Playing Cat and Mouse

I should have realised when one of the cats’ ping pong balls rolled out from under the sofa, but Black Cat appeared round the corner of the sofa a minute or so later, so I assumed it was him.

I should have realised when I heard rustling from behind the sofa, but I had only just sat down, so I assumed I had knocked into the odds and ends that we keep tucked away behind there.

I really should have realised when a piece of paper on the table at the side of the sofa flipped up for no apparent reason, but by then I was telling myself not to be paranoid, it was probably just a draught, and if it was a mouse the cats would be taking notice. They weren’t.

It took some fairly sustained rustling to finally make me jump up and start pulling things out from behind the sofa. Of course I didn’t find a mouse. Not a sign. But by this time Mr TLC and I were experiencing mild to moderate mouse paranoia. Two smug cats were looking inscrutable as they laughed silently at us.

We sat back down and tried not to look too twitchy as our eyes darted to the corners of the room, surreptitiously looking for the mouse that might, or might not, be in the room with us.

It was Mr TLC who finally spotted it. We jumped up again and performed our much practised, and consequently very slick, Catch A Terrified Mouse In A Glass routine before releasing it outside.

When I was a child, all the cats in the story books that I read used to catch the mice in people’s houses. At no point did these story book cats bring live mice indoors to play with and then lose them under sofas. Obviously my cats have been reading the wrong books. It’s a good job they’re so soft, fluffy and totally bewitching, otherwise I’d never put up with them.