Many mouse-weeks passed, and they were blissfully good weeks, from Potato's point of view. Potato was very happy in his new home, though sometimes he missed his family. He would have liked to send them a letter, but of course mice can't read or write, so he just hoped that his mother was giving birth to many more children, and wouldn't be too sad without him.

He was still very puzzled about where exactly he was, and why the humans should make rooms with glass along one side with a road down the middle, like a house cut in half by a highway. And he was still a bit nervous about some of the other rooms, because they also had frozen humans in them, all dressed and sitting in such a way as to look as if they were just about to say something, but they never did. And every day, he heard hammering and cutting, and drilling, and men's voices calling out, and sometimes the whole place would shake and shudder as something big thumped down.

And every day, men came to the little room with the dripping tap and the plastic rubbish bucket, and they would sit and talk for a while, then a bell would ring and they would all stand up and leave,, and when this happened Potato would scamper along and help himself to the biscuits and butter. The men didn't seem to mind at all, which was odd, because

mostly humans got really angry when mice helped themselves to their food, though it never bothered them when cats or dogs ate just about everything they gave to them.

But then one day, something really extraordinary happened.

Potato was scampering busily about one morning when suddenly all the lights went on around him and a big crowd of people came tramping and jostling down the road between the rooms. He dashed across the floor, past the frozen woman and slipped into the hole in the couch, which he had made his home.

The people came pouring past, like a river of heads and bodies. Children gawked and stared, and many of them pressed their faces against the glass, leaving strange patterns. Old people hobbled by, pointing at the things in the rooms, and saying "I remember when ..." and "There's one of those . . .", and mothers showed little girls what little girls used to wear or play with, and fathers showed little boys what little boys used to eat or make, and all day the procession went on until the lights switched off and all the people disappeared.

Potato stayed in his hideaway until everything was quiet, then he slipped out and found a meal in the cupboard, and when he went for a walk he found some more