Jimmy Mouse and the Magic Card

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Jimmy Mouse and the Magic Card

It was a fine evening in the seaside cafe when the mice held their regular meeting to discuss the latest news. The cafe was quiet; the humans had all gone home, leaving the mice to their important business.

Judith Mouse, always sharp-eared and well-informed, began by sharing some news she had overheard from the chatter of customers: “How exciting! A new cheese shop has opened on the High Street, and it’s called ‘Expensive’.”
“What’s ‘Expensive’ mean?” asked Henry Mouse, scratching his whiskers.
“Oh, It means it’s really, really good!” piped up Rodina Mouse. “And it's really hard to get.”

Judith glanced at her younger friend with a tiny smile. Rodina always liked to show that she knew almost as much as Judith did, and she often jumped in with her own opinions before Judith had a chance to finish.

Grandpa Mouse wobbled his head sagely. “Top-notch cheese, eh? Well, it’s no good to us if it’s locked away behind a glass window. No human’s going to let a mouse walk into a shop and buy cheese.”

“But what if we didn’t ‘buy’ it?” suggested Henry Mouse, lowering his voice.
“You mean steal it?” Judith replied, crossing her paws.

Rodina nodded eagerly. “That’s what mice have always done, isn’t it, Grandpa? Stealing is just... Well, it’s just what we do, right?”

Grandpa Mouse nodded approvingly. “Stealing cheese is a proud tradition, it’s in our nature—like nibbling and squeezing through impossibly small gaps.”
Judith shook her head. “Humans say stealing is wrong. This is what they do instead. They wave a little card over a magic box, enter some mystical numbers, and then they can take whatever they like. They call it paying. And they get rather cross when other humans take things without doing the paying thing.. They abide by a rule that says humans can only have things if they ‘pay’ for them.”

“Well, how are we supposed to pay?” asked Henry. “We don’t have a magic box or a card!”

The question went unanswered. Noone offered so much as a squeak on the subject of how mice could pay for things.

Jimmy Mouse, who was quietly nibbling a crumb of shortbread, suddenly found himself the centre of attention. As usual, all eyes turned to him.
“I suppose you want me to go to this Expensive Cheese Shop, is it?” he squeaked nervously.

“Of course,” said Grandpa Mouse with a wave of his paw. “You’re our bravest and most reliable mouse, Ji mmy. It’s your duty.”

“It’s not fair,” Jimmy protested. “Why does everyone always think I’m reliable? Why don’t you pick someone totally unreliable for a change?”

But it was no use. As always, Jimmy ended up squeezing himself out of the mouse hole, scampering up a drainpipe, and sneaking through a half-open window of the fancy cheese shop. He made his way carefully, darting past enormous wheels of Gouda and stacks of Stilton. As he scurried along, Jimmy stopped in front of an especially rare cheese - a legend among mice in the know - a spicy Dutch Nagelkaas. But then his nose caught an even stronger scent right in front of him. There, in the centre of the shop, Jimmy spotted the prize: a huge slab of golden cheese labelled:

Limburger: ‘Aged Longer for its uniquely pungent flavour’.

“Ooh Grandpa’s favourite smelly cheese!” Jimmy’s heart pounded as he nibbled through the wrapping, and with great effort, he tugged a hefty slice free. He darted back the way he came, hearing only a faint tinkle of a bell as the shop’s cat shifted in its sleep.

Back at the cafe, the mice gathered around, sniffing the air. The Limburger cheese was smooth and creamy, with a robust aroma, somewhat reminiscent of human feet that made their noses twitch in delight.

“Fabulous!” Declared grandpa, “I haven’t smelt anything so wonderful since years ago when I took a ride in a laundry basket full of dirty socks.”
“But what will the humans do when they find out their special cheese has been nibbled in the night?” worried Rodina. “They could make the cat go hungry so he stays up and hunts mice!”

“We need to learn how to pay,” said Judith thoughtfully. “Humans don’t seem to mind sharing when they’ve done their magic trick.”

Then, as if by fate, Jimmy stumbled upon an extraordinary discovery the very next day. He found a plastic card lying on the pavement outside the cafe. It had a picture of a fierce bird and the words Mexican Express written across it.

“That’s it!” squeaked Rodina excitedly. “That’s a paying card! We can use it to do magic just like humans!”

The mice were thrilled. They polished the card until it gleamed and made little bags from scraps of cloth. Judith insisted that they looked as respectable as possible when venturing out.

Jimmy, now accompanied by Judith, made the perilous journey back to the cheese shop. They wriggled through the air vent, and approached the magic black box the humans used to do the paying thing.

Judith took a deep breath. “Right, we must hold up the card like this,” she demonstrated, “and the magic box should flash and make a happy beep. If it does, we’ll have paid.”

Jimmy hesitated, but then he held up the Mexican Express card to the machine. A green light flashed, and the machine beeped just as Judith said it would. The two mice stared at each other in disbelief as the doors of the glass cheese cabinet clicked open. They slipped inside the cabinet and filled their bags with the best crumbs of Limburger, Gouda, and a particularly fragrant truffle-infused brie.

Before they left, Judith insisted on looking at the number on the machine.
“£999.32,” she read out slowly. “That must be a magic number! We’ve really paid now!”

Emboldened by their success, the mice took their card to the posh grocery store next door. They stuffed their bags with bran flakes, raisins, and even organic sunflower seeds. They returned home with more fine food than the family of mice had ever known.

For the next few days, they lived like kings, even using the card at the cafe when they took crumbs from the tables. Each time, Judith insisted on a polite wave of the card before taking anything.

One day, as Jimmy and Judith were peeking out of the mouse hole, they overheard one of the frequent customers talking to the cafe owner.
“I’m looking for my Mexican Express card,” he said, looking dowcast.“And someone’s been using it all over town! £999 on cheese, £600 at the grocery store, and—” he paused dramatically—“£62 here on tea and sandwiches!”
“£62 on tea and sandwiches?” the cafe owner repeated, baffled. “My prices aren’t that steep.”

“I know, but if I find out who took my card…” the man fumed. “Keep an eye out for me, will you?”

“Oh yes indeed,” said the cafe owner. “Only a really bad person would use someone else’s card to buy £1000 quid’s worth of cheese.”

Judith and Jimmy glanced at each other, their hearts racing.

“I do believe we’ve been over-spending,” whispered Judith. “Human’s say it’s bad manners to over-spend.”

“Do you think we should… stop paying?” asked Jimmy, his little heart thumping.
Judith paused, considering carefully. “Yes, perhaps the humans aren’t very fond of us using the card. Let’s leave that to them in future..”
“What should we call it, then?” asked Rodina, who had been listening from behind.

Judith nodded. “From now on, we’ll say we’re borrowing. Borrowing is a much nicer word. Humans do it all the time. They borrow money, they borrow things, and then they feel better about it.”

“So we’re not stealing then?” asked Jimmy, feeling slightly better.
“No,” said Judith firmly. “We are borrowing. And remember, words are very important. It’s not what we’re doing that’s changed—it’s what we call it.”
The mice nodded in agreement. They resolved that from now on, they would never say they were stealing again.

“Borrowing sounds much more respectable,” Grandpa Mouse agreed, when he heard the plan. “After all, we are a very respectable family of mice.”
And with that, they happily returned to their normal routine— just doing what mice have always done. And the humans, well they behaved as humans are supposed to - the good ones anyway. The customers of the cafe were nice, well-behaved people, generally speaking. They never stole because stealing is bad. Nor did they borrow without asking because that’s bad too. Instead, they paid for things with their magic cards and were careful not to overspend, even on the finest and stinkiest things in life, like Limburger cheese.
And that was ‘Jimmy Mouse and the Magic Card.’

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Read by me Jana for Storynory.com
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