Catching A Tigermouse

      It had been a long day. Jay had been practising Frumball. He wanted to get the trophy for best Frumball player. I had been reading issues of the Neopian Times that were so old I didn’t even understand them.

      “Good night, MI!” he responded.

      So I went off to bed all the while pondering what in the world a Fuzio was and whether or not I should start up my own theme park.

      I couldn’t sleep, so I headed down to the Help section of Neopia Central. These questions were starting to bug me.

      I saw a big closed sign next to the booth. I peered through the window and saw Sarah asleep. It came to me the obvious thing to do here. I threw a big rock through the window. Sarah woke up screaming.

      “Hi, Sarah!” I greeted her happily. “I have a question!” I stepped through the broken window. “How do I get my own theme park?” I asked happily.

      “THEME PARKS HAVEN’T BEEN WORKING IN YEARS!!!” Sarah now looked very angry. I thought it best to leave.

      After I returned home, I crawled into my Pineapple Bed. As I snuggled up into the covers, I drifted off to sleep with visions of Tatsus, which didn’t quite make sense as I had no clue what they were.

      Then I heard a noise. I listened carefully. It was coming from my attic. I listened carefully and heard a soft thumping noise. I shuddered. It was a Tigermouse.

      I finally fell asleep after several hours of listening to the Tigermouse. The next morning, I ran off to wake up Jay.

      “Do you have any idea what time it is!?!” Jay yelled. His Cheery Blossom frowned at me.

      “Yes, it’s morning,” I gestured to the Techo Clock. It did indeed say 2:30 am NST. Jay glared at me.

      “Jay, we have a Tigermouse in the attic!” I cried. “Where’s Licorice?” Licorice is Jay’s Tyrannian Bearog.

      “What could he do?” mumbled Jay.

      “He’s going to sniff the Tigermouse out and scare him away!” I gestured over to Licorice. Licorice was busy playing around in some Pink Blush.

      “Never mind, Jay!” I said. “I’m just going to build a trap!”

***

      Fourteen hours later Jay walked into my office. There he found me at a Pine Fresh Table with several items won at the Tombola game.

      “Hi, Jay!” I cried. “Check out my trap!” I held it up and showed it to him. “See? The Tigermouse sees the food in this cage made from several hundred Bits of Barbed Wire. He goes in, triggering this switch here, causing a big bag of Semolina to fall on the exit, trapping him!”

      “MI, I don’t think we have a Tigermouse,” Jay began. “I think it’s just a Psimouse. Tigermice are pretty big and I doubt they could get into our neohome!”

      However, I was much too busy to listen. Jay sighed and walked off, leaving me to ponder how I could better my trap and how Jay could walk off if he had no legs.

      Soon I was in the attic setting up my trap. Suddenly I heard a noise. Thinking it was the Tigermouse, I leapt at it. I was quite surprised when I landed on Jay instead.

      “Get off me!” Jay cried. “I’m busy setting up my trap to catch the Psimouse! See, Licorice is out here with several pieces of Salmon Steak so that he won’t go anywhere. When he sees it go by, his petpet instinct will kick in and he’ll catch the Psimouse and bring it to me. We’ll send it out into the wild, and all will be well!”

      “Yeah, that sounds okay....” I paused. “My plan has Semolina, though!”

      Suddenly a rustling noise was heard.

      “Get back!” I whispered. “The Tigermouse has to feel safe or it won’t emerge!”

      “It’s a Psimouse, but I agree!” Jay whispered. “Let’s hide behind these boxes!”

      We hid behind the boxes. We heard footsteps. We also heard Licorice chewing on the steak. Then we heard the footsteps head into the trap. The bag fell. We ran out to check what had happened.

      Licorice was pinned down by a bag of Semolina. A shadowy figure ran away. Licorice was quite content, however, and was quite busy eating the contents of the bag.

      “That proves it was a Psimouse!” Jay said. “It saw into the future and tricked Licorice into setting the trap instead of it!”

      “Here’s another theory,” I began. “Licorice is an undercover Meepit. The Meepits are working with the Tigermice to bring down our civilization!” I turned towards Licorice. “We’re onto you! Your cover is blown!”

      Licorice piddled on the floor.

***

      Later that evening, after which I had attempted to interrogate Licorice and he did much more piddling, I had another trap planned.

      “Now you’re sure Licorice is outside? I don’t want him ruining this trap!”

      “This isn’t a trap!” Jay replied. “All you have is a long trail of cheese leading from the attic down this ladder into the bathroom. What are you even going to do?”

      “I’m going to capture him! Do you have the towels ready, Jay?”

      “What are they for?”

      “Well, I’m not touching him! You grab him in a towel!”

      “So this is really more me who captures him, isn’t it?”

      “If you want to get technical. Quiet, here he comes!”

      We listened and heard quiet footsteps and a small nibbling noise. The creature was falling for the trap.

      I climbed to the top of the ladder for a better look and found myself face to face with a Miamouse.

      I screamed and fell off the ladder. The Miamouse, very eager for the cheese it now saw, hopped down on top of me. Jay stepped back in shock and I knew it was up to me.

      I grabbed a towel and snatched the Miamouse up in it. The Miamouse began squirming. I had to quiet the Miamouse down, and as I looked around I saw the perfect answer.

      I threw the towel, Miamouse included, into the Plain White Toilet.

      The Miamouse popped its head up. I retaliated by throwing several more towels in and trying to flush several times. The Miamouse foresaw danger, and so ran out of the toilet. Jay watched as it ran off, still surprised over what was going on. The Miamouse ran through the hall and out the front door, vowing not to return anytime soon.

      However, now we were faced with another problem. Namely, the toilet not being built to flush fourteen towels at once. I resolved to have a talk with the Eyrie at the Furniture Shop about that right after I escaped the large amount of water that was headed my way.

      So what happened at the end.

      Well, Jay fled the neohome while trying to catch the Miamouse. He looked back in and decided it was best to stay outside for a while.

      The Miamouse fled to parts unknown.

      I caused mass flooding, causing over 60 000 neopoints of damage, and destroying most of my neohome. But I did get rid of the Miamouse. So in general, it was a happy ending.

The End