Momma looks over and Me and Jacob and says in a happy voice like she ain’t just been arguing at Daddy. “Well, what you two want for dinner? You want some spaghetti?” It ain’t dark enough for dinner yet but me and Jacob hop right up for spaghetti is our favorite meal and maybe Momma will let us watch something on the TV while we eat as she’s more likely to do that whenever Daddy storms off.

We had us our spaghetti and Momma did let us watch a little TV until she said that the brain rot was setting in and shut it off right in the middle of my favorite show. “Awwwwww” Jacob and I both say and Momma cuts us off “why don’t you all get on outside? Get you some exercise after staring at that evil blinking box” and we is both groaning, but now I’m only groaning because Jacob is groaning and I try to groan louder then him but nobody can out groan Jacob. Momma shoos us both out the back door and we stand there on the stoop, still in a trance from watching TV and there ain’t nothing more we want to do than stare at the TV and we hate it outside right now.

We both sit on the stoop and after a little bit Jacob stands up and looks through the back window. “Hey!? She got the TV back on!” And I stand up too but I’m not tall enough to look so I hop up and down and I see she do have it on. Jacob knocks on the window and is riled up. Momma comes to the door and opens it and says “you all get to playing out here! Get to running around or some such!” And Jacob says “you got the TV on! Why you get to watch the TV and we ain’t get to watch the TV?!” And I chime in “yeah! How come!?” And we is all indignant and Momma says because she can do whatever she wants and is the one who pays the bills around here and Jacob, he was listenin’ to Momma and Daddy argue more than they thought he was and says “no you ain’t! You ain’t even got a job! Daddy pays the bills!” and Momma gets a stony look on her face and says now we gotta stay out here for double the time and she closes the door and locks it.

Jacob looks back through the window but she closes the curtains so we can't see inside no more. “Why’d you say that?” I say “Now we’s in trouble and can't never watch TV again” and I start to cry and Jacob says to shut up crybaby and I hate him and he hates me. I cross my arms and sit on the stoop and look away and Jacob walks to the end of our small backyard right to the blackberry bushes, but they is all brown and thorny instead of green and with berries although I guess they always have the thorns only you don’t notice it so much when they’s berries to eat off em’.

I’m already forgetting why I’m looking away from Jacob but I know I’m supposed to be mad at something so I keep looking away and I hear him doing something and I look over quick and it looks interesting but I look back before he can see me take a peep at what he’s doing. I hear him over there whispering to himself and he says “wow!” And I look all the way around now and he’s got a stick and is doin’ something over there and I’m powerful curious and I forget all the way that I’m mad and I say “what you all got over there?” And he looks over at me and says “just never you mind” and goes back to doing it and that does it.

I need to see.

I ease up and walk slow to where he is and he notices me and hides what he’s doing on purpose and I say “what all you got there? You have to play with me because Momma says and I’ll tell her you ain’t playing with me like she said you had to” and Jacob says “she ain’t said I had to play with you and you can go sit on that porch until the sun goes down for all I care” and I get mad again and I’m going to tell Momma and Jacob is going to get into big trouble and that will make me feel better because Jacob deserves it.

I start to walk toward the house and Jacob says “what you doing?” And I say “I’m tellin’” and Jacob heaves a big sigh and stands there, considering, then says “fine. But hurry up about it and I probably saved you from getting' a swat for Momma hates a tattletale” and I scramble on over to where Jacob is and he says “look here” and is pointing with a stick but I ain’t see what he’s pointing at and he says “here! Through this hole, Dummy.” and I see he’s pointing at a small hole in the board fence and I look through and on the other side of the fence what is the alleyway which is always spooky and dark and they’s broken glass all around so I know it’s dangerous. There’s something small and fuzzy like a ball of dryer lint and I say “what’s that? Like some kind of a fuzz ball or something?” And I ain’t so impressed even though I’m happy Jacob wanted to show it to me “no, lookit’ closer, it's a mouse, I think. I think it’s dead.”

I look again and I see a little snoot and there is a tail curled around its hindquarters and then I get sad for I ain’t want nothing to die and Jacob says “let’s poke at it! See if it moves!” And he does but it ain’t move none and that makes me sadder and I say “we can't poke at it, that there mouse ain’t done nothing to nobody what it needs to be killed or poked at” and Jacob says I’m being a baby but I can tell Jacob is trying to act tough and he’s sad too.

“What all are we going to do with it?” I say and Jacob says we should get it and maybe hide it in Daddy’s pants pocket or something but he only says it half-heartedly and we is both quiet and until Jacob pipes up “I know! We can give it a proper decent burial” and I say that’s just what we need to do and we need to forever mark its passing and we’s both looking at the mouse and wondering how we’re going to get to that alleyway since our fence ain’t open at all and the only way back there is through the house and Momma ain’t going to answer the door for she put us out here so she can watch the TV in peace. We is looking all around the yard and they’s some things we can lean against the fence to maybe climb it but they’s just rotted boards mostly and not enough to carry our weight.

I say maybe we can bring it through the hole and Jacob ponders some and I see he gets an idea. “You got any threads comin’ off you at all?” And I ain’t sure what he means by threads. “Threads, threads, like comin’ out your pockets or whatnot. Check your socks.” And he’s checking his socks and I’m checking my pants and clothes and Jacob has a thread coming off his sock and he’s pulling it and it gets longer and that’s a fine idea. I find a thread comin’ off my pocket and I pull that and now we’s got a little thread and we winds them together and now we got to find a way to get that mouse through the hole and this here is Jacob’s idea so I wait for him to say something.

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He’s pondering I can tell and he says “now we need something what all we can attach to the string to snag ahold of that mouse, hmm hm. Get on the lookout in this yard for something that looks like a ‘C’” and I say I ain’t know what a “see” looks like and he says “yes you do, like this” and he traces a half circle in the air and I say “oh! Like that! I seen that before” and he says “that’s good, Gabe, learnin’ real good. Now get on all over this place and start lookin’ for one.” And Jacob is lookin’ all around too and I find a stick that looks kind of like a C and I bring it straight to him and he says that’s good, but not strong enough and it got to fit in the hole sideways and he holds out his fingers “like about this here” and its about two inches and I say “ok!” And I get to looking everywhere for I want to find it first and there ain’t much back here in a “c” shape and that strikes me as odd since I ain’t never looked for a certain shape before and I wonder if it’s always this hard to find things you’re looking for.

Jacob chimes up “found one!” And I head over, happy he found what it was he was looking for but not happy that I ain’t found it first. He’s holding up a bent nail and it sure looks like a c to me. “Now we put in on here like this” and Jacob ties both ends of our string to both ends of the c. “We’ll get it in this here hole and we’ll drag him on over and right through on to this side” and now I see what he’s talking about and Jacob is probably the smartest person I know and we’s going to save this dead mouse from being all stomped on or maybe eaten by some mean animal.

Jacob gives it a toss through the hole and I hear the clang of the nail on the other side of the boards and he swears under his breath like Daddy does when he doin’ something what requires fiddling “damn all” and I look all around to make sure nobody heard him and Jacob looks up quick too in case I spotted someone what was going to get him in trouble but there ain’t nobody about so he goes at it again and he pulls the nail back through the hole and gives it another toss and there’s another clink sound from the alleyway and he sticks out his tongue and is pulling the strings careful like maybe he got it and I’m excited “you get him?! You get him?!” And Jacob loses his concentration and he looks askance at me “I almost done got him until you squawked in my ear” and I cover my mouth with my hand and he gives me the evil squint eyes and goes back for another try.

I think he done missed all the way this time for he sighs and says it can't never be done and that mouse is going to come to an even worse end then it already come to. Even though it’s already dead something evil is going to come along and turn it into a mouse zombie just like the people zombies on TV and it’ll forever walk the earth and won’t get no rest. “Let me give it a try, Jacob. I ain’t want no zombie mouse walkin’ the earth forever, trying to eat brains but being too short to reach em’. He already been through enough.” Jacob shrugs and hands me the string and nail “give ‘er a shot then, but I expect there ain’t nobody on this world that can do it, even if they had a thousand chances.”

I take a deep breath since I know now that it’s all up to me. I heft the nail on the string to get the weight of it and give it a few swings, then I get down on my knees and look through the hole again. The mouse is only about a foot away from the fence and I think all I need to do is throw it past the mouse and drag on both ends real slow until it catches him but I have to pull them both ends just so and at the same time.

I hold on to the ends of the string with one hand and the curled nail in the other and I give her a straight toss and the nail shoots past the mouse and onto the other side of it and it’s in a goodly spot enough and I start to pull the string slow as I can, but Jacob says “watch out!” And there's a car coming down the alleyway now and I ain’t sure if what we’re doing is something that can get us in trouble but I ain’t sure of the rules too good since sometimes I think I’m doing an ok thing, then Momma or Daddy say it ain’t ok and I get punished like what Momma just done when she made us stay outside longer for looking in the window at her watching TV.

Jacob and I both get down fast even though the car can't see us even if it stopped right next to the hole, but it seemed like we should get down anyway. The car passes and I still have the string in my hand and Jacob and I both give a sigh of relief like we just escaped something and I look through the hole and the nail is still there ok and I keep at it. Slow I go and the nail is cradling the mouse now and I get excited. Jacob sees my excitement and says “you got it?!” and he’s crowding the hole but we both can't look out at the same time and I nod but I can't get distracted now so I take a slow breath and keep pulling and the mouse is coming along and pretty soon, it’s all the way up to the fence. “Got ‘er to the fence! How we get it in now?” I ask and Jacob says we have to stab it and haul it in, like a fish.

My eyes get wide “I ain’t stabbin’ no mouse! We is trying to take care of this mouse and not put a hole in it! It wouldn’t be right!” But Jacob says sadly that it’s the only way and that we can say sorry to the mouse after we do it if it would make me feel better. Jacob says “tell you what. You get to digging a hole over somewhere away from here and I’ll do the dirty work so you ain’t have to see it” and I nod resignedly and wished we could go through the house and into the alleyway and just pick it up but Momma is still guardin’ the place. I walk as far away from Jacob as I can and I start talking to myself so I don’t have to hear the stab but I hear it anyway and I picture the poor mouse on the end of a stick like a piece of barbecue meat and its tail is probably swinging like a dead string.

I cover my ears so I don’t have to hear no more and I feel a touch on my shoulder and it’s Jacob. “It’s done now and it ain’t so bad and you dug a good hole and he’ll feel mighty safe in there I expect.” Jacob leads me to the mouse and there’s a hole in it and I see the red inside and Jacob is right and it ain’t as bad as all that.

We both apologize to the mouse and Jacob picks it up by the tail and we both walk it slow to the hole. He sets it in and asks me if I want to say anything over the grave and I say “I sure am sorry that you died in the alley and I hope it was a car what hit you and killed you fast and not some kind of something that killed you slow and we’re going to think about you all the time and you’re safe in there now.” Jacob nods solemnly and we both fill in the hole together, piling in the dirt with our hands and we tamp it down level with our feet and put a stick to mark it.