Rosetta sat all alone. She passed the time in a damp cellar that had been her home for as long as she could remember. Upstairs, watching some inane quiz show on ITV, sat her Aunt and Uncle. They had looked after Rosetta since her parents had died when she was still just a baby (if you can call what they did ‘looking after’). All Rosetta had ever been told was that they had died in a freak ballooning accident and they had been too selfish to take her with them. Aunt regularly went on and on about “the momentous life-changing burden of taking her in.” and “the thoughtlessness of her Mum and Dad letting that swan fly into their balloon.” Uncle never said anything, at least never to Rosetta. He just grunted when he gave her any food; he often had a look in his eyes that said “I can’t believe I have to pay for food for you. I think I might stop bothering.” These social interactions did nothing to make Rosetta happy; in fact they often had the opposite effect. The thing you need to realise is that Rosetta had never known any different. For all she knew, all children went home and got shoved in the cellar.

“So why did her school friends not tell her?” You ask. Good question. You see the problem with schools is that they are full of children. I don’t know if you have ever noticed, but children can be very self-centred and a bit mean. Not all children, I know, some are kind and thoughtful. Some will help old ladies cross the road, and carry their shopping home, and make cups of tea for their parents. Unfortunately, none of these children went to Rosetta’s school. Her school was full of the rotten kids The ones who pull hair, call names and, on the better days, ignore Rosetta completely.

There was no one for Rosetta to talk to so, as you might expect, she was more than a little bit lonely. The one thing that stopped Rosetta from going completely crazy was books. She loved books that told her facts about the world. She would sneak encyclopaedias of all kinds down into her cellar and stay up reading them by the thin orange glow coming through the tiny window up near the ceiling. From those knowledge soaked pages she had learnt all about the natural sciences, stratovolcanoes and their pyroclastic flows; chemistry, hydrogen peroxide and sodium iodide, with a little bubble bath, will make fountains of hot foam; and astronomy, since it takes the light from the sun 8 minutes to get to us, if the sun went out we would not know for 8 minutes. If you were on Neptune, you would not find out for over 4 hours. Her favourite topic was biology. She would read anything she could find about the lives of all the creatures on Earth. “Did you know,” she would tell her only friend (more on him later), “That the Adelie penguin, or Pygoscelis adeliae, will work as a team to keep their babies feed and warm in almost impossible Antarctic conditions. And the Caecilians, or Gymnophiona, which is a big worm thing that lives in the Amazon, loves its kids so much it will sacrifice its self to feed them if food is short.”

Rosetta loved non-fiction books. She would, on occasion, bring home a fictional story. She found most of these dull and completely unbelievable; happy families where people actually spoke to each other. She did like the one about a little girl that liked to read and had horrid parents. She got her own back on the disgusting adults in the story by using magical powers to make them think they were going mad. Rosetta could relate to Mathilda in that story. She also liked the one about a boy called Harry. He had to live under the stairs until some magic took him away and gave him a much better life. Rosetta found lots of stories started with an unhappy and lonely child and she dreamed of being taken away to a better place where she could have friends like Harry. She also wished she could get revenge on the mean adults in her life like Mathilda. Rosetta dreamt that this was the start of her story, an adventure that was tantalising close.

One evening, after her meagre meal of dry, mouldy bread and some tepid water, Rosetta was chatting to her friend. “So when the baby Marmosets grow up a bit, they still spend loads of time with their dads. They get carried around and feed, generally looked after really well.”

“Squeak!” said Ainsley as he finished his crumbs, then he turned around and scurried off down the pipes, disappearing down a tiny hole in the wall.

“Alright,” Rosetta shouted after him, “See you again tomorrow.”

I should probably point out that Ainsley is a house mouse (Mus musculus), a small mammal of the order Rodentia. Rosetta knows that Ainsley will never talk back, she’s not mad, but she is lonely and must have someone to talk to.

To Rosetta’s delight, Ainsley did something that night that he had never done before. He came back out to listen to Rosetta even though he had finished his food. Rosetta was delighted, and she started to ramble on about all kind of different topics. Common House Mice are known for being small, hungry and furry, they are not usually held to be great listeners. Ainsley however sat for at least three hours listening to what Rosetta had to say. Rosetta found herself talking about that book she read about the little magic girl.

“Then, after all that, she ended up going to school. Just like me.” Rosetta enthused.

“Squeak!” Ainsley replied.

“Her teacher? She was lovely. Miss Sugary I think she was called. Or was it Mrs Syrup? Anyway she was really nice and believed everything Mathilda said. Then Mathilda helped the teacher get revenge on her evil aunt. Great, isn’t it?”

“Squeak?” Ainsley asked.

“You’re right!” she squealed, “I could tell my teacher all about Aunt and Uncle, and how they lock me in the cellar. I should have thought about that before.”

“Squeak.” Ainsley agreed.

With that, the mouse nodded sagely, like his business here was complete and he sauntered down his pipes to find his nest. Rosetta, astounded that she had not thought of this before, struggled to sleep that night. She was far too excited planning what she would say to her teacher.

The next day arrived and Rosetta ran all the way to school. She barely even noticed the Taraxacum had flowered or the Bombus cryptarum buzzing from flower to flower. She ran into the classroom and Mr Mulch was sat at his desk drinking coffee like he was every morning. He looked up, saw Rosetta, yawned and said “Good Morning Suzetta, what can I do for you?”

“It’s Rosetta, sir.” Rosetta reminded him, “have you got a minute to talk?”

“If you make it quick.” he replied, “I heard there was free cake in the staffroom and if I take too long it will all be gone.”

“It is rather important, sir.” she insisted, but she could see his eyes glaze over and his mouth fill with saliva at the thought of the cake. “It’s my aunt and uncle. You see they are a bit mean to me.” She then, as quickly as she could, told Mr Mulch about the cellar, the mouldy bread and tepid water, and she even told him about Ainsley. When she finished she looked up. Mr Mulch’s eyes were fixed on a spot on the wall. He had not listened to a word! Rosetta guessed that if you drew a straight line from his eyes to that point on the wall, then you continued the line on the other side, you would find that he was gazing directly at the free cake in the staffroom.

“That’s great,” he mumbled, losing control over some drool that he sent slithering down his chin. “You be sure to use that imagination in English today. We’ll be doing creative writing. I wonder if it is chocolate….” With that he got up, wiped his chin and walked off in the direction of the staffroom.

This left Rosetta feeling defeated. If she could not get her teacher to listen who else was there. No-one else even noticed her foul mood for the rest of the day. She walked home slowly, in the rain, just to get a reaction off Aunt when she got in. She hated it when Rosetta got wet in the rain and made her floors wet. But Aunt was not even home, her uncle shoved her into the cellar, gave her a slice of bread and a grunt, then locked the door.

Ainsley noticed something was wrong straight away. He sat in his usual spot on the pipe, waiting for his crumbs. “Squeak?” he asked. He knew something was up when she had not mentioned the new patch of Zygomycota growing in the corner.

But Rosetta did not reply.

“Squeak?” he said, a little more urgently this time. Rosetta looked up, she glared angrily at her only friend. After a day of bitter disappointment and abandonment, something broke inside her, she snapped at her friend.

“GO AWAY! You’re only a mouse, what do you know? It’s not like you could ever help me, is it?” She shouted, letting out the fury that had built up over the years of neglect. “You can’t do anything useful! It is not like you can…” she paused trying to conjure up in her mind what she wanted the mouse to do. “It’s not like you can GET ME MORE FOOD.” Her temper hit a crescendo for the last four words, and they poured out of her with more passion then she had ever felt before. Then the outrage drained out of her like water from a sink. Ainsley looked down at the ground, turned and scurried off.

She instantly regretted what she had done, but what could she do? He was just a mouse. Even more miserable than usual, Rosetta slumped onto her pile of rags and old amazon boxes she used as a bed and fell into a cold, dreamless sleep.

I know that at this point in our story things seem pretty bleak. But what happened next was truly astonishing and worth your time. Even Harry and Mathilda would have been surprised by what happened next.

Rosetta woke as the sun burst in to the room through her little window near the ceiling. She looked up and smiled when she saw Ainsley sat there waiting for her to wake up.

“Squeak?” He asked while gesturing with his tiny, little head. Rosetta followed his gaze over to the one mould free corner of the cellar and her eyes widened. In fact her eyes got so wide I was worried they might pop straight out of her head. Lucky for me, and even luckier for her, they did not. The reason for her eyes doing the pop was the massive pile of food that sat there. If you or I saw the pile we might think it a reasonable size, or even a modest size pile; but to Rosetta, who had lived off scraps and crumbs her entire life, the pile was massive. The other reason for the popping was that pile contained chocolate. An entire bar of the creamiest, richest, yummiest brown nectar that has ever been created from the Theobroma cacao. Rosetta resisted the intense urge to shovel the pile into her face as fast as is humanly possible starting with the chocolate bar. Despite the fact that her mouth filled instantly with saliva, she realised that this miracle needed to be spaced out.

Rosetta picked up the chocolate bar reverently. She read the label aloud. “Wisper.” she whispered. The deep purple wrapper was half way to her lips when a thought hit her that was so shocking she almost forgot about the delicious treat traversing the air towards her mouth. “Oh,” she gasped looking straight at Ainsley, who had moved closer to get his share. “How did you…” she let that question go unfinished. Ainsley was a mouse, let’s not forget. “Where did this come from?” she asked instead.

“Squeak.” Ainsley stated bluntly as though it was obvious.

“I guess I did ask you to go and get me food.”

“Squeak!” He snapped with an edge of sarcasm.

“You’re right. I’m sorry and thank you for the treats.”

“Squeak.” He placated in a much more reasonable tone of squeak.

“If you’re not going to tell me how it got here, at least you can still share it with me.” She said holding out a large chunk of yellow cheese that smelt like feet and old carpet. Ainsley happily scurried over and made a surprisingly sizable dent in one side. Then he fixed Rosetta with a cheery gaze and a soppy mouse smile. Rosetta intended on taking one bite of Wisper bar and saving the rest for after the bread, cheese and tomatoes that made up the rest of the pile. Before she know where she was the chocolate was gone, and so was her will power.

The cheese and tomato sandwiches she made and ate were amazing. Never had she experienced such a taste sensation as cheese and tomato on bread. WOW! She thought as she laid down on her bed of boxes. Her cardboard throne had never been so comfortable.

“Squeak?” inquired Ainsley.

“I had not thought of that yet, I am still savouring the first miracle of cheesy tomatoes. Why don’t you come over here before we worry about what we will do next.” She murmured in a lazy and contented voice.

The rest of Rosetta’s story can be found on Kindle here or in paperback here.