For those of you who are wondering this is a spin off of Cuddles1234XD's story "Center state". In the story the four penguins get sent to different parts of the counrty, mainly the four corners of the U.S. Rico is sent to Washington, Skipper is sent to Maine, Kowalski is sent to southern Florida, and Private is sent to southern California. As for Private, along his misplacement, he meets a little California deer mouse no larger than the size of his foot. She is a big part of his travel home, and this is her story. It's got many twists, and turns. Enjoy amigos!

Well I suppose this is where I start to tell you my story. It's a bit of a big story. Listen. I expect you'll be wanting to hear about something that is all magical and amazing, and probably romantic. Well I'm sorry. No it's not the sweet story about a little princess, and her heroic prince savior, and no it's not about a group of amazing people that save the world, and I'm sorry it's not about some dastardly villain who's out to create all things bad. To be honest, it's about my troublesome trials through the world, and how through some miraculous bizarre turn of events helped me meet an exceptionally nice little penguin. But I'll get to that part later.

Let me begin with the most important detail of my life. First off, I'm a California deer mouse, which means that I am a natural born thief. Yes. It's so true. Ever since I was a tiny little pink spot, it was in my DNA. I have a bit of a peachish orange yellow color to my fur at the top, and my belly, the underside of my limbs, and bottom of my neck is white. My tail is longer than my whole body, and a little tuft of fur is puffed at the end of it. I have a bit of fur at the top of my head that is sort of fluffy. A way to tell me apart from the others. Anyway back to my story of theivery. When you live in a boarding house, you try to get what you can. Which brings me to the second thing you should know. Yes I lived in a boarding house . . . well, in it's walls anyway. What would be a boarding house to a human, is a neighborhood to us. Just look at a wall in a house, and compare it to the size of the chapstick in your pocket. I bet you could fit alot of chapsticks in that one wall. Now compare it to all the walls in your house. It's like a little town just for us. My town for me, was an old boarding house in California. My whole life began in that boarding house. My mother and my father were the leaders of the nest. We had, oh I don't know. About a thousand members of our nest. We usually kept to the attic, and basement to stay safe.

To make sure we didn't get lost in the walls was a big chore. That is where our thievery skill comes in handy. We didn't steal too much. We usually just stole things like pennies, buttons, wrappers, and things like that. It was just to mark our paths, and know where we were in the walls. I always hated theiving things from the boarders. The other members of my colony were so currupt that they would steal anything that wasn't nailed down. Then they would probably come back with hammers and take the nailed stuff too. The leaders of the colony which of course was my mother and father were the best theives of the entire nest, which is how they got the highest level of respect. Now there is a diference between my parents and me. My twelve brothers were better thieves than I was. To put it in plainly, they were better at theiving, socializing, stealing and getting away with it than I was. I on the other hand, was not so much. I was more of a harvester so to speak. I stole things which were more . . . ownerless. Since the boarding house was in a rural area, there was alot of things that you could get on the outside of the house.

Even though I was not the stealing type, my parents were always trying to teach me how to have sticky fingers. They would try to make sure that I would take over the colony after them. That was not my idea of glamourous. They expected their only daughter to be in charge of over a thousand thieves. I did not want to be the leader of theiving mice. I would like to remind you, as you're reading this that I have TWELVE BROTHERS! They have stolen more things in a hour, than I could in a week. They would make much better leaders. Still being their one and only little princess, they insisted that they give me the biggest gift of all. The family heir to the throne. Or in this case, a big giant room at the top of the boarding house. I really didn't have a liking to the boarding house at all. I always dreamed of being in a place where there were no traps. A place that you didn't have to steal from. A place that was simply easier to cope with.

So let me begin with the first day I decided enough was enough.

I sat in my little matchbox bed running my left paw against the rough scratchy part on one side, and picking at the cotton that filled it with my right. Things were pretty quiet. For now, my home was a little corner spot in a teenage girls bedroom wall. My fourth wall was a piece of black cloth that opened and closed in a corner. The light that came from my room was from the teenage girls lava lamp. I got the light since the walls were fairly thin, and it could glow through the cracks in the wood. It was always giving a purplish glow. And adding to the fact that we were nocturnal, our vision adjusted quite well. I learned a little bit about her. Her name was Dejuhnay, and her father was a cook in a hotel. My favorite thing was when her friends visited the boarding house. She has seen me a few times and she never tried to catch me.

When I looked through the crack, I glanced at the neon glowing clock on the wall. It said it was seven thirty. Dinner was going to be soon. My six older brothers were in charge of getting the food from the boarding house kitchen, while my six younger brothers were gathering the colony. When your parents were the leaders the clan you were given special jobs. My job, being the middle child was taking over the clan. I sat there with my pet termite. As I pet him, I heard him purring softly. I named him Spunky. He was my pet termite that I saved from a cat on the streets. Suddenly somebody burst through my room totally unannounced, and not caring to knock "Laylah! Come quickly! One of your brothers is stuck in a trap! He along with four other mice. Hurry! We must make hast before the cat finds them." I rolled my eyes and nodded. Quickly I grabbed my baby blue scrap fabric, and tied it around my tail. It's what I always used when going outside the walls, and freeing my brothers, or anybody for that matter. I called it a lucky scarf.

We all took the short way. I got to the closest hole in the wall, and exited the sanctuary of my family's comfort. The closest hole, went to an elderly couple's room. For a human, two flights of stairs didn't seem like a long way down, but for a mouse, it was murder. Still being a deer mouse, it was a bit easier, since we were known for our athleticism amung rodents. I got down to the floor, by climbing down the recliner. I had to be quick so the cat didn't spot my brothers or the rest. If the cat saw them we were in big trouble. Unlike some cats, when our house cat saw us in a trap, we were as good as meals. Still, we were yet to be caught at all. We were a good thriving colony. When I reached the floor, I jumped in a hole in the wooden floor that led to the space between the floor of the above room and the cieling of the next floor. I took a spider web sting, and slid downwards.

The next room was a little boy that had been living here for two years with his mother. I climbed from the cieling to one of the tall poles on the corner of his bed. I landed on a soft matress, and leapt over to his desk. His ruler was sticking over the end like a diving board. Jumping off of I landed on a cushiony pillow, and his mother's couch. Finally I managed to get to the last floor hole. It led straight to the stair case railing. The rest of the rescue team was right behind me. We slid down the staircase, and landed on a little end table. earching in the drawer, I found enough handkerchiefs for all of us. We used them as parachutes, and floated down. One room away. We all made the dash to the kitchen before the cat could nab us.

When I got down there, I saw my older brother along with four other mice. My other eleven brothers were freaking out. I walked out there along with a few rescue mice. I was part of a rescue squad that freed mice from traps. My older brother, and the four others were in a cage that was really hard to open, if you didn't know how to open it properly. My brothers walked up to me, and started acting hysterical.

"What took you so long laylah?"

"Jeremy's stuck in there!"

"Do you know how freaked out we were?"

"Jeez I swear. Sometimes I have trouble believing we're even related."

"How are you going to be ruler of this colony if you let this type of stuff happen?"

Ignoring the annoying insults of my older half of brothers, I took a deep breath, and got low so I could lift the entrance door. A few others joined in hoisting it up. We were crouching til we found the entrance. The rest of the group got on the lever that was used to open it up by the humans. Their weight on the lever made it easier to hold up. Finally in one grunt we all pushed up, and the five mice scurried out. In the midst of things, I was never upset. I was grateful the owners of the house used such safe humane traps. I would be devasted if they used snap traps. As they exited the traps, everyone applauded the rescue team for it's victorious efferts.

"Yay! Great job team." I smiled. "Now let's get out of here, and head back to the walls." They all agreed with me, and we started to walk back, but we didn't take but two steps, when eveyone looked behind me. The mice were frozen looking, and I didn't know why. Suddenly I saw a long shadow casted over all of us. I looked behind myself. Mincy towered over me smiling, as her whiskers twitched slightly. I felt my heart race. Her white fur was fluffed, and poofy. She was interested in chasing one mouse, and that was me. In a flash of syncronization, we all scurried in different directions. The trapped mice had grabbed their food for the colony, and just as suspected, Mincy ran after me. Mincy was a Persian high pedigree cat. He blue eyes glimmered as they focused on me. I was not as fast as she was sneaky. I was running throughout the house. The closest mouse hole was not too far. I was gunna make it!

Suddenly I felt a heavy cat paw on my tail. All of a sudden, I could no longer run. Mincy had me by the tail. That doesn't mean I didn't try. Slowly she lifted me up, as I looked down. The carpet of the living room, getting further and further away. She spun me around, and looked into my black eyes. "Hmm. I should have expected you to be in the kitchen. Spending all this time looking for you in the bathroom? Must be losing my touch." I snarled as I hung in her grasp.

I rolled my eyes. "You know. I never thought of you as the kind to lie. You were waiting for me. You just love catching your prey when they least expect. Even I wouldn't have thought you woud stoop so low as to wait till I was saving my brother." I said. Personally she has caught me enough times, and always manages to loose me. "Well, you think you're going to be able to keep me this time, or do you think Gabrielle will stop you?"

She scoffed. "Oh, please. Gabrielle only pretends to love you. In reality, he really loves me. Trust me, if he saw you trying to escape this house, he would let me kill you like that. Your love for him is just a simple teenage crush. He loves me, and I love him."

"You wouldn't know love if it kicked you in the face." I swung by my tail, turning around, to see Gabrielle coming into the room. His collar made a little ringing sound, from his tags. Gabrielle was the Sheltie Collie that lived in the boarding house, and was the only dog it had. He has always protected me, from Mincy, and never really liked cats to begin with. Gabrielle has always had a very special relationship with me. Gabrielle didn't really get that much pamperment from the house, and was always known for his still, he always kept his long coat nicely brushed, and clean. Ironically enough, Gabrielle belonged to Dejuhnay's pet dog. His coat was red and white. It wasn't mixed up, but seperated into red and white areas. his blue eyes rested on me, and he growled at Mincy.

"Ah, Gabrielle. I see you have made it. I caught this little rodent trying to eat our food. She was getting into the shelves." She said holding her paw up to show me hanging pathetically.

This made me angry. "That's not true. I was only letting out my brother from a trap. You have to believe me."

He looked down smiling at me. "I believe you, Laylah. Mincy you should know better than to try to pull the wall over my eyes. It's not like you don't eat enough, anyway." He said. "Now come on. You know the rules. Drop her." As soon as he started growling again, Mincy put me down, and like clockwork, I ran to the closest hole, and ran back to the colony.