A Dead Mouse is not The Eiffel Tower

On the way to school one day, I was walking and humming or something. I was distracted in the world that little boys live in until something brought me out of it.

The thing that brought me out and into the real world was a dead mouse. I was walking along and there it was on the path next to me, sitting there like its own little eiffel tower.

I’d never seen a mouse before I don’t think. And I’d never seen dead one. It wasn’t particularly dead in any clear way. No brains gushed out, it looked like it just went for a nap but then forgot about waking up.

I scooped up the little creature in amazement. Maybe we could help him? Or maybe I just wanted to show it to people because I couldn’t remember anyone bringing anything this important to school ever.

So I took him with me into my class and showed him off to my friends.

‘Look!’, I said, ‘A dead mouse’.

Most of the boys were as impressed as me. I was onto something, like gold, or penicillin or man made flight. I was going to go places with this new dead mouse I had found. And I hadn’t even broached the subject of helping him wake up yet.

I decided that if I was going to get anywhere in this world, I should probably tell my teacher. She would know what to do about these sorts of things. Maybe I needed to file a patent?

So I got my teacher’s attention: I said, ‘Look!’, like it was my catchphrase that day.

She came over in all her clothes. I remember she wore a lot of robes that flowed everywhere and made her look kind of like an angel. It was a good school.

She came over to see what I had discovered. Kneeling down she brought her eyes closer to where my hands were concealing my gift to mankind.

I opened my hand and she screamed like I’ve never heard a teacher scream before. I think she thought it was alive. Or then maybe realised it was dead.

She couldn’t decide what was worse.

‘Throw it out, right now!’, she said in her most teacher of all voices.
No not there, outside in the big bin!’
‘Go wash your hands!’
‘Dear Lord!’

There was nothing to it apparently. I hadn’t stumbled across my own legacy to the world: a dead mouse is not the Eiffel Tower, that’s what I learned in school that day.