All my life, I have been horrified of mice. Honestly, a snake or a crocodile, and even a tiger, do not scare me as much as one of those spine-chilling, ugly rodents. When I see a mouse, I suddenly gasp for breath. My body feels freezing cold from head to toe, as my heart skips a bit before it begins thumping in my ears like a deafening drum.
Actually, I have a chapter about my extreme fear of this small, creepy and speedy creature in my new novel, called, “Looking For Georges Bizet on Planet Heaven.”

I remember as a teenager, one morning, pushing back the cover of the breadbox in the kitchen and finding a gray mouse munching happily on a piece of bread. That scary beast stared at me with its beady eyes, as I yelled at the top of my voice and ran out of the kitchen with the swiftness of a racing car. Despite the fact that my mother had put traps in the basement, there were still a multitude of those hated creatures zooming around.

At night, in my bed, I would pull the covers over my head to protect myself against the mice in case they jumped on my bed. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would wake up to a start with the squeaking noises of the racing mice in the dark.

Then, suddenly a real miracle took place! One morning, as I walked into the sunny garden to head towards school, a black and white tuxedo cat that must have jumped over the wall, approached me and began rubbing its head against my legs.

“Mother… Mother,” I called out joyously. “Look what God has sent to our rescue.”

My mother rushed out, and covered her mouth with surprise. “I will take her right in and feed her,” she blurted out.

Well, that was it. Our god-sent us a gift… our new beloved pet. Yes, within no time she cleaned up the house from all the mice, making me the happiest girl on earth.