Rodent Rage

by Eric

Never fall for a rodent.

They might have cute faces and squeak like squeeze toys, but in the end a rodent's just a rodent.

Recently we've had to put aside our tendencies towards anthropomorphism and rid the house of some adorable looking little visitors from the surrounding woods.

That, and Mary's essay on British fetes, reminded me of a sobering experience with rodents that started at a kind of American fete, a library fundraising event that in addition to the usual booths, food, and attractions found at small fairs, featured an auction.

When my buddy and I spotted three hamsters in a box at the auction we were still kids. We didn't even know the word "anthropomorphism." Rodent fever gripped us. We had to have them. The bidding was furious. One dollar. A dollar fifty. Two. Three. Four dollars. Five. Six dollars. Going once for six dollars. Going twice. Sold!

Three weeks allowance blown on three balls of fur. I had a dime and four pennies left in my jeans. I suppose my buddy and I should've stopped bidding against each other back at a buck twenty-five. But where's the fun in that?

The plan was to trade the little fellows back and forth, so we could both experience the indescribable bliss of hamster ownership. The first night they were going to stay in the basement at my parents' house. For hours, we watched the cuddly critters chittering and cavorting in their aquarium. Then we went upstairs and turned out the lights.

Next morning when I went downstairs the first thing I noticed was the blood. Too much blood for the wood chips to soak up. Then I took in the rest of the scene.

I had a strong stomach. I drank root beer Fizzies before breakfast. But I'd never seen anything like the carnage in that aquarium. This was something out of a Jim Thompson novel. One of our pets lay sprawled on its back, belly ripped open, eyes glazed. Another furry body was crumpled in a corner, much too far from its head.

Luckily we hadn't named them yet. It would've been worse if it had been Squeaky and Baby with their innards hanging out.

The survivor -- the killer -- chattered and hissed and bared its teeth. This was not a locked aquarium mystery. There was no doubt what had happened.

Isn't it always the way? You give in to a pair of dark imploring eyes and next thing you know someone's head is lying in the wood chips.

Why had it happened? How had the fight started? Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of hamsters?

My buddy and I carried the aquarium through backyards and up the railroad tracks, a long way, until we came to the swamp, and then we walked down a muddy track into the woods, until the path gave out and we couldn't go any further. That's where we dumped the murderer.

He plopped onto the ground, paused, twitched his head to stare at us through those black killer's eyes, wrinkled his bloody snout. and grinned. But it wasn't a nice grin. Then he turned and rolled straight into the woods as if he was on wheels.

Hell on wheels.

We knew that sooner or later he'd meet up with a circling hawk, a stray dog, or a hungry feral cat -- heaven help them.

Possession of a Currant Cake Could be Dangerous to Your Health

by Mary

Graham Greene's The Ministry of Fear is the only novel I've read in which the plot is triggered by a contest for a cake. A currant cake, to be exact, to be awarded to the person who guesses its weight. During World War Two with its associated rationing such a prize would be attractive indeed.

This guessing game takes place at a wartime fete in aid of the Mothers of Free Nations. A smallish affair, it features a band and three stalls: one devoted to books (its stock includes second-hand Penguins for the armed forces), another offering used clothing (Greene notes due to the war less baby clothing then usual is available because wool is rationed), and a third is the traditional White Elephant stall (its selection of odds and ends include brass ash trays and cigarette cards, a postcard signed by no less a personage than Mrs Winston Churchill, and a collection of various foreign copper coins, as well as works considered too shabby for the book stall).

Pondering on The Ministry of Fear recently naturally put me in mind of a similar jamboree.

Some years ago I lived in a village on the edge of the Fens, an area best known to mystery readers as that part of East Anglia in which Dorothy L. Sayers set The Nine Tailors. It sits only a foot or so above sea level, being formed of reclaimed land drained by wide ditches cutting across it as straight as dies. Its windswept lonely miles feature few trees although the area is noted for growing vegetables and cut flowers. If you were looking out across it, the view would always be made up of a third land and two-thirds sky, whether it lay under bitter winter or kindly summer.

It was on one such sunny summer afternoon that I visited a charity fete held by a local church. Tables manned by redoubtable ladies in flowery hats extended invitations to visitors to guess the number of beans packed in a big glass jar or estimate the weight of a large fruitcake. Other stalls offered opportunities to purchase potted plants or big bunches of flowers grown by local gardeners, not to mention home baked goods and preserves, as well as beautiful examples of knitted items and various crafts. The white elephant stall, always the most interesting to browse at these events or so I've found, offered the usual bric-a-brac from attic and cellar. Books, sadly, are often treated as white elephants, and as a girl I purchased for pennies what in later years I came to suspect was a first edition of Ivanhoe at a Newcastle church hall fete. Alas, Sir Walter's imaginings now lie lost somewhere on the shores of time and history.

The rural fete of which I speak also provided pony rides for children, while those possessing a sharp eye demonstrated their skill by throwing rings, hoping to snag a prize at the hoopla game. If they didn't they could have a go at skittles, knocking down milk bottle-shaped pins with wooden balls in the traditional game often played in old-fashioned pub gardens. They might work up a bit of a thirst in the process but the refreshments offered at the event did not include anything available in licensed premises. On the other hand. what goes better with an outing on a warm English afternoon than a nice cup of tea?

Two cups of tea comes the reply from the back row.

My favourite attraction, although I did not avail myself of it, was an opportunity to throw a wet sponge at the vicar, a youngish man of the cloth whose demeanour showed how much he was enjoying the event. I did however notice most of those who tossed a sponge or two at him were polite enough to miss him.

In Greene's fete protagonist Arthur Rowe visits a fortune-teller's booth. Its occupant mistakes him for someone else and tells him the weight of the cake. Naturally he then goes off and wins it. However, the event must shut down soon before darkness and blackout time arrive, adding to a sense of increasing menace as attempts are made to persuade Arthur to part with his prize, to the extent of...but better not give too much away except to whisper possession of the currant cake might well be dangerous to his health.

It's probably just as well I didn't win that Fenland fruitcake after all.