Analyze the nature of the diction used in this passage, how it builds the persona of the narrator, and how it affects the passage as whole using the 5 questions.
I hear a sound so I get up not waking her. Over by Stove, a tiny scritchy scratchy sound. An alive thing, an animal, for really real not TV. It’s on Floor, eating something, maybe a
crumb of pancake. It’s got a tail, I think what it is is, what it is is a mouse. I go nearer and whee it’s gone under Stove so I hardly saw it, I never knowed anything
could go so fast. “O Mouse,” I say in a whisper so he won’t be scared. That’s how to talk to a mouse, it’s in Alice, only she talks about her cat Dinah by mistake and the mouse gets nervous and swims away. I put my hands praying now, “O Mouse, come on back, please, please, please…”
I wait for hours but he doesn’t come. Ma’s definitely asleep. I open Refrigerator, but she doesn’t have much inside. Mice like cheese, but we haven’t
any left. I get out the bread and crumble a bit on a plate and put it down where Mouse was. I crouch down small and wait for more hours and hours.
Then the most wonderfulest thing, Mouse puts his mouth out, it’s pointy. I nearly jump in the air but I don’t, I stay extra still. He comes up to the crumbs and sniffs. I’m only about two feet away, I wish I had Ruler to measure but he’s tidied in Box in Under Bed and I don’t want to move and scare Mouse. I watch his hands, his whiskers, his tail all curly. He’s alive for real, he’s the biggest alive thing I ever saw, millions of times bigger than the ants or Spider.
Then something smashes into Stove, whaaaaaack. I scream and stand on the plate by accident, Mouse is gone, where’s he gone? Did the book break him? She’s Pop-Up Airport, I look in all her pages but he’s not there. The Baggage Claim is all ripped and won’t stand up anymore.
Ma’s got a weird face. “You made him gone,” I shout at her. She’s got BrushPan, she’s sweeping up the broken bits of plate. “What was this doing on
the floor? Now we’re down to two big plates and one small, that’s it—”
The cook in Alice throws plates at the baby and a saucepan that almost takes off his nose.
“Mouse was liking the crumbs.” “Jack!” “He was real, I saw him.” She drags Stove out, there’s a little crack at the bottom of Door Wall, she gets the
bundle of aluminum foil and starts pushing balls of it into the crack. “Don’t. Please.” “I’m sorry. But where there’s one there’s ten.” That’s crazy math. Ma puts down the foil and holds me hard by my shoulders. “If we let him stay, we’d soon
be overrun with his babies. Stealing our food, bringing in germs on their filthy paws…” “They could have my food, I’m not hungry.” Ma’s not listening. She shoves Stove back to Door Wall. After, we use a little bit of tape to make the Hangar page stand up better in Pop-Up
Airport, but the Baggage Claim is too torn to fix.