Lulu at The Louvre

By Melody Kelly

Embark on an enchanting adventure alongside Lulu, a British house mouse, in Lulu at The Louvre by Melody Kelly.

Lulu's curiosity sets her apart from her fellow mice, as she yearns to explore far beyond her cozy attic home. A twist of fate finds her awakening in an entirely unfamiliar place-th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daisy Field Press
• Release date: Nov 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988530916

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lulu was a British house mouse. She had lived in The Manor House on Pound Lane in the village of Isleham her whole young life. This was an ideal existence for her family who apparently had not an ounce of adventure in their tiny mouse hearts. For Lulu, however, this was dreadful. She longed to explore the fields of bright red poppies she could see swaying in the breeze just beyond the kitchen window. She yearned to see the world that Miss watched every evening on the television.

While her brothers and sisters scurried around searching for crumbs and eating holes in various household objects, Lulu waited patiently for adventure to find her. Nearly every day, she would climb up to the attic to explore the mysterious objects stored there. She would crawl over the statues, stand on the candlesticks, and peer into the paintings. After an hour or more of this pleasant past time, she would seek the shelter of a large trunk. Of course, it was no regular trunk. It was her special hideaway, a place where she could be all alone to dream.

The trunk was very large, made entirely of worn, brown leather. The outside was covered in labels and stickers from all over the world. The top of the trunk was sealed shut and locked. Lulu always crawled inside by way of a small hole located at the bottom of the right side of the trunk. Her special hole was located just beside a small label that featured a picture of the Sphinx and some words in a language she could not understand. Lulu was an English house mouse. She only read in English.

Inside the trunk were layers of fabric scraps as well as a beautiful blue and white quilt worn soft and silky over time. Buried under all of the soft fabric was a painting. It was the most beautiful thing Lulu had ever seen. There was only a small amount of light that pooled through the hole in which she entered the trunk. Because of the position of the painting under all the layers of fabric, the light shone softly on only one small corner of the picture. The rest was left in darkness. But what she saw made Lulu’s heart soar.

There were beautiful red flowers swaying in a green field. They made her think of the field outside the kitchen window. The painting had a watery look to it, making the images hazy and dreamy, qualities that Lulu liked tremendously. Always, after staring at the painting, she would snuggle into the soft quilt and nap away the afternoon.

Chapter 2

Today Lulu was especially tired. Her parents had woken her early to tell her that Miss had died in the night. Lulu did not know the old woman very well, of course. Although her family had always lived in The Manor House, mice and people were not friends. Lulu sometimes watched the television with Miss, but she was always tucked safely away so as not to be seen. Lulu knew that most humans responded to the sight of a mouse with quite a bit of screaming and running. She did not want that.

Miss was very old. She had never married and always lived in The Manor House alone since the time of her parents’ deaths. No one ever came to visit except the postman and the milk man. It always seemed to Lulu that no one really cared about Miss at all. In fact, that is precisely why she did not know her name. She had never heard anyone call her anything other than Miss.

Lulu’s parents were very disturbed by the news, not out of any deep feeling for Miss, but rather out of fear that the crumbs of food they relied on for their meals would now disappear. Of course, they assured her and all of her brothers and sisters that the house would probably be sold to new owners who would drop even more crumbs than Miss. This seemed to soothe them all.

Lulu climbed to the attic much earlier than usual seeking a rest from her family. Though she loved them dearly, they were difficult to be around all the time. They did not understand Lulu’s love of human objects or her habit of daydreaming in the attic. There was no food in the attic. Thus, the mouse family saw no reason to ever go there. Lulu was something of a disappointment to her parents and a source of amusement for her siblings. That was one of the many reasons that the solitary trunk was such a source of comfort to her.

She quickly fell asleep, dreaming of the beautiful painting, snuggled deep into the folds of the quilt. Several hours later she was jostled awake by the movement of the trunk in which she slept.

Oh dear, oh dear. What is happening? Lulu exclaimed softly, frightened by the movement, and still dazed from sleep. She crawled carefully through the layers of the quilt trying to get to the hole so that she could slip out of the trunk. The trunk swayed this way and that, causing her to stumble and lose her grip on the quilt. When she finally found the place where the edge of the painting met the edge of the quilt, she peered out into the hole in stunned amazement. The trunk was obviously several feet off the ground. Rather than the dirty rug that used to sit under the trunk, Lulu saw moving floorboards. Stunned by what she saw, she lost her grip on the quilt again and was tossed up in the air by the movement of the trunk as it apparently descended the staircase. She had a brief glimpse