Sipsworth

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

On Wednesday morning, Sipsworth sees Helen enter the kitchen and hops onto his blue castle. Listening to news of a shipwreck, she tells the mouse that her father was once shipwrecked. She hopes that if Sipsworth is ever lost at sea, fishermen will rescue him. She also tells him that she doesn’t believe in a divine purpose but that “something is going on” (89).

Helen goes to the library and asks for books about mice. The librarian’s son, Dominic, helps her to find the books as Helen registers for a library card. The librarian then invites Helen to coffee hour before she leaves with a book on caring for pet mice.

Helen walks to the shopping arcade, passing a row of elderly strangers and thinking that their names are no longer any more important than words on a bus pass. She buys new slippers, coffee, and a cookie and sits down to read the mouse care book. After walking home, she reads a section called “The Body Language of Your Mouse” and considers that the word “your” means the mouse is now her responsibility. She still threatens to take Sipsworth to the shelter but carries him into the kitchen in his slipper to keep her company.