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. Lennie was now
frightened. Covering the last bits of hay on her, Lennie became sad and
hopeless. Everything seemed dark and gloomy inside the barn and from
the distance Lennie could hear the men playing the horseshoe game. Thin
strips of light passed through the wooden barn and the dead body cast
discontentment and misery on Lennie’s future. The dream of George
and Lennie was now fading away and the soft rabbits as well. Everything
they had dreamed and hoped for was disappearing in the darkness. Lennie
became very determined and was trying to find a way for them to save
their lives. He surely wanted to tend the rabbits and nobody except
George could have stopped him. And then Lennie said with force,
‘I ain’t gonna say a word, nothin, I promise. Oooooo, now
that crazy George is gonna lynch me for having killed Curley’s
wife. How can . . . can I change this?’
Lennie was now very angry with George because he was the one who always
told him what to do and what not to do. Lennie became irritated and
suddenly had an idea,
‘Oooohhh, I got it, I can throw Curley’s wife away like I
did with my puppy, so George ain’t gonna know nothing and I
ain’t gonna get in trouble.’
Lennie was now very happy but didn’t
realize that if anyone on the ranch noticed the dead body, Curley and
the others, except for George, would certainly want to kill him. Of
course Lennie was too naive to understand the seriousness of what had
actually happened. He could only think about those rabbits.
The ranch grew silent
for a moment and at that same time Lennie peeked out from the barn to
see if there was anyone around. In the distance he could see the
ranchmen playing the horseshoe game and thought that nobody would
notice him. Lennie grew silent and carefully came out of the barn
carrying Curley’s wife’s body with his big hands. He was
scared, and could not immediately find a right place to hide the body.
Lennie turned around the corner of the barn and finally after a lot of
tension found a big hole which Candy’s dog had dug. He laid her
down carefully and as he had done before with the hay, covered her with
mud and then put a big wooden box on top of her. Lennie started to cry
and while he cried he looked at the horizon, full of nice places where
he imagined his little house, and the rabbits jumping up and down all
over the valley with happy smiles on their faces. The valley now became
very quiet. Something strange was happening. Lennie wondered what was
going on and while he stood up on his big, enormous and heavy feet he
heard something in his ear. George had arrived and noticed that Lennie
had a strange look on his face and wondered if he had done something
bad. Then he whispered,
‘Lennie hey, everithin’ goin’all right, what are
those tears you have got on your face?’ Then he said angrily,
‘Is that jail bait trying to get you into trouble or
somethin’, oh, I’m gonna kill that rat-trap when I have the
possibility.’
Lennie responded quietly, biting his lips,
‘Oh George, I’m so sorry. I accidently stroked her
lovely, soft hair, then she became all angry and I said to stop three
times and then . . . . and then, I broke her neck. George I
didn’t mean to do it George, I just wanted to stroke her hair and
then she got very angry and then she was dead. Please don’t give
me hell George, please I promise I will not do it again.’
‘You crazy madman,’ said George full of anger. Then he continued,
‘They’re gonna lynch you! Where’s the dead
body, you fool, I told you to stay away from that rat-trap . . . . . I
knew it was gonna end in a bad way.’
Lennie looked at the wooden box and said, trembling,
‘Right there George, under that box and inside the hhhh-hole.’
George went over to the box and under it he saw only Curley’s
wife’s hair. At that moment George became very frustrated.
George needed to get Lennie out of this trouble and to do so he needed
to escape another time, hoping that the other men hadn’t yet
noticed the body.
The ranch became full
of mystery and everything was now silent. George and Lennie heard the
massive wind which was growing and growing, that surely didn’t
promise any good. As they began to talk silently to each other, the
boss came out, jumped on his fine horse and suspiciously looked at the
two guys who were whispering to each other. At a certain moment the two
guys caught sight of the boss who was approaching them and so George
warned Lennnie to say nothing about Curley’s wife. Lennie became
worried as always and didn’t know what he would say to the boss.
As the boss came closer, George looked at Lenny and hoped he
wouldn’t say anything. The boss came closer and closer and the
two guys were now ready to suffer. The boss arrived and said in a
suspicious way,
‘What is goin’ on over here, why are you two all alone? Why
are you not stayin’ with them guys? Are you takin’ his pay
from him? Let the big guy talk.
After some seconds Lennie replied, ‘No sir, nothing, he
ain’t taking my pay, he’s a good guy. Don’t worry we
are good guys, we don’t mess up or anything.’
As the boss looked at Lennie and George he finally said,
‘I’ll have my eyes on you two. If anything strange happens you are in great trouble, you understand?’
Lennie and George replied loudly, ‘Yes Sir’.
As the boss rode away to check on the other
ranchmen, the two guys had big smiles on their faces, especially George
who was really worried. Lennie turned to George and said, ‘ See
George, this time my stupid head didn’t say anything about
Curley’s wife. Are you happy?’
‘Of course I am’, George replied softly. ‘We need to
find a plan to get out of here before they realize about Curley’s
wife’s death. Oooohhhh, I know, we can get out of here tonight,
but we need to be very careful. No mistakes tonight, OK?’
Lennie replied happily and in a satisfied way,
‘Yes George I will not do anything bad’.
The two guys fortunately felt that they had
found a little hope of getting away. The night had almost come. The
only thing now was to be very patient and to be very careful.
George and Lennie were aware of the possible dangers that could emerge
on that single, desperate night.
The night had arrived
and everyone was ready to go to bed. All of them except Curley.
Curley was very frustrated and didn’t know where his troublesome
wife hid. After a few minutes everyone was exhausted and the only
remaining light was the one of the moon. George and Lennie waited their
turn and after a few minutes the only thing they could hear was the
snoring of the men. George and Lennie were completely silent and
with a few footsteps they were out in the darkness. Getting away from
the ranch made George and Lennie feel very relieved. As they were
walking in the darkness, Carlson woke up in the dormitory and noticed
that George and Lennie had escaped. He went out with his torch and
found an unusual wooden box that stood all alone near the barn. He went
near there and took off the lid. Carlson became still for a moment,
shivering as he stared at the body in front of him. He quickly
realized that Curley’s wife had been killed by one of the two
guys who had escaped during the night. Carlson tried to scream and howl
like a wolf to tell everyone what had happened, but he couldn’t
make any sound. His voice was frozen.
It was late now and the two guys were way ahead in
the distance. Carlson thought, ‘I do not have to go out in
the dark, cold night and look for someone else’s wife’s
killer, I can just go back to my good old bed and no one will know
anything. We can just see about it tomorrow.’
Incredibly George and Lennie had made their escape and now they
were once again continuing their journey, trying one more time for
their dream to come true.
Dario 8C
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