Free Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King Page A

HE DIDN’T SEE them often because he was allergic to cheese, and the mouses ate cheese all day long.
    Whenever Paul wanted to visit his mouse friends he had to wear a special suit called an anti-cheese suit. If he stood too close to some cheese without the suit, his bottom would turn blue, the fur would fall out and his tail would curl up like a question mark.
    Paul had made the suit himself out of plastic wrap. You and I know that plastic wrap is a type of clear plastic for wrapping sandwiches. Paul knew this too, but the other mouses didn’t. Whenever they saw him in the suit, they thought he was wearing the height of mouse fashion.
    “Nice suit, Paul,” the mouses would say when he arrived.

    “Thanks,” he would reply, brushing himself down. The mouses lived under the floorboards in the storeroom of a restaurant, and the storeroom was always dusty.
    Paul Mouse would look around at all the happy mouses, sitting in cheesy chairs, eating cheese and watching Cheddar Television, and wish that he was not allergic to cheese.
    On Paul’s most recent visit, one morning in high summer, Graham Mouse asked Paul Mouse why he always sat on the floor.
    “There aren’t enough chairs,” Paul said. He didn’t want to tell the mouses about his allergy. They might laugh. Who ever heard of a mouse allergic to cheese?
    “You can have my chair,” Graham Mouse said, standing up. “I’m off to the mouse café for a pint of Old Stilton.”
    Paul frowned. If he sat in the cheesy chair, even with his anti-cheese suit on, his bottom would turn blue, the fur would fall out and his tail would curl up like a question mark.
    “You’d better sit in the chair,” one of the mouses said, “or Graham will be offended.”
    Paul had always been afraid of Graham Mouse. He was a big, burly mouse with the words LIKE and HATE tattooed across his paws.
    Graham Mouse put on his denim jacket, the one he wore when he felt like punching someone on the whiskers, and said, “Paul, do you want my chair or not?”
    Paul looked at the cheesy chair, then up at Graham’s mean face, then back at the cheesy chair. How bad could it be?
    So Paul Mouse sat on the cheesy chair.
    Later, when none of the other mouses were looking, Paul stood up and peered at his bottom in a mirror. It was blue, and completely bald. The anti-cheese suit hadn’t made the slightest difference.

THE BLUE BOTTOM
    S OMEHOW , P AUL MANAGED TO SLIP OUT OF THE MOUSEHOLE without the other mouses seeing his bottom. The scamper home was more difficult. A lady mouse called him a blue-bottomed maniac. He was chased by a policemouse and laughed at by a group of teenage rats.
    In the overgrown garden, Rowley Barker Hobbs was running around in circles, barking at himself and chasing his tail. “Hello,” he said when Paul Mouse stepped out from behind a tuft of grass.

    “Rowley Barker Hobbs, if only I had bumped into you an hour ago,” Paul said. “You could have given me a ride home.”
    “Sorry about that,” Rowley Barker Hobbs said, poking out his pink tongue. “What happened to your bottom?”
    “The anti-cheese suit was supposed to protect it,” Paul said, tearing off the suit and stamping it into the mud.
    “I like cheese,” Rowley Barker Hobbs said. “I buried one just this morning.”
    “You’re thinking of bones,” Paul said. “You always get cheese and bones muddled up. Cheese is yellow and smelly, and it makes my bottom turn blue.”
    Rowley Barker Hobbs nodded his big shaggy head. “I have to go now,” he said, “but I will come and say hello again tomorrow.” And he ran in through the back door of the house.
    Paul Mouse made his way to the end of the garden. It had rained recently and the shoe box was sopping wet. Sandra was trying to dry it by wiping it with a huge tissue.For a plastic Christmas-tree decoration, Sandra was very house-proud.
    “Where did you get the tissue?” Paul asked.
    “The Tinby borrowed a whole box from the supermarket,” Sandra replied,