by Ron Van Sweringen
Hope you enjoy this fun little never before published mouse tale!
Perious Mouse took his seat beside Felicity Mouse, at the steering wheel of the wind buggy and flipped the tinted goggles on his flying cap down over his beady black eyes. The excitement was palpable in the barnyard and hardly a whisper could be heard from anyone except Piggy-Pig, who had managed to tip over the slop bucket in her pig pen.
“Show a little respect,” scolded Big Red, the huge rooster sitting on the fence post, “don’t you know history is about to be made here.”
“You’re wasting your time,” chimed in Dilly-Duck, as she waddled by, her brood following close behind her. “All pigs are slop’os at heart.”
“Bug off,” Piggy-Pig replied with a mouthful of left over potato pancakes from Farmer Smith’s breakfast, “who cares if a mouse flies, I’ve got five piglets to feed.” Just then a cool breeze drifted down from the purple mountains and ruffled the water in the drinking trough.
“Here it comes,” Felicity Mouse exclaimed from under her red polka-dot bandanna, “it won’t be long now.” Sure enough the breeze grew stronger, swirling the leaves in the trees and sending dried dandelion puffs across the field in every direction.
“Lift off,” Perious Mouse shouted as the roof of the wind buggy began to tremble. Everyone was caught up watching the excitement, including Claudia, a large orange tabby cat hidden under the farmhouse front porch. Her almond shaped pea-green eyes took everything in, including the delicious sight of Perious and Felicity Mouse. The tabby cat’s stomach growled as she tip-toed unnoticed from under the porch. “Time for some mouse munching,” she said, her fuzzy orange tail waving back and forth in anticipation.
It was Sunday morning and Farmer Smith was relaxing in a tub of hot water after finishing his breakfast. Mrs. Smith was busy brushing her long red hair in front of the bedroom mirror. It was their usual Sunday morning ritual before getting ready for church. However, this Sunday morning was different. The soft breeze drifting through the open bathroom window carried not a sound with it. Not a mooing cow, clucking chicken or barking dog. 
“Something’s wrong,” Farmer Smith muttered, peering out of the bathroom window, “it’s too quiet to be good.”
The wind buggy rocked back and forth, its wire wheels almost lifting off of the ground. “Hold on,” Perious Mouse shouted to Felicity Mouse as he released the emergency break, “we’re almost there.” Suddenly a gust hit them and the wind buggy shot forward with a burst, the windshield wipers flapping wildly.
“Running board rudders extended,” Perious smiled as the wind buggy began to lift off of the barnyard floor.
“Oh, my,” Felicity squeaked, her eyes rolling back in her head, “this feels wonderful.” They were almost air borne when an orange mound of fur appeared ahead of them with a loud hiss. It was Claudia Cat with her razor sharp claws extended, bounding toward the wind buggy.
“Oh, no,” Perious grunted, pulling back the lift throttle as hard as he could. “Not this time kitty litter,” he smiled as the wind buggy sailed up into the blue. “Whew, that was close,” Felicity sighed, untying her polka-dot bandanna and letting her pink ears wiggle in the wind.
A huge roar went up from all of the animals in the barn yard, except Claudia Cat, who slunk back to her hiding place under the front porch to lick an empty sardine can. 
“That’s more like it,” Farmer Smith smiled upon hearing the animals and sunk back into his warm bathwater. “There for a minute I thought something strange was going on.”
All of the pieces of rat art in this story were done by Drusilla Kehl of The Illustrated Rat. To see more of her work go to her website and check out KRL’s article about Drusilla.
My good friends Ron Vansweringen & Dru Kehl combining their awesome talents to bring us this cute mouse story – it doesn,t get any better than that! congratulations to you both, a superb event!