The Rat That Wanted To Be Cute- with Rat Fun Facts

The Rat That Wanted To Be Cute Story by Jeff Holden

Illustrated by Jabez Gatson & Kenny Velez

The Rat That Wanted To Be Cute

Story by Jeff Holden Editing by Melanie Twyne & Kaitlin Evaston

Written & Created by Jeff Holden Illustrated by Jabez Gatson & Kenny Velez Color by Kenny Velez Layout by Jabez Gatson & Cam Choiniere Editing by Melanie Twyne & Kaitlin Evaston

Copyright © 2014, by Jeff Holden, Winston Salem, NC Printed by “The Book Patch” Order individual prints at www.thebookpatch.com/BookStore.aspx ISBN 9781620309797 All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Contact: Email jeffreyhholden@gmail.com or 336-724-5569 for more information

Dear Parents, I do not make my living as an author or journalist, nor am I otherwise involved with the literary world except for this story. However, I am a father, an Indian Guide chief, and owner of a small business. Most importantly, I’m one of my seven-year-old daughter’s teachers.

I strongly believe most of a child’s education should come from his or her parents. Since my daughter Miranda was born, my wife and I have done our best to live that belief.

As she grows, I repeatedly tell her to “Pay attention, because I have to teach you everything I know!”

It can be difficult for an adult to keep any youngster’s attention long enough to cover all the critical failures, mistakes and triumphs they have experienced in their lifetime. One way I introduce life lessons to my daughter is through a story game we play when we are together in the car. The game goes like this: Miranda gives me a subject, and I make up a story to go with it as quickly as I can. Often, the resulting story is simply silly, but whenever possible, I try to invent a tale that keeps her interest and contains a lesson.

One day Miranda said, “Daddy, tell a story about a rat.”

That was my only inspiration, but the “rat story” became one of her favorites. She asked me repeatedly over many months to tell the “Rat Story” and add to it. We finally renamed it The Rat Who Wanted to Be Cute.

This story is designed to help parents teach an important lesson to their own little ones in a fun way. I hope you enjoy it!

Jeff Holden “Miranda’s Dad”

for

Miranda from

Daddy 2013

The Rat That Wanted To Be Cute Story by Jeff Holden

T

here once was a rat who lived in the attic of a house near a park.

The rat was brown, except for one patch of white fur on his belly. Because he had many short whiskers around his nose, he was called Little Whiskers.

The man who lived in Little Whiskers’ house was a street performer. He loved to try out his acts in the park for all the people to see. Sometimes he was a juggler and sometimes a clown. Other times he was magician. When he was a magician he used many of his pets in his act. He even had little costumes for the animals. Sometimes he had his little tiny dog dressed up like a rabbit or a squirrel and even a bunny. Sometimes he would dress up his pigeons as ducks, and once he even dressed up his rabbit like a baby.

Little Whiskers liked living near the park. He could rummage through the trashcans as he pleased and then scurry home to the man’s house, up the drain pipe, through the secret hole behind the gutter, and back into the attic.

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From a hole he had gnawed in the ceiling, the little rat liked to sneak out onto a beam in the living room rafters where he could watch the man practice his acts with his pets.

Little Whiskers was pretty happy with his life except for one thing: he wanted to be cute. Whenever he saw the other animals in the park, the rat would feel very sad. The people would smile and say,

“Oh … you are SO cute!” while feeding the squirrels, pigeons, and chipmunks, but nobody wanted to feed the rat.

More than anything, Little Whiskers wanted to be cute like the other animals. Every time people would see him they would scream,

“Eeeek! There’s an ugly rat!”

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Poor Little Whiskers was tired of people running from him. He didn’t want to be ugly and scary anymore.

One day Little Whiskers was roaming around the attic eating a tasty hunk of moldy cheese he had brought home from the park, and thinking about his “cute” problem. He thought so hard that he walked right into an old box and knocked it over. Out of the box spilled tiny clothes and old costumes the man had used for his pets in his acts. Scattered on the attic floor were clown shoes, red noses, little pink tutus, and brightly-colored scarves.

“Hmmm,” thought Little Whiskers, as he rummaged around, “what do the people in the park find cute?”

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Bunnies Are Cute

4

All at once, it came to him,

“Bunnies! People love bunnies!�

With that, Little Whiskers clipped on the little cotton tail and placed the soft bunny ears on his head just like he had seen the man do with his pets, and off he went to the park in search of some bunny-loving people.

5

Of course, his long skinny rat tail was sticking out from under the clip-on cotton tail and his regular sized rat ears still could be seen in front of the big floppy, fake bunny ears.

He looked a bit ‌ well... unusual.

Little Whiskers found a boy and his babysitter at a water fountain.

He jumped out from behind a tree, stood up on his hind legs, threw his arms up in the air, and exclaimed...

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“Ta-Daahhhhhhh!”

The boy laughed with delight, pointing to Little Whiskers. The babysitter smiled at her first sight of the fluffy bunny tail and floppy rabbit ears.

“Oh, look at the little bunny with his funny looking fuzzy ears and his little cotton tail!

He’s so cu …”

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Little Whiskers flashed a big smile and stood up taller on his tippy-toes waiting for the people to say he was cute, but just then his long thin rat tail flopped out to one side from under his clip-on cotton tail.

The babysitter froze in mid-sentence. Confusion replaced her smile.

All she could say was, “Ahh� and then she and the boy saw the little extra set of ears sticking up in front of the bunny ears, and all they could say was,

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“… errh …” as they slowly backed away, trying to put some distance between them and the really odd-looking rabbit.

Little Whiskers stomped away to his house, totally irritated.

The people had almost said it! They had almost called him cute! He would have to find a way to be even cuter.

9

Everyone Loves Squirrels

10

After more thinking, Little Whiskers had another idea.

“Squirrels are cute! The park is full of them.

People always feed them peanuts and try to get them to come closer. No one feeds peanuts to rats!”

No one feeds rats anything.

By now Little Whiskers was a bit jealous.

“Squirrels aren’t that different from rats! Squirrels just have that bushy tail they show off all the time, and they are so picky that they only eat nuts. Rats also have fine tails, and we’ll eat anything!”

He rummaged through the costume pile until he found a big bushy squirrel tail and clipped it on right next to the bunny tail. Little Whiskers figured if people thought a bunny tail was cute, then adding a squirrel tail certainly would be TWICE as cute. He also left on the rabbit ears for extra cuteness.

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Off ran Little Whiskers to the park to find some squirrel-loving people.

On the way he stopped under an oak tree to put the finishing touch on his costume. He bent over and grabbed two acorns and shoved them into his mouth to stuff both cheeks. Now he felt like he was the cutest squirrel in the entire park.

Little Whiskers arrived at the park just in time to see a little old lady sitting on a bench feeding some pigeons next to the duck pond. He jumped onto the bench, stood on his tippy toes, spread his arms out wide, and through two acorns in his cheeks he squeaked out

“Taw-Dawwww!”

“Oh, my!” laughed the little

old lady. She was so startled by the appearance of Little Whiskers on her bench that her glasses slipped off her nose, into her lap.

“Yes, yes, I brought enough for you, too!”

She reached for her glasses to put them back on and said,

“My, aren’t you just the cu…”

As things came into focus, she looked more closely at the “squirrel” beside her, standing up tall on his tippy toes with outstretched arms, long bushy tail, little cotton tail, and long thin rat tail.

Her eyes grew large as she took in his big floppy rabbit ears, little rat ears, and bulging cheeks.

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“Eeeeeeeek!” screamed the lady as she swatted at the rat with her purse.

Little Whiskers ran for his life, straight into a flock of stunned pigeons.

Their beaks were open with shock as they tried to figure out exactly what kind of animal was headed their way.

“It’s all your fault!” grumbled the rat as he spit acorns at one particularly annoying bird and fled toward home.

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Quack, Quack

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Little Whiskers had almost reached the edge of the park when the sight of the duck pond gave him another idea.

“That’s it! Ducks are cute!”

He rushed back to his attic to add to his costume.

The rat found a duckbill mask in his costume trunk but no duck tail, so he just stuck some feathers in his clip-on cotton tail and headed out once again to find some duck-loving people.

15

He spotted a family with two young children having a picnic. With his latest “Duck” additions to his costume, Little Whiskers snuck into some nearby bushes.

“Quack … quack … quack,” squawked the rat from his hiding place.

The baby waddled toward the bush, smiling broadly as he shook his rattle in response to the sound.

“Ducky? Ducky?” The older toddler was faster on his feet, running past the baby with pacifier in hand yelling, “Me first!”

As both reached the bushes, Little Whiskers sprang out.

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The children stopped to stare.

It’s a “Bea-ver!” yelled the toddler, pointing excitedly.

“I’m not a beaver!” thought the rat, angrily, as he lurched forward on his hind legs as best he could in his costume with a more animated

“Quack, quack, quack!”

“Look, honey!” said the father. “It’s a duck-billed platypus!

It’s so cu…”

Little Whiskers responded loudly with a very irritated

“Quaaaack! Quaaaack! Quaaaack!”

The mother looked up, alarmed.

“That’s not a beaver or a platypus!”

She rushed to scoop up the children.

“ Run!” she yelled.

Little Whiskers was sad and discouraged as he watched the family run away. Then he looked down at the pacifier and rattle laying at his feet and had one more idea.

“Everyone thinks babies are cute!”

He ran off to his attic to refine his costume one more time.

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Goo Goo Ga Ga

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By now a large group of people gathered in the park, all trying to talk to a policeman at once.

“I saw a mutant bunny!” shouted the boy, with his babysitter nodding enthusiastically.

“Actually, it was a long-eared fuzzy fruit bat!” exclaimed the old lady.

“It scared my pigeons.”

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“It was some weird cross between a beaver and a platypus and a skunk!” cried the children’s father.

All the while, the rat listened from behind a sign.

“A skunk? Now they’re just being mean,” he thought to himself.

“Well, just wait until they all see how cute I am now!”

Little Whiskers tiptoed out of his hiding place. Now he was wearing a costume diaper with a hole gnawed in the rear for his long thin rat tail to stick out the back. Attached to the diaper was the squirrel tail, alongside the bunny cotton tail with several feathers still sticking out of it.

On his head he was still wearing the rabbit ears and the fake duckbill. Sticking out of the beak was the pacifier. He clasped the rattle in one of his rat paws. He toddled towards the group of wide-eyed people with outstretched arms like he was actually expecting someone to pick him up.

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“Goo Goo Ga Ga …”

Finally Cute

21

The people gasped in horror as the strange baby toddled toward them.

“Goo Goo Ga Ga!” babbled the rat more loudly than before.

“Eeeeekk!” screamed the babysitter.

“It’s the mutant bunny!” yelled the boy.

“MY rattle!” cried the baby.

“Your binkie!” cried the toddler, with a disturbed look on his face.

“The skunk!” screamed the father of the twins with the mother looking at him like he was now completely crazy.

“ C o o . . ! ! ” 22

said one of the pigeons.

“Scram, you crazy fruit bat baby pretender!

I’ll teach you to scare my pigeons!”

The old lady marched toward Little Whiskers with her purse ready to do some whacking.

Little Whiskers had heard enough! How could anyone still think he was not cute?! Not only were most of the people still scared of him, but he was pretty sure he was about to get smacked with the old lady’s pocketbook.

In total frustration, he threw down the rattle and the pacifier.

He ripped off the fake rabbit ears and duckbill and threw them to the ground. The babysitter stopped screaming and started watching cautiously.

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Little Whiskers tore off the diaper and tossed it aside. The mother noted with relief that the diaper appeared to be empty.

Finally, the rat plucked the feathers from his tail one by one and threw them down.

Then, the crowd made the most unexpected sound.

All together the people said,

“Ooooooh!”

Little Whiskers then pulled off the fake squirrel tail and threw it down.

The people said,

“Ahhhhhh!”

Finally, the rat pulled off the little clip-on cotton tail and threw it down as well.

And the father said,

“Why, that’s not a beaver or a platypus or a skunk or even a mutant fruit bat. It’s just a cute All of the people nodded enthusiastically, and the pigeons let out a relieved

“Coo!”

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little rat.”

Could it be? Little Whiskers could hardly believe his ears. These people actually said he was cute just the way he was! The little old lady bent over and said,

“Look at those cute little whiskers!

Let me give you a peanut.”

Finally, the rat was happy!

He would visit the old lady anytime she was out feeding the pigeons and squirrels, and she would always have peanuts for him too. Other people came by the duck pond to admire the “cute” little rat who begged for peanuts.

The brown rat with the white patch on his belly finally was happy, but sometimes he missed the adventures that came with wearing costumes.

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Then one day, Little Whiskers was at the park when he saw a clown in the distance with a big bunch of balloons. Another idea started to form in his head.

“Clowns are cute,� he thought to himself.

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The End Next Book: The Rat Who Wanted To Be Part Of The Act! 27

From the Author: About the style of this book: You will notice that some of these pages may appear unfinished.

This is by design. When you start a complex project rarely do you get it all right on your first try. This little children’s book is no different, with lots of drawings being proposed and then discarded, even though we really loved some of the first efforts. Also, since this book was originally created as a present for my daughter Miranda, it had many of my hand-drawn “Rat” drawings filling the pages that now have the final professional artwork. Miranda’s cousin Meredith also contributed some artwork. By showing a bit of what I call the “artist’s craft” drawings, we were able to bring back some of our favorites into the background.

Secondly, this is a story about a father trying to teach a lesson about life to his 7-year-old daughter. The life lessons that a Daddy gives to his child are neverending, and the meanings tend to ebb and flow and change to fit the circumstances over time. Basically, the lessons that I try to teach my Miranda are never really finished and polished, and I don’t think I will ever be able to say “OK, this lesson is perfect. I’m done. Here you go.” I think that at the end of the day my little lessons will always be “just works in progress,” so I kind of wanted this book to have a bit of an “unfinished” feeling.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the look and feel of this book as well as the story. It is truly a work from my heart. See if you and your child can guess which pictures I drew.

Jeff Holden “Miranda’s Dad”

Written & Created by Jeff Holden Illustrated by Jabez Gatson & Kenny Velez Color by Kenny Velez Layout by Jabez Gatson & Cam Choiniere Editing by Melanie Twyne & Kaitlin Evaston

Fun and True Facts about Rats

Rats take care of injured and sick rats in their group.

Without companionship rats tend to become lonely and depressed.

Rats have excellent memories. Once they learn a navigation route, they won’t forget it.

When happy, rats have been observed to chatter or grind their teeth. This is often accompanied by vibrating eyes.

Rats laugh. Rats make happy "laughter" sounds when they play but those sounds are beyond the level of human hearing.

Although very curious animals, rats are also shy, and prefer to run away rather than confront a potential threat.

Rats are extremely clean animals, spending several hours every day grooming themselves and their group members. They are less likely than cats or dogs to catch and transmit parasites and viruses.

Rats don’t sweat. Rats’ tails help them to balance, communicate and regulate their body temperature by constricting or expanding blood vessels in (you guessed it!) their tails.

Rats' front teeth grow 4½ to 5½ inches each year. Rats wear them down by continuously gnawing on everything around them, including cement, brick, wood, lead pipes, and other small animals.

A rat can tread water for three days and survive being flushed down the toilet (and it can return to the building via the same route).

A group/pack/herd of rats is called a Mischief.

It is extremely rare for a human to get rabies from a rat.

Innie or outie? Rats don't have gallbladders or tonsils, but they do have belly buttons.

Rats have glands on the bottom of their feet, so they leave a wet scent trail wherever they walk!

Rats will free other rats. As soon as a free rat learns how to open a cage's door it will also liberate its caged companion and it will do so almost immediately. A free rat will work to free a caged rat that it doesn’t know even when a chocolate reward is offered as an alternative.

Rats show compassion. Experiments with rats have shown that they will not take food if they know their actions will cause pain to another rat. In lab tests, rats were given food, which then caused a second group of rats to receive an electric shock. The rats receiving the food stopped eating rather than see another rat receive an electric shock.

The Rat That Wanted To Be Cute

In this story our hero is Little Whiskers, an intelligent brown rat who is “different” from other creatures in a nearby park. He wants to fit in with the squirrels, pigeons, and ducks and be accepted by humans. People feed the “cute” animals, but rats are not invited when peanuts and other goodies are scattered around.

Little Whiskers wants desperately to be part of the action, and thinks he can achieve that by being “cute.” He goes to great efforts, dressing up in various costumes he finds in the attic of his house. The costumes have been stored there by the home’s human resident, a magician whose costumed pets are part of his acts. When one costume does not achieve the desired result, the rat adds more costuming and tries again … and then adds even more. Eventually the rat looks so odd that he frightens everyone he encounters at the park.

Once Little Whiskers becomes frustrated enough to shed all of his costume layers, he ends up looking harmless ... and cute … in the eyes of his beholders. In the end, Little Whiskers achieves his goal by being himself.

Written and Created by Jeff Holden lllustrated by Jabez Gatson & Kenny Velez