Scrabbling

Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered, weak and weary, came a scrabbling, a scrabbling beneath my apartment floor... Thought I had imagined a sound in the flat the other night until a couple of hours later I was certain I heard a scrabbling sound, which seemed to come from beneath the floorboards. This time I knew I hadn't imagained it because the cats pounced on the spot where the sound came from and started pawing the boards and emitting yeowls, at which point there was even more fantic scrabbling then silence.

Checking on my neighbours it transpires that a couple of them have heard scrabbling beneath the floorboards and one actualy sighted a mouse a few months back. I do recall a couple of years back my upstairs neighbour had a mouse problem. It is an old block - a nice 19th century Victorian tenement; I love old places but these are one of the sorts of problems that can come with them. Luckily no mouse has actually gotten into my flat and it would be a prety suicidal Kamikaze mouse that entered a home with two cats in it. I suspect the sound and scent of Pandora and Cassie scared the buggery out of the critter beneath the floorboards, so hopefully it won't be back.

Assuming, of course, it is ordinary mice. It could be the world's smallest cell of terrorists. Fundamentalist Muslim Mice right beneath my feet. Perhaps Mr Blair can overturn the human rights legislation and get them deported on behalf of our block? In the meantime though I am asking the girls to employ their special cat anti-terror training. We were at Super Neon Alert (credible intelligence pointing to likelihood of Mouse Attack) but have now stepped down to Candy Stripe Alert, which means heightened state of Mouse Alert (I couldn't bring myself to use red, amber and orange alerts like Bush's team, so dull and unimaginative, much like the man himself).

I have full confidence in the Emergency Services (that would be the cats) to respond appropriately to this serious breach of flat security. Both Pandora and Cassie have been undertaking regular sweeps on Mouse Patrol, but so far have only turned up my Tom and Jerry DVD. They are now using their advance training, by which I mean they lie around dozing a lot so they are refreshed and ready for any threat, should the mice be daft enough to return (assuming the poor thing didn't crawl away somewhere and have a cardiac arrest from the sound of the cats leaping onto the floorboards right above it). We may have to consider stronger measures, such as closing down Mice Mosques if they are proved to be hotbeds for radicalising local rodents and deportation for those overseas devils who incite British mice to attack people's homes. Free people of the West, be on your guard against this new threat; speak softly but carry a big cat.