BABY MOUSE went out into the field to play.

She met Baby Snake.

They became friends.

They spent all day playing games.

At sundown they broke company and went to their respective homes.

In the Mouse household Mrs Mouse asked her daughter how she had spent her day and Baby Mouse told her mother she had made a friend.

Mrs Mouse was surprised and curious and she asked: “Who is your new friend?”

Baby Mouse proudly answered: “Baby Snake.”

Thinking she had not heard right, Mrs Mouse asked: “What did you say?”

And Baby Mouse repeated: “I said Baby Snake. He is such a nice guy. You will wonder where our fright of snakes comes from. You will be meeting him.”

And Mrs Mouse almost fainted.

Mr Mouse sat up.

Mrs Mouse sat down.

Mrs Mouse looked at her daughter and was deliberately emphatic: “Baby Snake is not your friend! No snake is a nice guy. All snakes are evil. Your ‘nice guy’ will kill you.”

Baby Mouse looked at her mother and smiled in wonder.

And Mrs Mouse added: “We know snakes from a long, long time ago.”

And Baby Mouse shook her head: “Not Baby Snake.

You guys are paranoid.

You are old-fashioned.

You should let go of your savage past.

You should let go of hate language.”

She said: “If you do not know it yet, there is a new world order shaping up and it is founded on a language of tolerance and not discriminatory hate speech. Truth and reconciliation commissions are being sponsored everywhere and old enemies are living peacefully side-by-side. Exactly as the scriptures say: The lion and the lamb sharing the same table.”

Mrs Mouse was dismayed: “And what type of meal is served on that table? Is it vegetables? Is it genetically modified meat made in a lion’s lab? Or is it genuine juicy lamb chops cut from the carcass of a lamb that ignores historical experience?”

Baby Mouse looked bewildered at her mother and protested: “Baby Snake has personally done nothing against you. I think it is wrong to bring the wrongs of his ancestors against him.”

She added: “You make me ashamed of you. Please do not take us back to the Dark Ages.”

And Mr Mouse asked: “And where is all this coming from?”

And Baby Mouse said: “Our new preacher.”

And Mr Mouse asked: “Who is your new preacher?”

Baby Mouse:“Mr Snake.”

And Mrs Mouse sighed: “Manje so!”

Mr Mouse asked again: “Who engaged Pastor Snake to teach in Mouse Sunday School? And why is Mr Snake teaching baby mice not to be afraid of snakes? Has the Mouse Sunday School curriculum been changed? This is certainly not what we were taught, and we were not taught by snakes!”

Baby Mouse: “I think you were taught wrong. I can see whatever you were taught was too biased against snakes. I think you should learn to have a balanced judgment. Learn to give your perceived enemy a chance. Try to understand him.”

“And where does your friend live?”

“In the Burrowdale behind the anthill.”

“Did they dig the burrows?”

“I do not know, and I do not think it is any of my business to care who dug the burrows.”

“It is certainly your business because it is your grandparents who dug the holes.”

“So why are we not staying there? Is it not a much better and warmer place?”

“The snakes killed and ate your grandparents!”

Baby Mouse gasped in surprise. She thought for a moment and then smiled and her father was shocked: “You are smiling!”

“I am thinking that you cannot bring that up against Baby Snake. Both the murderers and their victims lived their violent time and they are no longer there. And, it should not be our business what they did to each other. Let God be the judge of that.”

“But this generation of snakes inherited what was acquired by force-of-poison and you inherited the victim’s destitution! Are you so simple-minded not to see that!”

“I think whatever your pain is, it will get worse if you continue to live in the past. You must form new sustainable partnerships with snakes.”

Mr Mouse sighed resignedly and said: “Never say we did not warn you.”

In the meantime, in the house of snakes, in Burrowdale behind the anthill, Mr Snake was listening to his wife trying to convince Baby Snake that his new friend, Baby Mouse, was a windfall on their table. She had brought out a recipe book and was showing Baby Snake wild recipes of mouse steak, baby mouse barbeque, mouse stew, mouse chops in wild vine sauce and the whole burrow floor was slippery with drool. But the battle was uphill because like his friend, Baby Mouse, Baby Snake would not want to hear about it. He was horrified at the idea of them killing his friend and eating her.

And he was further horrified when his mother declared: “And during my pregnancy with you, I had a special weakness for mice. And we had great luck one day when we happened on this anthill and we found a colony of mice. And we almost expended all our poison decimating them. And the kill was so great we were so full we couldn’t crawl anywhere for months. And that is how we took up residence here. It is by far much more comfortable than where we used to live. Our hope was also that the mice that survived the massacre or their children would one day forget and return. And believe me, you were born very healthy because of that massacre.”

Baby Snake put his tail down and with great emphasis said: “I do not care what you think, but let me assure you that if you ever do anything to Baby Mouse or her parents, I will hang myself.”

Mrs Snake was shaken and frustrated. She appealed to Mr Snake to reason with his son. They needed the silly Baby Mouse on their table. But Mr Snake was only amused. He winked at her and hissed into her ear: “Trust me, Baby Mouse and her family will be killed and eaten in this house and no snake will hang himself in defence of mice. Search your whole memory including that of your parents and tell me of a snake that ever died in defence of mice? Snakes are inherently not stupid. Your son will come around. Why would he hang himself if he stands to benefit? Besides, he will be too bellyful to have the energy to scale a tree and hang himself.”

And so, the case was closed in both houses, and the friendship between Baby Mouse and Baby Snake grew from strength to strength.

And then one day, in the playing field, Baby Mouse tripped on a rock and was injured and started bleeding. And Baby Snake was touched. And he offered to clean the wound and did so with his forked tongue.

And he said to himself: “Now, wait a minute!”

It tasted so good he could not have enough of it. And Baby Mouse had closed her eyes in bliss, because Baby Snake was so caring, and the feel of his forked tongue cleaning her wound was so soothing.

And then suddenly, Baby Snake became rough, and the roughness turned to violence. Baby Mouse felt the sharp bite of her fangs and a paralysis spread throughout her body. And she saw him open his mouth wide, in an act of swallowing and she remembered her father saying: “You must never say we did not warn you.”

And, after his meal, Baby Snake sped home and pulled his parents from the flat rock where they were basking in the sun. 

He said: “Come, let us hunt them down.”

And Mr Snake winked at his wife and hissed: “Did I not tell you we would eat them all and no one would hang?”