I have a pet mole...

I have a pet mole. His name is Armie. He lives in his burrow underneath my garden. I adopted him when I noticed the little mounds of earth emerging in the grass on the lawn, like tiny adorable volcanoes. I just couldn’t resist the little guy when he eventually popped his iddy-biddy snout out of the dirt. His taupe, velvety fur and the inconspicuous eyes were, quite frankly, irresistible to me. I nearly missed the sighting of him but as fate would have it, I was gazing out of my kitchen window at the time, warming my hands on a comforting cup of tea. We had a molement—see what I did there, ha!—But seriously, we had a moment. I expected him to retreat but he remained above ground and I found his curiosity intriguing. It’s not often you get to look upon a mole, let alone for more than a few seconds. And this rarity was not something I could let pass by.

I can understand why they aren’t as revered as, say a field mouse or a teddy bear. But evidently, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I can’t imagine Armie as a pest at all. The real pest for me is my neighbour Margret. She also noticed the molehills in my garden from her window, the nosy old bat. She has more of a snout than poor little Armie. After all, it is my garden, not hers. But her concern for Armie and his potential labour of mole friends invading her lawn and flower beds is far greater than the welfare of the animal itself. She is making a mountain out of a mole-hill and has taken it upon herself to target my hills of dirt with her water hose, flattening the holes and creating puddles of mud on my grass, which I believe to be far, far worse.

I hadn’t adopted Armie just yet. He had re-appeared to me a few times since our first meet and greet but I wanted him to settle in a bit first and not scare him away to soon as shy animals do. One day, Margret was clearly having a rough morning and decided enough was enough, despite the lack of molehills appearing on her side of the fence. Dressed in her flowery ancient nightgown, mottled grey birds-nest of hair and cigarette hanging out of her mouth, she started to tackle more of the hills than usual, in fact, she was targeting all of them in one go! I could hear her shouting about with glee as the puddles started to invade my lawn. I rushed outside to try to stop her but she was out of control. The power of the hose had taken over to the point where she could no longer distinguish the pleading human with the mounds of soil and I was sprayed head to foot. Without a moment to spare, I started searching for Armie beneath the puddles, digging as far down as I could. At this point, I wished I had an extra thumb like mole paws and giant panda feet to get to him faster. On the 6th puddle, I felt the velvet under the earth and scooped the small frail fella up and out from what could only be viewed as a mole’s alternative to a lake. He had effectively dug his own premature grave. I glared up at Margret, who was wildly cheering as if she had won one of those hit-the-mole-on-the-head games at a fairground, before running into my house to avoid further destruction.

Once the chaos had gone and both Armie’s fur and my hair had gotten back to their fluffy selves, I took a wander with my cup of tea around the war zone that had once been my grass. My little mole was quietly tucked up in a cosy towel in a cardboard box to warm up. He was luckily alive, but only just. I added some worms to his shelter, courtesy of Margret’s massacre on the grass, to aid in his recovery. Meanwhile, strolling around the dampened flower beds, I caught a glimmer of something shiny in the corner, poking out of the bottom of the fence. I knelt down beside it, unable to make out what it was still. So I began to brush away the soil, revealing a tin box. The pale green paint had begun to wear off, showing the raw metal underneath which had caught my initial attention. At first, I thought it could be a time capsule but when I shook it, it did not rattle or make any sound of any kind. The lid seemed fused shut with rust and mud so I would need to prize it open. Perhaps it was a cruel joke Margret had decided to play on me, bored out of her bizarre brain in retirement. Either way, I had to find out—this was another rarity and something I couldn’t let pass by.

Back in the kitchen almost an hour later, I had tried every possible means to open the tin. Knives, scissors, bowls of boiling water, even a spatula were strewn across the worktop. If anyone had entered my house at this point, they would easily conclude I was madder than Margret! Maybe I wasn’t meant to find out what was in the box. Perhaps it was a test of endurance. My mind was rushing with wild imagination. What would I find? What would I want to find? What if it is nothing— would I be disappointed? Relieved? Frustrated? What, if— bear with me here— it was a door into a magical world, like Harry Potter! I had always wanted to receive my letter from Hogwarts at school but instead, I ended up at a catholic convent girls college instead, where the woollen skirts swung beneath the knees and the closest thing we got to magic wands were the wooden rulers the nuns used to measure the horrendous skirts. So you can imagine my disappointment. Maybe this was the new way the magical world was opening its doors to adults who had never been discovered and it was some kind of portal!

It wasn’t. I eventually read somewhere a few days later about how Coca-Cola, when left to go flat can actually remove rust so I left the tin to soak in the stuff and the rust dissolved, that’s as magical as it got. I was able to open the non-existent portal to discover…a tiny pencil. Yup, that’s right, the treasure my friends was a pencil, taped to the side of the tin, which is why it hadn’t rattled. It wouldn’t surprise me if Margret had been involved with something as bonkers and disappointing as this. But I took the pencil anyway and added it to my stationary pot. Something I haven’t mentioned is that I like to draw so I have quite the pencil collection. I figured it would come in handy, and you know what, it did.

In the drawer to the left-hand side of my desk is my little black notebook. In it, I make all kinds of doodles and drawings. But as Armie has begun to recover slowly, I have started to sketch him. I sometimes let him out to wander across the kitchen table, following the trail of worms I left for him. I also built a sort of troff around the edges of the table that look like flower boxes and filled them with soil just in case Armie falls off, so he could land softly in the dirt and rummage around for a bit. He seems pretty happy. Sketching him has become a daily activity. I don’t think many people have ever been this close up to a wild mole before. Or certainly not since they stopped making coats out of mole hair. His fine whiskers, mighty spade-like claws and dinky tail make him quite a challenge to capture on paper but I seem to be building quite a collection of the detailed antics or Armie.

Recently, I received a letter. Margret had reported the molehills to pest control, thinking she had won the battle against the little labourers. But unfortunately for her, pest control had reported them on to the Wildlife Trust. They were in admiration of my mole rescue and wanted to thank me. Apparently, they have heard of more madness that my neighbour Margret and were grateful to hear that I didn’t want to destroy Armie’s habitat. It got me thinking— I want to educate people about moles. As common as they might seem, I believe they are significantly overlooked and are the secret unsung heroes of the earth. So I have written my first picture book for children and adults alike. Armie is the main man or should I say mole in my little novel. His little life is inspiring others to save the moles! Did you know, they help to make the soil healthier by aerating it? It allows more types of plants to grow, which in turn feed more insects. Not only this, their tunnels improve soil drainage, which helps stop flooding and huge puddles forming on the ground.

***

Today, I received my first royalties cheque of $20,000. Of course, I am going to split it with Armie! And I suppose, I have mad old Margret to thank for this slightly. Without her, I wouldn’t have adopted Armie, or found the pencil that got me drawing! I guess every cloud has a silver tin box lining somewhere. But I do think we need less mental Margrets and more mighty moles, don’t you?