MOUSE CATCHER

At that time, I was the only male in the house,

the day my sister's face drained at the sight of the mouse.

Her jaw-dropping, silent-movie gasp said it all

and I heard the panic yell of the "mouse catcher" call.

I slid the door between the kitchen and the living room

and tiptoed to the cupboard for the sweeping broom.

I banged the larder door to disturb the nifty pest,

listening hard for scuffles between the thumpings in my chest.

"Have you got it? Have you killed it?" came my sister's yaps.

"Sssssshhh, be quiet!" I breathed, searching cracks and gaps

for tiny eyes and movements to reveal the hiding place

until, at last, the moment when we both came face to face.

Bangs, clatters and crashes echoed around the kitchen room

but the mouse had no chance against me and my lethal broom.

(Stories of the deadly mouse-catcher must have spread to other mice
for, dear reader, we never had to do the same thing twice.)