Under the Bed

by Huina Zheng

In our suburban home, the space beneath the bed was never quiet. Once, while my brother and I were napping, a green snake slid out from under it, and my father killed it with one swing of his hoe. Ants, spiders, and geckos crawled out from there; frogs and grasshoppers leapt out; mosquitoes and flies burst into the air. But all of them were nothing compared to the rats. They were huge as hens, the true rulers of the house.

My mother hated them. They carried off newly hatched chicks, stole eggs from the cupboard, gnawed sweet potatoes into ragged scraps, even fouled the rice bin. Their nightly thudding and scrambling kept us awake. She kept a brown cat and trained it every day, but the rats came in numbers the cat couldn’t handle. One day, it disappeared. I imagined them swarming together, surrounding it, tearing it apart. So many of them. So determined.

One afternoon, my ball rolled beneath the bed. I shone a flashlight and saw something twitching under a dome of tissues and rags. I pulled everything out with a slipper.

A nest. Inside lay eight newborn rats. Pink and translucent as candy wrappers. Their eyes were sealed; their tiny bellies rose and fell with each breath. So helpless. So clean. So impossible small.

I found a shoebox, lined it with the softest tissues, and lifted them inside. The whole afternoon I sat guard, planning to soak leftover rice that night and feed them. I would bathe them, teach them to be clean and gentle, polite and harmless. I would raise them to be the best rats in the world, like Mickey Mouse.

My brother tried to grab one. I slapped his hand away. “You’re too rough. You’ll hurt them.”

“I want to!” He reached again.

“Go away!” I shoved him.

He fell and burst into tears. My mother rushed in. She scooped him up. Her glare cut toward the box.

“Rats carry disease! Don’t you dare touch them!”

“They’re just babies,” I said.

My brother cried louder. I pressed the tissue in my hand, imagining what it would take to silence him. My mother grabbed the box from my hands and hurled it through the open window. It arced into the waist-high grass. Rain was falling in thin, steady lines.

I wanted to look for them, but the sky was darkening. Even if I found them, they wouldn’t survive. I bit my lip to keep from crying. If I made a sound, I knew her slap would fall.

That night, I climbed onto the bed. I listened for movement beneath it.

But this time, there was only silence.

Maybe the mother rat was already out in the rain. Searching the grass. Gathering her babies one by one.

Carrying them back to safety.