Sugar and String

It started with a sugar mouse. Nothing complicated. Just a sugar mouse in a little brown paper bag and endless amusement that you could actually make something like that out of sugar and a piece of string.

After she finished it, she tied the piece of string around her pinkie finger and wore it for the rest of the day, just because.

From then on, she’d buy herself a sugar mouse every week. It wasn’t something she could explain, but it was important somehow. Something simple she could rely on. There would always be a sugar mouse on a Friday afternoon, no matter what else might happen.

If something good happened, it was a celebration. If something bad happened, it was something to remind her that there would always be good things left for her, even if it was as simple as some sugar and a piece of string.

“Sometimes it’s the little things that get you,” her father had said once. Looking at her weekly sugar mouse in its paper bag made her believe that. Even if it was simple, it was something. It was important.

The shopkeeper always made sure to keep one aside for her if it looked like they might run out. He always made sure it was a different colour every week, and she was always grateful for that, even though they both knew that she liked the white ones best.

“It’s not as though they taste any different,” she’d say. “But the white ones are best, I think. Sugar’s meant to be that colour.”

The shop closed the day before her eighteenth birthday.

The last day was a Thursday, so she had to get her last sugar mouse a day early. It was an unsettling break in her simple routine, but it seemed fitting somehow. The shopkeeper didn’t seem surprised. He simply slid a sugar mouse into a paper bag and twisted it closed like he always did.

“I saved a white one for you; I know how much you like them.” She managed to smile for him.

“I suppose I’ll have to find something else to be my reminder of all the good things. I’ve been relying on my sugar mice all this time; it’ll be hard to find something to match that.”

“Maybe you should try making them yourself,” the shopkeeper said.

She took her sugar mouse out of its bag and looked at it for a moment.

“Do you think I could?”

“I think you could do anything you set your mind to, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else who’s given sugar mice twelve years of attention.”

She left the shop with her white sugar mouse, and a bag containing a recipe and some moulding tins.

After she finished the mouse, she tied the string around her pinkie finger, and wore it for the rest of the day. Just because.