Despereaux

Late one evening I was working at the computer at the large table in our “dining room” – when I heard a clatter coming from the kitchen. Morbidly curious I peeked around the corner. There was nothing to be seen. Thinking the geckos must be especially rowdy this particular evening, I returned to my computer. Then the ruckus came again. This time a cold sweat crept across the back of my neck – geckos don’t move dishes. I stuck my head around the corner again, this time with headlamp in hand (the light switch for the kitchen is all the way down the galley set-up, down straight-away at the other side of the kitchen). Nothing to be seen.
The next afternoon, we were graced with a “scurry-by” from a sizeable rat-creature that was making a bee-line from the kitchen across the common room to the bathroom. Perfect – explains the moving dishes.
That evening, there was more clattering in the kitchen. Our kitchen guest had returned.
The next morning, Dan found a small “have-a-heart”-style, mini-cage-trap under the kitchen sink. Perfect. He put in some crackers, set the trigger, and left it out in the kitchen over night. The next morning - no rat, and no crackers - sneaky bugger. The next night, he used pliers to straighten out the hanging trigger in the trap, in case the rat-creature was too small to hit it and snap the door shut behind it – tucking a stale dinner roll in the back-side of the trap for good measure. The next morning - no rat, and a trail of munched-on dinner roll bits across the kitchen floor. Super-sneaky bugger.
The next night, Dan meant business. He configured a ball of peanut butter and cheese in a mesh piece from a potato bag. He secures this on the hang-y-down trigger in the trap and sets it out again in the kitchen. The next morning, we found this guy.




The trouble was that we were leaving early that morning for an overnight in a town up the coast. We were in a rush and decided the little guy could spend the night in the trap (we left him some food), put some newspaper under the trap, and agreed to figure out what to do with him the next evening when we returned. The whole trip we laughed about how the rat would probably break out of the trap while we were away, but really didn’t worry about it too much. When we returned the following evening, we rushed in to see if he was still there. And indeed he was. We had a late dinner, and since the sun was already down, decided that in the morning we would set him free on the other side of the bridge about half a mile from the house.

When I woke up the next morning, I found that Dan was already up. He was pacing furiously back and forth in the main room, hands on hips, brow furrowed. “What’s wrong – are you ok? Is it the rat? Is it gone? Did it die or something??” He stopped pacing and glared in my general direction– “See for yourself!”

I hesitated only for a moment before quietly tiptoeing into the kitchen, peering into the trap. Rat was fine and looked up at me with shiny black eyes (he really was a mouse-like rat, not a nasty-icky rat). Much to my surprise rat had company. Four lively little pinky babies wriggling about. “Rat’s a mama!?” I laughed, momentarily glad we hadn’t put the trap in the fish pond as suggested at one earlier point – “Oh my God, we almost drowned a pregnant mama!”.




Plans were drafted quickly, and the trap, rat-babies and all were tucked into a shopping bag – “you know how our neighbors stare when I walk by with the laundry, they can’t see this, I need a bag”, Dan had said with great forethought. He then set out for the bridge to release mama rat and her litter to the wild. He returned 15 minutes later, looking a little rattled. “How’d it go”, I’d asked. “The neighborhood dogs followed me the whole way – they totally knew what was in the bag…” he said shaking his head – “but I got them to the other side of the bridge, made them a nest in a trash-heap and let them go…” - my husband – liberator of rat-families.