While working on an embroidery project, Mirabel's prized golden thread is snatched up by rats. She runs after it and discovers a secret opening behind a painting on the second level of the casita, revealing the inner corridors of the house where a strange man is living in her house. He calls himself Ratón and begs her not to tell anyone and she reluctantly agrees, the two becoming the unlikeliest of friends. How will she react when she learns that he's her long-lost Tío Bruno?
The Mouse in the Walls is an Encanto fanfic by UC_Glue that can be read on Archive of Our Own here
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This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: In canon, Mirabel doesn't meet Bruno until a day after Antonio's gift ceremony. Here she finds out about him weeks before it.
- Atrocious Alias: The fake name Bruno went with is "Ratón". Not only is it obviously fake, but it literally means "mouse".
- Delayed Reaction: On chapter 16, Ratón is so excited about the new rat costumes for his next telenovela that the fact that Mirabel not only called him "Bruno" while asking water, but that he responded to the name flies over his head for almost a minute. When he realized his mistake, he drops the mug he was filling up.
- Dramatic Irony: Readers know exactly who Ratón is. Mirabel keeps missing or discounting the clues.
- Entertainingly Wrong: The only reason Mirabel doesn't immediately realize that her Secret Squatter friend is her long-lost uncle after learning that he's wearing said uncle's clothing. She believes it makes far more sense for Ratón to just be some random guy who stole what little clothing Bruno had left behind for himself, rather than for her long-lost uncle to have run away only to hide in the house for a decade.And how could she have ever begun to think that they were the same person? Even just stringing the words into a sentence in her brain felt ridiculous.
- For Want Of A Nail: When the Casita's foundations start falling apart around her, rather than interrupt the party after Antonio's gift ceremony like in canon, she instead runs to Ratón's crawlspace to talk to him about it, as she knew he had already been patching cracks in Casita's walls for years.
- I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: While Mirabel finds Ratón's telanovellas — in their execution and ridiculous, protracted storylines — rather dumb, it just takes one "episode" before she immediately becomes a fan of it, volunteering to help make costumes for the rats and throwing in fan-theories about the characters.
- Insistent Terminology: Bruno/Ratón repeatedly insists that the rats he bunks with are "mice", not "rats", no doubt because "rat" has worse connotations.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Due to Mirabel's Black Sheep status in the village and family and the fact that Ratón lives alone in the wall of a person's house in secret, they are pretty much the only friends they have despite one of them being in the mid-teens and Ratón pushing fifty.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Camilo gleefully jumps on the opportunity to scare his cousin by impersonating a cartoonishly evil version of their uncle Bruno, but when Mirabel runs away and locks herself in the nursery, he's rather upset and dismayed by the possibility he went too far in terrifying her.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: While Mirabel tries probing Dolores on whether she knows about their Secret Squatter, the closest answer she gives is this.Dolores: Do you want to know what the biggest burden about my gift is, Mirabel?
Mirabel: Um... sure?
Dolores: It isn't the annoying sounds you mention. It isn't the fact that everything I hear is at an amplified volume. It isn't even the constant chatter in my ears. No, Mirabel, the biggest burden of my gift is that ultimately, I must choose what to share and what to keep a secret. - Mythology Gag: Apparently, Camilio's section of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is an In-Universe song he wrote about his enigmatic uncle, a song he tries sharing before Mirabel (who starts freaking out about the truth) bolts.
- Oblivious to Love: Apparently, the reason why donkeys keep getting loose in the village is because the donkey farmer's son lets them out just so that he could see Luisa every day. In fairness, the only one who knows about his crush are Dolores (who hears him do it) and Mirabel (who Dolores told).
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Pepa dramatically complains about her brother ruining her wedding day every time people speak about him, but when she walks on Mirabel holding Bruno's ruana, she looks ready to cry.
- Poor Communication Kills: When Mirabel tries pushing the issue regarding Bruno and who he was to Pepa, this is when she notices a crack forming in the wall and immediately presumes that she is somehow hurting the house. Since Pepa didn't see the crack, she assumes that she chased her niece off and tries apologizing later on.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: While Mirabel was quick to suspect Dolores as knowing about Ratón and her daily visits to him, she's genuinely surprised when Dolores admits that not only was he there for ten years, but that she knew about it for that long.
- Something Only They Would Say: When Mirabel starts suspecting that Ratón is Bruno, she asks her mother what he was like, checking for a comparison. While many of her uncle's unusual hobbies and habits she attempts to chalk up to coincidence (the wood-knocking, the salt over the shoulder, etc.), it's when she mentions that he insisted on calling his pet rats "mice" that Mirabel is no longer able to deny the truth.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Mirabel asks if Ratón has any theories regarding the cracks in the house, he responds that "It's not like [he] received a very literal vision of the future, one that depicts [her] standing in front of a broken Casita[.]" While she had given up on her initial suspicions that Ratón is her missing Tío Bruno by this point, this still strikes her as odd even for him.That... had been oddly specific. But hey, he had said that hadn't happened (although how he even had the creativity to conjure a hypothetical scenario as outlandish as that completely eluded her understanding), so who was she to doubt him?
- We Named the Monkey "Jack": Antonio insists to call his pet frog "Tío Bruno". Mirabel gently tries to make him change his mind, since they are not supposed to talk about said estranged uncle.
- Wham Episode:
- Subverted. Chapter 11 has Pepa immediately identifying Ratón's ruana as actually belonging to Bruno, pushing Mirabel to interrogate him. However, the following chapter has Bruno miraculously convince her that he simply stole the item from among Bruno's remaining belongings, causing Mirabel to completely drop all notions of them being the same person.
- Played straight in Chapter 14, where she sees Bruno's depiction in the town mural and puts two-and-two together that they are the same person. This would continue on in Chapter 15, where she starts probing family members for basic details before straight up telling Camilo to take Bruno's form, shocked to find that he takes on an exaggerated version of Ratón.
- Subverted. Chapter 11
- Was It All a Lie?: After finding the truth, Mirabel is more upset over Bruno not trusting her enough despite their friendship than over the lying itself.
- Your Favorite: Casita gives to Mirabel all the ingredients to prepare chocolate santaferreño with extra spices and she takes some for Ratón. Turns out it's exactly how he likes it.
