Sal Wants a New Mouse

 Sal peeped into the mouse cage. Dizzy didn’t come over for a stroke or even move a whisker, she just sat in the corner looking sad.

“ Mum, I don’t think Dizzy is happy since Dosey disappeared. She needs another mouse to play with!”

“You could be right, Sal, perhaps she’s a lonely mouse now. Shall we go down to the pet shop and get her a new friend?”

Sal jumped up and down, “Oh yes, please, I’ll go and tell Sam, can we go now?”

“We’ll go after lunch, Sal. You and Sam can take out her cage to the garden and clean it, so the new mouse will have a sweet smelling home.”

“Oh, we don’t like that job,” said Sal.

“You know we agreed you can have a mouse or two as long as you look after them. I’m certainly not getting you another one if you don’t look after the one you have.”

Sal sat on the settee for a moment and thought about how she loved to play with her mouse. She imagined not being able to lie on the floor and have her mouse crawl round her hair, and being able to hold it close and sniff its woffley nose.   She sighed a big sigh.

“Ok mum, we’ll do it now.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said her mum. She winked at Sal and swished her long blonde hair off her face as she tackled the washing up.

Sal ran out to find her brother, Sam. “Sam, we can have another mouse, Mum said so, but we have to clean the cage first.”

“Yuk,” said Sam, “that’s a stinky job!”

“Only ‘cos you wouldn’t help me clean her out last week. I left it.”

Sam’s eyes grew wide, “But I heard you tell Mum you did it!”

Sal’s eyes looked at the floor, “I know, I shouldn’t tell fibs, but I was cross with you, don’t tell Mum, will you Sam?”

Her big brown eyes filled with tears. Sal felt very ashamed.

“Oh, all right,” said Sam, he didn’t like to see his sister unhappy. “As long as you let me name the new mouse. I want to call him Frederico.”

“Oh I don’t think it’s going to be a boy! Dad said if there was a boy and a girl mouse together, when they grew up they would soon have babies, and he said we didn’t want baby mice because we wouldn’t be able to find a home for them,” said Sal.

“Then we could have lots of mice to to play with, YES!” said Sam punching the air with his fist.

The two cleaned the cage out and after lunch they went to the pet shop with their mum.

There was a young girl serving, she said the boss had gone out, and she would be in charge of selling the mice. She said they had just one black mouse at the moment.

“We’d like the black mouse, as long as it’s a girl,” said Sal’s mum. The sales girl picked up the mouse and looked under its tail. I think that’s a girl,” she said. “Let’s take it, Mum, this might be our only chance to give Dizzy a friend,” said Sal.

They took the mouse home and put it in with Dizzy, who got very excited and started running all over her cage and sniffing the new mouse, which Sam called Frederica, a girl’s name.   The children were very pleased with their two mice.

The children’s dad came home after work, “ Ah, what a pretty black mouse, he said, “I hope it’s a she and not a he!”

“Ah, you like her ‘cos she’s black like you,” said Sam. His dad smiled and said, “ I would like her if she was white, black or brown, I like every colour of mouse!”

Dizzy was very happy again. After a just few weeks Sal said to her mum, “ I think Dizzy has been greedy, she’s been eating too many sunflower seeds, she’s quite fat now!”

“Is that right? Oh dear, we’ll have to keep an eye on her then.”

Some mouse babies were born the next day, all hidden away in a tight little nest. “Frederica can’t be a girl after all,” said Sal, “We’ll have to call her Frederico instead!”

Their dad said ‘How come the pet shop got it so wrong. Never mind, I like it that the mum is white and the dad is black, just like our family. It will be interesting to see what colour the babies are, they’re all pink at the moment”

“Perhaps they will be a nice brown colour like we are,” said Sam.

“What ever colour they will be beautiful. We can give them to the pet shop man,” said Mum, “he needs some mice. I think Frederico needs a new home too, unless we want to have more mice.”

Sam and Sal looked at each other and thought about all the mouse cages they might be cleaning out. “Lets give the babies to the pet shop man, and Frederico too, and ask for a proper girl mouse this time!”

“Good idea,” said Mum, so that’s what they did.

Ask questions appropriate to the age of the listeners

Does this story remind you of anything in your life? 

In what ways were the Dizzy and Frederico different?

In what ways were Sal and Sam’s mum and dad different?

What different races can you think of, or what skin colours can people have?  

Do all human beings have the same feelings? What are they? 

Do all people have the same needs? What are they?

 

Ask any other suitable questions to educate the children about Bi-racial, or mixed race families. You might talk about the different races living in different parts of the world, and how over the years people travel to different countries and get married to people from those countries, and have children which look different from their parents because they are a mixture of two races.

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