Mutiny of the Little Sweeties

“Is this your brother?”

Vicky looked attentively, and even with some suspicion, at Alex and acknowledged her brother.

“He touched a gnome! Shoved his hands right into the mouth!” the girl said accusingly.

“And a gnome is…?” Vicky started carefully, trying to understand what kind of animal this gnome was.

“A gnome is a gnome! And in the gnome display!” the girl finished and handed Alex over to Vicky with the demand to either tape his hands together or take him away from the store.

Vicky took Alex’s hand and together they made their way along the wall to the exit. Kate had disappeared somewhere in the bowels of the store. The routes of her movements could be tracked by the squawks of the parrots and the squeaks of the rodents. However, the girl in the robe for some reason did not interfere with Kate, evidently sensing a kindred spirit.

Vicky was already almost at the exit when Alex suddenly sat down and pulled her down. Between two wooden tubs, Vicky saw an aquarium like a jar with a heater. Three tiny white mice with black spots on their backs were sitting on sand in the aquarium. The largest of them could fully settle on a tablespoon. The mice were sitting and washing with their paws.

Watching them washing, Vicky experienced off-the-scale affinity. She just wanted to have them. Time disappeared. Vicky looked at the mice, and the mice were washing quietly and very thoroughly. One of them was significantly fatter than the rest. Evidently it was expecting.

Alex took advantage of the distraction and ran away. Vicky remembered him only after hearing the shout, “This hyperactive kid again! Don’t get to the spiders! They’re poisonous! I already asked to watch him!”

The stern girl again appeared nearby, firmly holding Alex by his collar. Discovering Vicky by the aquarium with mice, the girl frowned slightly. In her left hand was no longer a dead hamster but a live rabbit, which she was carrying by the ears. “What do you want here?”

“I’m looking. Can I buy these?” Vicky tried feverishly to remember how much money she had in her piggybank. In any case, there should be enough for the mice. The cage, drinking bowl, and everything else she could take from Kate.

“They’re not for sale! These are Japanese mice! They’re for the snakes!” the girl cut her off and shook the rabbit. The rabbit tried to kick her with its hind legs, but she let it hang down by the ears and deftly grasped it under the belly.

“What do you mean, for the snakes?”

“For the snakes! We feed them to the snakes!” the girl replied with irritation.

Kate jumped out from somewhere and quickly considered the situation carefully. “You’ll feed this one to the snakes? It’s pregnant!”

The girl squatted and looked at the aquarium in a business-like manner. “Indeed, pregnant! No, I won’t with this one. Too big. I’ll wait until it gives birth. Then feed its babies.”

Vicky issued the sound “ah-h-h!” on a breath and was about to faint, but there was nowhere in the tightly packed store for fainting and she just turned pale.

“Stop whimpering! Can’t you feed the snakes something else?! Some sausage?” Kate, who could only be made to faint with a shovel, asked matter-of-factly.

“Impossible! They’ll croak. Snakes are expensive, sell two in a month and you already make a profit! If you want, buy all the snakes from the owner and feed them sausages! That’s it, go away!” the girl said, displeased, and pushed them out of the store.

“You’re bad! A very bad, stupid fool! I’ll blast you with soda!” Alex shouted.

“Go, go, hyperactive! Watch your step, or you’ll fall!” the girl barked and returned to the store. She stood with her arms crossed at her chest and looked at them through the storefront.

Kate and Vicky dragged a resisting Alex with them. Vicky was crying. Kate cursed the girl as a moron. They had already walked halfway down the street when someone hailed them. An unknown guy caught up with them on a bike. “Hey, people, wait! Hold on! This is for you!”

“For us?”

“You’re two girls and a squirt in a blue shirt?”

“That’s us. What’s for us?” Kate asked in a business-like manner.

“Here! Ordered you to open the lid on the way so they don’t suffocate! Cover the top with a hand or they’ll jump out!” The guy gave something to Vicky and left.

Vicky followed the bike with frightened eyes and only then looked at what she was holding: a jar, a half-litre jar with a white lid. There was a small opening in the lid. Obviously someone had poked it with a knife but did not cut through, not having enough time. Vicky held the jar up a little higher. In the jar were…

“Mice! Mice!” Alex shouted.

“Shut up, squirt in a blue shirt!” Kate said.

Very satisfied, they returned home. Vicky pressed the jar to her chest, and the squirt in a blue shirt was jumping up and down trying to look inside.

So, the Japanese mice settled in the house on Vine Street. In the beginning, there were three. Then there were six, then twelve, then Kate and Vicky even started giving the babies away at school or selling them through the newspaper, but they always found out beforehand whether the person buying them had snakes at home.