Clever mouse

The loft under the thatched roof of the oldest part of our house provides a relatively warm refuge for mice during the cold weather. Mice are attractive little things but they are also dirty and unhealthy so every winter we put traps up there, baited with lovely organic, crunchy peanut butter and we catch several. Mice rarely get into the house itself but the other night was an exception and we were woken at about 1am by a mouse trying to chew its way out of our bedroom via the bristles on the draught excluder at the bottom of the door. The noise was amazing. When I put the light on to investigate the mouse ran under the bed. Ah, I thought, an ideal opportunity to catch the mouse and I got a baited trap and put it near the hole it had started to chew. Before long the noise started again, I shone a torch on the mouse and saw it was chewing very carefully right next to the trap without actually touching it. It will get careless before long I thought and settled down to await the thwack of the trap as it closed on the mouse. Instead the chewing continued apart from brief periods when the mouse went exploring and on one occasion ran right over my shoulder in bed. Eventually I gave up, opened the bedroom door and the no doubt the mouse (which was again hiding under the bed) later went on its way. Next day I baited the trap again and left it on the landing. This morning we discovered that the mouse had eaten all the peanut butter from the trap without setting it off. How did it do that - these traps are very sensitive? When (or should that read "if") I catch this clever mouse I will send its brain off for medical research - its obviously much cleverer than I am. Watch this space.