Of Mice and Little Men

Jimmy likes Michael’s green marble. Probably the dark blue one, too. He will try everything to get them.

Michael doesn’t even like playing marbles that much. But the green one really is beautiful. He normally wouldn’t have risked it, he wouldn’t have shown it to his friends for fear of losing it. But Jimmy knows about it, he has already seen it before, Michael couldn’t lie to him. Jimmy knows all his secrets. Michael suddenly realizes how dangerous that can be.

-Do you want some lemonade, boys? –Mom enters the garden with a tray and two glasses. When Jimmy or some other friend comes to visit, she always lets Michael have lemonade in the garden. When he is alone, she always makes a fuss about everything. Last Tuesday she shouted at him for having picked up a couple of stupid flowers from the path that leads to the gate. But now he can play marbles in the garden and sit on the grass, and drink while he does it.

-Thanks, Mrs. Floyd. –Mom likes Jimmy because he is so polite, and always remembers to say Mrs. Floyd instead of just Joan. Michael is not so good at this, he often says Vivienne and Mark when he speaks with Jimmy’s parents. Once he even called Vivienne “mom”. Now, that was embarrassing.

-I went to the movies last night –Jimmy says while drinking his lemonade. He pauses for a couple of seconds and smiles. He knows Michael hasn’t been to the cinema in a while.

-Really? What did you see?

-Mickey Mouse! –Michael looks at him without saying a word. –It’s a cartoon. It’s wonderful. You should ask your parents to take you there.

Jimmy shoots the marble and hits one of Michael’s favourite ones. He is still holding the glass in his left hand. Gee, he is so good! Michael will lose all his marbles. He should participate to some sort of competition. A national championship. Do they do national championships?

In fact, he has already won the red and the light blue one, and it’s only about four o’ clock. He has all the time in the world to focus on the green one. Something needs to be done. Michael has to buy time.

-Say –Michael shouts all of a sudden- how was the cartoon yesterday?

He is in panic, Jimmy will notice this. He has to calm down and talk normally and let him think he just wants to chat.

-It was so nice! You know that it was a talkie?

That look again. Jimmy really likes to tell people about the things he has done, especially when nobody else has. He always changes his voice and starts to smile and pretends he is sorry that you haven’t had the occasion of doing it. But you can’t really believe him because he sneers all the time.

Once Michael was sick and had to stay at home and couldn’t go out even though there was a fair. One with all the carousels and the music and the cotton candy. It must have been one year ago. Jimmy went there with his mom and dad twice and both times went to visit him afterwards. He described everything to him, and judging from his words it had been great fun. Michael had to lie in the bed and listen to his stories with no possibilities of escape. It was dreadful. That pretty much ruined the fairs for him. Every time somebody talks about carousels –that doesn’t happen too often, he has to admit– he thinks about that boring afternoon in the bed and rushes to change the subject. Jimmy also told him that there were wild animals in a cage at the fair, but Michael suspects that that is not true. He has seen the posters and there was no mention of lions and elephants.

Of course, Jimmy had come home to visit poor Michael, so mom was even more proud of him. Mom is so easy to deceive, Michael thought with a snort.

-Yes Mike, it was a talkie all right! I couldn’t believe it!

Oh, couldn’t you?

-Really? –Michael’s look was suspicious. –I’ve never seen a talkie cartoon. Are you making fun of me?

-No, upon my word! –Jimmy drops the marble he was still holding in his hand. –Mickey Mouse sang and laughed and shouted, and you could hear the boat whistling and the music playing!

-Did he actually sing? –all of a sudden, Michael remembers Jackie’s performance in The Jazz Singer and his face lights up.

-Well, no, not in words… I’m not sure anyway. But it was so good, there was so much noise. And then… and then Mickey and his wife started to play with the animals! There was a duck and a cat and a goat, and Mickey Mouse played them as if they were musical instruments. It was so funny! You should have been there.

-Wait a minute, a mouse? Was Mickey a mouse?

Michael doesn’t leave Jimmy the time to reply: -What a horrible idea! Mice are ugly. Nobody likes mice. –That was his sentence, his final word. Now he doesn’t have to be jealous of anything. A mouse protagonist? That’s just silly.

-You say so only because you haven’t watched it. I bet you’d like to.

-And anyway, I don’t think we should be watching any more cartoon. We are growing up. Me, I’m more interested in films now.

Michael is not really sure of what he is saying, but it’s probably working. Jimmy stares at him with a strange look on his face. He doesn’t know how to reply. If he maintains that cartoons are only small children stuff, then Jimmy won’t have so much to brag about. But –talkie cartoon? Boy, that was probably fun.

-Which film did they show after the cartoon?

-I don’t know, it was called Gang War or something. I could only see the title because mom and dad told the nanny to take me back home after the cartoon ended.

-Oh yes, I’ve heard it. –Michael is lying, but one has to keep a straight face if he wants to win this kind of arguments.

-I bet that’s not true. It’s a gangster movie and mom and dad wouldn’t let me see it because it’s violent. All the children left after the cartoon.

Jimmy suddenly loses interest in the conversation and turns to flick his marble again. It’s his turn. Michael should have probably let him brag about Mickey Mouse and his nice night out. Now he will lose all his marbles, and he is not even sure he has won the argument. Do you win the argument if the other speaker abandons the conversation? Michael tries to imagine General Custer at the head of the cavalry, with his arms crossed and a proud expression on his face, looking ahead of him while the Southerners abandon the field without fighting. Michael is not sure the teachers at school would still love him so much.

-Look! –Jimmy shouts. –Have you seen how big it is?

A lizard crosses the path behind them, then turns its head, stares at them and stops. It is quite big.

-I can catch it –Michael seizes the opportunity. –I bet I can do it before it hides behind something.

Jimmy draws nearer. He managed to catch his attention. –I bet I can do it before you.

-Don’t come too close! You’ll scare it. Let me try first.

Yes, he definitely has Jimmy’s attention now. The lizard stays there, strangely calm, looking at them while basking in the sun. Its belly moves when it breathes. Michael comes a bit closer, very slowly. This is his garden, he knows every corner of it perfectly well. This is his advantage. Jimmy looks at him, waiting for him to make a stupid move and fail. Or at least that’s what Michael thinks. But that doesn’t matter: he won’t fail. There’s an old bucket just two steps to his side: he will use it to entrap it. He takes it. The lizard is still there, apparently unaware of everything.

You wonder what they think. Stupid Lizzie. You see something much bigger than you, coming your way with a bucket, you run. It’s the law of the jungle, isn’t it? Of the garden, anyway. Other two steps, possibly three, and Michael will capture it. He will manage to impress Jimmy and they will play with Lizzie and probably even try to feed it and see whether it will manage to break free.

-Michael!

The boys turn round and see Michael’s mom.

-Jimmy’s mother is here, come back in the house! –Michael is on all fours on the grass, with the old bucket in his hand. Jimmy is behind him, standing upright. The lizard stays there for the fraction of a second, but then finally decides the place has become too crowded and runs away.

-Michael, what are you doing? –she suddenly changes her tone. –Stop playing with those dirty animals! What were you thinking about? Come here and wash your hands immediately!

Mom takes him by his arm and accompany him inside the house. Jimmy follows them. Michael’s trousers are stained with soil and he has still the bucket in his right hand: there is really no point in trying to deny anything. Mom will complain about the dirty clothes and he probably won’t be allowed to play in the garden for some days. Jimmy stays there without saying a word, but Michael is sure that when his mother will talk to him, he will call her Mrs. Floyd. Mom, after all, is just so easy to deceive.

Davide