Come on Phil, your the writer with imagination, give us to story where the underrat prevails. :encouragement:
lease:
Under-Rat looked at the poison and sighed.
How many times was it now that The Large Ones had stupidly tried to trick him into taking the bait and dying a long, agonizing death?
He thought of his wife and 27 children, drawing some small amount of solace from their safety back in the den. He envisioned George, the baby of the family, really not much more than a cotton mouse at this point in his development, playing with his beloved Edna on the soft, downy cotton balls he had found in the bathroom cabinet last week.
Then his thoughts proceeded to drift over all his children ... Mabel, Francis, Philip, Mary ... and, drawing strength from their loving faces, knew what he had to do, what he
should have done a long time ago.
Stepping lightly on the pads of his feet as his Ratkido instructor had taught him long ago, Under-Rat began the long, arduous ascension up the kitchen cabinets. He avoided the loose handle on the right-hand door and totally went around the dish strainer on the counter - he didn't want a repeat of last month's fiasco with the dishes.
He made his way over the sink, still wet with soapy water and causing his whiskers to twitch involuntarily, and finally arrived at his "base camp" - the bread box. From there he could easily mount his assault on the main goal, the top cabinet where all that delicious cereal was stored.
Under-Rat knew that once he did this, there was no turning back. No more pleas of leniency from the loud She-Human, no more crying from her cubs and most importantly of all, the reason he was here, perched precariously atop this cabinet on a cold winter night, no more traps and poisonous bait from The Hairy One.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Under-Rat pulled at the bait box with his razor-sharp incisors, trying to calculate the correct angle as his muscles strained. He backed into a box of instant oatmeal, normally a treasure-trove of a find, but tonight was not just any night. A curse escaped his thin lips. This was about revenge, about settling old scores.
This was about survival.
Finally, after 20 minutes of super-rattian effort, Under-Rat was ready - one last nudge with his scarred pink nose and the night's work would be almost complete. Gently he pushed, overcoming the initial resistance of the bait trap until finally the fine white powder spilled in a scattered heap on the shelf. He checked the time - 2:23AM. Plenty of time left until The Large Ones would be awake.
Jumping atop the box of Cheerios caused it to fall over according to plan. Under-Rat began the time-consuming task of dipping his paw into the poison bait, then crawling into the cereal box and swishing that same paw all through the wholesome-grained cereal. Once, twice, ten times, twenty times ... his eyes began to sting and his paw shriveled but still he kept on with his attack.
No going back now.
4:57AM. Three minutes until The Hairy One came galumphing down the stairs with his huge, misshapen feet. Under-Rat had gotten all of the bait into the cereal box - now he just had to make good his escape. Jumping down on the counter with a strength and resolve newly born from fear, he scampered back across the wet sink, down the cabinet and, just as the hall light came on, slipped as quietly as the night through the gap under the back door ...
