Still, the faint smell of fur, fish, and berries hung in the air, and she knew she would never be able to sleep soundly there. No bear was in it now, and likely one hadn’t been for a long time. And it was hollow! She hurried toward the opening.īut right away she knew this wasn’t a home for a mouse. But she was alone.Īnd then, at last, Mona spied something: an enormous tree, rising so high she couldn’t see the top of it. Is this how she would go-like her parents, swept away by a storm? If only she had a paw to clutch, or someone to tell her everything would be all right.

But wolves were wolves, and any small animal was scared of them. The wind whistled, whipped, and whirled-and brought with it the sound of howls.

She shook the droplets of water out of them, but it only helped her hear the frightful storm more clearly. Everyone else must be hidden away in their homes, Mona thought, safe from the storm. There wasn’t even a sign of another animal. If only there were a rock to burrow under, or a clump of mushrooms, or a hollow tree. She headed deeper into the forest, hopping from twig to leaf, trying to stay out of the mud. She was about to go straight when… CRACK! Lightning flashed and Mona jumped. So it was either to the left or straight ahead. She knew because she had once tried to live there. To the right was a farm, but it was very far, and it had a cat. Her paws sank into the wet ground with every step. Instantly, Mona was soaked-from nose to tail. Rain beat down on the trees of Fernwood Forest, which were just beginning to turn the colors of fall. Time to move again, she thought with a heavy sigh as, holding the handle tightly, she waded out of the stump and into the storm. It was made from a small walnut shell and had a tiny heart carved on the front. The suitcase was all she had left of her family. She watched, perched on a root in the corner, shivering and scared, as the water rushed in, swirling around her bed made of moss, lapping at her table, threatening to wash away her suitcase. Why had no other animal claimed it for its home? When she’d found the stump in the summer, with a mushroom table already in place and the stream nearby, it had seemed too good to be true. And now her latest home, an old hollow stump, was being flooded out by the storm. A dusty hay bale, an abandoned bird’s nest, a prickly thicket-in her short life she had lived in more places than she had whiskers. But Mona the mouse had never had a home-at least not for long. Home is where the heart is, or so she’d heard.

A True Home by Kallie George