Todd the Rat

By Ella Stotz

Todd the Rat

I am a rat. My name is Todd. I live a simple life because mainly all I do is scavenge for food. I do love to eat, it is the most pleasant part of my day, (that is if the food is not rotten, which most times it is since I can’t find anything better to eat while looking through feed troughs and waste piles). Life is way harder now than it was; humans are more careful with their food and don’t leave it lying around anymore, ready for me to eat to my heart's content. Ahh the good old days. Well I guess we can always dream, like how I dream about my parents during cold dark nights. They died, by hunting dogs, with long claws, fearsome teeth and relentless humans by their side. How much I hate them. How much I miss my loving parents.

Today, again, I am scavenging for food. I have always wished to find a big, red, juicy tomato. Or not even one, millions of colossal, scarlet, succulent, spheres of goodness. But I will never find them, at least I haven't yet, maybe I will someday. Growing up, I heard about these places where everywhere you look tomatoes hang from emerald stems covered by chartreuse leaves, and that is my goal to get there, wherever “there” is.

I see them, tomatoes, glimmering, glowing in the sun. They sit there, on the stairs of the building that has brought me horrors, ready for my small paws to take. I know that I have to grab them quickly, I know what happens if I don’t. I have never gotten this close but never has the supper of my dreams been right in front of me. So, I go as fast as I can from my little peeping hole in the barn to the farm house where the box lies. I grab two from the box, then run back to the hole, shove them in and hide them beneath hay. I repeat the process a couple of times and after grabbing the last one. I stop, and rest.

I am safe, I am secure, I am tired, I am covered in hay and surrounded by gigantic tomatoes. I stay seated for a while and then grab one delicious tomato. The scent infuses my nose, I lift my mouth to take a bite, but suddenly one of the dogs steps into the barn. It charges at me, I squeal, dropping the tomato and running to hide. I am too late, the dog has me by my tail, I flail again and again but there is no use. Then it goes dark.

When I wake up the sun is shining and I am surrounded by plants. I have no idea what time it is or how long I have been knocked out. I spin around, then I see perfectly ripe tomatoes ready to be eaten hanging from emerald stems covered by chartreuse leaves. I have reached my goal, I am here. Wherever “here” is.