Stephen Arr 17 min read

A harried husband is nagged by his furious wife to go out and demand that the giant next door remove the deadly trap from their front door.

Stephen Arr's 1954 story reveals its charm slowly, George and Clara are intelligent mice, descendants of a lab animal exposed to hard radiation, negotiating survival in a human world. Witty, warm social SF with a delightful reversal of scale. Read it for a genial golden-age comedy told from the mouse-hole's point of view.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

17 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

William Ashman