When the mouse skittered across the corner of our kitchen, our family had a rainbow of responses.

Mom and oldest brother sprang to the attack, stomping the mouse’s terrified wake.

Younger sister leaped to a chair and stood there, holding her cheeks with her hands. She would have gotten onto the table but the mouse had interrupted dinner. She didn’t want to step in the gravy.

The mouse blazed into the bathroom where Mom and brother followed, slamming the door behind them.

Sister was doing the two-step on a chair while crashes and shouts came from the bathroom.

“Wonder what that was?” asked younger brother, who had joined me on the sidelines observing. We had both heard the thud like a tree falling.

I laughed. “There’s not much in the bathroom to knock over.”

“I hate mice,” said our sister.

“We can tell.” Our brother was master of the obvious.

Laughter blasted from the bathroom and the sound of boots slapping linoleum and bathtub. Then another crash.

“Hope they hurry up,” brother said. “I’m hungry.”

“Ewwww,” said sister. I was hoping she didn’t put footprints in the mashed potatoes.

“I wonder if the mouse can slide under the door,” said brother. He was watching our sister when he said it. She shrieked on cue and he grinned. Score.

More crashing rolled out of the bathroom and then a war whoop. The door swung wide and our brother emerged.

“Got it!” he said and dropped into his chair at the table to finish dinner. Second brother joined him and a feeding frenzy after a mouse attack seemed imminent.

A lot of bonding went on that evening. Mom and oldest brother bonded in the mouse war. Younger brother and I bonded in observing the chaos.

And our younger sister? Well, she bonded with her chair.