De la Part de la Petite Souris
My dearest …,
I work the rooftops, the zinc ones, the grey ones that go on for miles, and I carry a lantern the size of a thimble. Last night I came down a particular chimney on purpose, because of a name on my list: .
I am very old and I am very quiet, and I want to tell you the thing I am best at, , in case it is useful. I am good at going slowly. Everybody thinks the trick to my job is speed. It is not. It is doing one small careful thing and then the next one, all night, without rushing and without stopping.
That is how the tooth comes out from under a pillow without the pillow moving. It is also, as far as I can tell after several hundred years of watching, how absolutely everything difficult gets done.
I heard about . I did not tell the others. Some things stay between a person and their mouse.
and sleep well until then —
P.S. — If you hear the smallest tap on the floorboards tonight, that is my lantern, not me. It swings. I have never managed to fix it and I have rather stopped trying.