A Mouse for Spring

Vesna was born in the school cellar to a litter of six. She was born just as winter was giving birth to spring, and the ice crackled, and the icicles fell like fruit from the eaves. She was born in a time of war, to the sounds of the distant grumble of artillery, and the gasps of the children in the classroom above. When she finally opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the dim, dusty cellar, filled with school supplies, and an old man in an ascot cap shoveling coal into the ancient furnace as cigarette smoke wreathed his wrinkled face.

“You’re different!” said Dmitriy, one of her brothers, who pawed at her left eye. “Your fur is a different color here.”

Vesna could not see her own difference. It was not until later that Vesna learned how dangerous it was to be different. It attracted attention, which for a mouse was always unwelcome. It would single her out to the cat who prowled outside the school if he ever got in. Domovyk the mice called him, the demon of the school grounds.

As spring awoke and the war dragged on, Vesna caught glimpses of the children through the cracks in the floorboards. She would go about her business clawing scraps of food out of the trash that the teacher brought down. Between bread crusts, apple cores, and discarded candy wrappers, Vesna had a good idea of what the children ate. She would munch on her booty while listening to the teacher explain sums to the children, until the furnace would groan to life and send her scurrying into the darkness. Vesna hated the furnace, but she didn’t mind the old man who stocked it. It was like he was somehow taming it, bridling it, making it release its warmth to the cellar.

It was when the artillery came very close to the village one day that Vesna saw the girl. The teacher hustled the children into the cellar as the distant thumps came closer until they seemed to batter at Vesna’s paws through the earth itself and knock dust from the ceiling. The cellar was barely big enough for the class, and the mice crowded into the hidden spaces behind the supplies, their eyes warily watching the children mill about, their noses twitching at the pungent scent of fear.

The girl was somehow standing apart, despite being crowded in like everyone else. She wore a blue parka over a yellow dress with wool leggings against the lingering cold. Her hair was also yellow, framing pale blue eyes. But Vesna noticed the scar on her upper lip. She couldn’t know that it was a surgery scar that repaired a harelip years ago. All she knew was that the girl was different.

The girl looked straight at Vesna, and the mouse froze. Then the girl smiled.

“Iryna!”

The girl jumped at the teacher’s voice.

“Are you here?”

“I’m here, teacher!” called the girl.

“Iryna Lipka, answer when I call! We can’t leave anyone!”

The teacher continued calling out the student’s names. Iryna’s eyes searched for Vesna, but she had retreated to the shadows. The sounds of artillery finally passed, and the children filed out of the cellar, with Iryna taking one last look.

You are different, thought Vesna. Will danger seek you out?

Danger sought Vesna out soon enough. The other mice would say she sought it out herself when she squeezed beneath one of the cellar windows and ventured outside. The morning sun made the persistent snow glitter from its perch on the branches of the evergreens. The snow chilled her paws, yet was exhilarating. Strange smells assaulted her nostrils and her whiskers twitched in pleasure. Then she heard the crunching footsteps of the children as they made their way to school. So entranced was she, that she almost didn’t hear the near-silent footfalls alongside the school’s red brick wall.

Vesna started at the sight of the orange-striped face of Domovyk. The cat saw her at the same instant, and hunkered down, his huge yellow eyes transfixed on Vesna, his ears swiveled in her direction like radars, and his haunches wiggled a little bit, a spring coiling. The moment stretched almost into eternity. Vesna wanted to run, but the sun-colored eyes held her fast. Then the cat sprang, and an orange paw sent her flying against the bricks.

Dazed, Vesna rolled to her feet, and saw eyes the size of dinner plates, the black slits like jaws opening to swallow her. Frozen in fear, she waited for the next blow. The loud crunching of footsteps sounded behind her. Domovyk’s gaze shifted upward, and his ears flattened.

“Shoo!” cried a little girl’s voice.

The frustrated cat fled into the nearby woods. Iryna, the girl with the scarred lip, towered over Vesna, and her blue parka was like the sky itself.

“Did the cat almost have you for breakfast?” she said.

Vesna’s head stopped spinning, she looked into Iryna’s blue eyes and sniffed the air. Without the fear, Iryna smelled of hay and large animals, a scent that often wafted over the school from a nearby farm when the wind was right. Vesna hopped forward and sniffed again, drawing a giggle from the girl. She bent over and held out her hand.

“I can protect you from that nasty kitty.”

Vesna felt the warmth radiate off the girl’s hand chase away the chill. She hesitated only a moment, then hopped onto the girl’s palm, her fear gone. Iryna giggled again. A shout from the teacher made her head snap up.

“Coming, teacher!”

The hand placed Vesna into one of the parka’s cavernous pockets. Then the girl hurried inside. As the lessons drifted by Vesna’s disinterested ears, she examined the inside of the pocket and found it warm and rather pleasant. There was just enough light leaking in for her to see the company she shared: a tube of lip balm, a smooth pebble from a brook, and a small, cracked mirror taken from a broken compact. In the mirror she saw a small gray mouse with a large white patch of fur over her left eye. This was how Vesna first saw herself.

It became their routine. The children would file inside, their shoes clumping overhead, but one pair walking toward the cellar door. Iryna would crack the door open, and Vesna would be waiting to hop into her proffered hand. Vesna would go into the pocket where the girl would leave scraps of bread, cheese, and sometimes even a bit of sausage from a borscht. The children would have their lunches, the smells of sausage, potatoes and beets leaking into the Vesna’s soft pocket.

One day, Vesna dared to peek out of the pocket. She saw rows of little desks with the children bent over them scribbling on papers. Up front, the teacher sat at her desk writing something and adjusting her glasses. Her hair was the color of Vesna’s eye patch. Her lips were a thin vermilion line which twitched as she clucked with disapproval at the students’ papers. The battered, wooden walls were decorated with colorful pictures drawn by the children. One of them was of a little, gray mouse with a white patch over its eye.

Lunchtime was a time for the children to both eat and chat. It was a cheerful hour, filled with laughter. But it did not always go well. Once a boy pointed at Iryna’s lip and laughed.

“You look like a mouse!” he cried, and the other children laughed, imitating a mouse’s twitching nose. “Did you bring cheese for lunch?”

Vesna felt Iryna tremble, and the beginnings of sobs begin to shake her body. But the girl put her hand into her pocket and touched Vesna’s soft fur, and the trembling subsided. The next morning, Vesna found the boy’s lunch while the children studied and urinated on his syrniki. Later, during lunchtime, Iryna laughed as he gagged on his dessert. But on another day, Iryna took the mirror out and looked in it. She fingered her scarred lip and frowned.

“I hate my face,” she said.

Vesna didn’t know what to say, as she couldn’t speak to her. But when the troubled little girl put her hand into the pocket, Vesna knew what to do, and nestled contentedly against the fingers.

Once the artillery came close, hitting the next town and rattling the windows. The teacher herded the children into the cellar, while the scent of fear rose all around. Iryna stroked Vesna’s furry body until her trembling stopped.

Later that night in the cellar, Dmitriy found Vesna.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “They put out traps and poisons for us. They bring hunters like Domovyk to kill us! And you stay with her instead of your own kind?”

“But she’s different!” said Vesna. “She protects me.”

“No one will protect us. One day she will throw you to the cat, or accidentally sit on you. It is their way. They can’t help but harm us.”

Dmitriy’s words haunted Vesna all night long, so much so that when morning arrived and the door cracked open, Vesna stayed hidden with the other mice. After a pause, she heard Iryna sigh and close the door.

That day, the sounds of lessons drifted through the floorboards, interrupted only by the old man in the cap tending the furnace. Against her instincts, Vesna’s curiosity got the better of her, and she ventured out into the open. The man paused with his shovel, peered at her, grinned a mouthful of yellow teeth, and went back to shoveling. It was later in the day when the smells of lunch whirled that Vesna heard the boy begin mercilessly teasing Iryna. It did not take long for the other children to join in. Iryna burst into tears and ran outside.

Vesna felt something like a blow from Domovyk, but from inside her gut. She scampered up to the window and squeezed out. Catching sight of Iryna heading toward the woods, she dashed in pursuit and was soon among the trees, trying to find the girl’s scent. Then Domovyk pounced.

Vesna barely evaded the flashing claws and tore further into the woods pursued by the feline. There was nowhere to hide. Just as it seemed the cat would have her, the first artillery shell landed in the woods. It shredded trees and threw a fountain of dirt into the air. The ground jumped and threw cat and mouse aloft like leaping fish. Thudding back to earth, the cat looked around, eyes as wide as saucers, then bolted further into the woods, his prey forgotten.

The next shell landed closer to the school, and the tortured sounds of wrenched wood and the tinkle of broken glass sounded faintly in Vesna’s abused ears. She lifted her nose, and smelled fear mixed with hay and large animals. She followed it through the woods and found Iryna huddled against a still-standing tree, tears streaming down her face and shaking like a leaf in the wind. Vesna crawled into Iryna’s hand and automatically, Iryna’s fingers caressed Vesna’s fur.

When Iryna stopped shaking, she stood and made her way back through the woods. The school was still standing, but the roof was nearly torn off, and all the windows were gaping holes. From inside came the moans of the children and the teacher.

“We should help them,” said Iryna. “Like you helped me.”

The girl with the harelip began digging toward the cries through the debris at the door. Vesna leapt from her hand and wriggled back into the cellar, where the old man lay next to the furnace, his eyes closed, and his hat gone. Vesna stuck her nose into his ear and twitched her whiskers, and the man’s eyes flew open as he gasped.

Around the school grounds, the snow had retreated, and green shoots were reaching for the sun through the warm spring winds.



Word count: 1995