Of
Mice and Men
For a moment Lennie seemed bewildered. And then he
whispered in fright, “I done a bad thing. I done another bad
thing. He pawed up the hay until it partly covered her. A little pup
yelped and Lennie turned around frightened before running away. The
horseshoe tenement had ended and by that time Lennie was lying on his
bunk with Candy. Candy was trying to calm Lennie down and telling him
that killing a pup was no big deal and that he could get another one.
Lennie had lied to Candy. He would only tell George that he had killed
Curley’s wife. When he had told Candy what had happened he was so
scared that his mind had gone blank and all he could say was,
“Th.. the pup’s dead”. When Lennie saw George coming
back inside and behind him a glimpse of Curley everything came back to
his mind.
Lennie called George over to his bunk and in a whisper he said, “I done a bad thing”.
George was alarmed, “What bad thing?”
“Curley’s wife, she’s dead, I only lifted her up and then…”.
“You crazy guy, what are you trying to get us lynched?”
Lennie answered whimpering, “I'm sorry George. Are you gonna give me hell?”
“Not now Lennie,” said George going for the door.
George headed towards the barn thinking of a
solution. When he got to the barn he took the things Lennie had left
there and buried the pup. George covered Curley’s wife with hay
and left. Now he thought, all I have to do is wait. When he got back to
the barn he told Lennie to shut up about what he had done. A little
later Curley came in screaming angrily,
“What have you done to my wife you madman? I know it was you . .
you’re crazy!” he said pointing at Lennie. Slim stood up
and asked for an explanation,
“She’s dead in the barn,” said Curley through
gritted teeth. Lennie was pale and turned around to face the wall as
George had given him a look that said, “Look what you’ve
done,” which made him shut up for good. Slim started going
towards the barn when he caught George’s eye and saw the terror
in it. Slim quickened his walk and at the barn it was a scary sight
that awaited him. He examined Curley’s wife and figured out that
her neck was broken.
Back in the bunkhouse everything had stopped
as Curley stared at each man looking for something in each one of them.
Slim got back from the barn and told Curley to remain with his wife
while he talked to his men. At first Curley didn’t leave, he
wanted to be there to finds out who it was. But Slim told him that it
would be better if he stayed with his wife for a while.
Once Curley had left, Slim told his men
to go back to what they were doing and took George outside with the
pretence of needing to show him something. Slim chose his words
carefully but George already knew what Slim was thinking and just
nodded as if to say, yes. Slim and George stood there in silence both
scared of what had happened and what was going to happen next.
Everything was so unpredictable.
They went back inside and sat down to play
cards as if nothing had happened, but the death of Curley’s wife
was on everybody’s lips. George and Slim learned to ignore the
gossip and in the end it was very easy for them to block it out of
their minds. But for Lennie it was very hard. The little chit-chatter
was always pounding in his ears and sometimes people would look at him
as if they knew he was to blame.
Some time passed. The gossiping moved on
to other things and Curley experienced new relationships. But Lennie
couldn’t get some peace in his mind even though Slim and George
were always there to tell him everything was okay.
One night Lennie took his things and left. He
went to the little clearing where he and George had once spent the
night, and all those memories came back. He sat down and cried.
He cried himself to sleep. When he woke up in the morning the first
thing he thought of was food. He looked up at the trees and then down
on the ground where he saw nothing except leaves and roots. He decided
to forget food and look for a cave. He spotted a little hole in the
face of the mountain and started walking up the little path. As he got
closer, the hole got bigger and bigger until it was clear that it was a
cave.
In the meantime at the ranch George was
looking everywhere for Lennie muttering under his breath, “Where
is that crazy guy?”
Candy grabbed George by the shoulders and said to him, his voice full
of sorrow, “Relax, I'm sure he just went for a walk”.
Candy though, knew that Lennie had run away because he had seen him go
and knew that he couldn’t stop him. George eventually gave up
thinking he would miss Lennie and that it had been good till it lasted.
Lennie however, was getting weaker and thinner everyday. The only food
he could find was roots and the only time he tried to hunt he scared
the deer away because he was so big and noisy.
A week later a group of ranch hands went out
to the clearing for a small hunt party. They were being noisy and
having fun when Lennie heard them and came out of his cave. Lennie by
that time acted like a bear and looked like one too. Intrigued by the
men he came down from the mountain. He hid in a bush but when he moved
to see better he broke a branch and the men turned around. Scared of
what it was that had made the noise, the men shot Lennie. Lennie made a
huge grunting sound and started to run away, but the wound was very
deep. He fell and lay down on his back to die.
Aurélie 8C
Back to Grade 8 Of Mice and Men