Cheesie James The Rodent Annoyance

[kyonides]

Chapter Two

Training Hard

Who is Senior Instructor Max Teeth? Why has he been trusted with training new rodent agents for over a decade? Nobody knows much about his distant past except for the very same High Advisor Snatcher. Other Rodent Council members like White Cream suspect they knew each other while being assigned to another district.

Cream would never support Teeth, no matter what could ever happen next. When Max was still an elite agent, she did everything she could to refrain other members from promoting him to instructor. He was growing old, yet, White preferred to assign him difficult missions hoping some feline competitor would indirectly take care of the rest on her behalf. To her deep dismay, Maximus the Brave, as he was usually called to piss her off, would always return victorious.

His second to last mission was not successful, still, his efforts prevented other mice from being slaughtered by stray cats and booby traps. Thus his heroism became legendary among all rodents, including some rat gangsters. Seriously, they tried to recruit him several times in a row right after that unusual event.

“Ya know, we’d love to work with ya!” said a bad looking rat while biting some stick. “We learned ‘bout yer feats and we won’t leave ya alone till ya join us.”

What Teeth did that day was incredible according to rodent sources. He managed to steal from the gangsters and stay alive to tell the tale! White Cream was extremely furious, and pressed charges against Max for instigating the rats to wage war against poor mice. The rest of the council members did have their own doubts regarding how he could retrieve so many cheese slices and root beers in such a short period of time. Nonetheless, days passed and no war declaration ever arrived. Young agents were not ambushed nor killed by any opposing group.

Knowing Cheesie James, you might have guessed by now that he would not buy such a weird story just because another council member said so. While he still was a simple cadet at the academy, James dared to pay the rat gangsters a visit. Something like that could have eroded the fragile peace between both rodent species, but Cheesie demonstrated that he had succeeded at finding out the truth about his mentor’s feat.

“Our instructor is nothing but a jester” CJ boldly stated, “for he’d simply forged a secret alliance with gangster lieutenant Twelve Pack.”

“Come on, Cheesie, how could he ever get such a huge payment for his services if had done nothing for his new allies?” fellow cadet Slow Paw questioned him.

“He gotta have provided them with classified info from our district and those cats he faced back when he failed to retrieve the otherworldly treasure” James explained without hesitation.

“Pffft! That’s totally absurd and you know it, CJ!” cadet Slick Tail remarked.

“Absurd you say!? Really?” a bothered Cheesie James yelled. “No way, Slick! I can tell you it’s highly probable for he had informed them only about what the Advisor Snatcher had told him earlier that week during a secret meeting. And I know this meeting actually took place because my cousin Gouda was nearby patiently waiting for him to exit that room. Thus we can easily conclude it all was part of a master plan to keep us safe for the time being.”

Soon an upperclassman would draw near to ground them for not focusing on Max Teeth’s super duper agent training plan. Later on all three cadets were summoned at a lonely place only to learn from a substitute trainer that they had to run like crazy inside the Wheel of Fortune Complex also known as the Eleventh District’s main power plant. No, dear readers, they did not get any double ration of cheese for all their hard work and tiredness there. Who would tell mice were sadistic?

Not longer thereafter, he had to listen to a boring speech his teacher had prepared to make his student repent from ever coming up with such a extravagant conspiracy theory aimed at destroying his legendary reputation as a former elite agent. The other two mice had left the complex a few minutes before he had cleared his old throat.

“From now on, cadet Cheesie James, you are forbidden to ever tell your crazy version of that story to anybody!” the Senior Instructor cried out loud. “Was I clear, cadet?”

“So so, Mister Teeth” the young mouse replied. “If I were wrong about this, why bother in the first place? You could simply deny it outright and that’d be the end of the story…”

“I said was I clear, cadet?” Maximum the upset instructor repeated.

“Yes, crystal clear, I guess…” James responded quickly.

“Good!” the senior instructor uttered. “Now go back to your room and write down my speech as a punishment for also questioning my high integrity and my authority here!”

That day CJ might have lost about half a pound due to all of his extenuating workout session. I told you they were sadistic for sure, didn’t I? Even so poor James survived merely because he was quite fat at that time. So we could now say this terrible event somehow helped him grow up a little bit as a future agent, right? Well, no, he did not learn his lesson at all.

After criticizing another three teachers, young Cheesie wound up being sent to the nefarious Trattoria Al Dentissimo, owned by man who claimed to be Sicilian. The mission was to bring back as many pizza slices as possible. In worst case scenario, they could snatch some of the ingredients like melted cheese, pepperoni or salami but no tomato slices. By the way, James had no intention of sharing any salami with his teammates.

What the four cadets, all of them handpicked by Max Teeth himself, ignored was that the guy’s pet cat was a real mafioso. He made several rats do his feline and atrocious bidding under the risk of being beheaded right after a single failure. How patient he was with his own thugs indeed!

That day a timid CJ learned the true value of being a darn good negotiator. Do not ask about the fates of the other three candidates for it is deemed as classified information according to the 105th resolution of the corresponding district of the Rodent Council of Maryland. Every single agent that has attempted to extract any data concerning his training mission has returned empty handed, and the pizzeria had moved to an unknown location a few months after the mysterious events took place. What a darn coincidence, don’t you agree?

Based on his neighbors’ tales, his mother welcomed him with a nice cheese cake as if it were his birthday. During this improvised celebration, a female mouse kissed him on his cheek. It has been impossible to find out if it was his own mother or grandmother or even an secret admirer. Cheesie James always refuses to make any comments while blushing whenever any friend or colleague ask him about that day.

To be continued...