Click, clack.
Cat flap.
Open an eye.
It’s getting light.
Still too dark
to see the clock.
Scurrying noises from the next room. Now I come fully awake in our summer camp in Maine. I grab a flashlight and rush to see if I can rescue the bird before it’s too late. Following the gaze of Thistle, our brown tabby, I spot in the beam of light not a bird cowering in the corner, but a small rat! Thistle stretches out on the floor, rolls over, and beguilingly extends her paw toward the rat. She’s feeling playful, not murderous, and I know this scene is going to take a while to play out. I also know if the rat escapes to the livingroom it’s going to be a three-act play. The rat explores its options, gets onto a shelf of vases. I remove the vases one by one so there’s just a rat on a empty shelf, then I entreat Thistle to take care of matters. Thistle looks bored. “Rats’re no fun unless they run.” Gray tabby Spicy has now joined the audience. She'll be no help, I know, for she won't interfere with another cat’s prey. Besides, I've never known her to catch anything larger than a grasshopper. I have a sinking feeling that the rat is becoming my prey. I close the doors to the area, block off the opening to the livingroom with a board. The rat makes a dash along the wall. Thistle races after it, and Spicy after her like an ambulance chaser. The rat effortlessly scales the board and unerringly heads for the worst possible corner, from my point of view, for it’s the woodpile, offering all kinds of cover to a small creature. I patiently begin removing boxes of newspaper and kindling and when I don't see the rat, gingerly empty each box in turn. The rat has disappeared. So have the cats. I flash the light into the cubbyhole under the stairs and there in the remotest corner sits my prey. I whistle for the cats but no one comes. I go onto the porch and find Bonita, the only feline innocent of the drama so far. (Naturally, there’s a human unaware of any action in the next room. My husband dreams on.) I carry Bonita inside and shove her through the small door to the cubbyhole. Her eyes widen, her body stiffens, and she shifts into reverse. What to do? I don't want to bludgeon the rat with a poker, and besides I can only reach one arm into the cubbyhole. If I could only get the creature knocked out long enough to get hold of it. I get the Windex and squirt the liquid across the space. The rat races around, looking for an escape, but is not visibly deterred by the Windex. I grab a container of creosote remover and shoot the stream at the rat. Ah, that’s better, the rat crouches in the corner, eyes closed, wet and shaking. I read the label on the container. “Harmful or fatal if swallowed. Skin/Eye/Mucous Membrane Irritant.” Oh, no, what have I done! This rat is going to die a long and tortured death. I feel cruel and cowardly. The poker would have been better, or maybe it wouldn't have been so bad having a rat live in my house. After all, some people actually keep pet rats. And surely the cats would have dispatched it eventually. I stand there crying. But after a time I hear scratching. In the cubbyhole I can see the rat, eyes bright, once again searching for an escape hatch. I no longer have any desire to kill it, I'll have to trap it. Holding an old mesh strainer from the kitchen, I kneel near the little door. My first attempt to drop the strainer over the rat fails, and it climbs on top of the strainer and clings there. This rat has chutzpah. With disgust and fear I shake the rat off, and on my next try succeed in enclosing it in the inverted strainer. I slide a piece of cardboard underneath and, keeping the strainer clapped to the cardboard, carry my captive out to the porch where I deposit it in a lidded plastic bucket.
Now what? I want to remove it far enough away so that it won't ever be back. I'd better take it to Lobster Cove, away from houses. It’s a beautiful morning for a walk–the air is cool and the sky is now peach. I quickly dress and set out on my mission of mercy. When I reach Lobster Cove I decide I'd better go a little further, and so I climb the coastal trail to Norton Ledge. There’s fresh water nearby, and some excellent berry patches. I set the pail down and tip it over so the lid falls off. The rat cautiously creeps out. Now I can admire it: it’s really rather cute, hardly bigger than a mouse. A teen-age rat. But what’s this? Instead of jumping into the brush, it begins racing back down the trail as though it knows the way home! I feel a rush of relief when after about fifteen feet it turns into a patch of juniper and is gone from sight. I happily swing the bucket as I descend the trail. The sun is high now and the ocean sparkles in the bright light. The air is crisp, it’s a wonderful day! I hope that my cruelty back there in the cubbyhole is outweighed by my releasing the rat. I wonder what the rat would say. I picture an elderly rat with gray whiskers spinning a cautionary tale to a group of young rats around a campfire. The eyes of the little ones would shine as he told them of a miraculous escape from the clutches of hordes of cats and a human monster. Perhaps he'd be too modest to reveal that he was the hero of the story, the tale of the Rat Who Would Not Die.
July 14 
Got up this morning to find a dead
rat lying on the floor a few feet from the bed. Unsavory, but at least
we hadn't stepped on it in our bare feet during the night. Be grateful
for little things.
July 25
Another rat in the house. I was on
the phone when Thistle came through the cat door with a squirmin’ vermin
in her mouth and dropped it on the kitchen floor. It immediately
scooted under the stove. I yelped a hasty goodbye and slammed down the
phone. First I poked the broom under the front of the stove, then under
the sides. Nada. I opened the oven and broiler to see if it could
have found a way inside. Empty. I'd get it out of there, I'd make it too
hot for comfort! Turning on the oven full blast I leaned back to wait.
It wasn't more than five minutes before the rat came running out. I moved
toward it with the broom and it took a sharp right into the pantry, coming
to hunker down in a corner. Luckily it had passed right by the refrigerator;
I don't know what I could've done to get it out from under there. I couldn't
have frozen it out. Another swipe of the broom and off it
sprinted again, this time neatly landing in a coffee can on the bottom
pantry shelf. I slapped on the lid and had me a canned rat. At dusk, when
the tourists had left after sunset, I took it to Lobster Cove and let it
go. I couldn't walk any further in the dim light and risk turning an ankle.
Hope it found its brother.
August 1
When I made the bed this morning I
found another rat under the bed. This one, thank goodness, was thoroughly
dead. This is getting old.
August 17
What is that scratching noise in
the bathroom, I asked myself? Could a cat be stuck in a cupboard? I cautiously
poked my head around the door. Groan, another rat. This one was in the
bathtub but doing a great job of trying to get out. Yikes, these rats are
getting bigger! Each time the rat leapt up, to within an inch or two of
the rim, it would squeak. And each time it leapt, I would jump back and
squeal. Where were those darned cats? It didn't help much that this time
I had a pre-trapped rat–I couldn't very well carry the bathtub down to
Lobster Cove. This is getting very old. Resignedly I got the compost
bucket and after a few thrusts on my part and parries on the rat’s, alternating
with his athletic lunges and my balletic retreats, I managed to invert
the bucket over him and somehow, miraculously, slide its lid under him.
Once again I had rat-in-a-basket. But this was mid-morning and the
cove would be swarming with tourists. I placed a couple of bricks on the
lid and left him there gloomily contemplating his fate. This evening I
made a third trek to Lobster Cove, forgetting myself and beginning to swing
the pail gaily, I was so happy to be getting rid of my prisoner. The release
went smoothly. No wonder, with all my practice. Visions of myself as the
Pied Piper...no, check that, I don't want to make this a career.
September 6
There haven't been any more rat
episodes. Thank goodness, because those rats were getting a bit too big
for me to handle. Maybe that’s why Thistle hasn't caught any more, they
were too big for her as well. Anyway, tomorrow we leave and go back to
our home in Vermont, where we don't have rats to contend with. Of course,
there are moles, voles, shrews, house mice, kangaroo mice, deer mice, chipmunks...
Copyright © Lynda Goldsmith
