The Christmas Mouse

What was that noise below the floor boards? Rattling and scratching by the hoards. It's kept me up at night, yes wide awake. I had to find out what was making it for goodness sake. Then I heard nibbling, nawing at the wood. "If it's a mouse, he's surely up to no good." I decided one night, enough was enough. And got out of bed with a huff and a puff. I crept up to the noise and listened in the dark, for the mouse to move, so I could grab him like a shark. He jumped out of a box of my wrapping supplies. With some ribbon and bows and then he locked eyes, with the tape he dropped, on an earlier steal. He grabbed it fast and went down the hole with the reel. "What peculiar things to steal from my box,

I'll get him tomorrow. I will pounce like a fox." So the next night I waited, and noticed the floorboard could detach, I rattled and pulled and up it came like a latch. Beneath it I was met, with a sight that made me gasp, a little mouse sat on a chair with the tape in his grasp. Wrapping tiny gifts all through the dark night. He never saw me, and he wrapped until light. I replaced the floor board and left him alone. For a mouse who wraps presents, I couldn't possibly moan.