As I was gathering my books strewn across my desk in preparation for school this morning, I caught sight of my mouse standing up on the cardboard tube in the aquarium where he lives (I call it the “mousepad”), with his forepaws leaning up against the glass, and shouting “Take me with you!” Well, okay, maybe it was more like, “Come and get me!” I haven’t quite mastered rodent-speak.

A few minutes later he was perched in my collar, happily gnawing at a crumb from my bagel as I ate while driving on the way to college.
My Greek instructor never noticed him, even though Stalin kept squeaking from inside my shirt, where he’d gone to take a nap. My next class was Public Administration. My professor kept calling my mouse “Satan”. “Stalin,” I’d correct him. “Whatever.” The girl who screamed when she was sitting down next to me in class last time I brought my mouse to school almost did again when she walked in the door. Only this time she was on the other side of the room. I kept him in my pocket with his lump of mouse food while entering psych class. But the instructor wasn’t there yet, so I pulled him out and shouted at my friend Chad on the other side of the room. A dozen people turned around and gasped. The lady nearby started squirming violently. Another girl announced that she wasn’t in the least scared and came over to touch the confused Stalin. I stuffed him back in my pocket as the class started, and he went to sleep as I learned about the hypothalamus in the brain. Afterward I took him over to another friend and introduced them. My psych teacher, who habitually ignores me, actually came over to see my mouse. I told him that Stalin was a behaviorist.

Stalin slept some more while I fooled around on the World Wide Web on our school’s newly acquired Internet connection. Then this guy named Martin came in and decided to take Stalin downstairs “to scare people”. I grabbed my book bag and hurried after him. My theater friends Stephen and Elizabeth were downstairs and tried to engage me in a conversation while I kept one eye on Martin showing off his rodent-connected bravado. That went fine till I heard, “Oh, sick!” I guess Stalin decided that was a good a time as any to answer the call of mother nature. I retrieved him from an all-too-willing-to-part-with-him Martin and accompanied the theater people back to the fine arts building, discussing money making schemes and assassinations with Stephen.

They went upstairs as I continued to my car. But I was interrupted by several people I know who became instantly fascinated by my mouse. Stalin did his best to crawl down the shirt of the girl who asked to hold him as we discussed rodent upkeep. One of the teachers stopped by but then quickly left when Stalin accidentally got loose. Not like he’d go anywhere. “What’s the difference between this and something you trap when it gets in you house?” someone asked me. “Well, he is genetically inferior,” I answered.

About then my English professor came by. I presented my pet to him, and Stalin immediately crawled up onto his shoulder. “I should go into my freshman class like this,” he remarked. “Yes!” we agreed. So the crowd that had formed followed him down the hall. He strolled into the classroom and walked to the head as the room erupted into exclamations. One girl stood up and moved to the back of the room, her back against the wall. “I’ll give you an A on your next paper if you come up here and hold him in your hand,” Dr. Allums offered her. Nothing doing. Those of us in the back laughed. Allums returned the rat to me after letting several students pet him. “It’s like show and tell in kindergarten,” someone commented. I waved goodbye to the class withthe hand I was holding my mouse in to the effect of several more gasps before grinning and walking away.

I had to stop by dad’s office to make some copies on the way home. I neared the office at about the same time as three people coming from the parking lot. They greeted me as I reached down my sleeve and groped around, frowning. “What’s wrong?” “I’ve got a mouse in my shirt,” I said, still struggling to get him out. They looked on in amusement until I finally pulled Stalin outof my sleeve. That’s when their eyebrows shot up. We walked into the office as the receptionist cowered behind the front desk. I continued on back to the copier with Stalin on my head. After meeting a couple of other people in the hall, I headed home, leaving a note on my absent father’s computer screen about how many copies I’d made. Stalin slept, exhausted, in my collar all the way home.