glue trap: an essay
The following autobiographical story comes to us courtesy of Charis Compton, a student at North Park University in Chicago. "Glue Trap: An Essay" is a beautifully written and moving reflection on the groaning of even God's smallest creatures, and I'm deeply grateful to Charis to share it here:
I had heard my teacher talk about the mice living in the walls of our school, but the words had no real significance to me because I had never seen any. We were told that they were filthy, that we shouldn’t touch them if we saw one, that they would eat our lunches if we were careless. We were warned not to leave food in our cubbies when we went home for the day, which was something I never did anyway. I went about my week as a typical, happy-go-lucky first-grader, not paying any mind to what was behind the walls and what that meant for me.
This wasn’t unusual. I had a penchant for not paying attention to what our teacher said. I was a very headstrong young child, and she was a very headstrong woman, so we butted heads constantly. It didn’t help that I was already quite an intellectual distance ahead of my classmates. While they were struggling to get through picture books, I made my way through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with ease. Not to mention that I was no stranger to backtalk—I was once grounded for a week for calling the twelve year-old bully down the road a “fat butt.” Even when “backtalk” was really more along the lines of “asking difficult questions,” I had more than one phone call to my parents over the school year. I can still remember her typical pose when dealing with me; eyes narrowed behind her glasses, thin lips pursed angrily, arms folded over her considerable girth. So our opinions of each other had solidified early into the school year: she thought I was a smart-mouth and a trouble-maker, and she bored me to tears.
I don’t remember what I was doing before I saw the mice. It must have been during free time, because nobody was sitting in their seats. My teacher and her assistant (a curly-haired young woman who didn’t have a much higher opinion of me than her boss) were seated at the big desk with troubled looks on their faces. There was a small crowd of my classmates gathered around them. I made my way over to see what they were looking at, and my jaw dropped open.
Three mice were stuck on a glue trap. These were not adult mice, not the sneaking vermin we had been warned about. They were babies—the largest one no bigger than a silver dollar—and they were in pain. The two smaller ones were stuck fast in contorted fetal positions, their tiny sides rising and falling rapidly with every shallow breath. The larger one was lying at the end of a trail of blood and tissue. It had made a failed bid for freedom that had left one of its hind legs a few inches behind it. For me, an animal-lover since birth, this was too much to take in.
I turned to my teacher, mouth still hanging open, staring up at her in disbelief. She was going to help them, wasn’t she? Couldn’t she see how much they were suffering? There had to be a way to get them to a vet, someone who could help them. Why did she let this happen? Why was she just sitting there?
I was stunned when she told us to sit down. My classmates moved away, but I stood there gaping at her.
“Don’t start with me, Charis,” she said, her voice edgy and metallic, “Sit down.”
I didn’t move. I still didn’t understand what was going on. How could this woman who always taught us that hurting things was wrong, who punished me for punching a boy who had pushed me out of line at recess, just tell us to ignore three dying animals? I was waiting for her to do something to let us know that they would be taken care of. But she was frowning, her eyes narrowing like they had so many times before.
“Sit down, Charis,” she growled.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It felt like I had been standing up there for ages. All eyes were on me—my classmates had seen this happen before, and they were always interested in how it turned out. Finally, I managed to speak.
“Let me take them home,” I pleaded, “My parents will say it’s okay, we can help them…” It was true. Our house was a miniature menagerie: Princeton the yellow mutt in the backyard, my beloved black cat Leah Meow-Meow, Sam the blue parakeet, Greenie and Scaredy-Cat the chameleons, and my father’s tarantula who I had named Ghostwriter but couldn’t bring myself to touch. My parents wouldn’t mind taking in three little mice. They could heal them, make it all better. I would keep them safe from Leah.
But she shook her head. “No, you may not, Charis. Sit down now, or you are going to have consequences.”
I felt rooted to the spot. Tears were welling up behind my eyes, hot and sad and angry. I despised everything about her in that moment: the washy blonde hair, the piggish blue eyes behind the frames of her glasses, the hard-set mouth. She’d never thought twice about humiliating me in front of the class, but more than my feelings was at stake here. I was fighting for the lives of these mice. Nobody else would help them.
“They deserve to live!” I shouted, my voice high and thin, lacking the strength I so wanted it to have. “You can’t do this! This is wrong!”
The room was silent for a few moments. Then my teacher looked me in the eyes, picked up the gore-stained glue trap with its barely-moving mice and dropped it in the garbage can. That ended our standoff. I had lost. My shoulders sunk and my head dropped. I returned to my seat with my heart sitting somewhere in my stomach.
My teacher went to the front of the classroom, made a shrill speech about how mice were pests, not pets, to curb any of my other classmates from sympathizing with me, from talking back to her. It didn’t matter. I didn’t hear a word she said. I couldn’t focus on anything for the rest of the day.
When I got home, I gave my parents the note my teacher sent home about my “backtalk” and “hateful behavior.” I sat there, staring at the table while my parents whispered to each other, reread the note, cast worried glances at me. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Finally, my mother spoke in a soothing, gentle voice: “It’s okay, Charis. Go outside.”
I obeyed her immediately. That was a time when I wasn’t punished for talking back to my teacher. Outside on the porch, I slumped on the steps and stared out at the street. Leah came up to me, slinking around and rubbing against my leg. That was when my tears finally came. I picked her up and buried my face in her soft, dark fur.
I felt like one of those mice, those mice that were dead at the bottom of a garbage can now. I couldn’t help those mice. I couldn’t help anyone. Mice would die, cats would die, people would die. And nobody would care, because the people who wanted to help were small and weak, and the big people in charge never did anything.
Did people become uncaring as they aged, a process as natural as graying hair and losing one’s baby teeth? Would I be the one who callously let helpless creatures die in front of me someday? I sniffled into Leah’s back, the comforting scent of her fur calming me somewhat. I promised myself that I would never let myself become that person.
I would go back to school the next day as emotionless as a robot. My mother would tell me that it was too late to do anything, that I needed to keep learning. I would continue to do my homework, to excel ahead of the rest of the class. My teacher wouldn’t make eye contact with me for weeks.
But sitting there with my cat on those steps, I realized that I was also stuck. Nobody would listen to me until I was bigger. Maybe they wouldn’t even listen to me then. I would be stuck fast, splayed out on a glue trap until I was big enough to stand up for what I believed in.
(a sincere thanks to Charis for allowing us to share "Glue Trap: An Essay," and to Trish Compton for making me aware of the essay; photos (not of/by Charis) copyright Sebastian Duda & Gabriella Bíró/123rf.com)
April 1, 2010
Reader Comments (14)
omg..I hate those things. I used to help my husband clean for this cleaning company and found a mom mouse w/her babies (apparently gave birth while stuck ON the glue trap! Horrible!
I have pried those things off w/cooking oil before. And when I see them at work I step on the mouseless glue trap and throw them away. They should be outlawed.
That is a truly horrible scenario, Mary, wow. I agree, traps like these should be outlawed, and I wish we could make more effort to preserve these little guys' life in general - Ben
That is a powerful and horrible story. I myself got in trouble at that age at recess for punching a boy who was throwing toads over a fence into a gravel pit. Do people get uncaring as they age? I think so. But stories like this might help them remember the power of life seen through a child's eyes. We are supposed to come to the Lord like a little child. We should see creation that way too. Thanks for your writing.
Thank you for the comment, Lauren, and well said. I just forwarded it to Charis - Ben
Several years ago our dog food bag had been chewed open in our basement. After I found the bag and dog food coming out of the hole a mouse had chewed, I chose to store the food in a plastic container. After moving the food to the plastic container, I saw the lid to the container had been chewed on as well. Then one day not long after I had to put something into a room in the basement. A teeny field mouse sat on its back feet and made a little pitiful cry. I picked up the mouse, who did not struggle and was very weak and tried to take him outside. When I put him on the grass he just held onto a blade of grass, trying not to let the wind blow him away. Then I decided to put him in a shoe box with a little lid of water and yes, some dog food. I wasn't sure if the mouse was going to survive, but I hoped it would. When I returned home from class, I opened the lid to the shoe box and this little, lifeless mouse was now scrabbling around the shoe box a mile a minute! It had revived with some food and water and I released it outside. My husband (now my ex-husband) and family and friends were all in disbelief. Why would I have done that? But I could think of nothing else except to nurse it back to health. My heart is happy that I did. Thank you for a beautiful story that lets people like me know they are not alone in their love for all creatures, no matter what.
Barbara, what you did for that little mouse was nothing but an act of tremendous compassion and love, and it's an inspiration to me. I sure appreciate you sharing that story, and am sorry for the less-than-positive feedback you received from some of your family. You should be proud of having honored God's concern for even the smallest creatures (Luke 12:6) - Ben
Wow, what an amazing story. I never thought I'd see some one this caring of animals. I thought I was one of a kind, and I would never get anywhere in life knowing that there weren't any people like me. I too, am very much like you. I remember when one rainy day, in my school I tried to save a coulple of helpless drowning worms. Although it didn't work out so well, since a nearby teacher saw me and made me dispose of it. When I tried to reason with her she said "It's just a worm and it's disgusting!" Me and my friend agreed that was wrong and everything deserves the right to live. My parents are not so willing to let me have lots of pets. That's probably why today alot of animals go extinct. People today are so careless they'll say something like "Who cares, it's just a mouse." Lots people don't even know, but worms are very essential to the earth. I wish people would be more caring.
Sorry, when I said animals go extinct after saying my parents wouldn't let me have many pets, I forgot to add this sentence in between:Most people don't care about animals anymore and don't care if they die, they're probably satisfied when the animal(s) is/are dead.
Oh yes, and I too have gotten in trouble for "backtalking" to my teachers quite a few times.
Beautifully said, Gabriel, thank you for the comments, and for your compassionate heart. I'll be sure to forward your notes on to the post's author, Charis - Ben
Wow (moderator edit)... she shouldn't be a teacher. I can't believe someone in such a position would just throw them into the bin, while they were suffering... still alive... like inanimate objects.
Well, I've got here a few things to tell you. First, I've been inspired and decided to write an essay on the life of uncared for animals. Second, you may be tremendously surprised about this one, but I am a 6th grader in Quebec. Lastly, could you tell me a little bit about yourself (no personal information just general). Also, don't you despise of the feeling of being overpowered in the battle for an animal's life?
Gabriel, I am surprised to hear you are only in 6th grade! You are extremely well-spoken and mature for your age, which I commend you for. I passed along your note to the article's author, Charis, and hopefully she'll be able to respond to your question. Otherwise, if I can be of further help (I am the administrator and founder of Not One Sparrow), please feel free to contact me as longs as your parents or guardians are fine with that. The very best to you and your essay, please share it with us when you're finished! - Ben
Well I thank you greatly. I'm not even sure why I am this mature, but I do aprreciate it. I am like a said, well, almost, one like no other. I'll try to post the essay I've written. Also since in Quebec the language is mostly french, I feel gifted with this knowledge.