Mouse

This is the story that I have been asked to tell again, about the mouse - or, maybe, mice. Remember that I wasn't actually there at the time.

It was some years ago and we were staying at Grandma's, who had organised us to join one of her coach trips to Edinburgh. Husband said he would rather emasculate himself with rusty bolt-cutters than go out with all those old biddies and, wisely as it turned out, stopped at home. I and the children , who were rather younger then, went along for the ride. Grandma had said it would be a lovely day out for them at Edinburgh Zoo.

It wasn't a particularly lovely day. It was a cold, wet day - windy and drizzling and penetratingly damp. As we got nearer to Edinburgh, and it took us a long time to get there, what with all the toilet and coffee stops, Grandma indicated that we should to get ready to get off - and only then did I realise that she wasn't coming with us, but staying on the coach to go on into the city. Which is how we ended up in the lay-by outside the zoo, in the drizzle, as the coach roared off towards the bright lights, the shops and the cafes.

We did our best to make a good day of it, but we spent a lot of time sheltering. Any animal with a nice warm box had the good sense to stay in it, so mostly we were looking at empty cages. The zoo was offering a "meet the reptiles" session and we even went to that, as it was indoors, and I ended up holding a snake (which, to be fair to it, was reasonably warm) only because I didn't dare have an attack of the screaming ab-dabs with the children watching.

Eventually we ended up back at the lay-by, and rather later the coach came along to pick us up, full of rosy-cheeked old biddies full of tea and cake. What did they care, or even notice, that we were wet through, shivering and murderous?

Husband had realised the state we would be in and, to his credit, had organised hot food and a roaring fire. Before Grandma would settle down, though, she insisted on pottering about checking and emptying the mouse-traps of their sad little corpses. I was in the kitchen when I heard the shouting. Having arranged for the children to spend the day learning about the wonders of the animal world, Grandma was nonchalantly emptying the mouse-traps onto the fire.

Since when we have always shrunk from examining too closely the fires that Grandma builds - fearing that amongst the merry blaze we will hear the soft thwump and sizzle of exploding mice.