By Kiara Ash
When I was eight, I had a pet mouse. He was called Tiny, because, well, he was tiny. A white mouse with a brown spot on his bottom – my stinky best friend.
Mum took me to the local pet shop where I had first fallen head over heels for mice, then shooed me away to choose one that ‘looked nice’ whilst she got the pet care essentials. I told her to make sure she only got pink items, because I was set on having a girl mouse. But as I stared into the pet shop’s tank, watching the mice scurry away from all the leering faces pressed up against the glass – a feeling to which I could relate – I saw him. And he saw me.
He was smaller than all the others. If he were a dog, he would have been the runt. Watching him lying there away from the others, his beautiful black eyes darting around warily, I knew there was nothing wrong with him. He was just misunderstood. And so, Tiny came home with me.
We played together all the time. Colourful wooden blocks became mazes, and Tiny would scramble through them to find the promised prize at the end – which, of course, he would never be bothered to eat. Sometimes he would be speedy, sometimes he would be lazy. I didn’t mind. I would wait for him to finish, however long he may take, and then I would build a new maze.
Occasionally, when I didn’t feel like leaving my room, I would take him out of his cage and let him wander around. He wouldn’t bother going very far but would curl up against my side and take a nap, a little pocket of warmth pressed against me.
Tiny made me feel safe. Screams, and bad words I was never allowed to say, threatened to penetrate our world, and slamming doors shook my walls. But I could ignore it all when I was with him.
One time I nodded off whilst he was out of his cage. I woke up in a panic, scared I had lost him, only to discover he hadn’t moved at all. He was still there beside me. It felt like I was drowning when I was without him. But with him, I had a lifeboat. I had someone to pull me out of the water. Someone who could help me forget the world around me for a little while.
I didn’t have a lot of friends at school. In hindsight, that was my fault. I was just angry. Angry at the world. Angry and jealous that people had what I didn’t have. Angry that people got along with one another but never with me. I would always race home from school, eager to be with my friend. When Mum and Dad were shouting, we would play games, or just sit in solitude next to one another, pretending we couldn’t hear the ugly world around us. The world wasn’t ugly when I was with him.
At one point, Tiny and I decided to expand our friendship circle. I built a playground out of Lego, and left little plates of Nutella, crackers and cheese around my room for our new friends to nibble on when they visited. I’m talking about the fairies that come out at night, of course. Tiny and I were always so excited when we awoke to find nibbles had been taken and the swing-set moved. Of course, I would later learn that it was just Mum sneaking into my room at night. But back then, it was pure magic.
But soon came tears, anxious vomiting in a bucket, screaming and clawing. Mum and Dad had decided to separate. Every second week I would spend at Dad’s new place. Every second week I would have to be apart from Tiny. How could I ever live without him? How could he live without me? Who was going to take him out of his cage and cuddle with him? The whole idea of it was insane and outright preposterous.
Then came a black–and–brown dog named Pepper. If Tiny couldn’t come back and forth with me, then Pepper would. But Pepper wasn’t Tiny. And so, possibly to lift my depression and overwhelming loneliness, Dad bought me another mouse to have at his house. It wasn’t Tiny. It would never be Tiny. I was so disinterested in this replacement friend that I can’t even remember what I named it. But I remember what it looked like – a skinny white thing with red beady eyes. It was alien to me; there was no warmth to it. It wasn’t Tiny.
Perhaps I was cruel to that mouse, never playing with it the way it deserved. But it’s probably in a better place now. It’s probably had a better life without me. I still remember Dad’s apologetic face, his tight jaw and grim eyes. He took the glass tank outside to clean it, he said, but he tripped, the tank smashed, and the mouse got away. As awful as it was, I didn’t really care. It was just another suck–y thing that was destined to happen to me.
I did care when Tiny became ill. I remember when I first noticed the strange scab appearing above his ear. Had he injured himself? It continued to grow, and eventually my well of tears convinced Mum to take him to the vet. There we were at our local vet, an eight-year-old girl terrified for the well-being of her best friend. The receptionist asked whether we really needed an appointment for a five-dollar-mouse when we could just buy a new one. I remember Mum looking down at my tear-streaked face, sighing, and saying yes, we really do want that appointment.
It was a tumour. A cancerous tumour that my beautiful little friend had developed. Quite common, apparently. It could even be removed. But when I looked up at Mum and asked her if we could have it surgically removed, she must have been thinking about the receptionist’s comment. Thinking about the monetary value of this little mouse, she said no. No, the mouse would die. And no, we will not be getting it euthanised either – it can die peacefully at home.
I refused to leave Tiny. When it was time to go to Dad’s I threw the biggest tantrum of my life to that point. How dare they tell me to leave Tiny alone! As if they think he will be alright without me! Every hour, on the hour, I would call Mum for an update, picking splinters from her front door out of my fingers as I did. The claw marks I left behind! Is Tiny still there? Is he comfortable? Are you giving him lots of treats? Can I talk to him?
I woke up one morning to find him lying on his little bed, unmoving. His body had gone cold overnight. I picked him up and took him back to bed with me, wailing warmth into him until I had nothing left. Eventually Mum found me – it was time for me to get up for school. She tried talking to me, yelling at me that it was time to get up, until she came closer and saw the path that my tears had left on my cheeks. Then she saw Tiny.
I buried him in the front yard, underneath a beautiful flower. I decorated a small box, glueing sparkly gold letters onto the lid of the box, marking it as his. I placed tissues into the bottom of the box so he would have a soft place to rest. Then I knelt in the dirt and placed him into the hole I had dug, and asked Mum if she had anything she wanted to say. She didn’t. I remember her checking her watch, likely worrying about how late I was for school and therefore how late she was for work.
So, I prayed for us both. I told Tiny how much he meant to me and how I would never forget him. I told him that my life would never be the same without him. It hasn’t been. Then I prayed the ‘Our Father’ and ‘Hail Mary’, because at eight years of age they were the only prayers I knew. I spread the dirt over him, my fingers becoming filthy, though not as filthy as my face became when I laid down in the dirt and howled anguish into the ground where he lay.
Mum made me go to school. I was late and couldn’t stop crying. People looked at me and whispered. Teachers looked at me with pitying eyes. One boy asked me what was wrong, and so I told him. In response, he told me he fed mice to his snakes all the time. I decided he was evil after that and vowed to avoid him. Later, when Dad picked me up, he clearly had no idea what to do with me. Jokes and tickles, nothing would cheer me up. Eventually both parents would just let me stay in my room by myself. I stopped crying after a while, and apparently, that was good enough.
Eventually, I turned nine, and then ten, eleven and twelve. Eventually life stabilised, went back to the way it had been before. But I never forgot that mouse. Never forgot Tiny, who taught me what it meant to love, and what it meant to lose.
Sometimes I wonder about the people living in that house now. We moved on, though not to bigger, nor better horizons. I wonder if there’s a new kid in my old room, who maybe has a lizard or a dog that means everything to them. I wonder whether they realise that there is a mouse sleeping peacefully in their front yard. If they renovated the garden, did they find him? What did they do with him? I like to think he is still there, looking over the new residents. Keeping them as safe as he kept me.
Finally, I wonder if he is still thinking of me, wherever he is now. I am still thinking about him. Still loving him. Still missing him.
Tiny wasn’t really tiny after all.