CHAPTER EIGHT: UNHAPPY MOUSE
Stuart Little was a mouse. He too was adjusting to having parents not his species. He had lost his parents when he was very young and had lived in an orphanage. Two years earlier, he'd been adopted by a human family, the Littles. He hadn't exactly hit it off well with the family cat, Snowbell, who had tried to have him killed. However, in the end, Snowbell had found that he was too fond of Snowbell to actually allow him to die, and had fought his own cat friends to save him. So, like Margalo, he had a hypercarnivore as a friend.
Unfortunately, being a mouse in a human world meant that his new mother put a lot of restrictions on him.
"It's not fair! Why does George get to do everything and I don't? I barely got to play in that soccer game and he played a lot of it!"
"It's because of your size. You were knocked into the goal at the end." Mr. Little said.
"Well, at least I got to help in scoring a point. Try to think of the silver linings in all of this."
"Silver linings?"
"The good in bad situations."
"Other than the fact that I don't get hurt because I don't get to do anything, I don't see any."
"You'll find some eventually."
"I don't really have any real friends, besides Snowbell, and he's a cat."
"Hey!" Snowbell, who was nearby, snapped.
"Well, maybe you'll find some."
"What could we do anyway? They'd all be too big for me. We wouldn't be able to do a lot of the same things together. It wouldn't be like George and Will."
Mr. Little sighed. Stuart's lack of peers was certainly a problem troubling him and Elanor. "Maybe you'll find one your size."
"That wouldn't be a silver lining. That would be like winning the Power Ball."
Mr. Little laughed. "You never know." He went to see his wife. "We need to talk about Stuart."
"Fredrick, what about him? Is he hurt?" Elanor asked in concern.
"No, he's fine. But he's upset that you baby him so much."
"I just want him to be safe."
"I'm worried he'd going to resent George if things keep up this way. George can do all sorts of things and has peers his own size. Stuart has none of that."
"Even if I let Stuart participate in more, er, dangerous activities, how am I going to find him a peer his size?"
"I don't know. But he's really down right now."
"Well, I suppose I could ease up on him a bit."
"Yes, I really think he needs it."
Stuart, meanwhile, had made his way to the basement. That was where he and George, and sometimes just him by himself, worked on various things, such as his model, but driving, cars. He and George had ordered a model airplane to build for him. George was busy right now, playing a game with Will, one that he was too small to join in. So he'd work on it alone. Sure, Mrs. Little wouldn't like him messing around with a plane. She felt that he had enough trouble staying safe when he was on the ground. Still, he thought, maybe what Elanor Little didn't know wouldn't hurt him. After all, he needed a break.
