ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

It’s been two days and no Pippin. We couldn’t coax him out of the couch anytime Friday night, and at any rate the storm of biblical proportions probably scared him enough that he didn’t want anything to do with us. So after crying about it and having stress dreams about scrabbling little rats all night, I got up in the morning Saturday and looked for him. The food I’d left out hadn’t even been touched, and worse yet, the other rat Holly was moping about, visibly depressed by his absence. Later my boyfriend came by and helped us tip the couch on one end. We patted it down and listened intently for rodent scrabblings and looked for anyplace where he might have chewed out, but it was all to no avail. As far as we can tell he’s not in the couch. As far as we can tell he’s nowhere else, either, though. I’m totally lost as to where he could be.

Last night was my roommate’s birthday party, so I was hoping that while we were all out and our house was dark and silent he would venture out and become trapped in the humane rat trap I bought at Lowe’s yesterday afternoon. No dice. The next morning the trap was still empty. Tonight I put it down in the basement just in case he got down there somehow and can’t get back, but I’m starting to lose hope. Nothing I’ve left out for him has been touched, so as far as I can tell he hasn’t had any water or food for about two days now. I know it’s not entirely my fault that he just bolted and leaped out of nowhere into the couch, but I feel responsible anyway. I think I have to face the fact that we may not be able to find him in time. By “in time” I mean, before he dies and stinks up the inside of our brand new couch with dead rat smell. I want to scream and die at the same time, just thinking of it.

Even worse was the fact that the other rat was so depressed. By this afternoon she had taken to lying upside down, looking half-dead, slumped against one corner of the cage in a stupor of misery. Wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t run. Wouldn’t respond to treats. So this afternoon I went and got another rat at PetSmart. I talked briefly to the girl there and explained the situation and that I needed a very gentle and friendly rat to save my remaining rat from a fatal case of Where the Red Fern Grows. So that’s how we got Jenny. I knew she was our rat right away, since she was the only one in the whole cage who walked up, nuzzled and sniffed my cupped hand, and climbed into it. What a doll. She is a couple of months older than Pippin and Holly, so she is much larger. But she is very gentle and affectionate. If Pippin comes back after all, I think they will make an okay trio because of how nice she is. I left the cage on the floor next to the couch in the hopes that he will hear or smell them and make his way back home. I also tipped over the box I brought Jenny home in, trying to create as many rat-smell checkpoints as possible in the living room so that he will have a big beacon to zero in on. I left food and water on top of the couch and beside the cage on the floor as well. I hope he isn’t in the ducts. Or stuck somewhere inside the couch. I could barely sleep last night again for thinking about it. I kept dreaming about different awful scenarios that could have befallen him.

With Jenny here, Holly has perked up a lot, which makes me feel a little bit better. Instead of languishing about, she clambers all over Jenny and grooms her and kisses her and sniffs her and climbs on her and nibbles on her tail. Jenny seems a little exasperated, although she is tolerating things well and even let Holly “win” a wrestling match even though she is a much larger rat. It is interesting to see a medium sized rat let a very small rat pin her to the ground as she pretends to struggle in vain. I think this is further evidence of what a nice rat she is. I gave them some broccoli and they seemed to like it a lot.

I just keep hoping against hope that Pippin is still alive and that we’ll find him in time. I don’t know how this could happen at this point, since there is absolutely no sign of him except some tiny round stains under the cushions that I think might be little rat pee stains. I can’t tell how recent they are. But rats are survivors, maybe even domestic rats, right? It is in their genetics, everyone says so.