ANIMAL STORY

“Danger! Stay away! The Trouble has returned!” shouted a young attendant as he ran across the temple courtyard. White-robed priests and their helpers raised their heads in alarm and looked toward the courtyard wall that housed a small group of earthen silos.

"Is it the grain bins again?” asked the overseer, a spry older priest with a shaven head and tall staff that he leaned on as he rocked to and fro.

“Yes,” the young attendant answered. “It’s the one at the far end. The Trouble is still there, even though you’ve put spells and charms around it.”

It had been a calm, balmy afternoon at the little country temple in the Egyptian province of the “Two Pillars” and the daily chores had been winding to a close. The priests and their helpers had been carefully sweeping up the last bits of loose grain scattered in the great enclosure, hoping for a break from their task and the heat of the day.

The group sat in the shade of the tall columns to rest and drink from their water jars. Their boss shook his head with worry. “We’ll have to be very careful going into the granary from now on,” he advised. “Until maybe his lordship, the temple cat, wakes up and decides to rid us of the Trouble.”

Within earshot of the conversation but well-insulated in the dim light of a temple storeroom, Senur, the temple cat raised his ears at the words. He stretched to an even more comfortable pose and heaved a soft sigh. “There they go again, carrying on about the Trouble,” he said to himself. “They forget that the granary is getting low and won’t be filled with corn and barley again for awhile. Then the Trouble will go away and there won’t be anything more to complain about.”

Senur had been a kitten in the House of the Great Cat in Bubastis until he had been given, as a gift, to the priests to guard a the local temple granary that sometimes, though not often, could be overrun by locusts and vipers, a most unwelcome intrusion on the food stores of the god’s house. In exchange for chasing these trespassers away, Senur received fresh meals twice a day and the run of the little temple. It wasn’t a grand place like the House of the Great Cat, but it suited Senur, the only feline allowed inside the halls and corridors.

“I wish they would just move the silos out of the courtyard,” Senur grumbled. “Then everything wouldn’t look so shabby and invite Trouble in the first place.”

In a small tunnel beneath the temple floor, the faint voices of the attendants were also heard, though they didn’t create the same disapproval. Instead, a little shrew mouse poked his head out of the tunnel and looked about the dim room.

“It’s almost dark,” the little creature noted in his squeaky voice. “It will soon be time to look for something to eat.”

“Hey, who’s there?” Senur called out, severely, on hearing the faint voice. “Identify yourself, quickly!” He bent his head down to the floor and peered at the tunnel opening.

“Oh, it’s just me your lordship,” the mouse answered in a quivering voice. “I’ve been in this tunnel for ages and didn’t think anyone else lived here.”

“Well I don’t live here, I’m just taking a nap,” the cat answered sternly. The mouse timidly emerged from the tunnel. “Are you the Trouble they’re talking about out there? Is it you who is stealing the temple grain from the cooks and scaring everybody?”

“Oh no,” the mouse answered. “I’m Penui, the Little Shrew Mouse. I don’t touch the grain, I would rather eat bugs and worms and such.”

"A shrew mouse!” Senur exclaimed. “So you are sacred just like I am. Well, in that case you have as much a right to be here as I do.”

“Yes, the priests say I belong to the Sun-god,” Penui explained. “It is something to do with banishing the serpent of darkness.”

“Oh, their stories!” Senur sighed, “They go on all the time like that with their stories and chants. That and their grain. It is all they care about. They make bread from their grain, lots and lots of loaves. Every morning the priests bring trays of bread into the temple. It’s quite an event.”

“Yes, I hear them,” Penui said. “It’s the morning offering but I’ve never seen it. I like to come out at night when it’s quiet, and I see better in the dark.”

“Well, I can see very well in the dark, too,” Senur asserted, “I patrol the chambers every night to make sure all is well in the temple.”

“Oh, well I don’t mean to keep you,” Penui said apologetically. “I can go back into my tunnel and leave you to your business,” and he began scurrying toward his home.

Just as Penui was leaving, Senur spoke to stop him. “Wait, wait! Maybe you could come with me on my patrol. I could use your company, four eyes that see in the dark are much better than two.”

“Really, me? Patrol the temple? Why, I would be honoured your lordship.”

“Stop calling me that,” his new acquaintance advised, “The priests say that just to annoy me. You can call me Senur, Big Brother”

As darkness descended, the two companions padded slowly past the tall columns of the Great Hall in the temple. “It’s really nice and quiet here at night,” Penui observed, “No one is about and we have the whole place to ourselves.”

“Well, not quite,” Senur responded. “There has been Trouble out in the courtyard that I haven’t been able to get rid of, even though I’m pretty quick. The priests complain about it, but I can’t do everything by myself.”

“Well I’m here now,” Penui said. “Perhaps I could help you to get rid of the Trouble”

The temple cat stopped at the thought and flicked his long, striped tail back and forth. “Thanks, but ... you’re just a shrew mouse and the Trouble is pretty big and scary.”

“I’m not scared,” Penui assured him. “I can see in the dark and I’m pretty quick myself.”

“I’ll think about it,” his new friend said, “but you’ll have to go on a few more patrols before we can do anything. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

During the following nights, Penui met the temple cat in the storeroom, and together they patrolled the corridors and chambers of the temple, four eyes searching the dark for Trouble.

Before long Penui became more confident about finding his way around, and Senur decided it was time to reveal his plan.

“It is almost time for a new harvest, and there cannot be much grain left in the bins for anyone to steal. The thief will soon become bolder, and venture further from home. With less grain to steal he may search for other things. That will be our chance. If we find him then I want you to attract his attention. You can create a diversion while I sort things out.”

Then, one moonless night, Penui scurried out to the courtyard to meet his friend. The vast space was quiet and dark. Knowing that the temple cat often took long naps in the evening, he waited patiently next to one of the grain bins. “Maybe Senur really is lazy,” he said to himself, “and maybe that’s why the House of the Great Cat sent him here.”

Suddenly he heard a noise – a slow, slithering whoosh, and his ears perked. “What could Senur be doing behind the grain bin?” he thought to himself, listening carefully. The sound stopped, but then it started up again. Penui turned and looked into the darkness, waiting for his friend to appear. And then he saw it.

The serpent of darkness.

Glowing eyes, a long, shimmering body without end, a hypnotic gaze that struck Penui with great fear. “Oh please,” he said to the darkness, “where is my friend Senur?”

Serpent and Shrew Mouse gazed at each other in silence. Then whoosh, and whack! Senur had arrived.

“Run Penui, run back into the temple!” Senur shouted, but his little friend was frozen in both fear and amazement as he watched the temple cat dispatch the Trouble – a large serpent that flailed in the dust as his adversary sunk his teeth and claws into him.

Senur and Penui together had got ride of the Trouble, exactly as they had planned.

Soon the sun rose again over Egypt, marking the beginning of a new day, and a new harvest.

The cooks laughed with the overseer as they filled their baskets with grain for the morning bread. “Looks like you have a proper guardian after all,” one of them said to his boss. “It took long enough, but his Lordship did eventually get rid of the Trouble!”

In the dim light of the temple storeroom, Senur stretched to an even more comfortable pose. “There they go again, carrying on about the Trouble,” he said to Penui, also stretched out at the entry of his little tunnel. “They forget that only the sacred cat and mouse can banish the serpent of darkness.”