A small success at last in my battle to hold back the tide of mice flooding my kitchen for months, crapping and snacking, even though, I promise you, every suce is tidily cleaned night and day, and not the smallest crumb of food left anywhere, ever, except in the humane trap, which has been packed with chocolate cake, peanut butter and cheese for ages, but ignored—until last Tuesday, when guess what I wake up and find three mice all in it together. Three!
This is physically impossible. The trap is meant to snap closed after each mouse. They must have rushed together, holding paws. And they were extra small. Probably babies. Somewhere, in a deserted nest in my house, a mother mouse is bereft (伤心的) and weeping. But I have to toughen up about this mouse business. Even if they do have little ears and noses, I can"t let them play and wee () all over the breadboard.
Luckily, I had a plan in place in case the trap ever caught any mice. I had a small animal travelling box ready for them, with a cotton-wool bed, sesame seed snack and water. So I tipped them into it and drove them to a distant park. I daren"t say where. I hoped they"d stick together for support, but they all ran away in different directions. It"s just one worry after another.
"Don"t be so serious," said Fielding indifferently. "Get a cat. It"ll chew them up in no time." What a heartless pig. Unlike my friend Elisa, who rang late that night in a panic. She had just seen a little mouse in distress, racing wildly about the Jubilee line platform, all alone, unable to get down to the rails, where its friends lived, because of those silly new barriers at the platform edge. I managed to calm her by pointing out that mice usually do go out alone, and three together was almost unheard of. Until my trap.
So this is another cautionary tale. Never allow your child to keep pet rodents (啮齿动物), as Elisa and I did. It only leads to emotional confusion in later life. The author"s friend Elisa was "in a panic" because ______.