Free Wendy Perriam by Wendy Perriam Page A

mice are not , I repeat not, objects of affection. If you carry on like this, you’ll be completely overrun. Female house mice reach sexual maturity at forty-two days old, and can give birth as often as every month. They don’t even have to wait until they’ve weaned their young before they can conceive again. In fact, one breeding pair used in a research study produced over a million descendants in a period of just eighteen months.”
    If he wanted to bandy statistics about, well, that was his prerogative, but personally she found it distressing that he should discuss such intimate matters without a trace of fellow feeling for the mice. It must be extremely hard on the females to be pregnant or lactating for so much of their short lives. She had no desire to give birth, having seen what it involved.
    “Good God! There’s a nest right here.” He was now investigating her bottom dresser drawer, which she deliberately kept open a few inches, to provide air for Alexandra. The poor mouse leapt out in terror at the monster-man’s approach, and fled back behind the skirting board.
    “ Now look - you’ve upset her, and she’s about to give birth any second.”
    He shut the drawer with a bang, then wiped his hands on his handkerchief, as if they’d been polluted. “This really is appallingly unhygienic. You’ll get ill, you know, if you live like this.”
    She shrugged. There was little point in arguing with someone so completely blind to the beauty of a mouse’s nest. Alexandra had fashioned hers out of torn-up bits of newspaper, lined it with chewed and softened string, and spent considerable time and trouble making it a safe and cosy haven for her young. And the fact she’d chosen a sock drawer showed how intelligent she was - soft woolly stuff on hand to cushion her babies’ tender skin.
    Mr Beamish made a note on his pad, wrinkling his nose against the smell again. Next he inspected her bed, and the crate she used as a bedside table. OK, neither was exactly pristine, but the needs of the mice must come first.
    “‘You’ll have to call in Pest Control and arrange for these vermin to be exterminated.”
    “ Hitler ,” she muttered, outraged. The moustache made perfect sense now. He was nothing more than a one-man death machine. Thank God he hadn’t brought himself to use her Christian name. She had no desire to be friendly with someone who consigned her tiny room-mates to the gas chamber.
    “I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’ve no intention of phoning anyone.”
    “Are you telling me you refuse to deal with the problem?”
    “It’s not a problem, OK? The mice are perfectly happy, and I’m not complaining.”
    “Yes, but all your neighbours are.”
    “It’s nothing to do with them.”
    “Yes, it most certainly is.” He put his pad down to wag a bony finger at her. “The mice are going under the floorboards from here to other flats. They can squeeze through a gap the size of a pen or pencil, and you have gaps much larger than that.”
    “But why should they want to go to other flats, when I give them all they need? Not just lots of cereal, but treats like chocolate Hobknobs and boxes of Newberry Fruits. I know all their special favourites. And they need to eat a great deal. They have a very high metabolic rate.”
    Mr Beamish pursed his lips. “I’m well aware of that. What you are not aware of, or perhaps refuse to take on board, is that you’re risking your health and safety, and that of other people who happen to live in this same block.” He strode back to his chair and began making more extensive notes, his pen ripping into the paper, as if it, too, were furious. At length, he bunged the folder back into his briefcase and snapped the briefcase shut. “I’m afraid I shall have to take this further. You’ll be hearing from the Council in due course.”
    “I can’t wait,” she mumbled, sarcastically, finally closing the door on him. All the noise and upheaval would have seriously