Dante came swaggering out of the kitchen carrying something this evening,
and my mom said "Ohh- no!  What is that!?"  And my heart sank to see it was
a still-alive mouse in his mouth.   Dante's first real mouse! To my
knowledge, he hadn't seen one before.  We had the house rodent-proofed
before he came, and we haven't seen one since Stinky's big rodent bumper
crop about three years ago.
Well, Stinky was on top of him in a second.  Not going to stand for that,
Dante was off up the stairs, with the mouse.  Oh no!  The last thing I
wanted was--  ooops!  exactly what happened.  When I got up the stairs,
Dante was mouse-less, looking very perplexed, and eyeing me distinctly as if
it was my fault.  So now the little varmint -- the mouse, I mean--is running
around loose upstairs, and I'm praying I don't have a sudden midnight
encounter with it.

Well, I guess it's time to shore up the rodent-proofing.  But Dante did show
great reflexes in his first encounter with a real mousie.  He's upstairs
now, prowling around, expecting the mouse to suddenly reappear.  I'm hoping
it doesn't. :P