Some toy you give,” he said, gritty-voiced, and now the two tears in the corners of his eyes began to slide down his cheeks.

“You remembered the day Daddy said he would give me this when I became a doctor.”

“How could I forget? That little catalog was the one thing you took of yours that wasn’t clothes, when we went to Foxworth Hall. And every time he swatted a fly, or killed a spider, Paul, Chris would long to have a John Cuff microscope. And once he said he wanted to be the Mouseman of the Attic, and discover for himself why mice die so young.”

“Do mice die young?” asked Paul seriously. “How did you know they were young? Did you capture baby ones, and mark them in some way?”

Chris and I met eyes.

Yeah, we’d lived in another world back when we were young and imprisoned, so that we could look at the mice who came to steal and nibble on our food, especially the one named Mickey.

V.C. Andrews