Home School Invasion

Please enjoy this short story while I continue to work on the recap of the novel. This is called, "Home School Invasion".


Garrett and Clay frantically ran into my room, interrupting their older brother’s school time. The two heralded the news that baby mice were under the stairs in the storage closet.  I was half tempted to entertain myself with a panicky scream of “Quick! Run!” just to see how far down the street their little feet would take them.  Instead I decided it was time for my fourth grader to take a break so I could examine the situation further.  

I investigated the scene by taking a quick peek inside the little room, and a peek was all I needed.  I had no desire to get any closer to the little pink and gray rodents crawling all over each other in the corner.  I decided to leave it for my husband to deal with later.  

While making lunch, I questioned 6-year-old, Garrett.  Here’s what I discovered.

Apparently, their first encounter was the day before again while Mom was occupied with older “Brother Wesley”.  So, Garrett and his preschool-aged little brother, Clay, decided to play under the stairs.  Now they had not ventured under there for quite some time prior to that day, but boredom got the best of them.  

As usual, when the two youngest boys finished up their schoolwork, they had “free time” while Wesley completed his work with Mom helping him when necessary.  By mid-morning, the “V-smile” computer game was usually turned on and hooked up to the TV for the two little ones to take turns on while I continued my day, picking up, folding laundry, and checking on all three boys.  

With Wesley entering a new lesson in math, he needed me more than usual the last two days, so Garrett and Clay took advantage of the extra freedom by abandoning the computer game to explore once again their play area under the stairs after its long vacancy.  

Only it wasn’t vacant at all.  

That previous day, those little pink and gray pests looked more like giant pink pill bugs, and young imaginative minds thought their family was under attack.  So, how did my little men counter the enemy?  

Scissors!  

My face fell into my hands as Garrett revealed to me more of the story.  Of course I was thinking, “Great!  Now I’ve got to punish them for playing with scissors.”  Still of even greater concern was, “What in the world did they DO with the scissors?”

I naturally jumped to the conclusion that Garrett was the genius behind the plan of action, just as anyone else would assume who has ever known that little booger.  Nope!  Clay, my innocent little 4-year-old, was the one who retrieved the weapon and, yes, actually sliced through one of the bugs...I mean mice.  

On the other hand, Garrett, being impressed with his younger brother's defensive move, jumped at the opportunity to save his family and household from invasion.  But my eyes grew to the size of quarters as I learned that his choice of weaponry was the crinkle cut craft scissors!  With a dull-edged blade and a fat squishy body to use it on, he did nothing more than crush internal organs of the tiny defenseless victim.  

The two warriors apparently retreated from the battlefield at the sound of Mom’s feet coming down the stairs, echoing above them, and they remained loyal to the secrecy of their mission for a whole day.  It was the unexpected developments that occurred overnight that gave them reason to break their confidentiality.  For at the second campaign to free their family of those imagined invading “combatants”, it appeared that they were different creatures altogether.  

Not only did they look different, they looked familiar.  A quick search of his amazing little mind sent Garrett searching through his Disney’s Children’s Encyclopedia.  He remembered a picture he’d seen before in that book of critters that looked just like our home’s invaders. He soon found the colorful page and sounded out the words of the caption, “A family of mice.”  

And that’s when the rascals ran into my room.  

By the end of the recap from Garrett, Wesley was downstairs peeking in the closet at the mice, and minutes later, their 16-year-old sister, Tori, joined us.  Of course, she was curious of what all the excitement was about, so I dared her to take a look under the stairs.

She wouldn’t fall for it.

We filled her in, and, sure enough, she was too chicken to see for herself and too curious to drop the issue.  I realized the rest of the day was shot and no one could concentrate on their schoolwork unless we took one more opportunity to spy those nasty little things just to get it out of our system.

The five of us traipsed into the laundry room, the only access to the door of this hidden storage space.  I led the way, opened the door, and hunched down to take a step through the dwarf-sized passageway.  Still bent over, I reached up to flick on the light when big bad Mama Mouse dashed through the doorway at full speed out of the closet and into the laundry room right across my bare feet.  

Our ridiculous reaction to a harmless 4-inch long field mouse plays in my memory as if it all happened in slow motion.

An odd sound of surprise projected from my vocal cords cut short by a shout of “Ouch!” as my head thrusted up hitting the top of the miniature door frame.  Though jarred by the collision, my eyesight still caught my agile 6-year-old jump like a frightened cat onto the washing machine as well as my daughter’s long golden hair fly through the air as she whirled around and ran for her life out of the laundry room, reaching down to swoop up Clay on her way out.  

I raced right behind her holding my sore head but looked back to witness “Garrett the Great” bound through the air like a superhero off the washing machine and through the doorway, landing in the hall and crashing at my legs, causing me to go down with him.  He managed to miss the linoleum altogether as if touching it meant landing on mouse territory and his ultimate doom.  Stammering to our feet, we simultaneously both reached back to pull the door shut, actually slamming it and then finally caught a breath of relief.

Realizing how silly I looked, I chuckled at myself as I ventured around the corner of the hall, searching for my children.  

Come to find, Wesley was the first to flee the scene.  I had expected more from my oldest son, but never the less, I found him standing on the breakfast table, and my chuckling turned into full-blown laughter seeing him there laughing and crying at the same time.  

Then I heard two more giggly voices join in from the top of the stairs.  I looked up to see Tori tightly holding her brother, Clay, while sitting on the top step at the landing.

“Well, at least you saved your favorite,” I said while still trying to catch my breath and control my amusement.  With wide eyes and smiles on both their faces, they nodded while my daughter squeezed the baby of the family.  

It took awhile to compose ourselves enough to get anything done.  We decided to call it a day as far as school goes and run some errands.  

While doing our shopping, Tori took out my cell phone and called her Grandma.  She couldn’t wait to tell our story.  And the first words out of her mouth?  

“Guess what, Grandma, Garrett and Clay cut up baby mice with scissors.”  

Unfortunately, my mother’s imagination can sometimes go down a strange path, and an opening like that didn’t help.  By the time I put the phone up to my ear, I heard a paranoid woman telling me that I need to get my son’s checked out because they’re displaying signs of future psychopaths.  I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it in disbelief at the comment I had just heard.  Then shaking my head, I said, “Mom, my boys are fine.  I’ve gotta go.  I’ll talk to you later.”

Though our evening wasn’t quite as exciting, the kids were a perfect audience, sitting there lined up on the counter of the laundry room, including the teenager, as they watched Dad disappear into the now forbidden closet and reappear again with the surviving critters and their two deceased siblings, one of them in two pieces.  

The baby rodents were quickly disposed of and for almost two straight weeks, our mouse traps were filled daily.  Likewise, our faces were filled with laughter as we told and retold the story to friends and family remembering that comical day.  

And, yes, I did clear things up with my mom.  She no longer is worried that either one of her youngest grandsons will grow up to be the next Jeffrey Dahmer.

Amie Spruiell

Jan 2007