Of Mice and Monsters (and knights with cardboard paper roll swords)

Dolly brought a mouse into the living room a few weeks ago, I jumped, and screamed, and my heartbeat went from a steady 'hmm hmm hmm' to sudden 'eek!!! eek!!! argh!!!' This state of 'argh' came upon me as fast as my eyes saw something grey in her mouth and my brain could register 'mouse!' All my fuss scared Dolly and she dropped the mouse and I saw it scurry under the coffee table.

What do you do when you have a mouse hiding in your living room, and a cat pawing under the table trying to get it? I grabbed Dolly, took her out of the room and firmly shut the door.

I'd used a 'humane mouse trap' before, a box that can catch a mouse so you can release it outside. So I visited a DIY shop that had a range of traps designed to poison, bash, splat, and messily glue mice to death, thankfully it also had a 'poison free' trap amongst these weapons of mass mouse destruction.

So I set this trap in the living room and Amy and I resigned ourself to a day spent living in the kitchen. Amy wanted me to check the trap every ten minutes, but I thought it best to let the mouse be, so I checked the trap every few hours. It was no good, Amy's bedtime came and still there was nothing in the trap. Steve came round and I told him why the living room door was shut. He volunteered to look for the mouse so I could have my house back.

He looked under the coffee table and behind the sofas, but there was no sign of any mouse. Dolly came into the room, she wanted to play with her favourite toy, and showed no interest in hunting or pouncing on hidden rodents. I was starting to wish I hadn't tried to save the mouse from Dolly, deciding I'd rather have a firmly dead mouse on my hands, than a mysteriously hidden living one that might suddenly scurry past me and make me go 'eek!!! eek!!! argh!!!' at any time.

My head was a bit weird around this time, and even though I'm not usually scared of mice I'd start to jump every time I saw Dolly, always checking her mouth for signs of grey fur, and screaming every time I saw her carrying her grey cat toy. It was as if everything, and nothing, could trigger 'eek!!! eek!!! argh!!!' panic. I couldn't explain it, I couldn't control it. I just felt edgy and odd all the time, like there was a permanent state of unknown threat.

The non-appearance of the mouse made me feel even stranger, at a time when I was feeling strange already. Of course I wondered if I'd imagined the whole thing. The mouse was never found. I thought it was real, but how could I be sure if every time I saw Dolly with her toy I was sure this was a reason to panic too? I screamed at a mere toy just as if it were a real mouse. I wasn't quite myself at the time.

Organisations with strange letters in their name finally wrote back with an apology for website failure, and, 'that sounds like post traumatic stress my dear' but their email made me go 'eek!!!' so I just closed it quick. And I feel better now in any case.

Steve believes in monsters. If you read his blog you'll know that he keeps hearing monsters at the bottom of the garden and getting scared. I'm open minded about this, I believe in Tooting Bec magic, but my poor boyfriend lives down the road in Streatham, is it possible that monsters lurk there instead of Tooting's happier magic things?

Last night I woke up when I heard a crash downstairs. Then I heard the sound of a scuffle. My first thought was 'burglars!' Then I heard Dolly growling. I sleepily thought, 'Dolly's fighting the burglars'.

Then as the strange row of tackles and cat screeches continued I decided 'Oh, a cat fight' deciding a stray moggy had got in the house and Dolly was seeing it off.

I nearly turned over and went back to sleep, but the noises didn't stop. They was loud, strange, noises, there were Dolly's screams and bashes and thuds and strange panting, and... I can only describe it as (don't laugh) 'snickering'.

Snicckkkker snikkker snkkk went this inhuman noise. It didn't sound at all like a cat.

I'd fallen asleep with no clothes on when Steve left that night, so I had to find my nighty, then my dressing gown. I was getting dressed quickly in a fluster as the weird noises continued. Dolly was quiet, all I could hear was the odd heavy breathing, and the weird 'snic snick snicckkker' now and then.

I tried to stay calm as I headed downstairs to investigate. Dolly ran up the stairs to greet me, her fur and tail all puffed up with fear. I stroked her for a few minutes, to calm myself as much as her, and then I slowly moved, from half way up the stairs I could peer into the dark living room. The 'pant pant snickker' noise continued. And as I looked I saw a large grey shape slink behind the sofa. It was larger than a cat... Maybe dog size. Was it a fox?

The noises worried me, well of course they did... But foxes aren't supposed to come in houses, are they? And this fox had just sat there long after Dolly had stopped fighting it, that wasn't right... It had sat there making very weird and scary noises. I wondered if it was injured? And soon I was jumping to all sorts of conclusions about crazed and dangerous foxes, I even thought 'Rabies!'

This shadowy beast was behind my sofa, deep in my house, with no obvious exit. What was I going to do?

I'd left the office door open, so that must have been how the creature had got in, but it was in a different room now, hiding and cornered. And how was I going to get it out of the living room? That 'humane mouse trap' wouldn't do it.

I decided to open the front door, so it had two ways out. And I sat on the stairs, waiting and watching, and hoping I'd see this mystery creature run out.

I don't know how long I waited. I heard movement briefly from the living room, then it all went quiet again. I guess I sat there an hour, wondering what to do. I thought about calling the police, but I knew this didn't justify a 999 call. Of course I thought about going into the living room and chasing it out, but I couldn't I was just too scared. So I rang Steve.

Steve was still up, blogging about the journey home that night, and when I explained the situation he said he'd get a taxi and be right there. He turned up carrying a long cardboard roll in one hand and with a green towel draped over his arm.

I'd expected him to provide nervous morale support as the terrified two of us tackled the scary thing in the living room together. Instead he had a plan, he was decisive, he was brave. He gave me a job to do, holding a towel to block the stairs so the fox didn't run that way, then armed with a cardboard paper roll sword and green towel shield, he entered the room, and looked for the beast.

He moved the sofa, and we both jumped when we heard a noise. But Steve was valiant, prodding behind the sofa with his cardboard paper roll. He found nothing so we decided the creature must have gone under the table, maybe that was the noise we'd just heard?

My laptop and Ipod docking station were on the floor. I guessed the bang that woke me had been these falling. I could see that the wireless reciever bit of the laptop was broken. Not that I cared much at the time.

Steve peered under the table, then prodded with his cardboard roll, and picked up the bin to look behind there.

'There's nothing here' he said.

But that was where I'd seen the shadowy shape go...

He looked behind the other sofa, and then behind the curtains, and the TV.

'There's nothing here, I'm sure.' he said.

And I suddenly felt worse than if he'd found a mean and cowering rabid fox. It was like the mouse thing all over again... Had I just imagined a large, shadowy, snickering monster in the living room? And was it a goblin, or even a troll?

I'd brought Steve in the middle of the night in a taxi from Streatham for no good reason, was I mad and only imagined a beast in my living room?

I made Steve check the room again, and then I nervously joined him and looked everywhere too. There really was nothing in the living room.

Steve mended the broken laptop, and reassured me, he said whatever it was must have got out while I'd gone in the other room to call him. I suppose that was possible.

And I'll never know. I'll never know whether I had fox in the house, or a monster snick snick snickkkkering in my living room that could mysteriously vanish at will in the night. I wonder if the monster ate the mouse that never turned up?

Will a bigger monster come one night to eat the snick snick snickkker monster?