(I felt this content was too good, and too deep for school, or homework. So it’s been published here.)
Down by the drains near the old railway track,
Lived thousands of rats in the alleys out back.
They lived under floorboards, in gutters and brick,
While the Big Mouse Party grew greedy and slick.
The mice wore fine waistcoats of velvet and lace,
With crumbs in their whiskers and cheese on their face.
They lived in tall towers with polished oak floors,
While rats slept in puddles beside broken doors.
Every election the mice gave a speech:
“We’ll give every rat their own cheese within reach!”
But after the cheering and banners were done,
The rats got cold soup while the mice got the sun.
There was Mayor Montague Mouse the Third,
Who squeaked every promise the rats ever heard.
He’d stand on a crate with a top hat and cane,
Then vanish by Tuesday and do it again.
“There’s danger!” cried Monty. “The cats are nearby!
Only we mice can keep all of you dry!”
The rats all looked up from the mud and the rain,
And voted the mice right back in once again.
The mice made committees. The mice made a board.
The mice made a law for the size of a gourd.
The mice held a summit on proper cheese tax,
While rats patched their roofs using cardboard and wax.
One rat named Reginald Ratcliffe the Thin,
Who lived in a crate near the old rubbish bin,
Began to grow tired of the speeches and lies,
And noticed a strange little fact with his eyes.
At first it was small. Just a thought in his head.
A thought that kept bouncing around in his bed.
He counted the rats near the docks and the mills,
The sewers, the taverns, the tunnels, the hills.
He counted the workers who carried the coal,
The bakers, the builders, the diggers of holes.
The rats in the kitchens. The rats in the trains.
The rats fixing roofs in the thunder and rain.
Then Reginald blinked till his whiskers turned white.
He counted again in the dead of the night.
He climbed up a chimney and gasped at the view.
“Good heavens above… there are thousands of us few.”
Well that wasn’t quite right.
He corrected it fast.
“There are millions of rats
and just hundreds of that!”
He ran through the alleyways shouting aloud,
Till rats gathered round him in one massive crowd.
“The mice only rule because we never knew,
That there’s twenty-four rats for each mouse in blue!”
The rats all went silent. The pipes gave a groan.
You could hear dripping water and one distant phone.
Then somebody muttered, “Well… he’s got a point there.”
And suddenly whispers were filling the air.
The mice heard the rumours and trembled with fright.
They cancelled three dinners that very same night.
Sir Percival Squeaks dropped his tea in his lap,
And Baron Von Cheddar fell right off the map.
“Impossible nonsense!” cried Montague Mouse.
Then quietly doubled the guards at his house.
He ordered more banners. More slogans. More cheese.
And gave fifteen speeches entitled “Please Please.”
But rats had awakened. The numbers were clear.
And once numbers wake up, the rulers grow fear.
The rats formed long columns like ants in the spring,
With workers and washerfolk marching in ring.
The tiny young rats from the factories came.
The old sewer veterans joined in the same.
The dock rats marched proudly with boots made of sack,
And every small rat carried one tiny snack.
Not weapons.
Not swords.
Not cannon or gun.
Just thousands of rats finally moving as one.
The mice watched from balconies trembling in dread,
While newspaper headlines turned bright shocking red:
“RATS DISCOVER MATHS!” The front pages cried.
And several rich mice immediately lied.
“We always loved rats!” said the mice on TV.
“Some of our best friends have whiskers, you see!”
They handed out pamphlets and tiny free pies,
While quietly measuring boats for their size.
Then Montague Mouse made one final decree:
“No rat may discuss multiplication past three!”
But that only spread it from cellar to street,
Till rats drew equations in chalk with their feet.
One evening the rats gathered deep underground,
Where echoes of dripping water bounced round.
Old Reginald climbed on a barrel of gin,
And scratched at his whiskers all patchy and thin.
“We need not be cruel. We need not be beasts.
We need not burn towers or ruin great feasts.
But mice must remember from this very day:
The workers they mock are the ones holding sway.”
The rats all cheered loudly. The tunnels all shook.
A librarian rat dropped six books from a nook.
The sewer steam hissed like a dragon asleep,
While mice packed their luggage and tried not to weep.
Now some mice stayed decent. Not every mouse lied.
A few marched with rats standing side by side.
For power’s the problem, not whiskers or tails,
And greed grows in palaces, mansions, and jails.
So remember this tale when the speeches begin,
When leaders wear velvet and permanent grin.
When somebody tells you “The small folk are weak,”
Or calls all your questions “ridiculous squeak.”
For ants move in thousands. And rats move the same.
And rulers stay rulers by splitting the game.
But once little creatures start thinking as one,
The Big Mouse Party had better start run.
And somewhere in shadows near old leaking pipes,
Old Reginald Ratcliffe still mutters and writes.
He sits with a candle and cheap cup of tea,
Still counting the rats by the old factory.
And every young rat who asks, “How did we win?”
Gets handed a chalkboard with sums scribbled thin.
Then Reginald smiles with one gold crooked tooth,
And says: “The mighty fall quickest. When small folk learn truth.”
The Little Rats and the Big Mouse Party (J.P. Ⓒ 2026)
(Inspired by George Orwells ‘Animal Farm’, ‘Mouse: P.I. for Hire’, and Disneys ‘Ants’ movie.)
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