| Sarah – The Little Rat Princess |
Oct. 30th, 2009|03:53 am |
Hi! I’m going to tell you a story. A story my grandmother told me, when I was little, but I didn’t like it then. It wasn’t colorful or shiny or romantic or glorious… It was grey and true just like our life was. What was there to like? But I do like it now. Not that my life has changed a lot.
At first I would like to introduce myself: my name is Ben and I’m a rat. Oh! I hope it doesn’t disgust you, because humans don’t like us much. It kills me sometimes, how people treat rats. It literally KILLS ME! And I want to warn you – I’m not a good story teller. My granny was though, but I’ll try as well as I can.
So much about me, let’s go back to the story…
It happened some time ago… for me, but probably just a decade for you. Sorry – I don’t fully understand human time system. Well, never mind when it happened – the only thing that matters is that it did happen. There was that rat called Sarah. But she wasn’t a street rat like me, she was a pet rat, you know – the ones you humans put into cages and feed a lot. Oh, I don’t judge you, some of those rats are really happy. Some… Well Sarah was. She was very happy. Her owner was a bit imaginative, romantic and absolutely sincere girl. Sarah was treated like a princess. Not only treated but even named after a princess. Have you read “A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett? If you haven’t you totally should! I mean – it’s a really good book, even I’ve read it! Okay, I won’t lie to you – I listened from a basement one mother read it to her daughter. But I’m talking about me again, excuse me.
Sarah knew she was a princess, because she was usually called ‘my little princess’, who wouldn’t understand that?! But as you and me know life isn’t fair and very little resembles cake eating. It was the same for little Sarah, but she didn’t know that. Yet.
At all happened in one bright summer morning, Sarah was out playing with her mistress. She loved the girl too much to run away, so she was often out in a fresh air. At first they played in a yard, but something sprang to the girl’s mind.. Oh, you know, I don’t get it – you people have all those stupid ideas in the wrong time, it kills me! Nobody knows – what she was thinking at the time, but the girl just ran on a street..
A car hit her. It was a hit and run accident. A lot of people came down to the scene. Some of them shouted, some cried, some called the police. Ambulance arrived. And Sarah sat there. She sat there for two days. The girl died in hospital. She never came back and nobody else went looking for the rat.
Naturally – Sarah got ravishingly hungry. She had no idea were to get food so she went off just wandering al around the town. At first she tried to communicate to you – people. But you remember what I told you about human treatment of rats – it sucks! Oops, sorry, not the best word to use in a children story.. She was hit and ran after. Sarah hadn’t been so afraid, cold and hungry before! And soon enough she became hopeless…
She was found unconscious by an old street rat, who brought her into our world. In a weeks time Sarah was back on her paws. She was very grateful to her rescuer and she didn’t leave. She stayed to help the old rat, whose name was Frieda. Frieda taught Sarah how to find food and home and treat other rats, other animals and humans. But Sarah didn’t believe her, when Frieda said that world is cruel, that she has to be careful. Sarah was nice to everybody. She made a lot of friends… and enemies… We rats are pretty much like you people that way – we can envy and hate each over, we can sacrifice ourselves to save our loved ones. Sarah brought hope and sunshine into our gloomy existence, she made taught us smile and laugh. The funny part is she was called ‘a princess’ among us. It pleased her, but she never got proud. She just was as she was. Which is the simplest rule of a happy life – just be who you are! So simple, so easy to remember and equally easy to forget…
There were some rats, who laughed at her.
- Where is your crown, lil’ princess, huh? – They shouted after her. She kept being nice to them too, which irritated them even more. And you can’t imagine what they did. I’m ashamed to tell it, but I have to. You know how it feels when somebody punches you into the most painful place or speaks aloud about the silent secret of your heart? Sarah learned that too. She was told – that the girl survived and was looking for her and crying her eyes out. Without any second thoughts Sarah said farewell to all her friends and went looking for a girl. But she didn’t know, where she was, rats where moving from time to time when people discovered them and asked for help of rat poison.
Sarah was crisscrossing the town for a week. Some friends of hers came for her, asked her to return, but she wouldn’t listen. Her paws were bloody, her stomach – empty, her eyes swollen, but she kept meandering street after street, garden after garden, house after house. She died of exhaustion and undernourishment. She died worrying about the girl.
- She is my little princess. And my little princess needs me. – Was all she kept on babbling.
I don’t know the moral of this story or even whether it has one. But I absolutely adore such a strong friendship between two so different beings. And I would like to tell you – that they met somewhere in heaven, but we rats don’t believe in God. Oops, another bad thing to tell kids. To my own children I say – they met in another life… But you should be realistic, you’re human you know!
I gotta go now… Bye! |
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