Scritch

Scritch

“What was that noise!?” Tammy said, jumping up.

“I didn’t hear anything…” Peter responded.

“Shhhh, listen…” They both stood still, listening. No more noise came.

After a few minutes of quiet, Peter whispered, “Was it inside or outside?”

“Inside!” Tammy whispered back, starting a whole conversation of whispers.

“What did it sound like?”

“A scritchy noise.”

“Scritchy? What is scritchy?”

“You know scratching, scraping… scritchy!”

“You made up that word…”

“I did not! Scritchy, like a branch scratching across a window!”

“Which would be scratchy, scratching equals scratchy.”

“But not scratch-ING!” she said a little louder now.

“So scratching, but not scratching…” he said, now a little louder also, as he stood there looking at her.

“No, not scratching, just scratchy… scritchy!” she shot back, louder too.

“You made up that word!”

“Did not! I’ve used that a million times!”

“I never heard it before!”

“Well, maybe it was a family word, I’ve heard it a zillion times!”

“So, your family made it up!” he said, loudly.

“And everyone else I knew growing up used it too! Scritchy!”

Suddenly they both heard the noise again. “There! Scritchy!” said Tammy, “You heard it didn’t you!”

“I heard a scratchy noise…”

“Well! Scritchy or scratchy, and by the way scritchy IS a real word, what do you think it is???” Tammy said.

“The scratchy noise seems to be coming from the kitchen…”

“Scritchy!” Tammy yelled.

“Scratchy!” Peter yelled back.

They glared at each other a moment, and then the stupidity of the disagreement struck them both, and they burst out laughing.

In the kitchen, one of the mice froze. “What is that noise?” she asked her partner.

“I don’t know, but if we hurry, we can get these back to our hole!”

They scritched and scratched away, with the fresh baked cookies!