‘Bake well, my little fellow,’ he said, ‘and tomorrow you will be a masterpiece.’
With this he examined the instruments to see that the temperature was rising properly and the thermostat working, and then, forgetting to switch off the lights in his workshop, he went out into the garden where he performed an impromptu dance of joy in celebration of his accomplishment. It was a good thing that it was so late and the neighbours all abed, for they would have been most astounded had they seen the elderly, bespectacled ceramist leaping and pirouetting about upon the lawn.
When he had finished, he swam up the garden to his house. True, there was no water there, the night still being fine and dry, but at that moment he felt it would be lovely to swim along the path, through the cool grass. And so he did so, around and past his shop into his adjoining home, breast stroking his way up the stairs and right inside his bed, where no sooner did his head touch the pillow than he was instantly asleep. He dreamt that a gold medal was being handed him for creating the finest porcelain mouse ever.
When he awoke the next morning he was not feeling at all as well as he had upon retiring. Far from being able to float, he now seemed anchored to the bed because his head weighed as much as though it were made of lead. He had to put one foot at a time on to the floor and then saw to his amazement that he had not removed his clothes the night before. He wondered whether perhaps he was gravely ill. But then he remembered the wedding and the many glasses of cider that had been lifted, and the continuation of the party afterwards with his chums at The Cat and Mouse. What had occurred after that he did not recollect at all. He splashed cold water on his face, which did not help a great deal, and after drinking a number of cups of coffee, tottered off to his workshop.
To his astonishment he saw the light burning inside and his first thought was, Burglars!
He found the door unlocked which gave him further cause for alarm, and he hurried in to where another surprise awaited him. He observed that his electric oven was turned on to top heat, which was puzzling since he knew he had done no work the day before, but had attended a marriage instead.
Suddenly it began to come back to him, and he murmured, ‘But of course, now I remember! Last night when I came home I made the most beautiful and the finest mouse of my whole life. Now I shall look at him.’
He switched off the oven and when it had cooled sufficiently, threw open the door. With hands that trembled slightly, he seized his pair of tongs and carefully withdrew the supposed mouse masterpiece from the depths of the stove and set it upon his workbench.
And then, with his eyes almost popping from his head and the most terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he saw that what he had produced was not only no super creature, but a disaster second to none in the history of ceramics.
In the first place, it was not grey but an utterly mad blue. It had a fat little body like an opossum, hind feet like those of a kangaroo, the front paws of a monkey and instead of delicate and transparent ears, these were long and much like those of a rabbit. And what is more, they were blue too, and violently orange-coloured on the inside.
But the worst thing of all was that it had no tail. The ceramist examined the mouse from every angle and there was none to be seen, although at the back was a small button where one once might have begun. He had either forgotten to make it or, even more horrible thought, had been careless in its production and it had broken off.
Goodness knows, it didn’t look like much of a mouse, what with no tail and rabbit’s ears and wild blue in colour, but still it felt like a mouse and in some curious way was one. But, of course, as a ceramic it was a total failure.
And suddenly the artist threw back his head and began to roar with laughter as he said to himself, ‘Well, I must have had a fine night. After coming here I can’t remember a thing. Certainly no one ought to set about making porcelain mice, or anything else, when one has had several ciders over the eight.’
Now he examined the muddle of his clay and colourings and chemicals on the workbench and laughed even louder. He had used all the wrong materials and colours and had apparently just pulled any old chemicals off the shelf. And, of course, worst of all, he had not waited for it to dry before painting, glazing and baking. It was a wonder that anything at all had resulted from the mess.
One thing was certain, it was not the kind of product that a self-respecting ceramist would want to keep about his studio in case anyone should embarrass him by asking what it was. And so he raised a wooden mallet and was about to bring it down to smash it into dust, when something about the expression of the little creature caused him to stop.
To his surprise he found that the look on the face of the so-called mouse was peculiarly unusual and endearing.
The worry, the fear, the timorousness and feeling of wanting to glance over its shoulder to see whether the cat was around was missing. None of that. What it did have was a combination of interest and excitement with a little shyness and a great deal of sweetness.
If you looked at him from one angle, his face seemed to say, ‘I love you! Please like me.’ And from another, its expression was, ‘I’m such a small mouse, I really don’t matter to anyone. But I’d be happy to help you in any way I could.’
The ceramist laid down his mallet and picked up the porcelain piece which was now cool, and the gentleness and differentness of its face made him smile. Turning it around to the place where its tail should have been, he examined the button and then said, ‘Oh, well, so I’ve made a Manx Mouse.’
He was referring to the fact that the creature had no tail, like the cats from the Isle of Man who, as everybody knows, are tail-less too, and are known as Manx Cats.
The figure looked so absurd that he was forced to smile again. ‘Then I’ll keep you to remind me to say “No thank you” next time I’m invited to have just one more glass.’
In the evening he took the Manx Mouse to his room and put it upon his bedside table where it sat up and regarded him with a mixture of longing and affection, until he put out the light.
Now a strange thing occurred that night, so odd that when the ceramist told it to one of his chums he swore that he had imbibed nothing stronger than a glass of lime and barley water before retiring. For he was not aware that, in spite of the weird results, cider or no cider, all the love and hopes he had poured into the making of this one mouse had called forth the magic of a true creation. And when that has taken place, anything can happen.
Thus it was that he woke up in the dark, or thought he did, with the feeling that the chiming clock in the living-room downstairs was about to strike, which indeed it did. He counted the strokes to know the time and how much longer there was left to sleep. And so he counted: eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.
Thirteen! But that was absurd. No clock ever struck thirteen, and particularly not his faithful grandfather piece which had been in his family for years.
He had half a mind to get up and go downstairs and see what time it really was, but suddenly found himself drowsy and unable to keep his eyes open any more.
The following morning when he awoke, something even stranger had happened to occupy his attention. The Manx Mouse was no longer on his night table.
At first he thought that he must have knocked it off and so he looked on the floor and even crawled under the bed. But there was nothing there. Then he thought that perhaps it had got mixed up with the bedclothes, so he shook these out most carefully. But there was no Manx Mouse.
He then remembered vaguely what must have been a dream of the clock striking thirteen. This and the disappearance of the blue Manx Mouse was, to say the least, disquieting. He searched his room, looking in every nook and cranny and even in cupboards, bureau drawers and on top of shelves until there was not an inch that he had not inspected. In great perplexity he sat down on the edge of his