The Fate of Mice Read Online Free Page B

All mice die? “I’m going to die? Even if there aren’t any cats?”
    “Not anytime soon,” Dr. Krantor says. “Everything dies. Didn’t you know that?” A drop of water splashes on me, and Dr. Krantor says, “Pippa, sweetheart, you don’t have to cry. Rodney’s fine. He’s a healthy little mouse. Pippa, dear, if you’re going to drown him, you’d better put him back in his cage.”
    And he helps her put me back in my cage, and he says he’s going to take her out for ice cream, and he’ll bring back some special cheese for me, and I won’t even have to run a maze to get it, and they’ll be back in a little while. All of these words buzz over me in a blur, as I huddle in my cage trying to make sense of what I’ve just learned.
    I’m going to die.
    I’m going to die. All mice die. That’s why the stories about mice never say what happened to them, because everyone knows. The mice died. The mouse who became a horse died, and the mice who freed the lion died, and Stuart Little died. I curl into a ball in a corner of my cage and think about this, and then I uncurl and run very hard on my exercise wheel, so I won’t have to think about it.
    You have taught me language, and my profit on it is, I know how to fear.
    Where did that line come from? I don’t know, and it’s not even really true. I feared things before I knew that I must die; I feared cats and snakes and mousetraps. But fear was always a reason to avoid things, and now I fear something I cannot avoid. I run on the exercise wheel, trying to flee the thing I have learned I cannot escape.
    Dr. Krantor and Pippa come back. He has brought me a lovely piece of cheese, an aged cheddar far richer than what I usually find at the end of the maze. He and Pippa sit and watch me nibble at it, and then he says, “Are you all right, Rodney? Do you feel better now?”
    “No,” I tell him. “You aren’t really protecting me by keeping me in this cage, are you? You can’t protect me. I’m going to die anyway. You aren’t keeping me safe from death; you’re denying me life.” I think of my memories, the joy of galloping down the road, of chewing through rope, of loving a bird. “You’re depriving me of experience. Dr. Krantor, please let me go.”
    “Let you go?” he says. “Rodney, don’t be ridiculous! There are still cats and snakes and mousetraps out there. You’ll live much longer this way. And you represent a huge investment of research dollars. I can’t let you go.”
    “I’m not an investment,” I snap at him. “I’m a creature! Let me go!”
    Dr. Krantor shakes his head. “Rodney, I can’t do that. I really can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll buy you a new exercise wheel, okay? And a bigger cage? There are all kinds of fancy cages with tunnels and things. We can make you a cage ten times bigger than this one. Pippa, you can help design Rodney’s new cage. We’ll go to the pet store and buy all the parts. It will be fun.”
    “I don’t want a new exercise wheel,” I tell him. “I don’t want a new cage. I want to be free! Pippa, he says he can’t let me go, but remember when he said you couldn’t go to the zoo? It’s the same thing.”
    “It’s not the same thing at all,” Dr. Krantor says. His voice isn’t friendly anymore. “Rodney, I’m getting very annoyed with you. Pippa, don’t you have more homework to do?”
    “No,” she says. “I already did my homework. The page is all filled out.”
    “Well then,” Dr. Krantor says. “We’ll go to the pet store — ”
    “I don’t want you to go to the pet store! I want you to let me go! Pippa-”
    “Stop trying to brainwash her!” Dr. Krantor bellows at me.
    I can feel my tail flicking in fury. “You’re the one brainwashing her!”
    “Stop it,” Pippa says. She’s put her thumb in her mouth, muffling her words, and she looks like she’s going to cry again. “Stop it! I hate it when you fight!”
    We stop. I feel miserable. I wonder how Dr. Krantor feels. Pippa