A Scratch in the Night (one of my most unusual vacation stories yet)

My eyelids flew open and I lay there listening in the darkness to the rustling sound that seemed to be coming from just outside my window.  My heart was pounding a little faster with excitement.  Something must be out there!  Would it be a bear?  A moose?  A deer?  Or maybe just…an ordinary stray cat?  I sat up slowly and looked out into the shadowy darkness.  Nothing.  The only shapes in the back yard were the outlines of the lawn furniture.  Hmmm.  Maybe it was around the corner of the house near the garden.  I lay back down and heard the noise again.  It was a rustling, scratching sound that I suddenly began to realize seemed to come from inside my bedroom, in the corner at the foot of my bed.  I slid my hand up slowly and grasped the flashlight that sat on top of the dresser next to my bed.  My heart pounded a little faster.  In one swift move, I sat up and shined the flashlight into the corner.  Immediately the rustling stopped. 

Up till now, I had thought maybe there was a little critter in the walls, or maybe (I hoped), scrabbling around on the outside of the wall.  But when the noise halted with the appearance of light, my heart sank.  I laid back down again and turned off the light.  The rustling began again, and I repeated my former procedure.  Again, the sound halted immediately.

By this time, my heart was racing full speed.  Here I was, in a dark bedroom, in a dark house, with an unknown creature rustling around at the foot of my bed.  I consider all of these valid reasons to be terrified. 

At this point I decided, logically, since I was awake, I might as well get up and use the restroom.  I could deal with the problem after that.  When I returned to my bedroom, an unreasonable wave of courage seized me.  Armed with nothing but my flashlight, I walked shakily to the hazardous corner of the room.  I looked around my travel bag, which was on the floor, and I inspected the space between the file cabinet and the wall.  In that space was a yellow manila envelope.  Nervously, I reached for it and lifted it from the floor.  It rustled a bit as I moved it.  I tried to breathe a sigh of relief.  That was it – the envelope must have moved and made the strange and frightening noises.  But as I returned to bed, every reasonable part of my brain insisted that manila envelopes don’t rustle without being disturbed.

All right, so what should I do now?  I did the only logical thing I could do under the circumstances.  I tucked myself safely beneath the covers and grabbed my ipod.  If I listened to music, I could drown out any disturbing noises, and maybe even put myself to sleep.  I turned my ipod to my bluegrass instrumentals playlist and settled in.  My anxious mind immediately latched all focus onto the music, following each familiar tune closely in a tenacious effort to forget that I might be sharing my bedroom with a wild animal.  This took a great deal of effort, and in between focusing hard on the music, I tried to convince myself that whatever it was, it was probably just a little lizard or small mouse, in which case, I was much bigger than it, and therefore perfectly safe.  Somehow, that didn’t help.

I probably listened to that banjo and fiddle music for at least 20 minutes, yet I was (strangely) still wide awake when the playlist drew to a close.  I glanced at the time – it was around 2:30 am – and decided it was time to put the music away and try to go to sleep.  The noises seemed to have stopped, anyway, and I needed the rest.  Clutching my flashlight tightly, I pulled the blankets up around my chin and closed my eyes.  No sooner had I settled in when the noise started again, this time in a different corner of the room.  I’d had just about enough.  The stress was becoming too much.  I pulled the flashlight from beneath my covers and aimed its light in the direction of the noise.  There, in the corner under a little table, eyes glowing in the bright light, was an itty-bitty brown mouse. 

In a way, I was greatly relieved.  I had finally seen my intimidating roommate, and I now knew what I was facing.  But then I had another problem.  What was I supposed to do now?  Should I try to catch it?  Probably not, because I didn’t even know how to begin to do that.  I could turn the wastebasket upside-down on top of it, but how to get it out in the open to be captured was a puzzle.  Should I wake my cousins?  No, they probably didn’t want to get up at quarter to three in the morning to find out I had a mouse in my room.  What could they do about it?  By this time, the mouse had disappeared again.  My best bet, I decided, was to take the comforter off my bed, and go sleep on the couch, leaving the room to the mouse.  I scooped up the comforter and grabbed my flashlight, and then slipped carefully and quickly out the door, shutting it behind me.  That way, the mouse would be trapped there until morning, when my cousin Don could go in and find it.

The next morning, I awoke briefly to see Don in the living room, but I was too sleepy to say anything.  Eventually, around 6:30 am, seeing him in the kitchen, I rubbed my eyes and said good morning.  When he jokingly asked if the bedroom no longer suited me, I replied yes, that it did, but it also suited the mouse, and I didn’t want to share.  “A mouse?” he said, surprised.

“Yep,” I shook my head.  “But,” I promised him, “It’s okay, ‘cause I left the door closed so it can’t escape.”

He looked at me sheepishly and informed me that he had opened my door.  Now the mouse could be anywhere.

I can’t tell you yet how this story ends, although it probably won’t end well for the mouse.  I have a trap set in my room, and there is another in the kitchen.  I only hope it doesn’t get trapped in my room tonight.  That could make for another rather traumatic interruption to my much-desired sleep.