Of Mice and Magic

by Ursula Vernon

  “Ye-e-e-s . . .” said the king slowly. “Yes, it is.” He turned toward the princesses, looking suddenly thoughtful.

  Harriet cleared her throat. “About my half of the kingdom . . .” she said.

  The mouse king ignored her. “Twelve months,” he said. “Twelve signs . . . yes, of course!”

  He stepped down from the dais, toward Molezelda.

  “I could swear that there was something about half the kingdom as a reward,” said Harriet to his back.

  “I have twelve beautifully organized daughters, but where would I find suitably organized men to marry them? What was the point of giving them such names, if they are going to go off and ruin it?”

  The twelve princesses took a step back. One or two of them burst into tears, but the mouse king didn’t seem to notice. September had fallen asleep again.

  Molezelda sniffed. “I didn’t expect you to be so reasonable about this,” she said. “Given that I plan to keep them underground forever and all that.”

  The mouse king shrugged. “So they’ll be close by and can visit for holidays. I don’t see the problem.”

  (“Other than the eternal imprisonment bit?” asked Harriet, who was pretty sure no one was listening to her.)

  “Clearly we should have talked sooner,” said Molezelda. “Would have saved me some spell-casting.”

  “I could really go for half the kingdom about now,” said Harriet.

  The mouse king waved a hand at her dismissively. “Your services are no longer needed,” he said.

  “I’m, uh, not really interested in marrying you,” whispered August. “No offense.”

  “It’s fine,” Harriet whispered back. “I’m twelve. I’m not marrying anybody. I just want to stop this plan.”

  The mouse king glared at Harriet. “The princesses are not available,” he said. “It would break up the set.”

  “They’re people,” said Harriet. “Not a set.” She glanced toward the door again, and was enormously relieved to see Wilbur’s nose poking around the edge of the door frame.

  “They’re princesses,” said the mouse king. “They will marry whomever they are told to marry.”

  “Look,” said Harriet, “we had a deal. You promised me half the kingdom and a princess! Are you going back on your word?” She sniffed. “Some king you are.”

  The mouse king went red in the face. “How dare you talk to me like that, you insolent—hamster!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Guards poured into the room.

  Harriet grabbed August’s arm. “Run!”

  The first guard was just a bit slow getting in their way. Harriet dodged around him and dove for the open doorway where Wilbur was waiting.

  He had a burlap sack in one hand. He started to say something, but Harriet snatched it from him, saying “ThankyouWilburyouarethebestnowgetoutofhere!” and tore down the hallway with August hot on her heels.

  “Stop them!” yelled the mouse king, somewhere behind them.

  They skidded into the Gray Hallway and saw guards at the end, three deep in front of the door to the outside.

  Harriet hadn’t really expected them to leave the door unguarded, but she’d been hoping. There were too many guards to fight. Somebody might get hurt.

  It might even be her.

  “Why did I ever stop being invincible?” she muttered, pulling August into a Blue Room.

  She yanked the bag open and pulled out a can.

  Three mouse guards dressed in Blues appeared in the doorway.

  “Stop!” cried the first guard.

  “In the name of His Majesty!” cried the second guard.

  “The mouse king!” cried the third guard.

  “Like I was going to forget,” snapped Harriet, popping the lid off the paint can—and splashed the paint toward the door.

  The paint was brilliant purple, the color of a radioactive grape. It ran down the guards’ blue clothes, over their blue armor, and stuck to their fur.

  One tried to take a step forward and the other two grabbed him by the arms.

  “We can’t go into the Blue Room now!” said one.

  “We’ll clash!” hissed the second one.

  Harriet let out a sigh of relief.

  “You thought of everything!” cried August admiringly.

  “I hope so,” said Harriet. “Now run! Before we run out of paint!”

  She flung hot-pink paint on the guards that tried to chase them into the Green Room and bright blue paint on the guards coming through the doorway of the Magenta Room.

  She poured vivid orange paint down from a balcony, onto the heads of two guards and a butler, who had the bright idea of wearing black. Since very few things go with vivid orange, the three were forced to take shelter behind a curtain and wait for someone to come back with a change of clothes.

  At last, with only one can of paint to spare, the two princesses reached the staircase leading up to the princesses’ tower.

  “If we go up there, we’ll be trapped,” said August dubiously.

  “Not quite,” said Harriet. “Go! I’ve got a plan.”

  August ran up the stairs. Harriet ran after her, stopping only to pour the last can of paint (a particularly offensive shade of olive) down the steps behind her.

  “What do we do now?” asked August as Harriet slammed the door to the bedroom closed. She could hear the locks and chains rattling on the other side, and wished she had a way to lock them.

  “Bar the door,” she said instead. “They’ll be here soon.”

  “What do we bar the door with?” asked August, looking down the long gallery where the princesses slept.

  Twelve narrow beds and twelve wooden trunks made a very effective wooden barricade. Working together, August and Harriet had three beds piled in front of the door by the time the guards came clattering up the stairs.

  “Let us in!” shouted the guards, banging on the door. The door slammed against the pile of wooden bed frames . . . and didn’t open.

  “More furniture!” cried Harriet.

  “I always hated this end table!” said August, flinging the hated table onto the pile.

  “August!” shouted the mouse king through the door. “August, you stop playing with that awful hamster and open the door this minute!”

  “You want me to marry a mole!” August shouted back. “And he’s an okay mole, but we’re just friends, all right?”

  “You’ll marry whom I tell you to marry!” shouted the mouse king. “You’ll understand when you’re older!”

  Harriet shoved the last of the wooden trunks into the pile of furniture. The mouse king was clearly not good at talking to his daughter. In fact, any minute now he was going to say—

  “It’s for your own good!” said the mouse king.

  Harriet winced. Nobody, mouse or hamster or battle quail, likes to be told that something nasty is for their own good.

  August turned away from the door, her chest heaving. “I’m not marrying Gemini,” she said angrily. “I’m not.”

  “That’s the spirit,” said Harriet. “Help me with this rope.”

  “Rope . . . ?”

  Harriet pulled the last item out of the sack.

  “A good rope,” said Harriet, “is the adventuring princess’s best friend. After a battle quail and a sword and a friend like Wilbur.”

  “Are we going to climb down it?” asked August. “But how do we fit through the bars?”

  She glanced at the window. The space between the bars was not wide enough for even a very small mouse princess, let alone Harriet, who was a very solid little hamster.

  Harriet tied the rope around the bars twice and secured one end to a bedpost. The other, much longer end, she fed through the bars and out the window.

  August frowned. “But how—”

  Something
yanked on the rope, twice.

  Harriet grinned. August rushed to the window.

  Forty feet down, Wilbur stood between Mumfrey and Hyacinth. He had finished tying the rope to a harness, and gave a thumbs-up to August in the window.

  “You thought of everything!” cried August.

  Harriet waved her hand. “This isn’t my first adventure—” she began.

  The floor heaved sideways.

  August was thrown against the windowsill. Harriet caught herself and turned.

  The trapdoor to the underground passage had appeared in the middle of the floor, and as they watched, the door began to rise.

  CHAPTER 14

  The enchanted stairs!” August gasped. “What do we do now?”

  “Uh . . . .” said Harriet, blinking. “I hadn’t thought of that . . .”

  “But you thought of everything!” cried August.

  “I think I’m doing pretty well, considering!”

  The door opened wide enough for them to see the gleam of light from Molezelda’s claws.

  Harriet flung herself on the trapdoor, slamming it back down. There was a muffled curse from below.

  “Open this door!” yelled Molezelda from the other side. “Open it at once!”

  “Open this door!” yelled the mouse king from the hall.

  “Do you want me to pull now?” yelled Wilbur.

  “Do something!” yelled August.

  “Will everybody please shut up!?” yelled Harriet.

  Yelling at people to stop yelling is never very effective. The mouse king continued pounding on the door and Molezelda continued pounding on the trapdoor.

  “Think, Harriet!” she told herself. “Think!”

  (This is also not very effective.)

  Fortunately, at that moment Wilbur decided he should probably be pulling. The rope snapped taut.

  There was a creeeeeaak and a groooooooan, and a great deal of stone dust fell from the ceiling. For a moment it looked like the combined weight of two quails wouldn’t be enough.

  Harriet, realizing that she hadn’t thought of everything, began to worry that she hadn’t thought enough about anything.

  “What is going on in there?” shrieked the mouse king.

  The bars held. The mortar around them did not.

  There was suddenly a gaping hole where the window used to be. August put her hands over her mouth in alarm.

  The end of the rope that had been tied to a bedpost jerked taut and began pulling the whole bed toward the window.

  “Grab that rope!” cried Harriet.

  There was a loud thud from the door. The pile of furniture shook. August squeaked.

  THUD. THUD. THUD.

  “Let us in,” shouted the mouse king, “or we’ll break the door down!”

  Molezelda hammered on the underside of the trapdoor. “Open this door,” she shouted, “or I’ll break the floor open!”

  BANG-BANG-BANG went the mole witch’s claws on the wood.

  “August,” said Harriet very calmly, “now would be an awesome time to start climbing down that rope.”

  “Right!”

  Harriet took a deep breath. She let it out. She counted to five, while the battering ram slammed into the door and Molezelda pounded against the trapdoor.

  One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .

  The door fell off its hinges. The guards holding the battering ram ran into the wall of furniture. The mouse king screamed with rage.

  Five!

  Harriet dove off the trapdoor and ran for the window.

  “Move these beds!” yelled the mouse king.

  “Aha!” cried Molezelda, flinging the trapdoor open.

  She emerged into the room just as the guards, still holding the battering ram, plowed through the furniture and ran right over the top of her.

  “Where is that wretched hamster?!” shouted the mouse king.

  “Oounnngggfff!” yelped Molezelda.

  Harriet grabbed the rope, flung herself over what was left of the windowsill, and was gone.

  “Are you all right?” cried Wilbur as Harriet climbed down the rope.

  “Never better!” gasped Harriet. “Doing great! Get August on that quail!”

  The mouse king’s head appeared in the ruined window. “Stop her!” he shouted.

  There was a brief confusion among the guards. Harriet decided not to risk matters, aimed for Mumfrey’s saddle, and let go of the rope.

  “Sorry, Mumfrey,” said Harriet, having landed hard on the quail’s back.

  Wilbur climbed onto Hyacinth and pulled August up behind him. “Now what?”

  “Aren’t you the stable boy?” asked August.

  “He’s also a prince,” said Harriet. “A great prince. Best prince I know.”

  “Awww . . .”

  “I’m not marrying you,” said August, putting her arms around Wilbur and hanging on tight. “No offense.”

  “I’m really okay with that,” said Wilbur. “No offense.”

  The guards were sliding down the rope now, having apparently decided against cutting it.

  “As long as we’ve sorted out who’s not marrying who,” said Harriet, “let’s ride!”

  She squeezed Mumfrey with her knees and he took off across the lawn.

  “Stop them!” shouted the mouse king from the window.

  The ground began to boil. Molezelda erupted from the ground, looking very much the worse for wear.

  More mole hills appeared all over the lawn. Gemini popped up from one, looked at Harriet, looked at his mother, and said, “Err . . . stop who, Mom?”

  “Them!” cried Molezelda. “Her! The hamster! And the mouse! That’s your future wife!”

  “She doesn’t seem very interested, Mom . . .”

  The two quails pounded across the lawn. More moles dug their way up through the grass, looking puzzled.

  “Where are we going?” shouted Wilbur.

  “I can’t go far!” cried August. “There’ll be an earthquake!”

  “That’s what I’m counting on!” said Harriet. “If you leave the area of the spell, I’m pretty sure it’ll break! Otherwise why would she be trying to stop you?”

  There was a surprisingly thoughtful silence for somebody riding a galloping quail.

  “. . . huh,” said August. “Makes sense.”

  Guards ran after them. Moles converged on them.

  None of them arrived in time.

  Hyacinth the quail, carrying Wilbur the prince and August the princess, crossed some invisible line.

  The earth began to dance.

  CHAPTER 15

  Harriet pulled Mumfrey to a stop, and Hyacinth stopped next to him.

  It was a small earthquake at first. The guards looked around uncertainly. Slates rattled from the castle roof.

  Harriet jumped down from Mumfrey and waved to one of the moles. “Which one are you?”

  “Err, Aries, ma’am,” said the mole, saluting. He seemed very confused by the entire situation.

  Harriet didn’t plan to give him time to figure it out. “Get your brothers,” she said. “Go back in the castle and pull everyone still inside into the tunnels. The tower is probably going to come down in a minute, and there may be some damage to the rest of the castle. Gemini told me you could do it in three minutes.”

  “We’re going to knock the castle down?” said Wilbur, shocked.

  “Well, probably not the whole palace,” said Harriet. “The tower is where the magic’s connected . . .”

  “Yes!” said August, punching her fist in the air. “I hate that tower!”

  The earthquake was starting to pick up steam now. A few rocks fell out of the walls and plunked to the ground. One of the lower windows—into a Blue Room, by the color—cracked.

 
It was obvious that the worst of the shaking was in the tower that held the princesses’ bedroom. Stones were raining from the hole where the quail had yanked the window out.

  “Hopefully we won’t have to knock it all down,” said Harriet. She cupped her hands around her mouth.

  “I don’t agree to this!” shouted the king out the window.

  “Neither do I!” cried Molezelda. “Boys, bring me that mouse! Don’t let her leave the bounds of the spell!”

  There was an awkward pause. Molezelda looked around, adjusting her battered hat. “Err . . . boys?”

  “They’re getting everyone out of the castle, just in case,” said Wilbur. “It’s very noble of them.”

  “They’re good boys,” said Molezelda vaguely. “They always do what their mother tells them. Who are you?”

  “Nobody in particular,” said Wilbur. “Just a prince. Ignore me.”

  The earthquake was really rolling now. More windows broke. From inside the castle came a loud bell as somebody pulled the fire alarm.

  Harriet gritted her teeth. “Come on . . .” she said under her breath, “come on, Gemini, get everybody out . . . we can’t knock down a palace full of people . . .”

  Harriet had some very unusual notions of princessly behavior, but flattening innocent civilians was definitely not something princesses did. Even if the squishy future of the hamster kingdom was at stake.

  She was very nearly sure, based on where the cavern had been located, that the tower was the only thing that would fall down, but if she was wrong . . .

  A fountain of earth erupted next to them and Gemini came out, dragging a guard behind him.