Family Sabbatical (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

by Carol Ryrie Brink

  “And, you know, we shall have to get rid of the mice.”

  “I know how to do that, too,” said George.

  “Without hurting the little mice?” asked Dumpling anxiously.

  “Sure,” said George. “I’ve thought of just the place for them.”

  “George, dear,” said Mother, “you aren’t feverish, are you? You aren’t coming down with chicken pox or scarlet fever or something else, are you?”

  “No, Mother,” George said, “I feel just fine—real strong and healthy. And I’ll have to go outdoors tomorrow to tend to all these things.”

  Many Cats

  George was eager to be off on his animal errands early the next day, but he waited until after lunch. The reason for this was that he wished to get three sardines from the hors d’oeuvres tray. He brought a piece of paper from upstairs to the luncheon table, and, when the sardines were passed, he selected three of the largest and wrapped them carefully in the paper.

  “Aren’t you going to eat your sardines, George?” asked Mother.

  “No,” said George. “These are to lure the cat.”

  “Now, George,” said Mother, “you know you mustn’t lure anybody’s pet away from its home, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Mother, I know.”

  “He’s going to the place of the Millions of Cats, I think,” said Dumpling. “May I go, too, George?”

  “No, Dumpling,” George said. “Your legs would get tired. And besides, I can do this better alone.”

  “Not even me? Susie? Your own sister?” Susan asked.

  “I’d rather be alone,” George said.

  “And you’re going to get rid of the mice, too, aren’t you, George?” asked Father, looking hopeful and relieved.

  “You bet,” said George.

  “Painlessly, George?” asked Dumpling.

  “Yes. I won’t let the cats eat them, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Well, George, we trust you to do what’s best,” said Mother.

  So it was really rather a solemn occasion when George set forth with the mousetrap containing Minnie and Mickey, the packet of sardines, and two extra mufflers that Mother insisted on winding about his neck because of the recent measles.

  It was a beautiful day, and George really felt fine. First he began walking briskly in the direction of the Jardin des Plantes. As he walked, he was remembering the turtles that Dumpling had once given him for a birthday present. No matter how large a container he had put the turtles in, they had always been discontented and wanted to get out, until finally he had let them go in the park at home, where they could be free and happy in a large lake. Remembering the turtles was what had given him his idea of Mickey and Minnie. They were used to the freedom of Madame Duprés’s house, but unfortunately nobody except the children liked to have them there. Where would mice be welcome? Where would they have a good time? These questions had gone through George’s head all day yesterday, and finally he had thought of the zoo.

  Mickey and Minnie looked at him with their bright black eyes as George went along. Their tails hung out of the bottom of the cage. They were wondering what was to become of them.

  “It’s all right,” George said to them. “You’re going to like it where I’m taking you.”

  When George got to the zoo, he walked all around, looking for the best place for mice. Probably because he had once read a story about a lion and a mouse, he went first to the lion house. But there was not enough straw in the lions’ cages, and the bones that were left from the lions’ dinners had been picked dry and clean. This did not look like a pleasant home for mice.

  Next he went to the monkeys’ cage, and there were interesting bits of food lying around there—carrot ends and banana peels and tomato seeds—but still no straw. Besides, the monkeys were too much interested in the mousetrap to suit George. They came and hung on the side of their cage, reaching their long, skinny arms and fingers toward Mickey and Minnie and chattering eagerly.

  “No,” George said, “I’ll have to do better than this.” He walked around for quite a while, and then he thought of the sheep. Sheep, he thought—even a ram would be kind to mice; at least they wouldn’t pay any attention to them. He went to the sheep pen, and he saw there was plenty of straw in which mice could hide and make warm homes. He saw that there was wheat and grain scattered on the ground where the sheep had been careless with it. Here was food that mice would appreciate.

  Behind the fence stood the ram that had given Susan and Dumpling such a bad time. He looked at George with his wicked yellow eyes and butted his head against the fence. But George was not frightened, and he was sure that the mice would not be either.

  “Well, here you are then, mice,” he said to Mickey and Minnie. He knelt down beside the fence where there was a good pile of straw. Then, very carefully, he opened the bottom of the trap and let the two small mice scurry away into the straw.

  “Now for the cat,” said George. He was having a very good time.

  Still clutching his packet of sardines and the empty mousetrap, George left the Jardin des Plantes and went a few blocks out of his way to a place he had discovered on one of his trips to the zoo. This was also a sort of park, but in a very different way. George had been so interested in what he found in this park that he really didn’t bother to wonder what kind of place it was. Actually it was so full of history that Professor Ridgeway would have been perfectly charmed by it. It was an old arena built by the Romans more than a thousand years ago, when they had lived for a time in what is now Paris. For centuries this old arena had been covered with dirt, and then one day the people of Paris had dug and cleaned it all out and made a little park of it. It was just a lot of old walls, and tiers of seats built like steps down to a level expanse of ground where the Romans used to have their plays and other amusements. But the wonderful thing was that now all the stray cats in this part of the city had taken it over as their refuge. Lying about on the old stones, or strolling up and down, or quarreling among themselves, were dozens and dozens of cats. They were of all colors and sizes. Some were old and some were young. Some may have had long-haired aristocratic ancestors; others were alley cats, pure and simple. But one thing they all had in common, and that was a hungry look. Kindhearted people like George often left scraps of food for these homeless cats, but there was never quite enough to go around.

  George came in the gate of the little park and stood on the top part of the arena, looking down. His heart swelled with pleasure at the sight of so many cats. The cats stirred and looked sleepily up at him. They began to get up and stretch. Some of them lifted their noses and sniffed the air as he unwrapped the sardines. Perhaps they smelled the mousetrap, too—who knows? Other cats began to wash themselves, with the idea that they were soon to have a banquet. George was sorry that he had not brought the whole can of sardines with him instead of only three. As for the mice, he was glad that he had left them at the zoo.

  As George went down into the arena, the cats came up to meet and surround him. They came like a furry wave or tide, and some of them stood on their hind legs and touched him with their paws.

  “Meow!” they said. “Meow, meow, meow!” They had all sorts of voices and accents, but cats speak a universal language, and George understood it perfectly.

  “I can only take one of you,” he said. “It’s too bad. I’d like to take all, but they’d never stand for that at the place where I stay. I was lucky enough to get a chance to take one.”

  “Meow, meow, meow!” begged all the cats.

  “Madame Duprés will want a nice big cat that can catch mice, or at least scare them away. She’ll want one that’s in pretty good condition,” George went on.

  He looked all the cats over, and he decided that the large gray tiger cat with the white bib and slippers would be just the one to suit Madame Duprés.

  “Of course,” mused George, “if I were choosing a cat for myself I’d probably take that little, very thin, half-sized white one. Boy, how I could
fatten that one up! But there’s no use thinking about that.”

  He gave one of the sardines to the large gray tiger cat with the white bib and slippers, so that it would get the taste and be willing to go home with him for more. He intended to keep the other two sardines to encourage it along the way. But he couldn’t help seeing how hungry and thin the half-sized white cat was. White was really hardly the word for her, because she looked as if she might have dragged herself out of a gutter or a coal cellar so recently that she had not yet had time to clean herself up. But George could see that she would be white if she were clean.

  In spite of his better judgment, George decided to give the small white cat one of the two remaining sardines, because she looked so very pitiful. The small cat received the sardine with great excitement. She shivered all over and began to growl. Then she rushed away to eat the sardine in private before any of the larger cats could take the prize away.

  The large gray tiger cat was now rubbing himself against George’s leg and purring for more. It was an easy matter for George to pick up the cat and carry him off under his arm, giving him encouraging whiffs of the remaining sardine as they went along.

  The other cats looked disappointed, but they had developed a fatalistic attitude toward life, and presently they went back to sunning themselves on the steps of the old arena as if there had been no interruption. George was sorry not to say good-bye to the little white one, but he did not see her anywhere.

  Feeling pleased with his success, George started back to the pension with the tiger cat securely under his arm. Madame Duprés would be pleased, as would Germaine; and George himself felt that he would probably be allowed to see a good deal of a pet that he had had the pleasure of presenting to them.

  George had some busy streets to cross before he got to the pension. He was careful to wait on the corner until the policeman held up his hand and stopped the traffic coming from the other direction. Then George and his cat and his mousetrap and his sardine would go across the street. The large cat was heavy to carry, but he was purring contentedly now, having every confidence in George’s ability to give him a good home.

  As George crossed the busy street he noticed people looking behind him and pointing.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” said a kindly old gentleman to George, “but I believe that your cat has lost its kitten.”

  George looked around them and saw for the first time that he was being followed. Crossing the street behind him came the small white cat. The traffic had started again, but the cat darted nimbly between the cars, her tail like a soiled white flag in the air.

  “Well!” said George. “For Pete’s sake!”

  He didn’t know what to do. His arms were already aching with the large load of cat, mousetrap, and sardine that he was carrying. He could let the large cat eat the sardine, but he feared that when the sardine was gone, the cat might not want to continue on with him. He could throw away the mousetrap, but Father had paid good money for it, and it was a historical one. No, he could not very well lighten his load. And to try to carry the white cat, too, and take her back to the arena, was quite out of the question. There seemed only one thing to do, and that was to order the small white cat to go back by herself.

  “Scat!” George said. “Go on back now. Scat! You aren’t the one. Scat!”

  The white cat stopped on the curb, looking very small and disconsolate. Would she be able to recross the busy street in safety? George’s tender heart ached for her, but there seemed to be nothing else to do. It would not do to arrive home with two cats. “Scat!” George cried again. He began to walk very quickly, with the big cat bobbing up and down in his arms. George did not look back.

  At the next intersection he had to wait again for traffic. He was thinking about the poor little cat and wondering if she had returned safely across the last street, when, “Meow!” said a small, sad voice beside him. George looked down, and there she was! There was the white cat.

  “Scat!” said George again. “Scat, cat!” But the little cat only rubbed herself fondly against George’s leg, and, when the traffic cleared, she hopped nimbly across the street at his side.

  Gee whiz! said George to himself. It’s that French language again! “Scat” probably doesn’t mean a thing to a French cat, and I don’t know how to say it in French.

  George began to run, but the small cat ran, too, bounding along in great good humor. So they arrived at the door of the pension, George panting and perspiring and worried, the two cats in the best of spirits.

  Susan, Dumpling, and Germaine had been waiting downstairs and watching out the window for George. It seemed to them that he had been gone a long time, although for George the time had passed very quickly. Now the three girls popped out of the door to meet him.

  “Oh! Two cats!” they cried in surprise.

  “This is for your maman, Germaine,” said George, putting the large cat into Germaine’s arms.

  “Merci! Merci beaucoup!” cried Germaine—which showed how pleased she was.

  “And who is the other one for?” asked Susan. “George, you never dared get one for yourself, did you?”

  “Susie, I couldn’t help it,” George said. “She followed me. I kept saying ‘Scat!’ but she didn’t understand. I think maybe her name is Scat, because she kept right on coming along.”

  “Here, Scat, Scat, Scat,” called Dumpling softly. The small white cat left George and went to rub herself against Dumpling.

  “Dumpling, I will give her to you,” said George. For the first time in his life, he was rather relieved to give away two animals.

  “What will Mommy and Daddy say?” asked Dumpling.

  “I think I know,” said George. “ ‘We are traveling in Europe now, George. We couldn’t possibly keep a cat.’ ”

  “George,” said Susan slowly, “we might try them. I don’t like to encourage you too much, but they are in a nice Christmasy mood. We were waiting here to tell you. Daddy brought home a little Christmas tree, a real one, and a package from Grandma Ridgeway has arrived from America.”

  “Yes,” said Dumpling, “and when you shake the package it rattles. We don’t know if it’s a toy that rattles, or if something got broken on the long way coming.”

  “Boy, oh boy!” said George, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand. “What a day!”

  “There is another precaution we might take, George,” Susan said. “If we could get Madame Duprés’s permission to keep a cat, before we brought up the subject with Mother and Daddy— It might help.”

  Madame Duprés and Germaine were already feeding their cat a saucer of milk in the kitchen and admiring its fine tiger coat and its white bib and slippers. In fact, Madame was so pleased with George’s gift that she kissed him on both cheeks and called him “Cher petit Georges!”

  The Ridgeway children summoned up all their French words and their most expressive gestures. They showed the white cat, and Madame agreed emphatically that it was not such a fine specimen as the one George had given her. Then they pointed up to their rooms and made pantomime motions to show how they would feed and care for the cat and keep it clean. George even made pouncing motions to show how the cat would catch any mice that were bold enough to venture out. Then they all stood quietly with question marks in their eyes and said, “S’il vous plaît, Madame,” which is a polite way of saying “Please.”

  “Certainement! Certainement!” cried Madame Duprés, patting each of them on the head, even Susan. Then she gave them a small dish of milk to carry upstairs with them, and they knew for sure that she had given her permission.

  Dumpling went upstairs first, carrying the cat, then Susan followed with the milk, and George came next with the empty mousetrap and half a sardine in a piece of greasy paper.

  Father was reading and Mother was writing. On the table was a small fir tree growing in a pot. Beside it was a large package from America, and there was a new smell in the room—not mice. It was a fir-tree smell, a smell of Ch
ristmas.

  “Well, George,” said Father, “we have a surprise for you. Look what came in the mail and what I found at the flower market.”

  “Boy, oh boy!” said George.

  “And, Daddy,” said Susan, “we have a little surprise for you, too. We hope you won’t mind too much, because George really couldn’t help it that she followed him home. She didn’t understand ‘Scat,’ and Madame Duprés says we can keep her, if we take care of her and keep her clean. She even gave us a saucer of milk for her.”

  “Oh, George!” said Mother. “You didn’t bring home a cat!”

  “Mamma, I couldn’t help it,” George said.

  “How about the mice?” asked Father. “Did you get rid of them?”

  “Yes, Daddy,” said George, “I found them a very good, kind home, and I brought the trap home to you because it is historical. And, Daddy, this is a very little, extremely small cat, and with her here we won’t need a trap. The mice will stay away and Mother won’t have to smell them anymore.”

  “Her name is Scat,” said Dumpling, “and she purrs.” Everybody stopped and looked at Dumpling. Her face, which had been pale ever since the measles, was suddenly pink again. Her mouth, which had been drooping ever since she lost Irene, was suddenly turned up at the corners.

  Mother said, “Why yes, it is a very small cat, isn’t it? Put her down and let her drink the milk, Susan.”

  “And I’ve still got half a sardine left,” said George. “She loves sardines.”

  “When she’s had a chance to clean herself and get a little flesh on her bones, she will be a beautiful cat,” Mother said.

  “But, darling,” said Father, “I thought you didn’t want a cat.”

  “I didn’t,” said Mother. “But then, I didn’t want mice either, and we had mice. I’d rather have a pretty little cat named Scat than a couple of mice.”

  “And, Mother,” Susan said, “you were wondering what to do with the cheesecloth tents. We could make her the softest, nicest bed.”