It was Ramazan. After a hearty Sehri, I laid down to catch some sleep. For two days in a row, I hadn't slept a wink as I was too lazy to complete my homework during daytime.

Anyway, that is of no real importance to us. My mom had told me about a large rat lurking in our home. I didn't pay much heed to it. As I lay down to sleep, I heard a scraping sound. I didn't pay much attention to it until it repeated. I leapt off my bed, cursing my stupid luck, and went to inspect the source of the sound, which turned out to be our rodent guest. It stood(do rats stand?) behind our cupboard. As I flashed the torch light towards it, its eyes gleamed, making my heart crawl into my throat. I have to admit, I am pretty scared of rats, perhaps because when I was little, I had heard scary stories of rats biting humans. I get goosebumps when even a small rat crosses my path. But this rat had disturbed my sleep. It was going to pay!

So I opened the door, hoping that it would escape out the door. I nudged it and off he ran(I dunno if it was a he or a she, but judging from the nasty expression it gave to me, I assumed it was a he). But rats, apparently, are dim-witted. It didn't go towards the exit, but instead scurried beneath the bed. I swore. My dad had woken up by then. We both scouted below the bed, but the rat wasn't there. After much bending down, flashing the torches, and shaking the furniture, we came to the conclusion that the rat had given us the slip. A pretty hard task to do when you are a kitten-sized rat.

Just then, Mom screamed. The rat had just brushed past her ankle, and she was totally freaked out. I couldn't blame her. It went into the kitchen. Dad told me to stand guard by the door that led to the inside of the house while he made it go out of the house. The coward that I was, I snatched up a chair lying around and sat on it, in front of the other door. Dad nudged it, and again, it didn't bolt for the exit. It came straight towards me. I yelped and stood on the chair, shaking it violently. The rat ran back to its hiding place, making my dad scold me. I took a deep breath.

I grabbed my bat. This time I was determined. Dad nudged it again and again it came towards me. I bonked him on his head. Some might ask, why didn't I hit it flat on the body. That's because I was scared that the rat would go *psschoosh-sploosh*. You get the idea.

Well, I had hit him pretty hard, but he turned around and came again. I jabbed, and it fell on one of the slippers lying there. I made a mental note not to wear those slippers afterwards. I hit it again and he rolled out, lying on its side. I was pretty sure it was feinting. When dad poked him out of the house and into the lobby, he sat up straight. But unlike before, he made no efforts to run. He just stared at us with his big, mean eyes (at least, that's what they looked like to me).

That's the strange thing about rats. Once you bonk them hard enough, they just sit there. It's almost as if they know that Death approaches, and that they can't run away from it. Dad dealt the final blow and tossed him out.

We trudged back to our beds, my heart still pounding hard against my ribs. That was the first time I had killed a rat. Not that I felt any better about it. I still don't know what I felt that time. I drew the blanket over on my body(it was bitterly cold).

As I closed my eyes, I imagined the rat looking at me, and the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up. I drew the blanket closer.