The Mouse in the Backyard

At home, we were six boys and five girls, like a soccer team. When my mom called someone, she went through all the names until she got it right. “Misael, Tito, Chano, Mami, Chevio, Tato, Anelia, Ahiry (me), Adalis, Carlos, and Anyelica!”

My brother Tato was ten years older than me, but acted as though he was my age. He was very friendly.  He remembered all the neighbours’ birthdays and knew everything that happened in their houses. Although he was never diagnosed as autistic, he wanted to act like an adult, but his inner child wouldn’t let him. But to me, he was my normal older brother.

He was always in our neighbour’s yard, full of fruit trees like mangoes, oranges, nisperos and cajuil. He spent time helping our neighbour, like moving building stones in the yard. My brother talked a lot and never stopped. Only the neighbor had the patience to listen to him.

One boring afternoon, my younger sister Adelis, my little brother Carlos and I went to see what Tato and the neighbour were doing. We told Tato to come with us to pick up mangoes. On the way, we saw a mouse running to a pile of stones that Tato and the neighbour had been collecting for months.

We moved the stones to get the mouse out. I shouted, “Who is going to catch the mouse first?”

Behind us, the neighbour yelled at us for messing up the pile of stones. We told him to calm down and that we would make it tidy after we caught the mouse. Tato just looked as us, disappointed, while we destroyed his month of work.

Scared, the mouse ran off. We picked up a stone and chased it. Tato couldn’t hold back, and he ran with us, too. I don’t know how much we ran around that big backyard. The mouse got tired, and we trapped him a corner where he could not escape.

The mouse squeaked, like he was asking for mercy and his little eyes were so sad that it touched our hearts.

“Poor little mouse,” my little brother said, “he didn’t hurt anyone he is just scared.”

“Nope!” my sister said, “Let’s kill him”.

I exclaimed looking at my sister, “Calm down mouse killer, not today!”

Tato said, “What do we do now?”

My sister said, “Grab him! Grab him! The mouse is not going to do anything to you!”

My little brother added, “Yes, an innocent mouse won’t do anything to you!”

“Yes, what can he do to me?”, Tato said. “I will take it by the tail and…yowch!”

The mouse bit his finger!

Tato screamed, waving his hand with the mouse hanging off his finger. We were surprised that we were betrayed by a little mouse, but it was funny too. Tato shook his hand so hard that the mouse fell and ran away looking back at us, as if to say “LOSERRRS!”.

Tato laughed while I checked his finger. I asked if it hurt. And he said, “No, how hard could that little mouse bite me?”

The neighbour walked towards us upset. The four of us, Adalis, me, Carlos, and Tato, quickly fixed the stones and we ran home laughing before the neighbour caught us.