There once was a mouse called Mouse, who was running out of cheese. He lived in a shoebox, hidden in the bottom of a cupboard, conveniently located in the corner of a room in a cheese shop. So Mouse decided to go on a quest for more cheese. Given Mouse lived in a cheese shop, it didn’t really sound like this would be much of a quest. However, the owner of the shop, Benny Buckingham, knew about the mouse, so he had set loads of traps around the more expensive cheeses which seemed to be disappearing at an alarming rate! Benny knew that his expensive cheese was being pilfered, by a mouse with exquisite taste as he only stocked the finest cheeses in the land, but he didn’t know where the mouse came from.
So it happened that at 12:38am Mouse ventured forth out of his shoebox in search of some fine cheese in Buckingham’s Ye Olde Cheese Shoppe. Cautiously Mouse peered around the corner to see if the coast was clear to dine at his personal cheese smorgasbord.
As Mouse stepped onto the cheese shop floor, he accidentally tripped a mini trip wire, made with dental floss, that triggered a sound as loud as 300 hundred lions roaring together, as a automatic vacuum cleaner sparked into life. It came hurtling towards him sucking the air around him, and everything in its path. Mouse could do nothing but run and he he hurtled through a door which was left ajar, with the vacuum cleaner scooping up everything in it’s path behind him. In it’s haste, the vacuum cleaner ricocheted off the door and into a towering shelf of cheese, the impact causing the shelves to collapse, resulting in all the cheese clattering down onto the floor below.
“Result!”, said Mouse as he started snacking on the cheese delights that had fallen about him. Mouse knew this would be a dangerous quest in search of his much loved cheese! “Benny, seems to have lifted his game, with respect to the traps he has set”, thought Mouse as he sampled some lovely Jersey Blue and started to dream of the best accompanying wine for the cheese.
As much Jersey Blue as he had consumed, Mouse still had a ferocious appetite for MORE CHEESE! His quest continued onwards! Although he knew their would be more traps, he was dizzied by the smell and chance for more cheese, and unknowingly stepped on a pressure pad triggered Benny’s next devilish trap! Luckily for Mouse, in his dizzy state he tripped on his own two feet and fell flat on his face, unknowingly within milliseconds of meeting his end! As he fell, 4 mousetraps, hung each by their own string, all arced down from the ceiling, crashing together with four humungous crocodile snaps! If he had still been standing, he would have been hung, drawn and quartered!
“Wow!”, stammered Mouse. “That was close! But look! These ropes will let me get up to the table to get some of that Old Ford cheese, yum!”. Mouse scrambled up the strings that the mouse traps were attached to, to get his fill of the next cheese on his banquet.
After getting his fill of Old Ford, mouse almost fell back down the strings, due to his ever increasing weight, but there was still no stopping him. He needed more! Onwards he crept. Well he thought he was creeping, but being increasingly intoxicated by the smells of cheeses, it would be safe to say he was stumbling!
Ahead he saw another mouse trap. “Ha!”, he thought, “This one is too easy Benny!”. He side stepped the trap, and instead stepped into the path of strategically placed motion sensor, installed in a teddy bears eye, that was sitting on the opposite side of the room staring at the mouse trap. Right at the same time Mouse noticed, out of the corner of his eye, some French breadsticks stood up in a basket nearby. “Ohhh they would be nice with some cheese”, mused Mouse as he stepped over to have a nibble. That momentary desire for bread, meant he accidentally ducked out of the fire breath of a dragon as the motion sensor triggered two flame throwers into action!
Mouse all of a sudden thought he was getting the cheese sweats, but as he looked over his shoulder instead he thought, “Oops I was nearly cooked, but look at that! These flames throwers are needlessly melting this White Stilton Gold! If only I had some bread to dip in it! Hang on ….” and Mouse picked up his French bread sticks and dipped away!
Heady with all he had consumed so far, Mouse had need for one last, and ultimate, cheese. After all he had consumed there was always room for some of the most expensive cheese in the world! PULE! It may be made from smoked donkeys milk, but oh my it tasted fantastic! “I must have some Pule!” clamoured Mouse!
Ahead Mouse could see the cheese up on a shelf in the glass door fridge. Carefully he surveyed the area between himself and the cheese, as he couldn’t help but feel that he had been lucky up until now. Perhaps Benny had considered that Mouse would have met his maker by now, and didn’t need to protect the Pule? Gingerly Mouse stepped forwards.
No. Benny had seen the need to protect the Pule, and had devised his best and most wicked trap yet! The reason that Mouse had seen no evidence of it, was soon to be revealed, as Mouse broke the laser trigger with his ever larger belly. It wasn’t his feet, legs or arms that broke the laser, but as he inched forwards his belly broke the beam of light, and without knowing what was happening Mouse heard a load whooshing noises getting ever closer towards him. A flash of silver as knives feel all about Mouse hammering into the floor around him. In fear Mouse fled! Somehow the knives had grazed past him, but enough was enough! He needed to get back to his box, but as he fled he made sure he grabbed a handful of Pule. He was scared, but not scared enough to miss his Pule, especially after getting this close!
Pule in hand he settled down back in his mouse bed, in his mouse shoebox, in the bottom of his mouse cupboard. As he put his head on his pillow, thinking about how clever (or perhaps lucky!) he had been to avoid Benny’s traps, he felt a sudden pain on the side of his head! He sat bolt upright and looked in the mirror, to see that he was missing the top of his left ear! Looks like he didn’t avoid all of Benny’s traps after all! Although feeling a little sore, Mouse was OK, and though the joy of his last cheese quest was impacted a little, by the dull pain of his missing ear, he wondered how the ‘Mouse With One Ear’ sounded as a name, before slowly drifting into a cheese coma (deep sleep).
