A Christmas Quarrel

One Christmas night, two little mice, one fat and brown with a short stubby tail and one thin and grey with a long narrow tail, were busy exploring a house when they came across a strange sparkly and brightly colored object which, both thought, looked very pretty indeed.

“I’ll have that!”, said the thin mouse, “It’ll make a very nice pillow for me to rest my head on at night”.

“Paws off”, said the fat mouse, nibbling at a piece of cheese, “I saw it first and it’ll be just perfect for keeping my cheese in”.

But the thin mouse was adamant. He wanted the shiny thing and he grabbed hold of one end and started to pull it away with him.

“Oh no you don’t”, said the fat mouse, grabbing hold of the other end of the shiny thing and pulling it back towards him.

Soon, both mice were engaged in a tiny tug o’ war over the strange, shiny object, meanwhile, a house cat was creeping up behind them, grinning broadly and licking its furry lips.

“What’s this? Mice fighting amongst themselves?”, thought the cat, chuckling, “Well, while they’re busy fighting, I’ll just creep up behind them and snap them up”.

And that was just what the cat was about to do when, all of a sudden, the shiny thing which the mice were fighting over broke apart with an enormous bang.

The shiny thing, as you may have guessed, was a pretty red, green and golden Christmas cracker, although neither mice nor cat had ever seen one before, however, the moment that the cracker went bang, the poor cat got such a terrible shock that it ran away shrieking in fear.

“It’s broken!”, said the fat mouse, angrily, “Now see what you’ve done, you ignoramouse. You’ve broken it”.

“Wait a minute friend”, said the thin mouse smiling, “Don’t be so cross. Now we both have a half”.

The fat mouse thought a while and scratched his furry mouse head as he thought, then smiling, nodded and said, “I agree… and half is all I really need”.

Then the mice shook paws in friendship but, just as they were shaking paws, the mice suddenly noticed something inside the broken cracker. It was a bright and shiny toy necklace made of plastic beads.

Soon, the tiny tug o’ war began again, with both mice squeaking, angrily, “It’s mine! It’s mine!” as they fought over the pretty toy necklace.

If only the mice had bothered to read the proverb, printed on a tiny square of paper, that had also been contained in the cracker, “A thing shared is a friendship cemented”.