Snorty

@mariannewest's 5-minute freewrite prompts:
Day 145
Prompt: deodorize

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This wasn't the usual smell. I was sure we'd had her but where was she?

By the second day, the smell was so bad we needed to deodorize the atmosphere periodically. The airfreshners became our temporary saving grace.

Snorty had moved in with us like the others before her, an unwanted guest who had asked no permission to stay. She scratched about the corners of the house as the day gave way to night and when all were asleep, she rampaged the kitchen, wasting anything that was not properly kept away. She didn't spare the bedroom. She moved in and out of the stacks of clothes with reckless abandon and left a nasty smell as trail.

Sometimes someone would almost run into her. She was small but big enough to scare us, with dark brown furs and a long piercing mouth that squeaked shrilly. We decided she was female and called her Snorty.

We also agreed that her type belonged in the bush, that she was a threat to our collective health. But there was no getting Snorty out.
So we held a family meeting.

"We have to poison her," I suggested, daring my husband who I was sure would object.

"And have her die in a hole somewhere she can't be located?" he promptly answered.

"We can't do that!"

"We'll use gum boards."

"Oh, you know those boards can't hold a rat that size," I reminded him.

But he insisted and I gave in.

So at night we placed gum boards by the door of three rooms. Sure enough, Snorty walked into two and wriggled her way out. We were trapped between depression and dejection.

Pronto, by the second day, I had some rat poison ...

"Here!" cried my daughter. I looked up at her from the kitchen sink, she was pointing to the back of the freezer. Moving closer, the smell hit my nostrils, there was no mistaking it, this was its source.

There, I looked down. Curved, Snorty's long tail poked out beneath the refrigerator, I imagined a swollen and decomposing body. I felt relief. God knows for how long she had been there.