Tom and Jerry The Thrill of the Chase

**Episode 1**

'Thomas, stop pining!' Mammy said as she gently stroked my back.

The dim lights in the kitchen reflected off her dark legs as I rested on her lap. I knew she was going to turn in soon and I'd have no-one else for company. The repetitive dripping of the tap had kept me awake the last few nights and I was sure it would again.

'I know I shouldn't. I'm just getting so frustrated,' I look up at her with sad eyes. 'I wait outside his door almost every day but he's always in a hurry and runs straight past without noticing me. Last week he muttered something about dashing out for a bite to eat so I suggested I eat with him, but he runs a mile everytime.'

'Perhaps he's just shy Tom.'

'I just don't think he's interested, Mammy, I'm getting so tired of trying to catch him on a good day, I used to love the thrill of the chase but this is different. He teases me, I get a flash of him and then he's gone.'

'His rent's late again, if he keeps it up he won't be here much longer,' Mammy spoke loudly in case he was listening, 'and he's eating us out of house and home.'

'Oh please don't say that Mammy, I know he's a nuisance to you, but knowing he's just behind that wall really does comfort me. I only wish he'd show his face a bit more … be a bit more sociable. Then maybe I'd be in with more of a chance.'

I didn't choose to add that sometimes I sat the other side of the wall and listened to the sound of his VCR and pretended that we were sitting together watching the Jetsons with his head resting on my shoulder. Nor did I tell her that I often cooked up macaroni cheese purely because I knew it was his favourite and I'd do my best to waft the scent towards his door. When he first moved in I was careful not to step on his tail, I gave him time to settle in and then I expected that we'd get to know each other better, but it always seemed like he was avoiding me.

'Maybe he doesn't like boys,' she said as if she was breaking some horrible news to me.

'I've seen him bring boys back to the house; I'm usually awake when he gets in from a night out.' It breaks my heart.

Mammy looked down at me. I could tell what she was thinking.

'You need to forget about him, Thomas! It's not healthy. When was the last time _you _left the house?'

'But, Mammy, I love him!'

She dismissed me and asked again, 'when was the last time you left the house, Tom?'

'I went fishing a couple of weeks ago,' I said shamefully. It had actually been two months ago.

'Oh come on Tom!' Mammy shook me a little and then put me down. She brushed the hairs off her white apron and stood up. 'I'm going up to bed,' she said as her brown feet padded across the kitchen floor in her battered blue slippers and then I heard her ascend the stairs. _Thud, thud, thud._

I was all alone. I tried to get comfortable on the sofa but I couldn't find a good spot to lay, the cushions smelled of _him_. I closed my eyes and tried to picture other things but it didn't work and against my will I was gazing into his generously lashed eyes. I was stirred by a rustling sound and immediately turned towards his room. My heart skipped a beat as a note slid from beneath the door. I nervously padded my way across the floor hoping he wouldn't hear the desperation in my footsteps. I sat on the floor to seem less intimidating, should he open the door and see me and then I unfolded the note. Excitement and possibilities rushed through my body as I read it…

Dear Tom,

Please leave me alone.

Jerry

**Episode 2**

We stood side by side in a large kitchen, it looked unused and nothing was positioned as if it had been given practical thought. A large table and chairs cluttered the path through the abandoned room. TC was the alpha male and he looked the part. His ginger hair was swept behind his ears like a thick mane and his dark eyes and long nose simply served to add another stroke of masculinity to his large round head.

'Come on Tom, it's time to pull your socks up.' He put a hand on my shoulder.

'I know I'm sorry. I can do it, I can do it.'

'You've got to be ruthless, we've got targets to reach,' It felt like he tightened his grip on my shoulder really tight but I think it was just the weight of his large hand on top of my bony limb. I winced.

'Ruthless, ruthless…' I repeated, nodding.

I looked around the house as if assessing it. There was clutter everywhere, it would have been impossible as a functioning home.

'Tom, the council sent us out here, we've got a job to do.' He picked up a spray can.

'We're overworked TC,' I stretched out my arms in front of me. They looked flea bitten; it was probably the nature of the job.

'All you have to do is search them out, Tom, I'll do the rest. Come on; then I'll fix us something to eat.'

I stepped forward and meandered around the chair legs wrinkling my nose to indicate I was thinking.

'What's for lunch?'

'Tuna sandwiches,' TC exhaled.

'That's what I can smell. Perhaps we should eat them now so they're not such a distraction.'

'Tom, we really need to get this done! The spray takes at least twenty-four hours to dissipate.'

I couldn't understand what was so urgent. We didn't usually do mice, normally it was rats or squirrels or whatever was making a nuisance of itself. Mice were law abiding citizen, they were paying customers, and they were tax payers. Perhaps these guys were squatters.

'Wouldn't it make more sense to sort of… evict them?'

TC looked at me with thin eyes, 'these guys are vermin, Tom, there's nothing else for us to do but gas 'em out,' he said as he expelled a hiss of pesticide from the can. The gas swam through the air towards a vent in the wall and was sucked in. What followed could only be described as a crash and a scream.

'What was that noise?' I knew the fear was visible in my face.

'What noise?'

The crash echoed along the vent and rung in our ears. Then the ceiling above us began to rumble and dust filled the air. TC grabbed me by the collar and pulled me back towards the door as the ceiling spat down tiles and partitions over us.

'I thought you said it was sleeping gas?'

TC laughed as he spotted a tiny mouse scuttle across the floor towards the doorway.

'Don't be silly, Tom. We're not here to give them a bedtime story.' He slid his foot directly into the mouse's path and watched it squeak. Then he covered the mouse with the shadow of his boot and brought down his foot.

My eyes almost came out of my sockets. This wasn't a removal this was a massacre. An alarm rang inside my head and I immediately ran home to warn Jerry.

Relief swept over my body when I saw him in the kitchen and he didn't even flinch when I entered the room. He looked so panicked and I wanted to reach out and cradle him in my arms. He was frantically packing up his things; a mini cheese grater and some Tupperware was all he took. I offered to make him a sandwich but he responded that he had enough on his plate and I had to try not to laugh out loud. That was Jerry.

He opened the fridge and looked around at me tentatively. I smiled back instinctively, but it probably came across as overly keen, like Mammy had warned me. _Don't look desperate_.

'Tom, I know this may seem a bit strange… But I'm leaving.'

He didn't even look at me as he said it, which I was grateful for as my face was a painful sight.

'Don't get the wrong idea, Tom, I've paid my rent, it's all up to date. I just need to leave,' he continued as he grabbed a few crackers from the fridge and put them in his pocket.

I just stood there with my face scrunched up and watched him march straight past me, it was probably the closest he'd ever got. I felt the breeze from his body blow through my fur. I opened my eyes as he was loading up his bag onto a wheelbarrow and then I watched him push it towards the kitchen door. My throat had gone all dry.

'Well, good bye Tom,' he said so easily, as he pushed his wheelbarrow through the doorway and let the door slam behind him.

The second he was gone I began to cry. I could still hear his footsteps in the hallway and they made me wail even more. I cried and I cried and I cried. I screamed and I cried. Rooted with my hand against the door my eyes streamed with tears as I cried and I screamed and I wailed and my tears cried tears and my screams, screamed more screams and I cried and I cried and I cried. My Jerry was gone.

**Episode 3**

I hadn't left the house in days. There was rubbish littered all over the kitchen floor and crumbs on the carpet by the sofa that I had fashioned into the shape of Jerry's face. The fridge light had blown after I had so often raided it for midnight snacks. When I wasn't asleep I lay curled up next to the wireless and kept my ears pricked for news on mice movements.

But all that filled the airtime were segments on why mice have a negative impact on the economy or why mice are to blame for the outbreak of the plague or features on a mouse's responsibility for the stagnant economy. Well Jerry always paid his rent, Mammy said it was often late, but he always paid.

A squeaky voice came across the wireless:

'Mice are now forbidden from entering into matrimony with anyone other than another mouse.'

My heart slowed under my huge belly.

I closed my eyes and prayed that Jerry was safe. The city was rallying together for a mouse hunt. People were being advised to check there weren't mice hiding in their homes and the council were offering a free extermination for families that had been victimised by an outbreak of mice in their local area. It was becoming more and more absurd.

What was more absurd was that since Jerry had left I had doubled in size. Without a need to be up and about the house I had spent most of the time since he'd left on the sofa. A great deal of it had been spent crying. I was out of a job. Of course I could never go back and work with TC after I saw what he did to that mouse. And Mammy had gone away for a few weeks and left me with a full fridge which I had by no means rationed for each day. First I tried to comfort myself by eating macaroni cheese but then a ban was put in place for the sale and purchase of cheese and so I started working through the crackers instead. I felt so guilty, Jerry could be starving.

I lay my head back on the sofa cushions and fell back into a coma.

When I awoke there was a vision standing in front of me. A thin, wide eyed mouse was looking at me from the floor.

'Jerry!' I croaked as I slowly came out of my slumber.

He looked up at me nervously and then scrambled up onto the sofa. He lifted my weak paw up over him and eased himself underneath and into a little ball.

'Will you take care of me, Tom?' he whimpered as he clung onto my fur.

'Of course I will, Jerry, of course I will,' I said as I fell back into a dream.

Hiding Jerry under the floorboards


End file.

Tom and Jerry, Hurt-Comfort, Romance