a quick sketch
Leonard was one of five boys left at the boarding school while the other children went home for the summer. Many of his friends bragged about getting to spend weeks at their parents summer homes in Maine, North Carolina and Florida while Leonard’s grandparents hadn’t even responded to his letters asking about what to do over the break. He learned towards the end of the spring session that his grandmother had written a respectful but seemingly desperate letter pleading with the school to keep him over the summer as she and her husband were in no shape to take care of the boy, even though they loved him and wished to see him. A few weeks after Leonard learned of this, he received a brief but warm letter from his grandparents expressing their regret that they couldn’t take him in over the summer but informing him that his uncle planned to visit for a day or two over the break so that he won’t be so lonely. Leonard found this amusing as he would much rather spend the summer alone at the school than be stuck at his grandparents house everyday, cooking meals and running errands.
During the break Leonard’s favorite teacher Mr. Rau also stayed and he made the days exciting. Each day began with baseball after after breakfast, where Mr. Rau would help Leonard practice his pitching in the field behind the school. Mr. Rau had hopes of coaching baseball at the school and Leonard had hopes of joining the team, so the two made a good pair. Mr. Rau’s advice seldom made a difference in Leonard’s playing, but the practice was good nonetheless. Afterward was lunch and then tutoring, which Mr. Rau also took part in. Leonard was a particularly poor student in math but he found himself enjoying it now as it was moving at his own pace. At night he had the library to himself and would look through the photos and drawings in the science magazines until he was ready for bed.
On a morning about three weeks into the break Leonard was running to catch a ball when he stepped on something that let out a loud squeak. He was playing too hard to notice it at the time, but after he lobbed the ball back to Mr. Rau he kept hearing the squeak a few feet away in the grass. They played for a few more minutes and Leonard periodically heard the noise. He thought it may have been a bird until he noticed its cries becoming louder and louder. When he looked down for a moment he saw a small mouse laying on its side, its front paws both broken and limp. He called out to Mr. Rau who rushed to look; “Aw, poor guy is pretty hurt isn’t he?” Mr. Rau said this gently and put a hand on Leonard’s shoulder, who was visibly upset over the animal. “What should I do?” Leonard asked. “Well, I don’t think there’s really much you can do. I’m sure if his mother is nearby she’ll find him. Come on.”
Leonard thought about the mouse for the rest of the afternoon. He was hardly able to eat a bite at lunch and he couldn’t focus during math. Mr. Rau could tell that the boy was still bothered by the animal so he took a moment after his tutoring to speak to him about it.
“How’d you find the mouse out there?”
“I think I stepped on him.” When Leonard said this, he turned red.
“Well it’s not your fault you know, how could you have any idea he was there?”
“I don’t know.” Leonard was trying to hold his composure as he spoke to his teacher, but he could feel tears welling in his eyes and he had to focus with all his attention to keep his breath slow.
“It’s alright Leonard. It’s okay to feel sad for him but you didn’t do anything wrong, alright?” Somehow hearing this upset Leonard more and a few tears rolled down his face, which he quickly wiped off. He nodded that he understood and Mr. Rau patted him on the shoulder before walking with him to the cafeteria for dinner.
The next day Leonard woke up still thinking about the mouse. He spent most of the night picturing it squealing alone in the field, being barely audible over the bugs. That morning at breakfast Mr. Rau informed him that he had too much work to do and couldn’t play baseball today but said that Leonard was welcome to do whatever he would like with his morning. After eating Leonard rushed back to his room and grabbed a pair of underwear, emptied his baseball card tin and rushed outside. On the way to the field he stuffed the underwear into the tin as a sort of bed and tried to make it as even as he could, though the creases made that difficult.
He found the animal at the same spot he left it the day before, but now it was silent and the only sign he had to know it was still alive was seeing its chest raise and lower as it breathed. He tried pushing the top of his tin underneath the mouse which scared it and caused it to throw its legs around, hoping to get away. When he finally got it into the tin it started squealing again so he he to cover the top lightly with the lid as he walked back to the dormitory. Once inside, he took the lid off and left it under his bed. He decided that it would probably not leave the tin with broken legs and that it would be the best spot for him to keep an eye on it. Leonard knew he’d be in trouble if he were caught, but he couldn’t help himself. At lunch and dinner he brought back bits for the mouse and left it in the tin but it hadn’t eaten by the time he went to bed that night.
When he woke the next morning he was afraid he’d find the mouse had perished or escaped but to his surprise it was fast asleep and had eaten all the food he’d brought for it. He made his bed so that the sheets would reach the ground and cover up the tin and went off about his day, relieved of much of the guilt he’d felt the day two days prior. Baseball was nice that morning and at lunch he took a few more bits for the mouse; he had an intense sense of pride about him as he did this, feeling like his actions may have saved a life. That evening instead of going to the library he stayed in his room and kept the tin beside him as he read. The mouse started squeaking again this night, but it was quiet enough so that nobody besides Leonard could hear it and it comforted him throughout the night to hear it so he knew the animal was still there.
About a week went by and Leonard had spent most of his free time alone with the mouse in his room. It would now look at him and perk up when it thought it was about to be fed, but was still unable to move its front legs enough to get out of the tin. Leonard was never allowed to have pets at his grandparents’ home so living with another animal was very exciting for him. He brought back more and more food each day and it ate everything he brought, which made him wonder if he hadn’t been bringing enough food in the past or if it was a sign the mouse was gaining strength. He had to clean the underwear he kept in the tin almost daily so he tried to hide them within a shirt or pair of pants he’d bring to the laundry, hoping nobody would think he had soiled them himself. Though he was stressed, there was a new radiance about him; taking care of something nice made him feel more responsible and excited than he could ever recall feeling. Each day felt like it had purpose in just that he had his responsibilities to his new friend.
After another week Leonard had moved the mouse from the tin into his suitcase. It was able to move around pretty well at this point and would squeak much more than when he first took it in. Leonard had grown comfortable in having his new friend in his room and no longer worried that it would be found, so he returned to his old habit of spending his days outside or in the library, enjoying the short while he had the grounds to himself. Leonard would let the mouse on his bed while he read at night and had grown even fonder of the creature, whom he had determined was a girl and had named Beatrice, after his mother. He had been thinking of ways to keep the animal a secret when school came back around, but had not been able to formulate a sound plan.
One morning a week before school began Leonard woke to see that Bea was gone. He searched under the dresser and in his pile of clothes that were ready for the laundry, but he couldn’t find a trace of her. He walked up and down the halls for hours that day looking for any holes that he could have escaped through but found nothing. He wondered about her all day and couldn’t sleep that night. All he could picture was Bea hiding within the walls or crushed and in a garbage can behind the school. He hadn’t realized how close he had grown to her until she disappeared.
After two days of worrying and little sleep, Leonard’s behavior had changed dramatically. At breakfast he didn’t touch his food and when they played baseball he was looking around constantly hoping for a sign of her in the grass. Mr. Rau finally stopped playing and walked to Leonard, who was afraid but about to burst with the desire to ask about his mouse.
“Is everything alright?” Mr. Rau asked this quietly, even though they were outside.
“Yeah, what’s wrong? He said this back defensively, now worried that Mr. Rau had found the mouse and disposed of him.
“You’ve seemed upset the past few days, you know you can talk to me when something is troubling you.”
The way Mr. Rau said this set something off in the boy, who was suddenly crying again in front of his teacher.
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
“Leonard, what’s going on?”
“I took care of the mouse we found and I don’t know where she is.”
Mr. Rau looked at him sternly for a moment but this quickly faded.
“Do you think it’s in the school?”
Leonard wiped his eyes but couldn’t stop crying.
“I don’t know, she’s been gone a few days. Nobody found one did they?”
Mr. Rau shook his head.
“I don’t think they have. He might have left the school at this point. You know we don’t need mice running around and getting into the walls.”
“I know I’m sorry I just didn’t want her to die.”
The boy cried harder, needing to take a nap. His teacher put a hand on his shoulder for a moment and led him inside.
When school began the mouse was still the only thing on Leonard’s mind. He started leaving bits of food under his bed and dresser as bait, hoping she would come back. Every morning when he woke and every afternoon when he got back from class he’d look in her old tin, hoping she had come back or at least eaten the food he’d left for her, but he she didn’t. Leonard had a new roommate this session and got along with him much better than most of the other students, even though neither of them really spoke for the first week or so. As the classes began to gear up and baseball tryouts approached he took the underwear out of the tin and put baseball cards back into it to trade with the other students. He still would look under his bed every few days but eventually stopped remembering to look, being too concerned with studying and practicing for the team.
