[Critique Group 2] sorry: I forgot to send a notice of pieces due and my piece.

[Leonard Tuchyner]

We will meet  Thursday at 7:30p . My piece is below.


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The Piano Mouse

 

“Oh no,” my wife exclaimed, when opening the piano keyboard.

“There are peanut shell crumbs on the  keys!” she exclaimed with a considerablelevel of stress evident.

“But I just saw you sliding back the keyboard cover. Howcould  that happen if it was closed?” Iasked.

“A mouse must have gotten into the piano. That happened oncebefore. Remember when the piano tuner was here about 2 years ago?”

I searched my brain, and came up with a rather fuzzy imageof the upright grand piano, and a mouse in its open lid. Some of the paddinghad to be replaced  because a mouse hadnibbled the felt padding  on the strikerpads?  

“I remember it vaguely,” I answered. 

“Let’s take the front board off to find out if there are signsthat he has taken up residence,” she suggested.

Diane got down on all fours and began to fiddle with theboard.   After fiddling with the boardfor a few  minutes without successfullyremoving it, she said, “I can’t do it alone. Will you come down  here and help?”

Getting down on the floor is not an easy thing to do with mytwo artificial knees.  But, with groansand moans, I managed it, not thinking too hard ahead of getting up again.

“It’s this catch that is holding the board in place that is theproblem. My hands  aren’t strongenough  to manage it and lift the board atthe same time. Can you help?”

The catch ,which is quite heavy, was in the middle. I got myhands on it, and with a grunt, it practically spit the wooden board out. It wasabout an inch thick made of oak. And very heavy.  The next thing was for me to get back on myfeet . With a cushion  to protect myknees from direct weight-bearing  contactwith the floor, it was not as difficult as I thought. Then I carried the boardto a safe distance away and observed the space it revealed.

“There’s nothing down there. How could a mouse get to thetop where the working mechanisms are?” I asked.

“Easy. There are so many ways that he could climb into thetop area. If you  could look underneath,which you can’t, you’d see.”

I took her word for it.

We got a potion to put in the piano. This is a bag of stuffthat smells fine to a human, but  carriesan aroma  that supposedly drives rodents  running. We put the stuff in the bottomcompartment and placed the  board backon  the piano. This required me to getback on the ground again, but I’m a quick study, and it was no real problem. 

That night, Diane read herself to sleep, while I read a bookdownstairs. Suddenly, I  heard a squeakyvoice.

“Hey buddy, would you mind removing that awful smelly stuffsomeone placed in the piano?”

I looked down and saw a rather well-fed  mouse peering up at me.

“I beg your pardon. Did you just say something?”

“Yeah, remove that awful odiferous stuff from my piano.”

I was alarmed. I’d never had a mouse talk to me, andespecially not a cheeky one.

“Your piano?”

“Yes. MY piano. I live in it, you know. That makes it mine.”

“I don’t think so,” I said in protestation . I was greatlyoffended by his  rudeness and hubris ,despite my alarm at his ability to talk. 

“How long have you been living in Diane’s piano?”

“Who’s Diane?” 

“My wife, who  has beenplaying that thing at least one hour a day for over 60 years.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. But, to answer your question, probably aweek. With Winter coming, I thought it would be a nice place to raise a family.Couldn’t I live there when I get a mate? We won’t eat anything, and we don’tmake a lot of noise.”

“That’s  what you say.We had a mouse family living here a couple of years ago. The piano tuner had toreplace some pads that your ilk chewed up for bedding. We had mouse droppings andpiss in the innards. It was a great big mess,” I excoriated.

He made a ducking motion as though avoiding a barrage ofstones. “Hey, man, that wasn’t me. I would never do such a thing.”

I regarded him skeptically. “I don’t believe you.”

He feigned being hurt by my words and doubt. “What do I haveto do to convince you?”

“You can’t.  Get out ofhere before you give me a disease.”

“Ouch.”

“Get out of here before I set a mouse trap.”

“Oh, you are scaring me. See me shake.” He made shakingmotions with his body.

“Get out, now!”

I raised my foot as though I meant to stomp on him. But hescampered away. I was very relieved that he did. I’d never stomped a mousebefore. I’m squeamish about such things. 

For several days later I kept a close watch for any signs ofa mouse living in the piano. After about a week I was convinced  that he was gone.

“Have you seen any signs of a mouse living in the piano?” I asked.

“Not a sign. I guess that aroma inundating the pianoactually worked,” she said.

“Yeah, that and a discussion I had with him.”

Diane looked at me questioningly . “Discussion?” she asked.

“Yes, I had a talk with him the night we discovered signs ofa mouse resident.”

“You talked to a mouse?” she asked. 

“I just said I had.”

She walked away singing the “Twilight Zone” theme under herbreath. I decided to let the issue pass. 




 
 
Leonard I. Tuchyner, Author
 
https://www.dldbooks.com/tuchyner/

 
  
 
 

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