Ringo The Naughty Rat

A fictitious original short children’s story by Sithenjwa T Mzili

Inside the spacious four room house at number 9b Matlakala avenue, with a tiled kitchen area, wooden floor lounge and carpeted bedrooms, lived the Molefe family. The Molefe’s are a simple family with a unique personality. They have a clean yard, with only a fence around that guards the house from the bushy field that their home is located close to. The Molefe residence has two children, Lerato and Kgotso, who are ten and thirteen years old respectively.

Mrs Molefe likes to keep her house clean and she enforces her rules on everyone. No one is allowed to leave the dishes unwashed in the kitchen zinc, no one leaves their socks or clothes lying on the floor and everyone must clean up after themselves.

“I am not your maid.” She would always reiterate.

The house rules also applied to Mr Molefe by the way.

Mrs Molefe’s house rules ensure that everyone behaves, contributes towards keeping the house and yard clean. Everyone has their chores. Kgotso does the house cleaning on Mondays and Thursdays. Lerato washes the dishes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Kgotso takes the garbage bin outside on Fridays. Lerato helps Mrs Molefe cook on Thursdays. Mr Molefe keeps the yard tidy and looks after the garden. Mrs Molefe runs the household, ensuring that there are groceries, cooked food on a regular basis and that bills are paid on time.

The bushy field just outside their home worried Mr Molefe. People around their neighbourhood were starting to use it as regular dumping site. This was posing serious health risks.

It was only after these five cases that some serious action was taken at the Molefe residence to deal with a problem that has been bothering them for a while.

Lerato’s school bag had a hole at the bottom.

Kgotso’s soccer kit box was bitten.

Mrs Molefe saw that something must have dug a hole through her 12.5 kg mealie meal bag.

Mr Molefe’s fashionable happy socks were chewed up into bits and pieces too.

The window seal of the kitchen area had small droppings that resembled a rat’s discharge.

Mrs Molefe called an urgent family meeting one evening.

“Molefe’s,” she commanded. “We have a problem. A naughty little rat has invaded our home and we need to put our heads together to deal with it.” She affirmed.

Everyone agreed and a plan of action was immediately devised.

Meanwhile at the bottom of the kitchen unit, where the groceries were neatly packed, lived a tiny creature named Ringo.

Ringo enjoyed staying at the Molefe’s. He had been a resident at the Molefe’s for about three weeks now and was already thinking of making this area his permanent place of residence. He is tired of moving from pillar to post in search of a place to dwell. Some stability would suit him quite well.

“This place is paradise!” he often thought to himself, as he wagged his tail in excitement around the corners of the house. Ringo is the naughty rat that the Molefe’s are worried about who is causing them trouble. Ringo did not seem bothered at all as he was even using a lunch box as a bed to rest and some old newspapers to make it comfortable and warm to sleep on.

This one time, Ringo wakes up hungry and begins searching around for some food. The house was quiet, so he assumed that the parents are off to work while the children are off to school. Then Ringo stumbled upon a treasure – cheese. This was no ordinary cheese. It was decorated with chocolate, dried fruit and bacon. The set up had a divine scent to it. Ringo felt like he was on heaven inside someone’s kitchen cupboard.

He approached the bait without any conviction or fear and grabbed one of the food items. As he was about to gobble the food something snapped, loudly and quickly onto his tiny body.

Ouch.

Eish.

Then there was a scream from poor Ringo, all of a sudden, who just realized that he has been caught in a rat trap.

He was stuck and had nowhere to go. He knew that his paradise time had come to an end. Ringo cried for his mama for hours until, eventually, Mrs Molefe came to his rescue.

“There you are, you little rascal. We finally caught you.” Mrs Molefe said, as she celebrated her family’s victory over the naughty Ringo’s terror reign.