Our family lived in a small country shop and Post Office and there was always a niggling fear at the back of my mind that one day we would be robbed. Was this the day? 

    I lay there in the blackness wondering what to do. Susan, my wife, was still fast asleep. Our bedroom adjoins the Post Office room and the noise seemed to be coming from that direction. The bed creaked as I placed my feet on the floor… the noise stopped. Surely, they couldn’t have heard me through the wall. Moving silently out of the bedroom, I turned left, paused outside the Post Office, and put my ear to the door. The sound of my heart slamming against my ribcage increased as I held my breath. I waited in the darkness for several minutes… nothing. I plucked up courage, foolishly flung open the door and immediately switched on the light… nothing. The office was cold, still and silent.

    Relieved, yet annoyed at being awakened, I returned to bed and tried to go back to sleep but my ears were straining in the darkness. Every little rustle of the trees outside had somehow become louder. Even the distant burbling of the refrigerator in the kitchen across the passageway had increased in volume. Eventually, I guess maybe an hour later I fell asleep.

    The next time, the noise brought me around instantly. It was loud and definitely in the room. It sounded like a coarse, metallic file being drawn along the edge of a piece of polystyrene and the instant my feet touched the floor it stopped. I waited, perched on the edge of the bed in the silence, the figures on the clock casting an eerie green light across the bed. It showed 5.10 am and I had to be up at 6 am to mark up the newspapers, so there wasn’t much point in trying to go back to sleep. I would only spend the remaining time on full alert... holding my breath and listening.

    The bedside light threw a soft yellow pool on Susan as I switched it on and went to the bathroom. A quick, nervous, glance around the room revealed nothing, absolutely anything. Cursing the interruptions under my breath, I showered and shaved. I had a fifteen hour day ahead of me and did not feel in the least bit refreshed and ready. Walking back into the bedroom to dress, I glanced at Susan sleeping peacefully, and then it happened.

    As I entered the room, a small grey-brown flash of fur raced across the floor, over my naked foot and shot under the bed! It had almost moved faster than my eye could see, not only had I seen it, I had felt it! There was a mouse in the house! A quick search of the floor area showed nothing, except a series of small holes where central heating pipes passed through the walls. He could be anywhere. Susan was still sleeping. She slept with earplugs so my early starts wouldn’t disturb her. 

    Several nights followed, interrupted by periods of scratching, he was gradually wearing me down. Simon, our ten year old and a Lego master technician, said he would build a trap and catch the mouse alive. We didn’t want the creature to be maimed by a spring-trap or poisoned and left to die in some dark corner.

  The first trap was simple enough. It was a small plastic bucket about eight inches in diameter by six inches deep. Simon had constructed a flat roof with a pivoting trap door. The bait would lure the mouse on to the trap door and it would fall through into the bucket. We laid a ramp from the floor to the top of the bucket and sprinkled biscuit crumbs up to the trap door and placed it against the bedroom wall where we had searched and found droppings. That night we slept through without a sound.

   Next morning the three of us gathered round the trap in amazement. Not a sign of a crumb... or a mouse, anywhere. How had he done it? 

Mouse one, humans nil.

The mark two version was a complete change of design. It was a long narrow box made of Lego, with a short ramp inside. The downside of the ramp was at the entrance. The up side had a little loose plate that was connected by a series of rods and swivelling pivots back to a vertical drop-door. The slightest prod of a pencil, at the top end of the ramp, immediately closed the door with a satisfying clunk.  

    We baited the trap with cheese and chocolate, placed a couple of crumbs at the entrance and again retired to a peaceful nights sleep.

    Next morning, as before, we studied the trap. The door was still open and every last morsel had gone!

  Mouse two, humans nil.

I had a vision of Freddie (yes, we had now given him a name), under the bath, punching the air with a triumphant claw shouting “Yes!!”

    This was beginning to get to me. We are the superior species. We have revolutionised communication and information technology. We have man on the moon and a spectacular robot-probe on Jupiter. Our scientists are mapping the entire genetic content of the human body and yet we couldn’t catch a mouse. It was getting personal.

In the interests of expediency, I’ll skip traps three, four and five.

Mouse five, humans nil.

The secret had to be in using Freddie’s weight. Yet, he clearly weighed so little. The answer came to me one morning about 4 am (whilst I was listening to him scratching). If we used a long seesaw, no matter how little he weighed, and providing it was perfectly balanced, he had to tip it. Euricha! Archimedes would ride to the rescue. 

    Simon built the trap. The complex pivot arrangements were replaced with a simple piece of cotton tied to the up side of the long see-saw, then back to a pin which held the drop-door open. We tested it several times using the lightest of materials. The seesaw tilted and the door dropped closed every time, this had to be the one. The trap was baited and positioned.

    We didn’t need to wait until next morning. The click of the little door dropping was followed by an almighty scratching, scuffling and squeaking! It was even loud enough to wake Susan! I put the light on, we had got him. The humans had finally triumphed. Or had we? The roof of the trap was jerking rapidly; the door was flirting up and down. Susan flew out of the room and returned immediately with a large cool-box. Simon was leaping around cheering. The mouse and trap were placed inside the cool box and the lid firmly closed all at high-speed.

    Next morning, complete with camera, Simon and I took the cool-box and drove about a mile away for a grand releasing ceremony. We pulled up at the edge of a dirt track, which was closed off by a large wooden, five-bar gate. Opening the cool-box, I placed the trap on the ground. Simon stood there camera poised. Humming ‘Born Free’ under my breath, I slowly opened the door of the trap... nothing. I turned round, searching for a stick or something to prod it with when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a blur of movement. But it was so fast I couldn’t be sure. Simon reacted quickly and fired off a couple of shots from his camera. The trap was empty Freddie had escaped! By the time we had got home, we had convinced ourselves that we had seen the mouse run away. 

    A few days later I went to pick up the photographs. They were good, clear pictures... of the cool-box, my feet... and the empty Lego trap, nothing else. 

    I have a vision of Freddie trudging along the country lanes, maybe hitching a lift on a passing tractor. Or perhaps he’s still here... under our bath, sharpening his claws... biding his time…

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