I was up north in Harbor Springs, Michigan where my grandparents on my dad’s side live. It was summer and it was very hot and the sun was shining on everything; the leaves on the trees, the grass, the wet, black rocks of my grandparents’ built-in waterfall, and the sweat on our faces. We had a family party that evening with my uncles and aunts on my dad’s side, grandparents, parents, and cousins.

Since it was so hot out I decided to hang inside for a little bit where it was as calm as a stream during a windless night. I was sitting around in the basement on a serene and convenient green couch, when I saw this small figure looking like a rodent running rapidly into the storage closet. It was a little field mouse jittering under each thing it could see. The mouse was small and gray with big, black eyes as if they were eight balls with no eight in the middle. It’s little whiskers were fluttering all over the place and it made my heart warm up and I inched a crooked smile on my face.

First I told my oldest cousin, Mason, and he freaked out as if he was an elephant to that mouse. Then I told my parents and they had a surprised look on their faces as if I was being mischievous and devious by playing a prank on them where there was a fake rodent on the end of a string that I was going to pull towards them. After I told them four times that I was serious, they told me to tell PopPop, my grandpa.

I go up to PopPop and told him,“PopPop there is a mouse in the storage closet,” and after that, he looked at me and said with high expectations, “Well did you kill it? Because you should’ve,” He expected me to kill it.

While I was going back to the storage closet with a dirty and stained rag, I was looking back at what he said. I couldn’t help but question why I really had to kill it. I asked myself, “Why would I kill a helpless critter just because it intruded into the house?”

I got to the storage closet, I was looking at the mouse and I realized that I didn’t have the heart to kill the mouse, so PopPop, who was checking to see if I did the deed, noticed that I didn’t and he grabbed that rag from my hand and in one hit of a cement block for a hand, the mouse wasn’t with us anymore. The poor little mouse became a blood-stained victim of defeat. I was so upset but I hid my sorrow with a fake smile and fake laughter.
   

Then night fell and it was midnight and no one could see outside; not even the tent that my youngest cousins and my grandma were sleeping in. My uncles, aunts, Mason, and myself were still up having a good time in the basement. We were sitting around, adults at the basement bar and me and Mason sitting on the comfortable, soft, soothing sofa, and I saw another mouse go from under the couch to under the tannish-white dresser under the T.V. Again, it was small and gray with the same black pool ball eyes.

Once again I told Mason and he freaked so bad where it was to the point where his heart could jump out of his chest. Everyone heard Mason’s panic scream and they didn’t believe me when I told them that another mouse was among us.

I showed them where it ran to and one of my uncles, Uncle Ronny, saw it as soon as I pointed my finger at it. For some reason Uncle Ronny was amazed that I spotted another mouse.

My Aunt Jackie and Aunt Carrie kept calling me, at the same time, a mouse hunter, “Yeah you’re like the Crocodile Hunter but you spot mice.” I was wondering why they kept calling me that but I remembered that they had a couple of drinks; more like a couple too many.

The field mouse was still under that enormous dresser and it was sitting on top if the television wires. I thought the battle was over when PopPop killed the first one, but now I know that there was more than just one critter to deal with and this time I am starting to get curious. Now I was more cautious than ever and was thinking about where it was coming from.

For a couple of minutes I was looking around for some kind of hole in a wall, but my family’s hilarious screams were too good to miss. Aunt Carrie was in the hallway holding her crotch because she had to pee so bad, Aunt Jackie was standing on the green couch taking a video and laughing intensely, my Uncle Derek trying to help out Uncle Ronny, and Mason, who was laughing and screaming.

After a long, twentyfive minute battle, Uncle Ronny killed it with two swift punches. Once again, there was another bloody victim.
   

We were all happy after the battle and we were laughing a lot until a while later when we figured out that there was more of a hilarious burden to deal with. Uncle Ronny spotted another mouse running around in the basement kitchen like an owl hunting at night. The sucker ran into the food closet where my favorite snacks were. I ran into the food closet with haste, for the third time now, it was small and gray.

I couldn’t help it, I had to get this one on video. I reached for my phone that was in my right pocket of my shorts and I took the video. Both my uncles, Uncle Ronny and Uncle Derek, had cornered the mouse into a shelf corner near a warm six pack of Diet Pepsi bottles and a big box of Cheez-its. Then the mouse zig-zagged like a crazy ant hunting for prey behind and through the crack of the door. And with two hits, Uncle Derek killed the third, and last, mouse.

After this night, we were all cautious in the morning; I checked the basement again and again for the whole morning. Looking back, I realized that the relationships of those mice were similar to each other. They weren’t just different mice each time, they were family that were trying to fight for their safety too. And I will tell you that there are many simple things that appear in your life; but those simple events may have a bigger picture than what you may have seen. Just like the first mouse, that simple thing had a bigger picture to it, like it’s family’s survival.

Later on, during the weekend, my mom, my dad, and I got back home. It was around midnight and I got a text. It was from Aunt Jackie, and it was a group message. The group message to all of the people who were there that night. The message was three videos, one was the first part of the battle of the second mouse, the second video was the second part, and the third video was the last part. In total I had four videos. The next morning, I showed my parents and we all laughed. To this day I wish that night never ended.