Colour tattoo of a mouse in a red circus uniform and star-topped hat, holding a cane and balancing on a red ball, on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Circus mouse balancing on a ball

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows a cartoon mouse in a red jacket and a red hat with a white star, holding a thin cane and balancing on a red ball with a white star. Its long tail curls up behind it. The linework is bold and dark, with flat fills of red, tan and white and small red highlights on the cheeks, set against plain skin with a dark fabric visible at the top left.

Traditional Upper arm Mouse Ball Hat Tail Star

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Aunt Hester, the ringmaster has finally given Pip his own act, though it is not the one he wanted. Mr Gollan says a mouse cannot juggle, so Pip balances on the red ball instead, the one with the white star chipped out of it where the dog chewed it in Carlisle. He holds his cane out level like a magistrate and stays perfectly still while the ringmaster beats a drum made from an old biscuit tin.

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We are pitched this month in the ruins of Hallow Keep, above the river, where the north wall still stands three storeys high and grass grows up through the great hall. The villagers climb the hill on Saturdays with lanterns and pennies. Last night a boy shouted that the mouse had a crown in his hat, and Pip, who is vain beyond reason, lifted his tail up behind him to look taller. The crowd roared. I have never seen a creature so pleased with itself.

Afterwards, when the tent was down, I found him on the ball in the wet grass, still balancing, staring up at the broken arch where a window used to be. He said he was practising for the lord of the castle, who went off to the Crusades and never came home to see a show. I told him that was nonsense. He did not argue, which worries me more than anything would have.

We leave for Penrith on Monday, so write to the post office there. Keep a candle in the window for me, and tell Mother I have not lost my cane, only lent it to a mouse. Your loving niece, Marjorie