Disclaimer: I don't own any Hogan's Heroes characters

AWOL

I'd rather tell the story myself now, before someone else does and makes fun of me. Actually, it was quite funny. I mean not at first, but later it was funny. It was a sunshiny day after weeks of cloudy skies and bad moods of my barracks mates, especially, Newkirk who had been grumpy for almost a month just because of the bleak weather. How anyone can be so sensitive about the weather is beyond me. Gee, isn't it supposed to be foggy or rainy in England all the time? But back to my story, I'll tell it as well as I remember. It was April 1st and everybody waited the whole morning for something to happen. But the Colonel had no salt in his coffee this year and nobody was painted green or blue over night. Newkirk said he wouldn't play the same pranks twice and asked what we think of him for heaven's sake.

After we had lunch, I wanted to feed Felix his lunch. He is my pet mouse, you see. I hummed to myself, as I said, it was a terrific day. The winter seemed to be over, finally. I lifted the cover to the box I kept Felix in. My heart stopped, well, not really, I'm still alive obviously. But Felix wasn't there! I know it's kind of mean to keep Felix in something like a cage. It's not nice to be locked up, I know that feeling. But I made him this cute little living room and bed room. I think every mouse would be happy to have such a nice home. But maybe Felix wasn't happy, he was gone.

I closed the box and looked under my bed and then under my blanket. Felix wasn't there either. I really didn't want to tell the others that Felix had escaped, well, again. And I was absolutely one hundred percent sure that I had closed the box properly this time. One trillion percent sure.

I was looking under LeBeau's bed when he asked me what I was looking for.

"Felix is missing," I said. "Will you help me find him, please?"

"Oui, bien sûr."

We looked under the table and in a few places where we hide stuff. Colonel Hogan told me not to say where.

"Can't you two keep it down?!" Newkirk turned around in his bed and was mad at us right away. As I said, he had been dour for quite some time and we, I mean at least I was sometimes glad when he took a nap and couldn't tease me for a while. Everybody needs a break now and then, I guess.

But Newkirk wasn't done there. "Just because that mouse of his is AWOL doesn't mean you have to make such a ruddy fuss. It's just a mouse after all," he said in that tone of his.

"You have never liked Felix," I responded. Do you know that kind of situation when you don't want somebody to hear what you say, but can't keep quiet either? Well, Newkirk hears like a hawk and he heard this, too.

"Mice spread diseases," he said.

I countered very smartly. "Not Felix. He is a clean mouse."

LeBeau and me searched after Felix for a little bit and then LeBeau asked Newkirk, "Don't you think it's time you gave him back his mouse? I know you have a thing for April 1st, but you've had your fun, no?"

"Why me?" Newkirk asked.

LeBeau just grinned at him and answered, "Because you would stop at nothing."

"That's charming, mate," Newkirk said. He grinned a little, too. But it was not a happy smile, but a mischievous one. The way he looks when he pulls a fast one on Schultz.

By that time I got it. "Do you mean he kidnapped Felix?"

"I don't have your mouse," Newkirk insisted.

I gave Newkirk a look as evil as I could make it. "Give Felix back!" But he just rolled his eyes at me.

"How often do I need to tell you? I don't have the bloody thing."

"He's not a thing," I informed him.

Colonel Hogan walked in and said, "stop the bickering you two. We have more important things to attend to."

"But he's got Felix and he won't give him back." I know I shouldn't have finked on Newkirk, but what could I have done? I wanted Felix back.

But Newkirk didn't want to concede. "Newsflash: I don't have the mouse."

This really wasn't funny anymore and I told Newkirk exactly that. "This isn't funny anymore. Where is Felix? Tell me or, or I won't ever talk to you again!"

"There's a threat for you, mate."

I really didn't want for it to happen but I couldn't help it. I felt tears filling my eyes. That was pretty embarrassing. I was really scared for Felix. He is my best pet friend. Newkirk is my best human friend. But he can be so mean sometimes.

Colonel Hogan finally helped me and told Newkirk off, "That's enough. Newkirk, you are going too far this time. Give Carter's mouse back. That's an order."

Newkirk jumped down from his bed and yelled, "I can't! I don't have the bleeding mouse! Sir." Newkirk looked offended then and I thought maybe he had nothing to do with Felix going missing after all.

"OK, we will talk about your behavior later. Let's look for the mouse, everyone," the Colonel ordered.

I could see that Newkirk lifted up his blanket a little and pretended to look for Felix in his bed where he just had slept. The rest of us started the search for real again. We looked everywhere in the common room. Felix was nowhere to be found. So I went to Colonel Hogan's quarters. I wondered where I would go if I were a mouse and didn't have my lunch yet. The kitchen probably, where the food is, but LeBeau had made sure that Felix wasn't sitting in our food storage munching away. In fact, that was the first thing he had checked.

In Colonel Hogan's quarters we had no food stored. It didn't matter where to start so I opened the Colonel's locker. A flood of mice sloshed out of it. They dashed over my feet and I just stared. A hundred Felixes swarmed all over the place.

I ran after them as they invaded the common room. "Felix! Don't step on him!" I shouted.

Boy, they were everywhere. And so fast. Have you ever seen how fast mice can run when they want to?

Newkirk was back on his bed and some of the others who were scared of mice climbed up their beds, too. As if that was any use. Anyone knows that mice can clamber up almost anything. The rest of us tried to catch the mice. Gee, was that something. We ran after them to and forth. And whenever I reached out to snatch one it disappeared under a bed and was gone. We spent two hours playing hide and seek.

Newkirk refused to help. He stayed on his bed the whole time and watched the marvelously splendid show, as he called it. We had a cat on my parents' farm, Bunny. She used to catch a mouse and bring it into the house alive. As soon as it was inside, she didn't care anymore and we spent the rest of the day running all over the place while Bunny watched from top of the cupboard with a very, very satisfied grin. Newkirk grinned from ear to ear, too.

From time to time a chap who got lucky came to me with a mouse and asked if it was Felix, but I had to say "No, Felix isn't black" or "No, Felix isn't white" and such things. Eventually, we caught every single mouse. We knew that because Colonel Hogan made Newkirk say how many mice he had hidden in the locker. But there was no Felix.

I sat down at the common room table. There was nothing more I could think of. What if Felix was gone for good? To keep one of the other mice wouldn't be the same.

"Have you looked everywhere?" Newkirk asked somewhat out of the blue.

I replied without looking up, "Of course, I have."

"Really?"

Colonel Hogan was tired of playing games, I guess, and said, "Newkirk, spill it. Where is Felix?"

"Blimey, with all the commotion going on here I would have stayed at home if I were in Felix's paws.

I'm proud to say that I got that immediately. "Home!" I ran to the bed with the trap door, practically jumped down into the tunnel and raced to my laboratory. I opened Felix's box and there he was. Gosh, you can't imagine. I picked Felix up and let him run over my hand and arm and shoulder and down the other arm again to my other hand. I'm sure he was very glad to see me, too.

Carrying Felix in my hat, I rushed back through the tunnel, up the ladder and back to the barracks. I had totally forgotten that I had worked in my lab earlier that day and had Felix there for company. He had been in his secondary residence box the whole time.

"If you think I would lay hands on someone what is that much smaller than me you're a sorry lot, I must say," Newkirk grumbled from up the bed. But he was not really grumpy, he still had the Bunny grin.

"Sure. And I think the mice left a few droppings and you just volunteered to clean our barracks from top to bottom, Corporal. Everywhere a mouse was or could possibly have been, and you start now," the Colonel said.

Newkirk hopped down and replied, "Yes, sir."

"How did you do it? And when? All the mice? Where did they come from? ..." I could have asked a lot more questions and a possibly did, but all Newkirk said was:

"A magician doesn't reveal his tricks, now, does he?"

Many thanks to Venea Taur for reading, correcting, advising and encouraging.