Pumpkin Mice
Tales (4)
The holiday – part one
It was summer and the Pumpkin Mice were going on holiday to the seaside. The youngest mice had just finished their MATs (Mouse Assessment Tests), and Big Brown Mouse, and White Mouse with the exceedingly long and beautiful green tail, (startling green and quite the longest tail ever seen in Mousedom) felt that they deserved a treat after all their hard work.
.jpg)
The Mousekins were very excited, because they were going to stay with their cousins, the Fishermice. They knew they would be spending a lot of time in the water, swimming and sailing. They hoped they would learn how to water-ski and surfboard, too. Big Brown Mouse told them that if they were very good, they might be invited to go out in the fishing smack with their cousins and help to haul in the nets of silvery fish.
There was much noisy chatter as they journeyed to their holiday destination, with Little Grey, the smallest mouse, asking, ‘Are we nearly there?’ so often that Big Brown Mouse simply answered, ‘Yes’, each time.
White Mouse with the exceedingly long and beautiful green tail (startling green and quite the longest tail ever seen in Mousedom) handed round some snacks to occupy the Mousekins and when they had finished them, she suggested they sing some songs to pass the time. They started with ‘Hickory dickory dock’ which they sang as a round until they got muddled and had to stop because they were giggling so much. Then they sang ‘Three blind mice’, but Tiny Grey and Small Brown started wailing that they didn’t want to be blind or have their tails cut off.
Before they became completely hysterical, Big Brown Mouse sang out in his beautiful deep bass voice, ‘A mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam’, and everyone stopped to listen. They liked the song so much that they begged him to sing it again and again, and very soon they all knew the words and could sing along with him.
After a few hours, they arrived in Cornwall and soon came to the signpost for Mousehole, for, of course, that is where all good mice go for their holidays, (though sometimes they might go to East Mouse, or Middle Mouse in Anglesey.)
They were tired and it was late, so, after a tasty supper of Mousetrap cheese, they tottered off to bed and, despite their excitement, they soon fell fast asleep, to dream of the wonders they might see. What would the morrow bring?
