The Mouse - Madeline Daniel

This piece is from our youngest contributer who is a stately 9 years old. Thank you Madeline for submitting such a horribly wonderful piece of writing AND artwork!

The Mouse

“P-U!” yells Izzy as she runs down the hallway. “You’re SO gross! Having you as a sister is like living in a roach-infested dumpster!"

         I am just trying to show her a dead mouse I found on our front walkway. I saw it being ripped apart last night by the owls that live in the nest next to my house.

Izzy is in the fifth grade and thinks she is better than me because I’m only in the third grade. She and her friends think I’m weird, but I bet I could melt them with the poisonous potion I’m making. It’s made of dog food and mushrooms I found outside.

         Anyway, I decide to have a funeral for the mouse. I go upstairs and take a piece of red and yellow striped origami paper out of my desk drawer. On my windowsill I notice what is probably left over mouse guts. I think I’ll use these later in my poisonous potion. I start folding the paper and keep on folding until I have a box. I lay the mouse carcass inside the box and grab a red marker to bring with me downstairs.

         Outside, I look for just the right place. I decide on a spot under our cherry tree.  I choose this spot because it is where I buried a dead bird that I found a few weeks ago. I start digging with my hands. It is hard work because I have to dig a hole deep enough for the box, but I power through it anyway. I put the origami box inside the hole I’ve made and cover it back up with dirt. Then, I recite my speech that I came up with during all my work.

“That mouse was a good creature. His family probably misses him, but it’s definitely too late to save him now I didn’t have much time to spend with him, but I know at the bottom of my heart he was an owl’s dinner. This is good and bad. The good part is since the owl ate its meal, it will stop hooting so loudly. The bad thing is that mouse is dead. Amen.”

After that, I search for a good size rock. I find one and, using my red marker, I write: 


The last thing you heard was an owl "hoo"
Too bad he had to disembowel you