Unwelcome Visitors

TROWEL & SWORD

Resources - Children's Pages

March 2000

Kids’ Page

Unwelcome Visitors

by Mrs. Anne Groenenboom

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon. Dad and Chris were away at a working bee at the church, helping to paint the inside of the church hall. Amy and Carla were watching a video and Mum was having a rest while Joel, their new baby brother, was asleep. It had been raining for days and everyone wished the rain would stop so they could do some outdoor things. The children couldn’t play on the back verandah, as they usually did while it rained, because Dad had put some clotheslines up to dry all the washing. Amy however, was quite enjoying herself at present, because she was feeling very grown up looking after Carla all by herself.

When Amy took Carla to the kitchen for a drink, the girls were startled to hear a strange noise coming from a cupboard. Amy decided she’d better go and get Mum. Taking care not to wake Joel, she tiptoed into the bedroom to get her mother, but when Mum came to investigate, the noise had stopped.

“Maybe you were just imagining it!” Mum said, but both girls assured her that they had heard something. Mum opened the cupboard, but there was nothing there. Later that afternoon, while Amy was putting the kettle on for afternoon tea, she heard the strange noise again but now it seemed to be coming from another cupboard.

“Mum, I can hear that noise again, but it’s in a different cupboard!” she called, but as soon as she spoke, the noise stopped. There wasn’t another sound from the cupboard until they were having afternoon tea, then they heard the strange sound again. Mum listened carefully, then she told the girls that there were probably some mice in the cupboards.

“But how would they get in there?” Amy asked. She didn’t like the idea of having mice inside the house, even if they looked so cute in the pet shop.

“Mice can get through the tiniest holes and sometimes they chew their way through things if they want to get inside,“ Mum explained. “Mice usually live outside, but it has been raining a lot lately and their nests may be flooded out.”

“We’re not going to let them stay in our cupboards, are we?” Amy asked, but Mum assured her that they’d get rid of the mice somehow.

“I think we’d better go through the cupboards and put everything in plastic containers with good tight lids, otherwise we’ll have a big mess everywhere,” Mum suggested. “You two can help me do that before Joel wakes up.”

Carla and Amy began to empty out the first cupboard, which mainly contained tinned foods. There were some mouse droppings in there, but the only thing the mice had damaged was a packet of jelly crystals. Amy brushed up the droppings and Mum washed the cupboard out. The girls stacked the tins back into the shelves, then Mum opened the next cupboard. It was very obvious that the mice had been there, chewing through packets of flour and sugar and lots of other things as well.

“Oh dear, what a mess!” Mum exclaimed. Amy went to fetch a cardboard box from the laundry and all the damaged packets of food were thrown out. Mum was busy washing down the shelves when Carla came racing in to tell her that there was great big spider in the toilet. Just then, Dad and Chris arrived home, so Dad was given the task of getting rid of the spider.

“I think we must be feeding Pumpkin too well, she’s not doing much of a job keeping the mice away!“ Dad commented after he heard the tale of the mice in the cupboard.

“Oh, Dad, you know Pumpkin can’t get into the cupboards, so how could she catch the mice!” Amy exclaimed. “I’m sure she’d catch them if she could get near them.”

Dad went to see if there was anything he could use to get rid of the mice and came back with a box of strange-looking stuff.

“I’m going to put some of this in the backs of the cupboards, then the mice will eat it and they’ll die,” he explained to the girls. “You mustn’t touch it, because it’s poisonous and it could kill you too.” Both girls nodded. There was no way they’d touch that stuff!

After dinner, Dad told the children about the time he looked after the mice from his classroom during the holidays, when he was the same age as Chris.

“The mice were in a glass fish tank with some fly screen wire over the top and the mother mouse had just had eight babies. My mother was very cross and she wouldn’t let me bring them into the house. I had to keep them in the garage.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a pet mouse,” Chris commented. “I could keep it in my room.”

“Don’t even think about it!” Mum warned him. “I’m not having any mice in this house!”

“ Weren’t you sad when you had to take the mice back to school, Dad?” Amy asked.

“Not really, “ Dad replied. “Looking after nine mice was quite a job. There were too many for the fish tank, and they kept trying to get out... and our cat often tried to get at them, so I had to watch them all the time. But the worst thing of all was that one night I thought it was too cold for them in the garage so I took them into my bedroom.”

“Did your mother find out?” Amy wanted to know and Dad nodded.

“Yes, because that night the mice got out of the tank and I couldn’t find them anywhere.”

“Did you get into trouble?” Chris asked and once again Dad nodded.

“I wasn’t allowed out of my room until all the mice were found. The whole family had to help me search, so I wasn’t popular with them, either.”

“How long did it take you to find them all?” Mum inquired.

“Almost two days... I was beginning to think I’d never get out of my room again!” Dad answered. “Those mice were everywhere... in my bed, behind my bookshelf, in my wardrobe, in all the drawers, inside my sleeping bag.... everywhere! I often saw them running around my room, but they weren’t easy to catch because they could hide in the smallest places... and they moved so quickly.”

“Did you use a trap?” Chris asked and Dad replied that they had used a long cardboard cylinder, covered at one end, with a tiny piece of bacon inside.

“The mice could smell the bacon so when a mouse went into the cylinder, we could tip it into the tank,” Dad explained. “The only trouble was that it took ages and we had to sit very still... and when we lifted the lid to put one mouse back, the others all tried to hop out again. I had a horrible holiday, because all I did was look after those mice!”

Chris and Amy looked at each other. Having pet mice didn’t sound like much fun at all.

For the next week, the rain continued and the visits of the displaced creatures continued too... more mice, lots of cockroaches, dozens of spiders and several crickets.

The children decided to find out about what all the creatures in their backyard did when it was raining. They made a list and whenever the rain wasn’t too heavy, they went outside in their raincoats, searching for various tiny creatures that they’d seen before in their backyard.... moths, butterflies, ants, beetles, worms and so on. They discovered that snails loved the rain, but most other creatures seemed to have trouble when it rained too heavily.

“No wonder so many of them are coming inside! I’m glad we have a nice dry house to protect us – and plenty of food to eat, even if it rains for weeks. God is good to us, isn’t He?” Amy commented and Chris agreed.

SOME THINGS TO DO:

Find out about all the tiny creatures that live in your garden... where they live, what they eat. You could also mark out a small area in your garden, preferably around a tree and see just how many different creatures live there. If you lie quietly on your tummy and watch for a while, you’ll be surprised at how many tiny creatures live in a small square of lawn. Try to get some information about the ones you’ve never seen before.
See if you can find out whether God provides any special protection for them, in times of heavy rain or in times of drought. Also see if you can find out what task God has given them to do.
Give thanks to God for all the wonderful creatures He has made.

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