Editor's note: Amos is a church mouse, who types by hurling himself at the keys, but he can't operate the capital shift keys and he shuns punctuation marks — except hyphens and dashes. amos takes flight boss with all the changes surrounding the bugtussle air force base switching from a fighter wing to a special operations unit it has the church pew underworld in an uproar matchbox condominiums are selling like hotcakes but nobody s moving into them maybe next spring says mollie mobeetie the ever-optimistic real estate ladybug — it ll be soon i m sure meanwhile the downtown business raccoons and the banker bugs nervously chew on their pencil stubs and post bigger advertising signs in their store windows hoping to lure the incoming military fliers and their families they ll train round the clock says willifred the white rat to me one day on the church street corner they re bringing gunships hell-m-copters and big ole cargo planes I think that s helicopters says me have you seen any around here nope not yet says he but they re coming can sense it by the vibrations in the ground but they don t fly on the ground says me don t matter you can still feel them coming but they can t fly as fast as those fighter pilot bugs says me oh yeah what makes you think you know so much about them says he cause i flew in one of those fighter jets we traveled as fast as lightning aw amos you make me laugh — and off he went chuckling to himself but i did i did says me calling after him sure you did says he going on down the street but i did says me dejectedly as i plopped down on the church s doorstep you did what amos says freddie flea who hopped up next to my knee flew way up high there in the sky with the famous thunderbird fliers you mean you flew a kite up in the sky so high says freddie i once rode a kite but it crashed into an oak tree hey amos is going to fly a kite shouts sammy salamander who happened to pass by hey let s all go fly a kite like amos did says louie the songdog and he started lapsing into the mary poppins tune — let s go fly a kite — and all the rest of the church pew underworld started following him and singing along — boss it was very humiliating in a joyful sort of way sometimes boss it seems as if no one really understands but then i thought about the apostle paul being on trial before the roman emperor nero and he said no one stood with him everyone deserted him but then he writes in second timothy four-seventeen that the lord stood with me and strengthened me and methinks that s more meaningful and special than the biggest lump of swiss cheese any mouse can imagine amos