The Experiment by Marka Rifat

Misfits by G. Ramirez

When I was very young, we never discussed having a pet. That is, my parents did not. One day, I aimed high and went for the classic pony pitch, but the practicality of where it would live and who would care for it was beyond my debating, plus wheedling and threatened tantrum skills.

Easily distracted, I forgot about pets until, swept up with reading Dodie Smith’s tales of brave and resourceful dalmatians, I presented a puppy as a very promising option. However, when questioned about what appealed to me most in Smith’s novel, I recklessly admitted it was Cruella de Vil and I was side-tracked into swanning about the house in an old black coat and red feather boa and demanding pepper on everything (a short-lived enthusiasm). 

Telling my fellow seven-year-olds that I had a camel in the attic, furthermore describing the camel in fine visual and textural detail from eyelashes to tail, was the closest I came to a creature to call my own, until I was nine, when several came in one stroke.

They arrived in a very large white metal cage and my thrill at this entirely unexpected gift of these stalwarts of children’s literature – I was a ravenous consumer of stories – evoked tantalising images from Beatrix Potter to Cinderella.

Yet, even my fervid delight could not ignore the reek billowing from the mounds of damp straw. The car journey and summer heat appeared to have not agreed with them, and having witnessed many a little human friend overwhelmed by motion sickness in the chrome-trimmed automobiles of the 1960s, I sympathised, although I rather relished the prospect of being slung about on the back seat of the car in those now faraway seat-belt-free days.

My father revealed to me and my astonished little brother that there were five mice in the cage. At that moment, my mother appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands. She was also astonished and was about to speak when my father told us to quickly fetch old newspapers.

The way to conquer the stink was new bedding, but how to decamp the residents? I was also told to search the house for receptacles and because it was yet another of my father’s ‘learning experiences’ for me, I was to be given no help. Some experiences were fun, like how long I could hold my breath and how to find my way around a room blindfold, but others were not and I still resented the losses I made on tooth fairy payments when I obligingly sacrificed two baby teeth to a test involving overnight soaks in competing brands of cola. I did not admire the tooth fairy’s scrupulousness.

I gathered a pile of items for my father to assess, but the learning experience had not ended. I was to try out my top three, unaided. The cracker tin was the first. I winkled open the little cage gate, ready to entice the two white mice I could now see. There was a moment’s hesitation, then they leapt through the gate, onto the tin, slid, bounced out and shot towards the open back door. My mother threw a towel over one, but the other vanished into the grass.

I had never seen so much blood. While I was staring in the direction of the escapees, my brother decided to befriend Mouse 3 by stroking its head. The mouse sank its teeth into the finger of friendship and my brother’s yell was sufficient to make it let go and rush back into the rank straw. While my father secured the cage and bundled Mouse 2 from its towel wrap into a glass mixing bowl and put a copy of “Great Wonders of the World” on top, my sobbing brother was cleaned, soothed, patched up and given a popsicle. As he passed me en route to the TV, he glared: “I hate mouses. S’all your fault.”

My parents disappeared into the kitchen. I crept to the door to hear them. Would the mice be taken away? Would I be punished for the mouse attack? Would Mouse 3 be punished? I tried hard, but could only catch the occasional word. He: guy I met; lab; free; sorry; easy to look after; idea at the time; sorry. She: Jeez; blood; how could you; Jeez; dumb idea; what lab?

The kitchen door opened before I could move. My mother sat me down. She looked very serious. “Please don’t take them away,” I whispered. She held my hand and said that the mice were not very well and they had to be taken away to be looked after by special doctors. My father said it was his mistake and that the mice were actually working mice, not pet mice and they just wanted to get back to work, so he would return them to the lab where they did important research. This was a lot to take in. I asked about their work and he said it involved mazes and solving puzzles. I said I had heaps of puzzle books and they could study with me every day after school. I was pretty tearful and confused by this time, but my father said we had to be fair to the mice and carried the cage into the yard, fetched a bucket, my Frisbee and a shovel.

“Please don’t kill them,” I wailed. My father pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath and assured me the shovel was just to keep the Frisbee on top of the bucket. My mother appeared with a pile of shredded newspaper and her glass mixing bowl containing the skittering, silent white blur of Mouse 2. I thought mice always squeaked. I hadn’t heard any squeaking so far. She folded her arms and told me that if any more mice escaped while Dad was transferring them into the bucket, we should let them run to freedom and wish them a happy, peaceful life. She looked grim when she said ‘happy’ and ‘peaceful’.

The transfer went well and I fell in love with their little pink ears and twitching noses. They were cuter than all of the Monkees put together. As Dad was sweeping up the old bedding, I spotted a worm in it. “Do mice eat worms?” I asked, pointing. “Oh Jeez, it’s a tail!” blurted my mother then clapped her hand over her mouth. My father bagged it and the straw and told me firmly it really was a worm that wandered into the cage and fell asleep and wasn’t it time for us to all sit down to eat. I bombarded my parents with questions and pleas until bed time, but they would not relent. While they were watching TV, I crept out of bed to say goodbye to the mice. One of them approached the cage gate and looked straight at me with its weird red eyes and rose up shakily on its little back legs to say hello. I opened the cage and it jumped into my hands. Its tiny heart was beating fast against my palm and I vowed to protect it forever. Then it squirmed around and I saw a patch of fur on its back was missing and the skin was bleeding.  I quickly tried to put it back in the cage and it went wild, clawing, scratching and biting my hands. I screamed and dropped it.

Although my father had secured the cage with extra wire, by the next morning, it was empty apart from bits of fur and a lot of droppings. Any further discussion about the mice was banned. 

Sporting dark circles under my eyes and Band Aids on both hands, I was taken to a pet store to choose “whatever you want, within reason”. My brother was brought as well – he didn’t want a pet but lots of attention for his suffering and would milk it for days. A young man with long hair greeted us, then saw my hands and my brother’s. The man’s smiling face became worried, then back to smiling again and he invited us to have a look around and call him when we had chosen. I trailed up and down the pet-filled aisles, but all I saw amid the fur and bright plumage, the squawking and chirruping, yaps and hisses, were sharp claws, beaks and teeth, so many teeth, of all sizes. I quietly asked if we could go to a bookstore and never mentioned pets again. 

Of course, had I known and understood that the white mice were out of their tiny little brains after a mouse lifetime of having their intelligence, hunger and patience tested to snapping point in mazes of Perspex and little shanty towns of boxes, tubes and trapdoors and slivers of food, or no food at all where once there had been food, that the five elderly rejects the lab assistant had dumped on my father were a desperate mix of the hyper-aggressive, spaced out and numbly passive, I would have kept well clear of them. But I was just a kid and still had so much to learn (as did those who regulated the disposal of experimental lab mice), whether I wanted to or not. 

Many years later, the story resurfaced at a family get-together and I told my father “Beware of geeks bearing gifts”. Cue laughter from everyone, but he just snorted, asked me how long it had taken me to come up with that corny line and that any child should be grateful for the rich and rewarding learning experiences he had provided.

Marka Rifat lives in Scotland and has awards in poetry and fiction. This year, she will be published in the American journals GreenPrints and Lines+Stars. In 2019, UK publications included stories in Arachne Press and The Eildon Tree, and poems in Black Bough, The Doric Literature Portal and Grey Hen Press.