A Mouse in the--Pond?!

"Um," Krackers started, staring at Guseguse, "What are you doing Guseguse?" Her younger sister was standing atop a couch in the Rec. Room scrutinizing the floor.

"There's a mouse." the duckling stated, still glaring at the floor below her.

"I thought Nita only thought there was a mouse. No one knows if there really is one." the teen replied, curious as to how her baby sister came to such a conclusion.

"No, I saw it. I was sitting on the couch and it ran out from under it right between my feet. It ran behind the shelf." Guseguse pointed to one of the newer furniture items in the Pond. Krackers chuckled at this turn of events. Never once, in all her life, had a mouse entered her home. Being as she'd only ever lived in deserts, as far as she could remember, she hadn't anticipated a rodent in her future.

"You're kidding." the young duck commented bemusedly, glancing at the heavy wooden structure. "How odd. Yet, quite entertaining." Her younger sibling rolled her eyes. Krackers always found the most average things enjoyable, but only because she thought they only happened on TV shows (What can I say? She was a very sheltered child.). "What'd it look like?"

"I dunno." Guseguse shrugged. "I think it was gray. Small, too." An impish grin spread across the duckling's beak for no apparent reason. "Yep, that's what it was, small and gray."

"You're an odd little person. You do know that right?"

"Yes." The girl stuck out her tongue gleefully. "I'm gonna keep watching TV!" After a silent moment Krackers began to slowly back out of the room. "Bye!" her younger sibling called back hyperactively.

"Oh yeah." Krackers muttered, "She's off her rocker." Turning, the teen exited the room.

Walking down the hallway she ran into Wildwing who ignored her and walked on, mumbling something about an infestation. In curiosity, the young duck turned and watched him enter the Rec. Room. "Fiiiiiine, BE that way." she called after him in mild amusement. The second before she was going to begin walking again she was startled by his unexpected reply.

"Okay, I will." Krackers gave him a scornful look over her shoulder.

"Uh! That's not very nice." she scolded playfully.

"No, don't tell me." He held up his hands to stop her. "It's because I'm evil isn't it?"

"Quite so." She gave her superior a toothy grin before he rolled his eyes and stepped into the room he had yet to enter. "Eh, he's no fun." she mused to herself as she continued on her way.

* * * *

"Oh man. That has gotta hurt!" Nosedive exclaimed as he watched Krackers brush the tangles out of her wet hair.

"Not really." the duck commented simply.

"Aw, c'mon. You're not even brushing it--you're ripping it!!!"

"No I'm not! Besides, there isn't much of a difference."

"Ch!" he snorted, "Not when you're you."

"Ah, you have learned well Grasshopper." she joked in a mock wise voice. Her teammate only shook his head at her in disgust.

"Man, when you said you were insane you weren't kidding."

"Of course not!" Krackers retorted, ceasing her post-shower grooming, "Why on earth would I kid about a thing like that?" Giving him an awkward smile she returned to her task at hand. Sighing, the young drake pushed himself from the wall and wished her a goodnight. "Goodnight Nosedive!" she called after him as she pulled her damp hair back into a pony tail.

A few minutes later, she was settled in her bed looking up at the ceiling, which was illuminated by an orangish light emitting from her lamp. During one of her random glances about her room as she awaited sleep to claim her, Krackers spotted a small, dark figure scampering across the floor. For a moment, the duck was a little frightened of the mouse so she remained in her bed to see what it would do next. It scurried into her closet.

Sitting up and climbing out of bed, the duck approached her closet door cautiously. Crouching down to search for the tiny creature, she spotted him hiding in one of her sandals. "Hellooo." she soothed with a full smile on her face as she leaned closer for a better look. "Awww. How cute." The mouse was slightly shorter than her pinky not including its tail. Its ears weren't as large as she thought a mouse's ears should be, yet, still big and his huge black eyes took credit for most of his adorability. Krackers was almost tempted to pick up the shivering ball of gray fur, but decided against it. "Okay," she sat back and pondered her predicament. "Sooo, how do you catch a mouse?"

Seeing that her guest was not going to answer the teen concluded that the best thing to do would be to get an older, wiser person for this job. A few minutes later, "Duke?" she whispered into her father's darkened chambers. Seeing that this would not wake him, the brown haired duck marched over to the side of his bed and gently shook his shoulder. "Duke," she whispered once more.

"What?" he groaned grumpily.

"The mouse is in my room." Krackers didn't know why she bothered whispering, no one could hear them anyway. Her gray-feathered guardian sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes--er, eye.

"Where?"

"Last time I checked he was in my closet." With a deep sigh, the former thief crawled out of bed and followed his teenage daughter to her room. "In there." Krackers pointed to her closet.

"I know where your closet is sweetheart." he yawned. He scanned the floor of the closet but saw nothing. "Don't see him."

"Hm, I doubt he left the closet. He's probably over there." She waved her hand toward the other two sliding doors of her closet.

"What are you two doing?" Farrah asked from the doorway she had suddenly appeared in.

"Krackers found the mouse. We think it's in her closet." Duke replied. The Sephmetian gave her teen friend a puzzled look.

"You didn't capture it?"

"How do you catch a mouse?" Krackers shrugged.

"Same way you catch a scorpion."

"With Tupperware? I couldn't do that! How would it breathe?" It was only after saying this that she realized how silly that sounded to the sunset dusted alien being as she was not aware that Krackers was thinking of when one closed the Tupperware. Farrah simply hit the light switch and helped the ducks search for the intruder. "Hey!" the girl exclaimed as she crouched down lower on the floor than she already was. "What's that?"

"What's what?" her father asked as he joined her on the floor.

"There's something under one of my stacking organizer things. It looks gray, like the mouse."

"Well, is it the mouse?" Farrah questioned.

"I'm not sure. It's not moving--ope! It is. He just moved. Hey!"

"What now?" The teen sat up and glared at her box of footwear.

"Those are my shoes." she pouted. Duke chuckled a little before dragging the box away from its place against the wall. The little creature hiding behind it scurried back the way it had come.

"That's the mouse?" Farrah seemed curious. "Aww. It's so small."

"Yeah, isn't he cute?" Krackers chirped.

"Adorable, now get me a flashlight." Duke ordered. The Sephmetian paced out of the room to fulfill his request and returned a few moments later with two. "Thanks." The gray duck took one from her and laid down flat on the floor, trying to see under the multicolored organizers. His daughter joined him.

"See him?"

"No." As a possible hiding place for the mouse popped into her head, the teen changed her position by pushing herself backward. Now she could clearly see beyond the wheels of her organizers.

"Oh." she piped cheerfully, "There you are."

"You found him? Where?"

"Behind the wheels. You can't see him unless you're at an angle. I thought I saw something there." she boasted. "Ah, he moved!"

"Yup, I saw that, too. Where'd he go?"

"Ack!" Farrah exclaimed. "He's taken refuge behind your storage boxes Krackers."

"Dang!" The teen sat up abruptly and pushed herself back towards the cardboard boxes stacked in her closet. In a few moments of frustratingly moving the colored organizers and trying to figure out a way to persuade the mouse to come out of hiding both father and daughter held long hard objects that would easily fit between the crack left by the storage boxes and wall. "Oh little mousy." Krackers sang as she prodded one end of the stack with her lengthy flower "wand" from Halloween when she had been Mother Nature. The trio were hoping this would frighten the tiny creature out one of the two ends straight into the shoeboxes that had been set up on either end of the passageway. Duke pressed his back against the wall in an attempt to see where the mouse had gone.

"Can you see him?" Farrah asked from where she stood outside of the closet.

"Nah." the gray mallard replied.

"Well," Krackers sighed, "I have no idea where he went. There's no where else he could have gone, is there?" She glanced at the two adults who shook their heads.

"Here." Duke commented, getting up from his position, "See if you can spot him." The creamy peach colored teenager obeyed and strained to get in every position possible to see the mouse as her two older teammates murmured about the creature and the trouble it had caused them. In one last effort Krackers practically stood up and looked down into the crack at an angle.

"Mousy!" she exclaimed ecstatically, startling the adults. Her father rushed over.

"Where?"

"Right down there." she pointed to his position and moved away so that her foster parent could get a look at him. "He's pressed against the wall and the boxes in that tiny little spot there."

"Okay, I see 'im." Making sure to keep an eye on the little animal, Duke grabbed the pool stick he had been using and shoved it into the space between the boxes and the wall. Dragging it forward the gray mouse scuttled out of his hiding spot and right into the shoebox that had been set up for him. Duke immediately grabbed the box and ran out of the room. The mouse made an attempt to jump out of it but, luckily, landed right back into the box.

Krackers laughed at the sight of the huge jump her visitor had attempted. "Super mouse!" she yelled after it and followed. However, she was far enough behind that she didn't see it get loose as her father was running up the stairs, which don't exist but I just had to add, with the intention to set it free outside.

The mouse ended up bouncing down the stairs that don't exist in a most humorous way and Duke had to follow to sweep it up into the shoebox again. Krackers caught up with him as he ran up the non-existent stairs for the second time but when he reached the top where Farrah was waiting with the sliding glass door, which also only exists in this story, open the little creature got free again.

By the time Krackers reached the adults, the mouse was running all over the place until, much to everyone's horror, Smokey pounced on it. "Smokey, no!" Farrah scolded, "Drop him! Drop him now!" The gray cat obeyed and the mouse ran straight into the shoebox--but not before scampering over the Sephmetian's feet causing her to shriek and jump up on whatever you'd like to imagine she jumped up on that doesn't exist since I have so many of those already.

Within a minute, Duke had set the mouse free outside the Pond and had dragged himself wearily back inside. "Well, that was exciting." he commented unenthusiastically.

"That was Super Mouse!" Krackers exclaimed cheerfully.

"Yeah, yeah." her father muttered and headed towards his bedroom. The teen sighed and left the room with Farrah, flipping off the lights, and returned to bed.