Window Seat Corner

"Don't sit there, Benjamin," said Mrs. Pell, the librarian. "That's where the Quiet Mouse lives."

Benjamin stopped with a book under each arm. He was five, and he wanted one thing most of all. He wanted to read the new dinosaur book in her favourite corner, the one by the round window, where the sun made a warm yellow puddle on the rug.

"A mouse?" he said.

"A very shy one," said Mrs. Pell. "She likes it still. Then she comes out."

So Benjamin sat down on the rug. He opened the dinosaur book. He turned a page. Crinkle, went the paper.

Nothing happened.

He read louder, in his big dinosaur voice. "ROAR!" Still nothing. Mrs. Pell raised one finger to her lips.

Benjamin frowned. Loud did not work. Maybe he needed to be small.

He tucked in his feet. He breathed slow. He turned the next page as gently as a feather landing. Nothing.

"Where is she?" he whispered.

He looked at the corner. Then he looked at the floor. In the sunny puddle lay a bit of his cookie, a crumb that had fallen from his pocket. Benjamin had an idea. He broke off a tiny piece more and set it on the rug, right where the light was warmest.

Then he went back to his book and read quietly, one word at a time. "The big green dinosaur…"

Squeak.

It was not a mouse. It was the old rocking chair, creaking as Mrs. Pell sat down to listen. Benjamin giggled and covered his mouth.

Then, from under the bottom shelf, came a nose. A whisker. Two round ears like tiny cups.

The Quiet Mouse took the crumb in both paws. Nibble, nibble, nibble.

Benjamin did not move. He turned the page with one finger and read on, softly, to the dinosaur and the mouse and the window.

The sun slid across the rug. The rocking chair went creak, creak, creak. And in the warm yellow puddle, a very small tail curled around Benjamin's sneaker and stayed.