Alrighty then, 30 minutes on the clock.
And go!
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Okie dokes - I have just started The Return of the King (the books that got me into this little mess inspired me in the first place). In my version, the first complete sentence on page 99 is "At last Beregond spoke with an effort." I am actually a little relieved because this would've been oh-so-difficult if the sentence had familiar character names in it or said anything about Mordor, the Shire, Rivendale, or orcs. Whew. Perhaps I've lucked out. OK - here I go!
At last Beregond spoke with an effort. "Get this dang trap off of my leg, you useless little house mouse!"
"I see that you are in pain, friend, but that is no need to be rude" Mitzi stuttered back at the big black rat as she darted from one side of the trap to the other.
As a life-long house mouse, Mitzi knew about the dangers of the delightful little nuggets of cheese and peanut butter in the snapping traps. As tantalizing as they seemed, they were rarely worth the effort of the crack of metal on the tail, leg, or, gulp, even the head. She had lost a friend or two over the years to those metal jaws. Mitzi twittered nervously about, trying desperately to find a way to free the rude black rat, but her little paws were not strong enough to pull back the metal bar that was crushing Beregond's back leg, especially since he was thrashing about and wailing. "Dear friend, I need to get help if we are to get you out of this trap. I cannot free you by myself" Mitzi told Beregond and before he could reply she scampered away to her homey little hole-in-the-wall to get her litter mates, Myrtle and Mischief, to help her free the big black rat.
Now, a less noble, less thoughtful, and more selfish little house mouse may have quite seriously considered the idea of leaving the big brute stuck in that trap. He had just barged into their home the week before without any regard for their rules, their humans or their routine way of life. A sewer rat in a house! It was unheard of! He ate through all of their winter stores in a manner of hours and made a huge mess of their hole, not to mention his very, very poor hygiene habits. It was no wonder Mitzi's humans had set out the traps, Beregond had absolutely no regard for secrecy or subtlety, and he smelled, well very much like the sewer he came from. It was quite in Beregond's favor that Mitzi was quite the sweet, tender-hearted, and selfless little house mouse that she was and never thought twice about freeing him from the trap he had quite stupidly got himself tangled up in.
After her frantic flight to her hole-in-the-wall, she was breathless and when she tried to tell Mischief and Myrtle what was wrong, she couldn't get the words out and ended up gesturing wildly with her little paws, trembling to the very roots of her brown fur, and twittering her little pink nose at them (all universal mouse signs of alarm of course) until they followed her to where she had left Beregond. When they arrived though, the trap sat empty. Mitzi was nearly overcome with a feeling of failure and sadness when she saw the empty trap, and began to cry little mouse tears over the very undeserving rat. Then Mischief, who always lives up to his name, noticed a trail leading away from the trap, that could've only been left by the very messy, and very hurt, Beregond. He pointed this out to Mitzi, in between her sniffles, and the three of them set off to track down the big black sewer rat before he could get himself into any more trouble.
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Well, that was certainly more fun than the last go-around! I hope you enjoyed it, if you stuck around long enough to read it. I had fun writing it!
