Robocat

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“Ugh, Keith, throw it away, yuck!” – Nicky’s mum shouted at the top of her voice. Nicky’s father caught a mouse and showed his trophy to the whole family. The mother had been afraid of mice since childhood and now she was hiding under the sofa while screaming and waving her hands and trying to point at the door. Nicky ran up to her Dad to have a look at the small rodent in his hands. Seeing his wife’s terrified face Keith offered Nicky to head to their backyard. “So, what’re we gonna do?” – the father asked. Then he put the mouse into the empty jar with his hand holding its tail carefully. “Please, Dad, don't kill it!” – Nicky said almost crying. “I wasn’t going to anyway” – he said. “Get into the car”. The next moment the father, his daughter and their tiny fluffy grey guest were going out of the town to the wildwood. “It will feel much better here” – Nicky’s father said while opening the jar close to the ground. Without any loss of time, the mouse shot out of its transparent cage into the heart of the forest, it literally vanished into thin air. “Bye, mousey!” – Nicky shouted.

Girl’s family recently moved to an old house, which they inherited from Nicky’s was an Indian summer. Big noisy machines were busy collecting the harvest on the fields. Day after day it got colder. Looking for some shelter field mice started gathering on their way to the town. Some of them settled in barns or bathhouses while the others took refuge in cellars. The fearless ones ran into the houses as it had happened to Nicky’s family the day before.

“Mom, what’s with all these mousetraps?” – Nicky mumbled. “There’s no choice! The house is old and we planned to repair it only next year. Besides, I’m scared of mice to death! Yecch!” – the Mom burst out. “What about a cat?” – she asked herself thus trying to assess the scale of the problem. “Oh, I should also use some glue trap on sheets of paper. That might be helpful!” – she continued while setting all the mousetraps.

“Daddy! Daddy!” – Nicky ran into her father’s study shouting. “Dad, please, you should make something so all the mice can stay alive and our Mom won’t be afraid of them! Pleeease!”. The man took off his glasses and looked at his daughter holding her hands together with a begging gesture. “I wonder what I can do” – Keith said.

Nicky’s father was an engineer. A roboteer to be exact. He would always make some calculations, solder or assemble some contraptions. His equipment would peep, buzz and make any kind of noise. In his study there also was a big wall made of drawers full of mysterious spare parts. Each drawer had a careful inscription on it with the name of everything inside. Sometimes Dad would work all day long with short breaks for shower and meals. The explanation of this would always be some “secret project with a deadline”.

This was the way four days passed. All this time Nicky would check the mousetraps and the sheets of paper with glue on them with a hope to never see any deceased mice there. Sometimes she would spend hours standing nearby to keep off all the hungry rodents.

The next day Keith invited his daughter into his study. “Have a look”, – he said pointing at some device. The girl came closer to the father’s table. She saw something that resembled a middle-size toy truck. That was a big transparent plastic box with two levels each having a unit with a small door. This construction was set on the platform with caterpillar tracks. The box would open the same way as the store door of any freight carrier. The most surprising part of this contraption was a ball-shaped plastic head with a cat-like face, eyes and ears. Additionally it had a tail which pointed down for some reason. “Daddy, what is it? Is it a cat?” – Nicky asked in surprise. “Exactly, my dear” – Keith said and touched her nose tip with his finger. “That’s a robocat in fact. It will catch all the mice we have without eating them. Instead of this, they will be placed inside small rooms in its belly. Some tasty food will be bait for them. These tiny tots will get inside the cat through its opened belly which is transparent, so we’ll see all the caught ones. This robocat can easily move along any surface, it works with help of the remote control. Besides his eyes will shine green at night to be visible for us.” “Yay! I will name it Trophim” – Nicky shouted happily. That day Trophim caught six mice.

“Wow! They are like in a double-decker and each of them has a personal seat!”- Nicky said while examining the cat’s belly. “Well then, let’s set them free now” – Keith sounded like a commander. Having come to the forest with his daughter running by, the girl’s father put the robocat on the ground and asked Nicky to press a green button on the remote control. As soon as she did what she had to, the cat’s tail lifted up and its belly opened. The mice didn’t rush to leave their cozy new home, but soon they started moving out slowly. When the last of them disappeared in the woods, Trophim meowed loudly and its belly closed. “The humane robocat Trophim” – Nicky said with a smile on her face. “Thanks, Daddy!!!” – she rushed to embrace her father and kissed his scrubby cheek.