Fun Rat Stories

Still wearing his pirate costume, Collin Peterson divided his Halloween candy into three piles on the living room floor: the one he would eat tonight, the one his mother would freeze, and the one he would give to his sister Maggie, which he secretly called the Gross Pile.
This Halloween had been good. Many people had given good candy, like full size candy bars and cans of soda pop. Only one house had given Collin and Maggie a "healthy" snack, a raisin and oat granola bar that not even Bart, the family dog would eat.
"Collin, share with Maggie. You don't need all that," his mom said when she saw his loot.
"But, mom!"
"Don't you 'but mom' me. Do what I say or Maggie gets all of your candy. Do you hear me?" Collin mumbled something. "Collin Michael Peterson...."
"OK, ok!"
That night Collin lay in bed with his pirate sword thinking of how unfair it was that he had to share his candy.
Just before Collin fell asleep, he heard the bedroom door squeak open. A shadow slinked across the wooden floor up to the bed. Collin lowered his hand, feeling a warm, wet tongue on his chocolate stained fingers.
"Hey, Bart."
"Nrah!"
Collin shot up in bed, eyes wide in the dark, knowing Bart never made a sound like that. Collin tried to move away, but the creature jumped onto the bed, sitting on his lap. "Shhhh," it said, holding its paw up to its long snout. Whiskers twitched on either side of a slender nose. "Nrah."
"Sugar?"
"Nrah!"
"That's all you want?"
"...Nrah," the shadow nodded.
"Well...I guess...."
In the darkness, Collin understood each Nrah and twitch of a long, wiry tail. In the darkness, Collin whispered back to the animal perched on his knees. In the darkness, Collin and the little creature made a deal.
The next morning, Collin saw the little mound of Kit Kats and Snickers shaped into a pyramid on the nightstand. Scratched into the tabletop was a single word: Nrah. From the corner of his eye, Collin saw a naked tail disappear out the bedroom door.
By Easter, Collin was excited. His grandparents had given him a foot-tall chocolate rabbit.
"Hey!" he said when he opened the dresser drawer and found only a pair of bunny ears between socks and underwear. "Stupid Sugar Rat!"
From under the bed came a deep, angry, "Nrah!"
In silence, Collin ate his rabbit ears and dressed for school. A deal was a deal.
For years, Collin relied on the Sugar Rat to bring him goodies. Sometimes, candy was missing only a corner, but more often Collin found empty wrappers with nothing more than the lingering smell of chocolate.
When Collin turned eighteen, he packed up for college. "Finally," he said to himself. "I'm free!"
In the middle of the night, when his roommate was snoring, Collin crept down the hall to the vending machines and fed them his laundry money.
"Nrah!" said the glowing machines. A tiny paw came out of the snack slot, holding an orange wrapper of peanut butter candies, the Sugar Rat's favorites.
For the first semester, the Sugar Rat continued to take candy from the vending machine, leaving the wrappers under Collin's bed.
   "I must get rid of the Sugar Rat," Collin told himself as he stood in the drug store pest control aisle.
    Collin lay awake, waiting. He thought he heard rustling in the dark, the tiny nibbles of the Sugar Rat tearing through wrappers scattered around the trap. Could it be?
   The snap of the mousetrap woke Collin. He sat up in bed, afraid to look. From the corner of his eye, he peered out, then gasped at the candy still on the floor.
Rearranged, it spelled out a single word: Nrah!