Thursday Tale: Mrs Mini Vera

Mrs Mini Vera was a simply terrible taxi driver with very little sense of direction even for a mole. her eye sight was poor, and what is more the mud all looked the same in the dark. So much so that she seldom found even the park. More often it was a parking lot or foundation stones or pile or grot.

She had never been very comfortable as a mole, as early excavations into her past had revealed little history of digging in her family. Quite the opposite. She was the daughter of a signpost maker and home decorator where mud and earth moving were seldom required. Before that her family had just been cleaners so no sense of direction was required.

It was her husband had been the one to teach her how to drive but had met a very sticky end by being impaled by a fork in a sampling root that then skewered him as it shot into the sky one bright spring morning. The shock of all that sunlight alone was enough to have killed him. Moles are not keen on sunlight for apart from anything else the noise of all that daytime activity was very confusing for their sensitive little ears and whiskers.

This morning was particularly bad as her fare had asked to be taken to the playing fields but unfortunately, having suffered from a terrible bout of flu, Mrs Mini Vera lost her sense of smell and ended up at a sewage plant. If only she had taken up home decorating like her father or signposting like her mother.

What made matters worse was an archaeological dig which had caused numerous diversions and landslides underground. One of which blocked her way back so there was nothing for it but to dig deeper to get out of the mess she had dug herself into.

So that it what she did.

Dig, dig, dig. Dig, dig, dig. Dig, dig, dig.

A rocky patch turned her one way, an under ground stream another and before long she hardly knew which way was down and which was up any more. As you can imagine her passenger, a house mouse estate agent on a business trip, was not very impressed with the service and squeaked protests continually. The only complimentary thing he had to say was that the upholstery was very sleek and comfortable but that was only when he got on board. He would have walked himself but was disabled following a rather nasty incident with a ferret and a terrifying terrier which had resulted in a lazy limp and useless left leg - rear end.

And still, all Mrs Mini Vera could do was dig, dig-dig and dig more. She didn't usually take fares for the playing fields but the mouse was a one of note and known to pay well above the usual fee of feed and what with flu and winter weather due to set in too, Mrs Mini Vera thought she could do, what she could not do at all - find her way.

Maybe it was the pressure but at last the tension broken as did the texture of the mud and instead of digging through stone ridden chalk or claggy clay, she found the digging became easier... and easier through soft sandy loam and...

"Why Mrs Vera, what a beautiful new home!"

It was too. It was such a fine view. it was in fact formal gardens of a very fine house which of course delighted the miserable mouse. And as they peeked through the edge of a bed, they found the vegetable patch so all would be well fed.

"What a clever old thing you jolly well are, How fine is everything, even your car!" said the mouse twitching his nose excitedly as he measured up for new luxury paying tenants.

And for Mrs Mini Vera too, all was delightful and frankly 'phew', for just in the rubbish heap with her right paw she touched on a sign that she'd felt once before. It was her father's old notebook that went with that house so she switch trades to decorate and married that mouse!