Day 640: 5 Minute Freewrite: Monday - Prompt: awry

“Since you apparently were engaged in matters more important than attending the feral small rodent community meeting, you have been selected by your friends and neighbors to bell the alley cat. You will not be allowed your family allotment of extra food until the task is completed.”

Innvinchun the mouse read this note with dismay. Had it been only him concerned, he would have scoffed at it; he was more than capable to scratch up enough food for himself.

Yet of all of his 246 siblings, he alone had the care of his widowed mother, Nisessiti.

Upon hearing her son read the note, old Nisessiti smiled wryly and waved her knitting needles.

“Why me, Mom? They know our situation!”

“Why not you, son? They know we can figure it out. Go forth, son. The cat is shedding. He is hunting in the street, and is not now in the alley. Bring me all the cat hair you can safely find before he returns. He will be good and tired when he gets back, and that is the perfect time.”

24 hours later, Curly the alley cat woke up knowing something was awry. He stretched, and rang … every time he moved, he rang. Someone had belled his collar, not him, slipping the little bell on a thread of woven cat hair and then tying the thread tightly around and around his collar. His sharp claws could not untie the knot, or fray the thread.

Innvinchun of course became a community hero, but gave credit where it was due.

“When the annals of small rodent history are written for this year, let it not be forgotten that Nisessiti is the mother of Innvinchun!”