Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (32): The Animal Help Era, No 1: An Introduction or The Start of a New Era in Attempted Unicorn Capture

I had already rejected the very idea of human help, course, because of the niggling feeling that that person might covet the unicorn a little too much and I would wind up with a rival.

But the offer of help from the Snake, Salazar, could well be a different matter - a new way to crack the problem, or try to.  It was John that helped me see it. 

Initially I had forgotten all about Salazar and John that was to be.  On the way home following the porridge episode I started thinking about how to I had started to think about how to follow up that plan.  I figured the porridge could still be used - the unicorn had clearly been interested; I just needed to find another way to get it to her.

A plan started to form in my mind's eye.  A more long winded one to those of norm that would take a fair bit of planning, maybe even moving into the forest.

I was brainstorming as I drove, trying to remember all the details so as I could jot it all down when I got home.  But it all fell out of my head for a few weeks when my flow was disturbed by a squeaking from the passenger seat.

I had forgotten all about the little white mouse who had acted as a taster for the unicorn.  I suppose I'd assumed he had toddled off back to his forest life.  But, of course, I hadn't seen him again because the mouse's existence had become nought to me the second I saw the unicorn.  Yet there he was, looking up at me from the passenger seat with perfect little black spherical eyes.

After pulling into my drive, I picked up the mouse and attempted to release him into the wild of my front garden.  Instead he followed me into my house and became a lodger, becoming attached to me, determined to help me in my quest.  I named him John, after my favourite literary mouse; though I was never sure of gender, to be honest - I should have guessed much earlier than I did.

John began living on my kitchen table.  I would have bought him a cage but he never seemed to leave the table.  Certainly nothing was ever nibbled at or anything and he made no mess or smell.  He was the perfect guest, quite content to simply nibble on some cheese each night and sleep in the ash tray some arse had brought back from somewhere for me for no apparent reason.

After a couple of days John started to become irritable with me, continually tugging on my sleeve with his tiny teeth and running to my 'paper.

I would spread it out on the table, slowly turning the pages while John would watch and wait.  When a picture of an animal featured he would quickly dash to it, standing on it and jump up and down and stand on his haunches, looking at me as if waiting for something.

It took me far too long to work it out.  I never was particularly fast.  I twigged when he first jumped on a photo of a colourful snake not too unlike Salazar.  I folded the newspaper so that you could see the snake and put it aside out of curiosity before embarking on some unicorn research.  Pretty soon John was going spare, jumping on a hopelessly inaccurate picture of a unicorn like he was possessed.  And then he ran back and forth again and again between the unicorn and the snake until my brain finally gave way and a tiny light bulb flickered and glowed a little.

And that is how (and when) John the Mouse became my guide to the animals in the forest in the era of animal help.