OMG The Mice Got Loose!

I was in the den watching a movie when Young'un came running down the stairs yelling, "MOOOOOOMMMMM! There's a mouse in my room!" I didn't get it right away; I thought he was talking about a stray mouse. I got out a few incoherent words as I followed him up to his room... but ultimately he said something that stopped me in my tracks: "--And the girls are gone!"

The girls! Lily and Squeakers. I didn't understand how they could have gotten out... but Young'un showed me that their petting zone lid was unhooked. Well, damn. Now what??? I went first to where he'd seen a mouse go, namely under his dresser. At first I didn't see anything, but then I moved a small box that was under there, and who did I see but Miss Lily. She just sat there looking at me, I picked her up -- and she bit the hell out of my hand, in two places. That kind of surprised me, because she'd never bitten before. I suppose the whole situation of being out of the cage for the first time in her life had her all fussed up. I put her back in the cage and she went directly to the food bowl and started eating as if she were famished.

"What about Squeakers?" asked Young'un. What, indeed. I first thought we might be able to attract her with food, so I prepared a food dish and set it underneath the table in the mouse room. But then we decided to search the bedrooms, just because. Young'un returned to his bedroom with the flashlight and started searching under the bed, while I turned on the light in the master bedroom. There beside the bed, right in front of the little chest of drawers that I use as a bedside table, sat our Miss Squeakers. She was cleaning her front paws! Pretty darn casual for a mouse who happened to be sitting mere inches away from Angel's "panic room" -- but of course she couldn't know that. I quietly alerted Young'un, then got down on my hands and knees and crawled slowly toward our mousie. Unlike her sister she didn't bite me or even struggle when I carried her back to her home. But like Lily she went straight for the food!

It's my guess these two wandered out and then realized that they didn't have a clue how to find food. Squeakers in particular seemed downright relieved to be back in the cage! And we were certainly relieved to have them back safe and sound.

I should probably tell the mice's story -- I haven't done that here. A few years ago Young'un asked for pet mice, so we bought him two (to keep each other company). They were supposed to be females. Despite this, Young'un named the white one Hermione and the brown one Harry... and it turned out he was right. One afternoon I came back from walking the dog and found Husband and Young'un waiting for me, looking like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. "You've got to see this," they told me, and there in the mouse cage with Hermione and Harry were eight naked pink baby mice.

Well, two of them didn't survive the night, and a third one failed to thrive and died after a week. The other five grew up sleek and lively. I went out on the Internet and found information on mouse breeding, so I would know what to expect, how to deal with this, and (most important) how to sex the mice. I knew we had to split the males and females up before they got old enough to breed, or we'd have a population explosion. When the pups were four weeks old we bought another cage and I divided them up. Hermione stayed in the original cage with Minerva and Lily. Harry, Hagrid, James, and Albus moved to the new cage. None of the babies were white like Hermione; they were all brown except Hagrid, who was glossy black and quite large.

So the day after I split up the mice, we learned that Harry had been too quick for us. Hermione's second litter gave us five more mice to love. We named the females Bella, Trixie, Lovely, and Squeakers, and the male Sirius. (He was a Black mouse.) When he was old enough, we moved him in with his three brothers and papa Harry. Well, that didn't work well at all. The guys' dorm had always been a boisterous place, and with the addition of another male it turned into Fight Club. After months of this we realized that male mice couldn't live together in close quarters with no females. "They need to be able to date," I explained to Young'un. So we sadly gave away all except Hagrid, his favorite.

Meanwhile, the girls' dorm was a perpetual slumber party. Hermione and her daughters got along wonderfully. Two and sometimes three of them would run in their wheel together, and they slept up in the "petting zone" all cuddled together like a furry patchwork quilt. (Squeakers and Lovely had dark fur like Hagrid's.) Minerva, the smallest, smartest, and most hand-tame, liked to sleep with her head across Hermione's shoulders. The girls have always played together with their toys, and run in and out of their castle together.

Over the years they've passed away, one by one. Bella went first, then mama Hermione; then Lovely, and then Minerva. Only Lily and Squeakers are left in the girls' dorm, and Hagrid is still the king of his world. We still enjoy watching them at play, and getting them out to walk around on us... and they can still surprise us occasionally!