October 12 - The Mouse Ballet

As far as ballet troupes went, they weren't very good, but there were two things you had to remember:
1) Their only audience was an infant girl named Maya who had no frame of reference when it came to ballet, and was thus in no position to say how good or bad they were.
2) They were mice.
They were almost certainly the world's only mouse ballet company and as such they were also the best. Including dancers, technicians, and musicians, there were 33 mice in the troupe, and they performed The Nutcracker for Maya on a nightly basis.
When they trotted out onto the hardwood floor of Maya's bedroom in the middle of the night to set up their makeshift stage (the cardboard box Maya's big brother's rain boots had come in, propped up on its side), Maya would stir from her sleep and then stand up in her crib to watch, her little hands gripping the bars. Sometimes laughing, sometimes mesmerized, Maya watched them for as long as they performed. And when they were finished, they were what she dreamt about.
The next morning, she always breathlessly gave her parents a full report of what she'd seen, and they nodded and agreed with her, encouraging her to talk more and more, which she did, telling them all about the spotlight they used (a penlight), their miniature snow drifts (cotton balls) their costumes (tutus made out of rubber bands and tissue paper), and their music (a falsetto choir of baby mice).
When she grew out of infancy and started walking more and more, the mouse ballet moved on to another house. And by the time she learned to talk, she had all but forgotten about them, even though she still dreamt about them sometimes.