apprentice vet hits his first snag.

Some things you must know before we get started,

I collected "stuff" magnets, badges, electric motors, magnifying glasses etc. all stored in my treasure chest (the bottom drawer of a chipboard chest of drawers).

We had a Cat.

I was aged ~10 yr s.

We lived in a council house and had (i am sure) no money.

The Cat had caught a mouse and brought it into the house, i having a liking for all animals, large and small,  somehow managed to seperate the cat from the now half dead mouse and took it upstairs, to the room i shared with my elder brother.
once upstairs my primary mission was to save the mouse's life, i immediately went to my treasure chest to see if i had anything that might be useful.
my eyes immediately fell upon the aquarium heater i had recently found.... hastily i removed the blue nylon sheet from my bed, wrapped the mouse in said sheet and laid it on the top of the now plugged in aquarium heater, i then left the room, i can only think in my adult mind, it was to give the mouse some peace and quiet, in order to recuperate.
Being the impatient type i returned a short time later expecting to find a rejuvenated mouse and a nice warm sheet, this was not to be!
In fact, what i found was to say in the least heartbreaking my surgery/bedroom was now full of smoke... even at that age i had the wherewithal to unplug the heater open the window and retire to safety for half an hour. 
How had my good intentions come to this! how would i explain the melted sheets to my mum?
I buried the mouse "with full honours and a matchstick crucifix in my "little garden" (a patch i might add which was about 6' x2') and hid the sheet in the top most back space of the wardrobe.

That night i said nothing and slept without a sheet...

next day my mum who had a nose for such wrongdoings asked where my bedsheet was, i don't know i said, i think Michael (elder bro) has had it.
She new i was lying and went on a "rummage"
With the evidence overwhelming i had to admit my wrongdoings.
i seem to remember she took it very well, and never told my dad.  

I still feel guilty about this today not so much for the mouse, but for the money i cost my mum in new sheets, and of course the lying.