

Hector and Paprika, the little field mice, had been playing catch and hide and seek all morning. When they got tired, they sat down on the boards of an old barn and enjoyed the first rays of spring sunshine.
“Ufff, ah,” Hector sighed after a while.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Paprika and looked at him warily. “You look so sad all of a sudden.” Hector sobbed, “I was just thinking about Uncle Karl. He got caught in a mousetrap last week, I miss him so much.”
Paprika crept a little closer and stroked his ear: “Oh, I’m so sorry.”Paprika thought about how she could comfort Hector. “Look,” she said quietly, “there will always be sad moments in your life, but there are certain things you can do to make you feel better …”
“NO!!!” Hector interrupted glaring. “I can’t do anything! Uncle Karl won’t come back and I can not prevent people from setting up mouse traps nor can I stop cats from eating us. Why is there so much suffering in this world?”
“I have no answer to this question,” said Paprika gently. “We mice are just a small part of this big world, and even if we think about it for a long time, we will not understand everything.”
Paprika paused for a moment, trying to find the right words, then continued, “But you could be grateful that Uncle Karl was in your life at all. Didn’t you spend many wonderful hours together?”
“Buhuu,” Hector wept profusely. “He always read to me from the big mouse book and made me laugh.”
“But you can pass that on,” said Paprika, handing him a handkerchief so he could wipe away his tears.
“You could be the one now who reads from the book to other mice children.”
Hector sat there quietly, sniffling and thinking about what Paprika had said. He calmed down a little and looked at her pensively.
After a few moments he said quietly, “Maybe I can give it a try.”
He secretly had decided to do that this evening. Yes, he would talk about Uncle Karl and read a funny story to the children.
With this thought on his mind he felt much better and the sun seemed to shine a little brighter.
“By the way,” he said to Paprika, “have I told you Uncle Karl’s favorite joke?”
“Nah, but tell me,” said Paprika.
And Hector said:
“A cat chases after a whole family of mice.
At the last moment, the father mouse turns around and shouts: “Woof, Woof!”
The cat fled frightened and the little mice are relieved.
Then father mouse proudly said to his children:
“Do you see now how important it is to learn a second language!?”
They looked at each other, took a deep breath and burst into laughter.
“Oh”, said Paprika breathless and wiped some tears from her eyes. “I know a good one, too:
“Two mice are sitting on the roof when a bat flies by. One says, ‘Hey look, an angel!”
Again they laughed and they had to laugh so much that their tummies hurt.
So it went on and on for a while until the sun was getting low but still sent a few warming rays towards them. After a while they got really tired from all the laughing and joking. So they snuggled up in a comfy little hole and fell asleep.
♥♥♥
A big thank you for editing this story goes to Ivonne. She is a german blogger, living in Virginia/USA. She also crochet Amigurumi and writes stories about her life there and much more. Check it out, I’m sure you’ll love her creations: Aurian’s Blog
I hope the rest of your month is fabulous and if you decice to crochet a mouse, I would love to see a picture of it.
Love, Karin
I loved your story and now I know why I’m striving to learn and practice German!
Hi Line Line, nice to read that you want to learn German. Maybe this year there’s a story, on my blog, which you wrote … 🙂 Have fun with the pattern ♥