Postcards from No Man's Land Chapter 3 Summary

Postcard

  • Jacob hasn't been in Amsterdam all that long, but this doesn't stop him from hating it. Let's recap his time there so far: (1) he confused a guy for a girl and flirted with her/him even though he didn't mean to; (2) he lost all his money and stuff to a pickpocket; (3) he's lost… again. Oh, and did we mention it's raining?
  • All in all, it isn't shaping up to be a good day for Jacob—it's what his grandma would call his "mouse mood" days.
  • Why? Jacob thinks back to when he moved in with his grandma, and he saw a mouse under the floorboards. It totally freaked her out, but he was interested in helping the little guy.
  • He put a prod inside the hole where the mouse went, hoping to wiggle it out and release it outside—but instead he poked too hard and killed the little fella. He was in a bad mood after that, which inspired his grandma to call this his "mouse mood."
  • A couple days after the mouse incident, Jacob has a dream about being in a cupboard, or some small space. He sees a small mouse in the corner lying very still and wonders if it's alive, but just then, the mouse changes into a human child with an abnormally large head.
  • Huh? He taps the kid on the head because it freaks him out.
  • Again and again, he hits the child to keep it from coming closer to him, until finally blood comes out of the kid's head, and Jacob hits him again. Yikes.
  • This whole time, the kid's eyes have been closed, but just then, he opens them—the kid is Jacob.