Jerry Mouse's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Jerry Mouse wanted one thing: the fat cheese wheel locked inside the kitchen's forbidden pantry. He had smelled it for three nights straight. Tonight he crouched under the little wooden house where he lived, staring at the towering cupboard beside it. Its shelves rose higher than any mouse could dream. The cheese sat somewhere in there, waiting. But Jerry had never once looked at how a mouse got inside. That was the problem. He knew the smell. He did not know the door. His stomach pushed him to just run for it. Charge in, grab the wheel, run out. But Jerry stopped himself. A mouse who blundered into a strange pantry blind could end up trapped behind a closing panel, with no way back to his burrow. He had watched a cousin vanish that way. He would not vanish too. So he chose to scout first. He would learn the entrance before he risked his life inside it. Jerry crept along the base of the cupboard. He ran his paws over each seam in the wood. Most panels were shut tight. Then he found a gap near the bottom corner, low and dark. A draft leaked out of it, cool and sharp with the cheese smell. This was the way in. He pressed his nose to the gap and peered through. Inside, shelves climbed into shadow. Jars stood in rows. Baskets bulged with food. And on the highest shelf, catching a thread of moonlight, sat the cheese wheel. Round. Golden. Bigger than his whole body. Jerry studied the gap itself. He noted its width. He noted how the panel hung. Then he saw the danger. The panel above the gap sat on a hinge, and it leaned inward, held only by a small stone wedged beneath it. If the stone slipped, the panel would swing down and seal the gap shut. A mouse inside would be trapped. Jerry did not go in. Not yet. Instead he crept back out into the open and dragged a broken twig across the floor. He wedged the twig hard beneath the leaning panel, beside the stone. Now two supports held it. Even if the stone slipped, the twig would hold the gap open. He tested it. He pushed the panel with both paws. It held. The gap stayed open. Jerry breathed out. He had done what he came to do. He knew the entrance now. He knew its trap, and he had jammed it open so he could get back out. But as he backed away, his twig shifted the stone. The stone rolled free and tumbled deeper into the pantry. It struck something in the dark. A low sound answered from inside the shelves. Not the creak of wood. A slow, breathing rumble, and the shine of gold scales turning toward the gap. Something huge lived in the pantry. And now it was awake.