Nursery Crimes

Hickory, dickory, dock,

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one,

The mouse ran down,

Hickory, dickory, dock.

Hickory, dickory, dock,

The mouse ran up the clock.

The ghouls and ghosts

Make nasty hosts,

Hickory, dickory, dock.

A Case Of Misjudgement.

They’d all stayed up later than usual, the people of the house. At least that was the excuse the mouse made to himself when he was caught out far from home and the clock began to strike midnight.

He had to run. He had to hide! But where?

The clock! He made a dash for it, running straight up the wooden exterior to hide behind the top of the face. If he could manage to hang on and stay very still for one hour he might just make it through the midnight hour.

Just in time he got himself hidden. They wouldn’t see him but he had a perfect view of them; the ghosts and the ghouls that came out of the walls and took their seats. From all different time periods, going by their faint appearances, but all sharing one thing, a hatred for anything alive.

He remembered well how one day, the cat, fast asleep on the chair, stretched. If he’d only stayed still he’d not have been noticed. They did not catch him, but they had a good try and that poor cat had shot out of the room, fur on end and howling like he’d seen the dead. Which, of course he had, but no one understood that. Months ago, that was, and still the cat had not once set foot back inside the room, night or day.

Moths were their most frequent victims. They would somehow pluck them from the air with their gossamer-like bony fingers and then all take turns in tearing the innocent insect to pieces. Beetles were another favourite, plucked up from their midnight wanderings to have their legs removed, one by one, before being sliced in half.

By far the worst experience for the mouse had been when he witnessed the capture and the killing of his younger sister. At least in her case they sucked out her life before beginning the dismembering. That experience should have served as a warning, kept him on his toes; he’d let the time tick past and it had almost cost him his life.

The time passed slowly as the mouse peered out at the skeletal faces. Not much for them to entertain themselves with; he knew they’d just love to discover his hiding place. But then they began to fade away, to move towards the walls and through the walls, just as the clock chimed one.

Waiting an extra minute, he skittered back down the clock to the floor, heading straight towards the hole in the wall.