Under the Carpet

Finally, with her closet and room clean, Rachel clambers down the stairs and races into the kitchen. 

“I’m done,” she sings, “Now I can bake cookies, right?”

“Yes—but let Richie bake with you. I’m going to go take a nap.” Her mother says tiredly.

“Do I have to???” Rachel whines, but her mother is already gone. Rachel groans and turns to Richie.

“Do as I say, don’t make a mess, and don’t bother me.” She intones. “I don’t want to repeat myself.” Rachel turns away and goes into the pantry for materials.

Richie gets out two bowls and plops them on the counter. He sniffs the air, and wrinkles his nose. Richie looks around at the mouldy kitchen. The carpet is aged and dirty, with many stains from spills and splatters. One corner is lumpy. It almost looks as if the lumps are moving.

“Rachel, the carpet is moving.”

Rachel glances at the corner, then scoffs.

“You’re hallucinating. Let’s start.” She dumps butter into a bowl and begins beating. Richie, thinking the sweeter the better, sneaks in an extra cup of sugar.

“Rachel, am I doing this right?” Richie asks. Rachel doesn’t even bother to look up. She says,

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“You didn’t even look!” Richie complains, but Rachel ignores him and says,

“Now add an egg.” Richie fumbles an egg onto the carpet and drops a chunk of shell in the bowl.

“Eh. The mixer’ll fix it.”

Rachel tells Richie to mix the egg and butter. He whisks for ages, trying to crush the eggshell, then finally digs it out by hand and tosses it in the sink. Rachel adds the flour and starts mixing, but Richie grabs the whisk, cranks it to high, sending the flour flying. He ends up looking like a ghost. Rachel smirks.

“Now, add chocolate chips, but don’t add too many.” Richie doesn’t listen. He dumps the whole bag. Rachel rolls her eyes and says, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” They put the bowls in the fridge to chill, and after 30 minutes, they take the bowls out of the fridge. “Scoop the dough onto the baking tray, and then we will bake them.

Richie grabs a spoon and picks at the now hardened dough. A piece breaks free and slingshots into Rachel’s hair.

“Oh, you are SO DEAD!” She screams and throws the piece back at Richie.

He dodges and laughs at her, the dough landing on the carpet. He then grabs a whole handful of his dough, and since he put so many chocolate chips, the dough doesn’t hold together and rains onto Rachel and the carpet.

She glares at him, and just as she is throwing dough back at Richie, her mom walks into the kitchen. The piece of dough that was intended for Richie lands on her mom’s shirt. Her mom rubs her eyes and looks around the room at the dough in Rachel’s hair, the egg-covered carpet.

“What is going on here? Why is there cookie dough all over my carpet? Rachel and Richie both sheepishly look at each other, and then Richie says,

“Rachel threw cookie dough at me!”

Rachel, why would you do that? You’re 10 now, you know better than to throw the cookie dough!” her mother scolds.

“Richie threw it at me first!” She whines.

“No, I didn’t–”

“Yes, you DID!”

“NO I–”

“YES YO–”

“Stop!” Her mother screams, “Both of you, clean this up, we can talk about punishments after. NOW! I’m going to go doom scroll on Facebook Reels. When the kitchen is clean, call me.”

“Can we still bake the cookies?” Rachel pleads. Her mom nods.

Rachel still has most of her dough; Richie, barely any. He decides to make one giant cookie.

They pop the trays in the oven and start cleaning. They cleaned in gloomy silence—dishes, counters, everything.

Everything, except the carpet. Like, whose idea was it to put a carpet in the kitchen? Both Rachel and Richie simultaneously decided that they couldn’t put it off any longer.

They hand-picked as much of the grime as they could, and when it wasn’t possible to pry any more stuff off, they got wet rags to scrub it. Rachel scrubbed like she was trying to erase Richie from existence. If only he hadn’t baked with her.

She got to the corner of the carpet, and she aggressively scrubbed at a blob of melted chocolate when the carpet came loose. It flipped up, and when she saw what was underneath, she gasped. “Ew, oh my gosh! Richie, look what I found!”

“What? I’m almost done with cleaning!”

“I know, but come look! Mom is going to FREAK OUT!”

“Fine!” Richie grumbles, and when he sees it, he jumps back. “We have to show Mom!” He says between giggles.

“Okay,” Rachel starts conspiring, “Finish cleaning quick, I’ll take the cookies out, and tell Mom the cookies are done. MOM! The cookies are ready! Come down!”

“Are you done cleaning?”

“Yep! All clean and cookies are ready,” Rachel says cheerily, “There’s something we want to show you, come look! Over here, see the carpet came loose!” Rachel yanked the carpet back with a dramatic flourish. A flurry of tiny grey mice scattered in all directions.

THe mice have beady little eyes that glitter in the dark like obsidian, as if they are recording you. Each mouse is about the size of a quarter, with long tails that trail behind them. They crawl on top of each other, scrambling for freedom, with inseceant squeaking. Their little paws clawing at the floor boards.

“Squeak! Squeak! SQUEEEEEEEEEEAK!”

Her mom screamed — a deadly, high-pitched shriek — and leapt onto the table.

“Kill it! KILL IT!” she shouted, flapping her arms like a bird.

But then, one mouse broke away from the others and made a beeline for her.

“Oh no. OH NO. OH SH-”

It reached the table leg. The table. Her shoe.

“It’s ON ME!”

Rachel and Richie froze.The mouse climbed up her pant leg.

“GET IT OFF! RACHEL, DO SOMETHING! I CAN FEEL IT ON MY SKIN!”

She jumped up and down on the table, shrieking like she was on fire, while trying to get rid of the invisible terror.

Richie collapsed laughing.

Rachel was too stunned to move.

The mouse popped out at her waist and leapt off her with a squeak, scurrying under the fridge.

“I AM NEVER GOING IN THAT KITCHEN AGAIN,” their mom gasped, clutching the wall. “CALL THE POLICE. CALL A CAT. CALL SOMEBODY!”

She kept screaming until Rachel’s father came down the stairs, saying, “What is going on down here?”

“We found mice underneath the carpet!” Rachel yells over her mother’s shrieks,

“They are so cute!” Richie shouts, “Can we keep them as pets? I don’t want them to die!” Everything is complete chaos, Rachel’s mother is sitting on the table, Richie is sobbing, and Rachel just feels mildly amused.

“Let’s go outside,” Rachel’s dad says, “Once we are all calm, we can figure out what to do.” Rachel’s mom is carried outside, and they sit on the sunny patio.

Next door, their neighbor Mr. Lee looks at Rachel’s mom, the sobbing Richie, and bewilderedly asks them,

“What’s going on?”

“We found mice under the carpet,” Rachel replies, “Mom is deathly scared of them! We don’t know how to get rid of them.”

“I can help, I’m not scared of mice. Let me go grab some supplies,” Mr. Lee replies.

Rachel’s mother profusely thanks him, and is interrupted by Richie.

“I have to pee, I have to pee!” Richie exclaims randomly. Rachel swears she hears a squeak, but shrugs it off. He runs inside and disappears for 15 minutes. Later, when Mr. Lee is done, Rachel’s mom frantically asks him,

“Are they all gone? You got all of them? Are you sure?” Only calmed a little bit by his reassurances, she timidly opens the door and jumps back. “You go in first,” she orders Rachel and Richie, “Make sure none are left.” Given the all clear, Rachel’s mom skitters inside, comically walking a big loop around the kitchen, and goes to her bedroom.

That night, Rachel is exhausted, but she can’t sleep. She restlessly shifts in her bed until deciding to go and get a cup of water. Downstairs in the kitchen, she sees Richie, who jumps when seeing her, and clumsily shuffles something behind his back.

“W-what are you d-doing here?” He asks guiltily.

“Just getting a cup of water,” Rachel replies. “What are you doing here? That’s a better question.”

Richie sheepishly pulls a container from behind his back and shows it to her.

“No, you’re not!” Rachel exclaims disbelievingly.

“Yep,” Richie answers smugly while quickly shoving it under the carpet.

“If mom sees that…” Rachel warns,

“That’s the point.” They stare at each other for a beat. Then Rachel rolls her eyes, grabs her water, and stalks up the stairs.

“You know,” she says over her shoulder, “You better name the next one after me.”

Richie grins wider. “Already did.”