From the Archives - The Giant Rat

(Note for the incredibly dense: this is fiction--I don't really think giant rats can talk. Occasionally, when I'm too tired or overworked to write proper entries, I dip into my fiction archives, and that's what's happened today.)

So there I was, curled up cozily amongst the weeds and the grasses, noshing away on my sticky rice, when who should come loping out of the forest than Shu Li-Gui, a big fat smelly Giant Rat.

"Skeeeek-eeeeeek eeek!" shrilled Shu Li-Gui. I didn't need to be a giant rat to understand what he was saying: "This is a stickup! Gimme your dinner!"

"Go away, Shu Li-Gui," I told him. "I barely have enough for myself." He cocked his big triangular head and blinked hungrily at me, scrambling into my lap. I raised my bowl over my head and out of his reach. "Get down! Shoo! Scat!"

"Just a bite," begged Shu Li-Gui. He shook himself, and a cloud of fleas and dandruff filled the air.

"No. You are a lazy creature who comes out of the forest to steal other people's dinners. You won't get so much as a grain of rice from me."

"I'm not stealing," protested the Giant Rat. "I asked first. I asked nicely." He shoved his nose under my shirt and wiggled his big bunchy whiskers, tickling and tickling and tickling. I giggled helplessly. My grip on the bowl faltered and loosened, and I had to put it down. Immediately, Shu Li-Gui buried himself in my rice up to the shoulders, contaminating every morsel with his greasy rodent hair.

"Oh, you mangy varmit," I howled. "Look what you've done! One bite, my shiny hiney!" Li-Gui favoured me with a lopsided ricey grin, squealing happily with his hands full of food. He began shoveling scoop after scoop of the sweet rice into his cheek pouches, chortling and giggling like a child. I watched him sadly, lamenting my lost dinner. I didn't have the heart to kick him away. In spite of his grease and his fleas and his horrible table manners, the Giant Rat was really quite cute (in a beady-eyed, snakey-tailed sort of way).

"Okay, Shu Li-Gui," I said. "Here's how it's going to be." He paused in his enthusiastic face-stuffing, head cocked. "Every day, I come here to eat my dinner, and every day, I am pestered and molested by you and your pointy-nose friends. You trick me and bite me and badger me. Sometimes you win, and I don't get any dinner. Other times, I win, and you slink off with your back up and your ears back, all in a sulk. Nobody is ever happy."

Shu Li-Gui nodded, listening.

"But I'm not going to share my dinner with you for nothing," I continued. The Giant Rat glared at me, but I pressed on. "You are a lazy animal, but you are not without value. You can climb high into the trees with your sharp claws and wrappy tail. You can crawl into the leafy umbrella where the big blue butterflies flit. Up there, amongst the insects and the fruit bats and the jungle vines, a certain kind of berry grows, which I find very tasty. Bring me a sprig or two of those every day, to mix with my sticky rice--without chewing them, mind--and I'll split my dinner with you. Bring nothing, and I'll kick you away.

"It's easier to trick you than it is to gather berries," said the Giant Rat. "Most days, I get your whole dinner. Why should I settle for half the food in exchange for twice the work?"

I didn't have an answer for that. I had been outwitted by some food-obsessed ranky-feet jungle rat.

"Don't worry," said Shu Li-Gui, shoving one last fistful into his cheek. "I've left you a bite." And with that, he ran back into the overgrown forest, fleabitten worm-tail dragging behind him. Scowling morosely, I picked up my bowl: sure enough, a hair-infested smear of rice paste remained in the bottom, clinging to the polished wood.

Moral: You can't strike a bargain with a giant rat.