Tribb's Trouble (6 page)

Authors: Trevor Cole

BOOK: Tribb's Trouble

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“Mr. Munday?” said the man, glancing up from the clipboard in his hands. He grinned. “Don't worry sir, I like Mundays.”

Tribb tried to smile but couldn't. “Come in,” he said.

Together they walked through the main floor of the house. The Best Pest man said mice usually come into the basement from the outside. “When it starts getting cold in the fall,” he said, “they head for warmth. Once they're inside, they head for the food, which is usually on the main floor.” He pointed to the heating vent in the hallway. “That's probably one of the places they're coming up.” Sure enough, Tribb had caught his one mouse right beside the vent.

In the kitchen, the pest man looked for holes in the wall near the refrigerator and the stove. He
shone a bright flashlight into the cupboard under the sink. “They like to crawl up the outside of the pipes, too.” He pointed to a gap between the pipe and the wall. “Right there,” he said. “That's a mouse doorway.”

The Best Pest man stood up. “I can place traps all over the main floor. They're small and black. I'll put them in corners so no one will notice them. They use poison bait, which the mice love. So do pets, though. Do you have pets?”

Tribb said no.

“We're good, then,” said the Best Pest man. “The poison works fast. Most of the mice in a house usually die in a couple of days.”

A couple of days would be great, thought Tribb. There was just enough time before Linda's group came for its meeting.

“But that's only part of your problem,” said the Best Pest man. “You have to stop the mice getting in. Otherwise, you'll just keep getting new visitors.” He snapped off his flashlight. “Lets have a look outside.”

They started at the back door and walked all around the house. Every few steps, the Best Pest man stopped and pointed. A small hole in the foundation. A gap between the bricks. A space
around the wood of a basement window. “They don't need much room,” said the man. He held up his little finger. “If I can wiggle this finger into a space, that's big enough for a mouse.”

“What do I do?” asked Tribb.

“Plug every hole. If it's in the foundation or the brick, patch it with fresh concrete. If it's in the wood, stuff the hole with copper wool. That'll keep 'em out. Mice don't like to bite down on copper wool.”

Tribb knew he could get a tub of concrete filler from Home Depot, but he'd never seen copper wool. When he asked where he could buy it, the Best Pest man said he had some in the truck.

“It's just like steel wool,” he said, “but it shines like a new penny. And it doesn't rust.”

Tribb knew he needed to deal with this now. He called work and said he was too sick to come in. Within half an hour, the Best Pest man had placed his traps. He showed Tribb how to stuff holes with the copper wool. Then Tribb drove to the store and came home with a plastic pail of concrete filler.

Before he got started, the phone rang. It was Peter calling.

“I heard you're sick,” Peter said. “Is that true?”

“I'm sick of mice and what they're doing to my life,” said Tribb. “Today's the day I get rid of them for good.”

Tribb worked for hours. He stuffed copper wool into twenty-three gaps. He patched every crack he could find in the brick and the foundation. The old house had a lot of holes. More holes than he could ever have imagined. This was a house shouting to the world of mice, “Come on in!” Tribb promised himself that he would patch every single tiny space. Even if all he could fit into it was a fingernail.

Halfway through the day, he ran out of concrete filler. He drove to the store to get some more. The sun set, and Tribb kept on patching. His hands turned raw from scrapes against the bricks and cramped from holding the trowel. When Linda came home from work, she sat in the car for a moment watching him. Then she got out and came to where Tribb was kneeling.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Sealing the house,” he said. “I hired an expert. He showed me how. Nothing's ever getting in to bother us again.”

An hour and a half later, Linda came outside and told him dinner was ready.

“Keep it warm,” he said. “I'll come in as soon as I'm finished.”

A few minutes later, Suzy came outside, holding her arms tight in the cold. “Dad, aren't you hungry?” she asked.

He was, and his back was killing him, but he wasn't going to admit it. “Almost done,” he said.

It was nearly nine o'clock when Tribb finally staggered into the house. He stood in the kitchen, dead tired. His hands were scraped. His face and his clothes were covered with dirt and bits of dried concrete.

“Wow, Dad,” said Suzy. “You look like you were in a fight.”

Linda looked over at him and smiled. “He was,” she said. She came up to Tribb and took his dirty face in her hands. “Thank you for working so hard,” she said, and laid a soft kiss on his lips.

“I did it for you,” Tribb told her. “I don't want to lose you.”

Linda looked into his eyes. “Lose me?” she said.

“I haven't been a great husband lately,” he said.

She smiled a little. “No one's perfect,” she said, and kissed him again.

The next two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, were two of the best days Tribb could remember. He felt pride in himself. He felt loved. His world was back on track. At work, he was a happy supervisor. He hummed as he went from station to station, slapping people on the back, telling bad jokes at lunch. At home, he was deeply contented. He helped Suzy with her homework. He bought a new knitting bag for Linda. He made dinner while she worked on her new hats and scarves and brought her cups of tea through the evening.

There were no more signs of mice.

Thursday came, Linda's day off. She spent the morning preparing for her group's visit at noon. Tribb arranged to work the late shift so he could stay home to help. When the six women arrived, he greeted them, shaking hands and welcoming them into his mouse-free home. He poured soft drinks for the guests. Then he kissed his wife on the cheek and said he'd be in the basement if she needed him.

Patching all the holes around the house had been hard work. But Tribb felt so satisfied doing it, he'd decided to take on other projects. The first thing he wanted to make was a wooden gadget to hold Linda's balls of yarn. It would let them turn easily, like a roll of toilet paper. She'd be so surprised!

In the basement, Tribb could hear some of the things the women were saying in the kitchen above. One of the women said to Linda, “Your husband seems so helpful!”

“He's a real sweetheart,” said another.

Tribb smiled as he heard Linda agree, and he knew that life could not get more perfect. For a while, as he worked on his project, he lost track of what they were saying upstairs. But now and then he heard the clink of plates or glasses as the women enjoyed their lunch.

About an hour later, Tribb noticed the sound of dishes being cleared in the room above. He heard Linda ask if anyone wanted a cup of coffee or tea. Tribb briefly wondered whether he should go up and help Linda, but he decided not to. His yarn holder was coming along, and he wanted to stick with it.

Still, something nagged at Tribb. He smelled the coffee brewing upstairs and felt there was something he needed to do. He knew it had to do with the lunch, and with Linda. It was something important. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was.

A minute later, Tribb heard Linda say the word “dessert.” The women in the kitchen all made happy sounds, as if they thought dessert was a great idea. Downstairs in the basement, Tribb knocked his head with his fist, trying to remember what he needed to do.

Then, above him, Linda said something about her “favourite cookies,” and Tribb stood straight up. He heard his wife say, in a voice of pure delight, “Oh, here they are! I wonder what they were doing in the freezer.”

Tribb was flying up the stairs when he heard the screams.