Dexter, the mechanical cat, peered over the edge of the sideboard at the mouse hole far below.

“Come on out you little sod you,” he whispered. “Uncle Dexter’s got a surprise for you.”

He flicked his tail over the book beside him, feeling how delicate the balance was. Half on and half off the wooden table, all it would take was a little nudge, and Dexter would be rid of his arch nemesis once and for all.

The cat grinned. It was the perfect plan. Mr Nibbles didn’t stand a chance.

Dexter may not have been a real cat – although you’d never know it to look at him – but he took his duties as a cat very seriously indeed. He set aside time each day to tangle himself up in people’s legs (he liked to get them when they were walking, for maximum effect), to stare at them until they became uncomfortable (preferably when they were on the toilet), and to scratch at things that really oughtn’t to be scratched at (with his metal claws, Dexter could make short work of even the strongest table leg), but the most important duty on his List Of Things That All Cats Do, the real numero uno as far as he was concerned, was keeping the manor’s mice at bay.

The thing is, catching mice did not come easily to Dexter. They were just so small, and so fast, always diving under furniture or disappearing into little holes. He could never get anywhere near them. No, for Dexter to become an effective mouser he realised early on that he would have to get creative.

He’d tried lying in wait, sitting very still somewhere hidden, hoping a mouse would come by. But somehow they always knew he was there. He’d see them appear and disappear on the other side of the room, close enough to taunt him, but never close enough for him to pounce.

Then he’d tried laying a trap, placing a piece of cheese in the middle of the floor hoping one of them would go for it. But all that had done was keep him busy whilst the mice raided the kitchen pantry, nicking all the biscuits, most of the cheese, and half a dozen saveloy that his master had been really looking forward to. That had been an especially tough day for Dexter.

In the end he’d had to stalk all over the house, watching where the mice went until he was able to find the place that they called home – under a drain in the corner of the basement. That was when things got really tricky.

He couldn’t just dive on in there, you see. The mice would simply run away, go find somewhere else to hide. Dexter needed a way to persuade them to leave and never come back, something so unpleasant that even the bravest of mice would think twice about making Chard Manor their home again. In the end he’d stolen one of the gardener’s manky old socks, the ones he never used to wash, filled it with a hefty dollop of horse dung – which isn’t fun to do when you don’t have hands, let me tell you – dipped that in some rotten eggs that he’d been fermenting in the airing cupboard for a month, and dropped the whole lot down the drain on top of them, covering the hole with a big sack of spuds so that they couldn’t get away.

Oh the noises they made! Mice must have pretty sensitive noses, because they yelped and squealed and scurried about, desperate to escape the foul stench that was suddenly all around them. Dexter almost felt bad for them then. Almost. But still, only when he thought they’d had enough, did he finally let them out.

The little blighters ran for the hills, never to be seen again. The whole thing couldn’t have gone any better. In one fell swoop the manor was mouse free. Or, at least, almost mouse free that is.

Dexter called him Mr Nibbles, because he liked to nibble on things – bread, cake, nasty old bits of cheese any self respecting person wouldn’t touch with a barge pole (which probably explained why Dexter’s stink bomb hadn’t worked on him.) No matter what Dexter did, Mr Nibbles would not be deterred. He had a good thing going at Chard Manor, and he clearly wasn’t about to let some cat with a stinky old sock get in his way. If Dexter was going to get rid of Mr Nibbles, he was going to have to come up with another plan.

He’d tried setting a trap, digging a hole in the cellar floor, covering it over with a sheet of newspaper, and placing a stinky bit of cheese on top. The idea was that Mr Nibbles would run onto the paper to get the cheese, fall in the hole, and that would be the end of that. But somehow Mr Nibbles found a way around that, stealing the cheese without springing the trap, so Dexter had been forced to quickly moved on to Plan B.

Plan B had been the classic ‘box and a stick’ scenario. You prop a box up at an angle with a stick, place a piece of cheese underneath, wait for your prey to run under the box, pull away the stick, et voila, mouse in a box. How could it go wrong?

Dexter sat for hours on the cellar floor with a piece of string in his mouth, waiting for that damn mouse to show up. But when Mr Nibbles finally did arrive, the trap had worked a treat. As soon as he went under the box to get the cheese Dexter had whipped away the stick, trapping Mr Nibbles underneath. It couldn’t have gone any better, right up until Dexter lifted the box to grab his prize and Mr Nibbles ran away, darting in between Dexter’s legs as fast as his little feet would carry him. That was when Dexter had decided enough was enough.

Dexter didn’t want to kill Mr Nibbles, not really. He wasn’t that kind of a cat. But he didn’t see that he had any choice. He hoped being squished by a large book would be quick and painless. He at least hoped it would be terminal. He didn’t fancy the idea of having to finish the job off himself. That sounded like the kind of thing that could get stuck in your teeth.

Down below, Dexter heard a faint squeak. A little pink nose appeared at the mouse hole and sniffed the air. It disappeared back inside. It appeared again and sniffed some more, Mr Nibbles sticking his head out of the hole to scan the room for danger.

Come on, thought Dexter. Just a little further.

Mr Nibbles crept out of the hole, sniffing all the while. He advanced towards the piece of cheese that sat suspiciously about a book’s length away from his hole. As his back end cleared the skirting board Dexter reached out and tapped the book next to him, sending it tipping over the edge.

The book tumbled through the air, silently rushing to deliver an untimely end to the unfortunate Mr Nibbles. But as its shadow fell across the poor, defenceless little mouse, Mr Nibbles grabbed the piece of cheese and shot back into the hole, his tail disappearing just as the book slammed into the ground with a loud, resounding, teeth-rattling thump.

Dexter couldn’t believe it. How did he know? How did he always know?

Mr Nibbles appeared at the mouse hole and sniffed the book (no doubt wondering whether he could eat it or not.) Then he looked up at Dexter and smiled – or at least that’s how it seemed to Dexter – offering up a cheeky wink before disappearing from view once and for all.

“Oh, it’s on now!” said Dexter, leaping to the ground. “Just you wait. Next time you won’t be so lucky.”

Taking the top of the book’s spine between his teeth, Dexter began the long journey across the floor, up the chair, through the potted plant, and up onto the sideboard, to reset his deadly trap.

He’d get him next time. Oh yes, next time he’d get him for sure!