This one is not in here!
The rat and the scream
I was sitting on the floor leaning back against the armchair watching the TV. It was late at night. Liz was lying on the settee fast asleep.
I thought I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye. Under the sideboard there seemed to be a tail sticking out. It was hairy. I thought it looked like a big gerbil’s tail.
I rose up and went across to get a better look. I shifted the sideboard and this huge rat ran out and bounded across the room straight under the settee that Liz was asleep on. It was ginormous – nearly as big as a cat.
It presented me with a dilemma. In order to move the settee and get at the rat I had to move Liz.
I woke her up and gently suggested that she might like to go up to bed. Even in her drowsy state she sensed something was not quite right. The more of an innocent act I put on the more suspicious she became. Finally I told her about rat.
She came fully awake, jumped up on the settee and screamed.
That was not helping matters. I told her to be quiet. Liz refused to get down so I could move the settee.
I went and got the cat who seemed remarkably disinterested.
I retrieved a broom from the kitchen and proceeded to poke and fish around under the settee with the handle. I was a little apprehensive having seen the size of the rodent. I was not quite sure how it had fitted under the settee in the first place.
After a bit of swishing with the broom handle I managed to scare it out and it lolloped out and straight out into the kitchen. Liz shrieked in horror at the size of the beast. I’ve no idea what the neighbours thought? They probably thought there was a murder in progress. The scream was very plaintive. But then it was the biggest rat I had ever seen.
The cat watched with keen interest but showed no inclination to go too much closer. She’d figured that this one was beyond her range.
I followed the rodent out into the kitchen with the broom handle poised to give it a whack. It was too fast for me. The cat followed me and seemed interested in how I was going to deal with this. She sat to watch.
The rat had belted under the washing machine.
I poked and prodded, wondering when if Liz was ever going to come down from that settee. The rat ran out and made a bolt for the cat-flap, straight through and out in one bound.
The cat looked at me and cautiously followed. I could see that she was merely making a token gesture. She followed through the cat-flap with no real conviction. It was purely for show.
It certainly explained how the animal had got into the house. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. It looked to me as if he was a regular.
I bolted the cat-flap which must have given the cat a headache when she tried to get back in and provoked some feline confusion. But there was no way I was going to allow that monster back in.
The next day I rang the Council. A gentleman came round with some nice blue rat poison. He seemed very blasé about it all. He thought that it had probably come from the sewers from a few streets over where they were demolishing some houses. I told him that it had obviously been interbred with a mammoth. He laughed. He thought the rat-poison would sort the problem out.
I suggested that he might like to reassure Liz. I had visions of her spending the rest of her life standing on that settee.