Cheesie James The Rodent Annoyance

[kyonides]

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Cheesie James The Rodent Annoyance
 
Written by Kyonides
 
Chapter I: A New Rodent Agent Versus the Real World

 

"This is no mission for cowards, my dear Cheesie James! In your sly skills we trust to fetch us as many water bottles, root beers and cheese variants as you may find inside those bad smelling furry wolves' fridges; birch beers are your last option, no matter whether or not some of your friends here love it. You're our best rodent agent we have ever trained so be now proud of your own abilities and repay us by bringing us tons of presents as dire proof of your courage!"

You're right, those were the words uttered by the High Advisor of the Rodent Council of Maryland, or of their eleventh District at least, before our easily frightened friend Cheesie James had left them in search for tasty food and soft drinks. It was supposed to be an incredibly hard task for a young mouse like him, but he had to put up with his basic home infiltration training. "I... I know I could do it..." he told himself not sure if he would succeed at all.

"See dear CJ, I'm glad to hear you're gonna get deployed anytime soon, I was expecting this to ever happen from a long time now" his old instructor or probably his mentor as well commented once he was capable of realizing his former student was finally going outside, to the large and dangerous world, to become a new hero for all those little but highly influentiable mice still growing up in his home nest.

Cheesie quietly replied "sir, I wouldn't call it a deployment but some sort of 'getting rid of this pesky youngling once for all' kind of action". James was hopelessly ready to get a damn heavy tail beating for his terribly bold speech, instead he was stopped by Senior Instructor Max Teeth, as this old mouse usually introduced himself to new cadets, making the scared CJ think he was about to get deep and sound like one of those true wise mice of yore.

Max took a deep breath and then stared at Cheesie James again before saying "you're gonna be alright, my friend, so don't let your fears get the best of your silly fur". Mister Teeth left him behind and walked straight to where some students were hanging out to make them learn what discipline actually meant for brave mice. That was what he thought he might be doing there, not noticing they never had the makings of true agents or spies or anything but mere parasites.

"That's my old grunting teacher! He never gives up on anybody for the first three years at least..." Cheesie abruptly stopped talking and remained silent for the rest of his difficult journey out of their secret training facilities, nothing fanciful but just some small sized and ruined shopping center. "Now that I'm thinking about it, I never knew what actually happened to those mice that never listened to our instructor ever" James wondered slightly intrigued.

After a few feet that looked like miles in his rodent mind, he felt he had to take a break. It was crushing his tiny heart to leave that place, he spent hours with his friends playing a few arcade games like one about supernatural fights with arrogant humans or several otherwordly but also overpowered beings. Two mice teamed up to either push the round buttons or the stick, high scores hardly included any of their own scores except in one game about shooting down dozens of ugly looking aliens. They even dared to place ridiculous bets and rarely honor their large debts because they were not really affordable from the very beginning. "Now your mom gotta cooks us some smoked cheese with lots of spaghetti and a coat of tomato sauce on top of it, Red" he had yelled at one of the losers back in those silly days.

James took the chance to slip into the abandoned arcade store one last time, he felt that he might not play anything that fun for the rest of his live. Later he sharpened his teeth with some useless trash he found around before meeting the real world for the first time ever. What a lonely block it was! How could it be that he could not find any humans around? "Gladly, I didn't find any cat so far, but I wonder if it's just because my mouse senses are dull for any reason..." Cheesie James curiously said, ignoring how the world does not turn around miniature living beings like him.

He kept running away from home, being a bit confused and wishing to find out how the hell he was supposed to find some darn wolf in the midst of sorrowful city. James needed to walk through many blocks, sometimes even sort of filled with dirt, to finally find the lively commercial zone. It was known for being the best place to look for people with money in their pockets, getting ready to spend it at some store like the Birch Beer Pawn Shop.

"I wonder if those tall guys might carry shiny coins like those we've found in the arcade, they sure looked quite funny" said an innocent Cheesie James lingering away. A few moments later, the rodent carefully stepped into the store avoiding getting stomped on the frame by the closing door, he saw awesome stuff there that he had never thought they ever existed.

Fine, it was nothing worth your precious time, but he had never seen a computer, a keyboard, a mouse that never had to take a breath, a hot coffee mug with a weird logo, lots of monitors displaying every single thing that was taking place there at that moment, a taser to paralyze aggresive patrons in a timely fashion, a dangerous black club, some smelly hat, many nice looking yellow, red or green lights, and something that made him suspect they could be actual snacks he could devour in no time.

Cheesie had no choice but to leave them behind and quickly hide somewhere because a tall guy slipped in talking to himself "and finally I can take my darn coffee break alone, and man, they're gonna regret those morons didn't pay their share, these lovely sugar coated donuts are mine and mine only!"

It was quite intriguing for the young rodent agent, he had never heard anything about such donuts nor seen sugar covering any dish at all. How did that ever taste? How heavy were they? Was there any chance to take them back to their headquarters? Anxiety was getting the best of poor hungry James, he had an extreme urge to bite one of those delicacies, but he had no plan to distract the tall guy so he could snatch one of them at least.

Later on he noticed a trash can that made him wonder if there was any evidence of people drinking root or birch beers lately. He checked on the guy before he started running, he had to be careful and stop right under his chair to avoid getting spotted by him. Even so excitement was too much for a small heart so he had to take breaks for he was forced to take deep breaths. Cheesie kept running back and forth and got close to getting stomped by the tall guy once or twice till he finally reached the black can.

The security officer was busy reading a newspaper then, making it a good time to climb up and peak at the trash can's actual contents. From atop he could distinguish some familiar shapes like boring pieces of lettuce. "Damn it, whatever that actually means, I can't believe it, this can would be the perfect food court for our cousins the rabbits; those large eared rodents really love to eat carrots and lettuce!" James commented without thinking about getting sighted by anybody that might be lurking around. Tomato slices, cucumbers, and anything humans might call healthy food was rotting there all alone. Curiously no cheese was ever found there.

He had not to lose hope that fast, among such wasted food there was a damn delicious root beer can! That was the confirmation Cheesie James ever needed, now he only had to look for a machine that could be keeping them cool for him to steal them.

There was a problem, he would need to hire somebody to help him take them to a safe place. "Rule Three: Never bring an outsider or you both are going to pay for it!" CJ exclaimed recalling a boring part of his past training. The only reason why he did not forget about it was what vicious rumors said about another student that went missing after trusting an evil rat and letting it get too close to their nest's actual location. Mice once feared a war had begun that fateful day, but for some reason the young ones never felt they were in danger at all; nobody had ever found any traces of a bloody battle ensuing anywhere.

To be continued someday...


(This chapter was published on fictionpress.com as well under my pen name kyonides. I edited this chapter so you might want to reread it if possible.)