The house was dark and quiet, and only the the steady ticking of the clock peacefully spoke into the silence of the night. Every member of the family was sleeping soundly, in preparation for the day ahead of them, and rest from the one before. But a small shadow moving quickly and quietly in a corner belonged to a little creature whose work was already well under way.

A little mouse cautiously scurried this way and that way, in search of something to eat. She was an unusually long way from her home in the shed behind the chicken coop. She didn't normally like to stray more than fifty feet from her nest, but her current circumstances demanded it.

She had chosen the shed as a place to make her home because it was dry, warm, and she had regular access to the grain stored there. Also, by using the straw and feathers from the chicken coop next door, she had been able to provide a warm, soft nest for her brand new litter of pups. It was such an ideal location for a brand new family of mice, that the little mother hadn't needed to leave her nest at all for more than two minutes at a time.

But for one reason or another, she couldn't seem to get to the grain lately. The little boy who fed the chickens usually left the bags open and on the ground; but now, for some odd reason, he had poured the grain into sturdy rubber buckets and moved them high up on a shelf. The mouse had tried all night last night to get at them, and failed.

She did have quite a storehouse of food saved up, but it didn't seem right for her to eat ALL the food she'd been saving. She needed that food for the upcoming winter. The leaves outside were already changing, and her instincts told her to save as much as she could of everything she found.

So she decided to cautiously attempt to raid the kitchen. She had been there before, and knew the general locations of the best food in the pantry, but it was still a risky thing to do. One of the people in the house might wake up and see her and the cat might hear her. But she was so hungry, she had to try it.

Now she scurried across the kitchen floor, sniffing, and often pausing to look up and think where to go next. She didn't have very good eyesight, but by following her keen sense of smell, and dragging her sensitive whiskers across the floor, she could find her way perfectly.

Keeping close to the base of the wall, she headed straight for the pantry. There she sniffed around carefully until she came across a few pieces of cheerios laying on the ground. she stopped, and stood up on her haunches. She took one last look around in all directions to be sure that she was alone. Then she crouched back down, picked up a cheerio and proceeded to nibble it away very fast. She actually looked rather cute sitting there, munching on the discovered cheerio, but no one was awake to see her, and it's probably good for her that they weren't.

She ate until she'd had her fill, and then stuffed the last cheerio in her mouth so she could have something to bring back to her own little pantry. Taking a few, tentative little steps forward, she sniffed the air. All clear. She scurried away.