took another nibble of the hazelnut and munched on it complacently.

I was so busy commiserating with the unfortunate boy that I hardly noticed the change in Freddy’s expression.

He’s handing me over to somebody I’ve never seen before, an utter stranger—and somebody he doesn’t know so well himself.

To my bewildered eyes, Freddy Willis turned and disappeared, walking back toward the familiar room I had come to know so well.

A feeling of dismay crept into my bones. What sort of boy was Aubrey? What kind of troubles was I faced with?

I had fallen into unscrupulous hands, and instinct warned me that I’d be lucky to survive.

My diet was meager and scarcely fit to eat. Every now and then I received a small, hard lump of foul-smelling turtle food left over from the previous residents.

I thought of my sister, too, and wondered how she had fared since we parted.

I knew that if the Parrot had heard them, he would have said with towering scorn, “Not in the same league with the work of the Master!”

And I was sure the Hamster would have dismissed them with a curt “Dreadful doggerel, Christopher! Totally unworthy of serious criticism!”

And I was sure the Hamster would have dismissed them with a curt “Dreadful doggerel, Christopher! Totally unworthy of serious criticism!”

Gloom and doom
Waft through the room!

Finally he added them up and announced in a triumphant voice, “Sixteen dollars and twenty-three cents today! Profit: twelve dollars and sixty-nine cents! Capital gains for the week: forty-seven percent!”

I gnawed the bars with exasperation.

I called the poem “Ode to Aubrey.”