Snuze

By E. Rutherford

Snuze is a house mouse that loses his family and decides to emigrate and to live as a garden mouse instead. This story covers who he meets and his adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481796651

E. Rutherford

E. Rutherford was born and raised in the Channel Island of Guernsey where these books are set. With such a marvelous place to live, she had a wonderful childhood and loads of experiences: doing well at primary school and later gaining a place at the Girls Grammar School on the island; learning to help others; working while still at school with the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade; pitch a tent, find and cook food with the Guide and Scout movement; and learning some Judo in her spare time! Whilst with the Grammar School, she joined the Boys Grammar School sailing club, learning to sail dinghies and small catamarans, row a dinghy, fish, and generally look after a boat and gaining a great respect for the sea. Family outings were often in her father’s yacht, Jabberwock. I think this indicates where the love of books and reading came from (C. S. Lewis’s Alice in Wonderland). Leaving the island to pursue a career at 17yrs (there were not many opportunities on the islands at that time). Met and married for the first time, marrying twice in all, up to date! For many years after, the children grown, she was running her own business, mainly office work, as an adjunct to the family business of estate agency. Now with four children, ten grandchildren, and one great grandchild, she has had loads of opportunities to both read and make up stories, over the years of their upbringing. E. Rutherford is now retired and lives alone with two big cats, Caesar and Cleopatra (Maine Coon and Turkish Fan cross), and two small (micro) cats, Jasper and Muffin, in Poole in Dorset, with an inbred love of the sea—where else? She keeps a close connection with her family. Steam trains, reading, classical music, and photography are the main interests. And writing stories for children!

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© 2013 E. Rutherford. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/23/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-9664-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-9665-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

THE START of THE ADVENTURE

THE OUTSIDE

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

GOING TO THE MOUSE GATHERING.

PARTY TIME

TWILIGHT ADVENTURE

GETTING TO KNOW CONNIE’S FAMILY

A NEW HOME AND A NEW JOB

THE MICE BABY RESCUE

THE RESCUE PLAN

SNUZE

Eve Rutherford 2004 Rewritten 2012

THE START of THE ADVENTURE

Aristotle Rumbletummy, (Snuze) woke, where was everyone? Where was his nightfast? Why was it so quiet?

He shook his head to clear the sleep away and finding his feet, stumbled towards the central area where he knew he would find his family.

Yesterday evening when he should have been awake, he had fallen asleep and his parents had decided to leave him whilst they joined the party goers in the central clear area where several things were stored, (but they did not actually know what they were.) But if they kept to the central clear area, they had plenty of room to dance and jig about. Snuze had a habit of falling asleep at odd times, hence his pet name. So his family were not worried about him.

The mice families had decided to have a party because they had found some brightly coloured food to eat.

The area where they gathered was called The Understairs Cupboard, where they all lived and unlike the other inhabitants in the house, they slept all day and were awake all night. They had had the whole house to themselves until a short while ago.

Snuze stumbled towards the big room which is what they called it, and tripped over something, rubbing his eyes, he realised that he had tripped over someone lying down, and as he looked round he saw that all the mice were lying down, all his family and all the other families and all his friends. As he tripped, he automatically said ‘sorry’ but the body he had tripped over did not move. He explored a bit and to his dismay discovered that all of them were not just asleep but dead !!

He sat down and cried.

Unbenownst to him the Umanbeans, who had returned to live there recently, had been unhappy with all the noise emanating from the USC (or UnderStairs Cupboard) when they were trying to sleep. The back wall of the USC was the same wall that backed onto the Umanbeans bedroom which in this little fisherman’s cottage was downstairs.

The mice had taken no notice of this fact and had carried on as they had always done, but the Umanbeans had had other ideas, when they had realised that the cottage was infested with mice.

Trying to get rid of these pesky mice Richard and Hilary Umanbean had set traps with cheese, but the mice squatters, had scoffed and not even been tempted. They had heard all about these traps and it was part of their history that had been passed down from one generation to another. They avoided the traps.

The Rumbletummies were just one of the mice families, named because, well their tummies rumbled a lot. The Floppyhats were another family, so named because they all had one ear which folded across one of their eyes, giving them a look of wearing a peaked cap. The Wrigglebums well you know how they got their name. And finally the Breadcrumbs, because they loved to eat bread, and were