Read Online In Mike We Trust by P. E. Ryan - Free Book Online Page A

without being obvious about it, he was still left with an hour on the clock; the old man made sure of it by telling him the bathrooms didn’t require cleaning, and the vast floor needed to be swept but not mopped.
    Groaning, Garth stormed into the back of the store, heard the regular chorus of scurrying claws (the creatures in the stockroom had long since stopped bothering him—at least they were on their way to somewhere else when he passed, which was more than could be said for the tenants of the pocket)—and gathered up the shovel and gloves. Having learned from experience, he tucked his T-shirt into his jeans and tucked the cuffs of his jeans into his socks. Then he opened the inner door.
    The smell was horrific. And the little room, no more than five feet by seven feet, was alive: shifting, gnawing, and scraping with life—the pulse of ravenous diners. He reached a hand inside, felt along the wall, and switched on the single, bare lightbulb fixed to the ceiling. The only part of the floor not covered with trash was the corner where the spigot dripped. A pink-eyed, white-furred rat the size of an eight-week-old puppy crouched over the puddle, paused to sniff the air, then resumed drinking. In a nearby, torn-openbag of sour hamburger buns, a colony of gray mice climbed over one another, into and out of the tunnels they’d made. Something hidden under the refuse near the garage door bit or scratched something else; the something else squealed in anger—or pain.
    Garth took a deep breath and set to work.
    The task took nearly all of his remaining hour. The garbage was wet and the shredded plastic bags made the shoveling difficult. More difficult still were his efforts not to kill any of the mice or rats. (As much as they disgusted him, he didn’t relish the idea of accidentally chopping one in half with the shovel blade.) The smaller ones crawled up his socks and latched onto his jeans until he swatted them away. The larger ones did their best to ignore him. Eventually, they all got the message, and those that weren’t happily scooped into the trash cans with the rotting food moseyed back to the various holes in the walls and disappeared.
    He had just finished scrubbing his hands in the stockroom’s utility sink when he heard a scream from somewhere in the store. This was followed shortly by “Rhhuudd, aisle ten!”
    He untucked his jeans from his socks and pushed through the double, swinging doors. An elderly woman was standing in aisle ten, her feet close together and her purse clutched under one arm. She was staringdown, and when Garth rounded the corner, he saw Mr. Peterson crouching over the floor in front of her with a paper bag in one hand, a whisk broom in the other. “I don’t know how this happened,” he was saying. “It’s the first one I’ve ever seen in this store, and I’ve worked here since I was a boy. It must have come in from outside.”
    â€œIt’s disgusting,” the woman said.
    â€œYou’re absolutely right. And I apologize.”
    He closed up the bag as she walked away. When he saw Garth, he frowned, handed him the bag, and said, “Take that into the stockroom and step on it, then throw it in the trash.” Jangling his key ring, he started off after the woman hollering something about extra coupons.
    Garth unrolled the top of the bag and looked into it. A small, gray mouse stared back up at him, its front feet testing the paper walls for traction and finding none.
    He closed up the bag and carried it into the stockroom. When the swinging doors closed behind him, he squatted down, opened the bag, and poured the mouse out onto the cement floor. It stared at him for a moment without moving.
    â€œGo make friends,” he said, and watched it scurry away.
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    He came home that night to the smell of fresh paint. Mike had covered up the water stain on the living room ceiling with a coat of dull primer, which