History WhatHappenedToTheMouse / Literature

** In ''Calling All Creeps,'' some disguised aliens are looking for their leader, who came to Earth separately, and incorrectly believe that it's the protagonist, Ricky. We never find out why their real leader hasn't joined up with them. Also, Ricky's friend Iris finds out about this situation and tries to help Ricky stop the Creeps, but we don't learn her reaction to the TwistEnding, as she's simply not mentioned for the last few pages. The [[Series/Goosebumps TV adaptation]] has her looking on in horror.

** In ''Literature/TheBrothersWar'', Rusko completely vanishes after the Yotians' surprise attack on the Fallaji, with not a single mention afterward.

** After the power of the primevals is broken in the ''Literature/InvasionCycle'', Treva and Dromar are never seen again. They are commonly assumed to have perished during the invasion, but this has never been confirmed.

** Snowball is never seen again after Napoleon's dogs chase him off the farm, though some of the MaliciousSlander that ensues implies he was still living for a while after this. His RealLife counterpart, Trotsky, was assassinated during the timeframe allegorized in the story, but Snowball's actual fate is never mentioned.

** ''Discworld/{{Eric}}'' ends with Rincewind and Eric [[EscapedFromHell escaping from Hell itself]]. The next time we come across Rincewind, in ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'', he is marooned on a desert island. Eric is nowhere in sight and is never mentioned again.
** In ''Discworld/ReaperMan'', Windle is introduced to members of the Fresh Start Club, including someone called "Brother Gorper". All the other members are specifically identified as various types of undead, and most have dialogue or subsequent references, but Gorper (whatever he is) never gets mentioned again.

** Snowball is never actually seen again after Napoleon's dogs chase him off the farm, though some of the MaliciousSlander that ensues implies he was still living for a while after this. His RealLife counterpart, Trotsky, was assassinated during the timeframe allegorized in the story, but Snowball's actual fate is never mentioned.

* In Creator/GeorgeOrwell's ''Literature/AnimalFarm'', the cat (who never did anything of import while he was present) ceases to exist about halfway through the story. Orwell just stops mentioning him. This could be intentional, as the cat was already mentioned to be mysteriously missing every time the animals needed to get work done, and disappears right when the pigs are beginning to institute their crazier forms of tyranny.

** ''Discworld/{{Eric}}'' ends with Rincewind and Eric escaping from [[LikeABadassOutOfHell Hell itself]]. The next time we come across Rincewind, in ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'', he is marooned on a desert island. Eric is nowhere in sight and is never mentioned again.

* The sheer amount of detail in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books leads to a number of these, too. Harry pulls a cracker and out come, among other things, several live mice. But mice are not throwaways like the other things in the cracker. Neither Harry nor anyone else is ever mentioned as keeping pet mice. Harry muses that Mrs. Norris got to them.

** Joe Bob Fenestre from ''The Warning'', Derek from ''The Extreme'', & Mertil and Gafinilian from ''The Other'' are all one-shot characters who are set up to be bigger players but then never appear again.
** There's also the unexplained fates of recurring characters, namely StarterVillain Chapman and Loren ([[spoiler:who is Tobias's ''mother'' for crying out loud]]).

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* ''Literature/TortallUniverse'': Tt was because of this trope that author Creator/TamoraPierce eventually wrote a short story, [[Literature/TortallAndOtherLands "Elder Brother"]], about what happened to the tree that became man as a result of the mage Numair turning his EvilCounterpart into a tree in the second book of ''Literature/TheImmortals''.

*** ''Literature/EatenAlive'': [[spoiler: D'Vouran is in another part of space being stumbled upon by spacers.]]

*** ''Literature/TheSwarm'': two ExplosiveBreeder bugs are on the heroes' ship, though ''that'' is maybe more a nuisance since as fast as they breed, they can only produce ten eggs a day and will be noticed before it gets dangerous.

* OlderThanFeudalism: Creator/{{Homer}} did this in ''Literature/TheIliad''. He went to the trouble of describing the battle between Aeneas (mortal son of Aphrodite) and Achilles. The Gods saw that Aeneas was about to be killed, and, since he was such a good servant, decided that he didn't deserve to be killed, and took him away from the battle, declaring that he would be the future king of all Trojans yet to come. Homer never mentions him again, and even the other authors of the [[Literature/TheTrojanCycle lost epics]] only said that he either fled Troy after a bad omen or was captured and spared by the Achaeans. Later Greek authors said that he went to Italy. It took ''eight hundred years'' for [[Literature/TheAeneid Virgil]] to turn this into a BrickJoke. An [[StealthPun Epic]] BrickJoke, at that!
* In the ''Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae'', or "Lives of the Saints of Britain", which [[OlderThanPrint predates the 9th century]], warfare breaks out when a lovely maiden is kidnapped by King Maelgwn's soldiers. St. Cadog approaches the king and convinces him to repent and recall his army - [[DisposableWoman but never asks for the maiden back]], despite her father being an official in Cadog's church. She is never mentioned again.

* In ''Literature/{{Seveneves}}'', midway through the book JBF sends an expedition to Mars. They are never heard from or mentioned again, except a passing reference that it's assumed they all died.

* By fifty novels in, these had built up in the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures series. Just a few examples: What happened to the "eight-twelves" from ''The Highest Science''? What happened to the Charrl from ''Birthright'', last seen living in the back of the TARDIS? What happened to that TARDIS, last seen in a tarpit on a parallel Earth, following which the Doctor took the one belonging to his dead counterpart? And back in the first trilogy, didn't the Doctor leave an insanely powerful alien in the body of a human baby? The fiftieth novel, ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHappyEndings Happy Endings]]'', despite having a wedding to organise, manages to [[ContinuityPorn resolve an awful lot of them]]. Several of the ones it missed got picked up a few books later in ''Return of the Living Dad''.

* ''Literature/{{Edgedancer}}'' (a novella of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''): One character's HeelRealization is spurred by a pack of Parshmen whom the Everstorm transforms into the deadly Voidbringers, proving to him that the Desolation he's been denying has, indeed, arrived. He leaves, filled with guilt, and the story jumps into the final chapter, never mentioning the Voidbringers again. Maybe the reformed villain killed them? Maybe they ran away? But why is nobody mentioning them?

* Somewhere between this trope and AbortedArc, several books of ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' end with a stinger where the horror of the book is still around, or ThereIsAnother, or something of the sort. Exactly one of these is followed up on.
** ''Literature/EatenAlive'': [[spoiler: D'Vouran is in another part of space being stumbled upon by spacers.]]
** ''City of the Dead'': Zak [[spoiler: was injected with the reanimation serum and may either be an intelligent zombie now, or will become one as soon as he's killed.]]
** ''The Planet Plague'': [[spoiler: A cure for early stages of TheVirus has been distributed. The lost natives of this planet recorded that cure, so they were good at coping with diseases - but it was some worse disease that wiped ''them'' out. And as he flees, the villain has some new lethal vial with him.]]
** ''Ghost of the Jedi'': the villain is NotQuiteDead. Even one of the heroes suspects it, despite Tash saying NoOneCouldHaveSurvivedThat.
** ''Army of Terror'': [[spoiler: [[UltimateLifeForm Eppon]] collapsed when its [[YourHeadASplode head exploded]], but [[FingerTwitchingRevival a finger twitches hours later]]]], though the narration does say perhaps it's the wind.
** ''Literature/TheSwarm'': two ExplosiveBreeder bugs are on the heroes' ship, though ''that'' is maybe more a nuisance since as fast as they breed, they can only produce ten eggs a day and will be noticed before it gets dangerous.
** ''Spore'': [[spoiler: Spore's tiny central pod is floating free through the AsteroidThicket, ready to endure for centuries until it's picked up again, as [[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Jerec's forces]] look for it.]]
** ''The Doomsday Ship'': [[spoiler: SIM [[ContagiousAI downloaded itself into the memory banks of a nearby space station]] and plans to try again.]]
** ''Clones'': [[spoiler: Darth Vader's forces are gathering up the clones, and he thinks the ones of the ShapeShifter and those of the Arrandas - one of whom is Force-Sensitive - could be studied before they were [[ExpendableClone destroyed]], and the Emperor would be interested in this cloning technology.]]

* In ''Literature/LesMiserables'' and its adaptations, whatever happened to Valjean's sister and her kids that he stole bread for in the first place? Granted, 20 years have passed and he's now on the run, but one could imagine he'd find some way to check up on them if he could. They are given some mention later on -- Valjean gets some news that reveals that all but the youngest kid are gone, the sister works constantly to support them, the little boy trudges to school every day and waits for it to open, and in winter a kind lady who lives near the school lets him come in and sit next to the stove to warm up until it opens. Beyond that, they don't come up, and Hugo says he will not mention them and doesn't know what happened to the rest of the children. Some productions avoid this by having Valjean steal the bread for himself instead.
* Creator/LewisCarroll:
** The riddle from ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'': "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" was left unsolved by Creator/LewisCarroll...
** An odd [[SubvertedTrope subversion]]. While the answer is never given in either of the books - as Dodgson meant for the riddle to be a riddle without an answer - enough of his fans pestered him about the riddle that he made up an answer: [[spoiler: "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat, and it is 'nevar' put with the wrong end in front"]]. There is also the story a copyeditor 'corrected' the word [[spoiler: 'nevar' to 'never']] and the joke was lost.
** Among suggested answers, Sam Loyd's "Poe wrote on both" is probably the best-known.
** Another suggestion of Dodgson's was "Because there is a B in both."
* ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'':
** The animals having a dinner party before being turned to stone by the Witch (leading to Edmund's HeelFaceTurn) are never mentioned again. Aslan being omniscient and all, or perhaps Edmund told him, he probably gave them a visit to restore them. Lewis got a What Happened to the Mouse? letter from one of his readers (or the reader's mom) about the matter, and hastily wrote back a WordOfGod that ''of course'' the animals at the dinner party got turned back, just not on stage, and he was very sorry the child was distressed about the issue.
** The servants Ivy, Margaret and Betty - though it's stated up front that they "do not come into the story much," it's more to the point to say that they don't come into the story at all. At which point it might have been better not to mention them in the first place.

* Many, many things are wrong with the Literature/MaradoniaSaga books, but this one is particularly obvious. Several apparently important characters--including Maya and Joey's parents and brother, the grasshopper Hoppy, and their dog--show up at the beginning and then are forgotten about for the rest of the novel. Some "forgotten" characters do make brief cameos in the ending, but it's never stated what they were doing in the meantime. Was Hoppy just hanging out in Joey's pocket the whole time or what?

* The Literature/PaladinOfShadows book ''A Deeper Blue'' has three:

* In Literature/PleaseDontTellMyParentsImASupervillain, the origins of the jade statue are never explained, particularly not why it's guarded by an EldritchAbomination. Penny maintains that it's super dangerous but this is never elaborated on and she later uses pennies to transfer its curse to other people (hence, Bad Penny) without any indication of the aforementioned danger.

* In the first Literature/SherlockHolmes story ''A Study in Scarlet'', Watson mentions that he "keeps a bull pup" before moving in with Holmes. Once he moves in, the bull pup is never mentioned again. Maybe it died between two adventures? Though there is an explanation that's seen print is that "to keep a bull pup" is slang for "to have a short temper"--or that [[http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/StanleyHopkins2006/Hopkins100806.html it's a revolver]].

* This is extremely common in Franchise/StarWarsLegends due to the [[DependingOnTheAuthor varying focuses on different characters]]. It is occasionally resolved later on but just as often isn't.
** This was recently resolved with [[ComicBook/XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]] due to the book ''Mercy Kill'', but earlier the fate of most of the members of the squadron and what they had been doing for the past couple of decades was left up in the air.

* The works of Creator/StephenKing have many examples:
** ''Literature/TheGreenMile'', there's a literal "What Happened to the Mouse?" when Mr. Jingles runs away after Eduard Delacroix is executed. Stephen King wrote in the afterward that even ''he'' forgot about Mr. Jingles until his wife asked him the question, so he wrote in a resolution. [[spoiler:The mouse lived to the age of 60 years - twenty times the normal lifespan of a mouse.]]
** In his short story "[[Literature/SkeletonCrew The Jaunt]]", the protagonist's daughter almost literally asks this question when the protagonist tells the family the story of the eponymous teleportation device's invention. To wit, the inventor ran down to the pet store and tested some white mice out on the machine. Slightly subverted when he euphemistically explains that they "didn't feel so good the first time" after being sent through awake. [[spoiler:And by now you've probably guessed why he was being euphemistic with his family about what happened to those mice.]]
** At the end of the flashback section of ''Literature/WizardAndGlass'', Roland's mother gives him a belt. He promises to tell his ''[[TrueCompanions ka-tet]]'' the story of how he lost the belt, "for it bears on my quest for the Tower." Whether he tells the ''ka-tet'' or not, he never tells the reader; the belt is never mentioned again either in the main series or in any of the side materials.

* Just before the timeskip in the {{Literature/Thoroughbred}} series by Joanna Campbell, Ashley reveals she's pregnant with her second child and "due in January" (incidentally, the scene plays out almost exactly the same as did the one in which she revealed her first pregnancy). The next book (and the timeskip) comes around, the series now follows Ashley's now teenaged daughter, and...the daughter is an only child. No mention is made of Ashley's second pregnancy.
* In the Literature/TortallUniverse, it was because of this trope that author Creator/TamoraPierce eventually wrote a short story about what happened to the tree that became man as a result of the mage Numair turning his EvilCounterpart into a tree in the second book of the Immortals quartet.

* At one point in Literature/WatershipDown , rabbits tell the story of "The Black Rabbit of Inlé". At the end of story, god Frith waits for the hero and his trusty companion with the bag of gifts. The hero gets replacement ears, nose and tail. The reader never finds out what hero's trusty companion got.
* ''Literature/TheVorGame'':

* In ''[[Literature/WizBiz Wizard's Bane]]'' by Rick Cook an Earth programmer TrappedInAnotherWorld creates a compiler to write spells like computer programs. This allows any human to cast spells to protect themselves from magic creatures, and even should allow many to write their own spells. But locals lack the proper mindset for programming, and by the start of ''Wizardry Compiled'' there's only one case of a local genius improving Sparrow's program. Besides, that patch creates half of the novel's problems. The patch creator is never mentioned again. Somebody that good would eventually join or challenge Sparrow. Maybe he or she was in one of the villages that disappeared without a trace when immortals retaliated.

* In the ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' book ''Challenge of the Hordika'', the titular group of heroes capture a rickety tower and convert it into their base ([[MerchandiseDriven to promote the concurrently released Lego playset of course]]). The following book, ''Web of Shadows'' was an adaptation of the film of the same name, and since it glossed over the event completely, the tower's fate was left unclear. Presumably, they abandoned it out of necessity between scenes. Years later, the author revealed online that the building still stood for over a 1000 years before being dismantled.

* In ''Literature/SingYouHome'', Zoe and Vanessa are fighting in court against Zoe's ex-husband Max in order to acquire the frozen embryos that Zoe and Max made in IVF treatments during their marriage. Max, who becomes a born-again Christian, plans to give the embryos to his brother and sister-in-law (who he also happens to be in love with), who are infertile. In the last chapter, Max starts contemplating just letting Zoe and Vanessa have the embryos, since he doesn't want to see his brother and wife happy together, and knows he can never be with his sister-in-law Liddy. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Max did give the embryos to Zoe and Vanessa, and is about to marry Liddy. This still leaves many questions unanswered. When did Max get together with Liddy? How did the court decide to give Zoe and Vanessa the embryos? Did Max call off the court proceedings and give the embryos as a gift? Is Max still a Christian?

** And then there's Beth, Billy, Clint, Hank, Jeff, Leo and Miyoko. Of the seven of them, only Clint is shown to still be alive when Thomas and co enter the Maze to rescue the Immunes who have been sold to WICKED. But, when it comes to the final showdown with WICKED, he's nowhere in sight. Has he already gone through the Flat Trans? Or was he among those killed trying to escape from the collapsing Maze? Either way, at least two of the boys mentioned must have died somewhere down the line since there can't have been more than seven members of Group A left at the end and Thomas, Minho, Frypan and Gally already account for four of them. In addition, there is indication of whether or not the surviving members of Group B include Beth and/or Miyoko.

** And then there's Beth, Billy, Clint, Hank, Jeff, Leo and Miyoko. Of the seven of them, only Clint is shown to still be alive when Thomas and co enter the Maze to rescue the Immunes who have been sold to WICKED. But, when it comes to the final showdown with WICKED, he's nowhere in sight. Has he already gone through the Flat Trans? Or was he among those killed trying to escape from the collapsing Maze? Either way, at least two of the boys mentioned must have died somewhere down the line since there can't have been more than seven members of Group A alive at the end and Thomas, Minho, Frypan and Gally already account for four of them. In addition, there is indication of whether or not the surviving members of Group B include Beth and/or Miyoko.

** And then there's Beth, Billy, Clint, Hank, Jeff, Leo and Miyoko. Of the seven of them, only Clint is shown to still be alive when Thomas and co enter the Maze to rescue the Immunes who have been sold to WICKED. But, when it comes to the final showdown with WICKED, he's nowhere in sight. Has he already gone through the Flat Trans? Or was he among those killed trying to escape from the collapsing Maze? Either way, at least two of the boys mentioned must have died somewhere down the line since there can't have been more than seven members of Group A alive at the end and Thomas, Minho, Frypan and Gally already account for four of them. In addition, unlike with Thomas and Gally, there is no mention of a reconciliation between Beth and Aris.

** And then there's Beth, Billy, Clint, Hank, Jeff, Leo and Miyoko. Of the seven of them, only Clint is shown to still be alive when Thomas and co enter the Maze to rescue the Immunes who have been sold to WICKED. But, when it comes to the final showdown with WICKED, he's nowhere in sight. Has he already gone through the Flat Trans? Or was he among those killed trying to escape from the collapsing Maze? Either way, at least two of the boys mentioned must have died somewhere down the line, since there can't have been more than seven members of Group A who made it through to the end and Thomas, Minho, Frypan and Gally already account for four of them. In addition, unlike with Thomas and Gally, there is no mention of a reconciliation between Beth and Aris.

** And then there's Beth, Billy, Clint, Hank, Jeff, Leo and Miyoko. Of the seven of them, only Clint is known to have still been alive at the point where Thomas and co infiltrated the Maze to rescue the Immunes (including several of the subjects from the first round of Trials) who had been sold to WICKED. But, when it comes to the final showdown with WICKED, he's nowhere in sight. Had he already gone through the Flat Trans? Or was he among those killed trying to escape from the collapsing Maze? Either way, at least two of the boys listed must have died somewhere down the line, since there can't have been more than seven members of Group A who made it through to the end and Thomas, Minho, Frypan and Gally already account for four of them. In addition, unlike with Thomas and Gally, there is no mention of a reconciliation between Beth and Aris.

* The ''[[Literature/TheMazeRunner Maze Runner]]'' series has a couple of examples:

* In Creator/RaymondChandler's first Literature/PhilipMarlowe novel ''Literature/TheBigSleep'', all of the various murders and crimes are explained, except that of the Sternwoods' chauffeur, Owen Taylor. During filming of the [[Film/TheBigSleep 1946 film adaptation]], director Howard Hawks and screenwriters William Faulkner, Creator/LeighBrackett and Jules Furthman sent a cable to Chandler, who later told a friend in a letter: "They sent me a wire... asking me, and dammit I didn't know either." (Apocryphally, later in life when the question was put to him, Chandler would reply, in an off-handed tone, "Oh, him? I forgot all about him.")

* ''Literature/PeterPan'': In Wendy's personal imaginary world, she owns a wolf pup abandoned by its parents. Naturally, when she gets to Neverland the wolf appears and becomes her constant companion--or so the narration claims, since it never gets mentioned again. Surprisingly, this detail was never referenced or expanded on in any adaptations, even though the LighterAndSofter Disney version could easily have turned the wolf into a cuddly WoodlandCreature and the DarkerAndEdgier 2003 live-action version could have thrown it into some fight scenes. (There was at least one set of illustrations (Trina Schart Hyman's) which didn't neglect the wolf and showed it hanging around at Wendy's feet in the "Home Under the Ground" scene.)