Tonight 7.30 at Oxford's Albion Beatnik, I'll be reading 'Mouse' from Shortest Day, Longest Night together with stories and poems from Sarah James. Wendy Gill, Pauline Walker, and David Steward.

'In a storybook she would have a name, Mina perhaps, to suit her cute tail and whiskers and the mob cap and apron that she would wear to sweep and dust her pretty mouse’s house. But this is rough nature. Mouse has no cap or broom, and the start of a cold, stone hard December night in a Balkan thicket is not the time or place to be sentimental. She is just a mouse.

'As a secretive animal she is disregarded by most of the world, but attractive to larger, wild things that need to eat. The dark suits her, but is perilous, full of eyes well made to detect her kind.

'What are her chances?

***

The child entering the wood does have a name, Mineta. What are her chances?'

What are their chances? See Shortest Day, Longest Night