Amanda Nadelberg

Feivel

There was this movie maybe you’ve seen
it. It is called An American Tail. The tail
part is funny because it is a pun on tale as
in a story and tail as in a mouse
because the movie is about a mouse with
a tail named Feivel. The mouse not the tail.
I have thought about Feivel and that movie
recently. Recently I was at a wedding shower
and the bride wanted and received flip
flops that said “Just Mauied” on their bottoms
so that if you walk in them on the
sand everyone will see. And in the movie
there was an older lady mouse with a
speech impediment she said mauied for
married and when I saw the flip flops I
remembered mauied—but from where—
so I repeated it and soon I saw the old
lady mouse in my mind. I am sure
the movie came before the flip flops.
You can only really wear those
flip flops if you’re going to Hawaii. It
would be silly to wear them in Florida.

If my mother’s best friend were a doll
with a string to pull for a repetition
she would say I hate Florida. Many
people in Florida have had face lifts and
breast augmentations. It is fantastically
scary. An American Tail is also scary
because this little mouse named Feivel
is separated from his family on their way
from Russia to America. They had to leave
because of anti-Semitism. Maus I and II
are also stories in which mice face
anti-Semitism. There are many
Jewish people in Florida. I am
Jewish but I haven’t had any breast
augmentation. If I haven’t had
any breast augmentation or a
face lift then I am not from Florida.
It is scary to be a little mouse far
from your family because mice
are smaller than people and everything
is so much farther. Dogs were used in the

Holocaust by the Nazis to scare the Jews
and dogs are scary in An American Tail.
Many Jewish people don’t have dogs. Some
do but many don’t. In Israel my sister says
there are so many cats and no dogs because
they were scary. Dog is to Jew as cat is to
mouse. My mother is afraid of dogs but she
was not in the Holocaust. I am frightened
by big ones but now that I’m taller I’m less
afraid because the jumping is less high
relative to my face. A dog can jump much
higher than a mouse but mice are also scary.
Except Feivel. He was a nice Jewish
mouse who missed his family. I miss
my family. They are not mice but I
miss them. In the end Feivel and his
family are reunited. I haven’t found
my family yet but Feivel has and he
taught us all never to stop looking
even if we aren’t looking for
mice. It works for everything.

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