Clarice’s New Home

"The yubdegub was there again, so Clarice stayed huddled in the drain hole of the sink."

Noah paused and held his pen with the nib pointed skyward as if it were a lightning rod. It was a tarnished old gold-plated fountain pen that had come with the diaries Ma Bertie had left him. He was writing in the last of the pages of the last of the diaries, just after her own beloved handwriting ended.

"The little mouse was terrified. She had fallen into the sink in the dark while contemplating with quivering nostrils an unwashed plate that smelled of eggs and cheese. And now it was morning and the yubdegub was there, towering over her and staring down at her."

Noah had ferried the mouse to the mansion on Glendip Island and turned it loose there. "Clarice," he said, the name having come to him on the spot, "the owners are rarely here. Help yourself."

And now he was writing a story about her. What adventures she would have!

He had no way of knowing, when he photographed a group of iridescent grackles the next day, perched on the line his boat was secured by, that one of them was already digesting the remains of poor disoriented Clarice who, still terrified, had abandoned the porch of the mansion and dashed wildly into the tall grass nearby.

The evening of that next day, gold pen once again pointed skyward, he began work on his second story about Clarice, which in a revelatory moment he realized would be called Clarice's New Home.

23 April 2026
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia