by Poppy Green
Contents
Chapter 1: Mouse Life
Chapter 2: A Sunny Saturday
Chapter 3: Green with Frog Envy
Chapter 4: Odd One Out
Chapter 5: Library Quest
Chapter 6: The Swim Lesson
Chapter 7: A Sophie-Size Surprise
Chapter 8: Smells Like Trouble
Chapter 9: Fun Facts
Looking for Winston Excerpt
About Poppy Green and Jennifer A. Bell
Mouse Life
Sophie Mouse skipped around the toadstool table. She added a carved-twig spoon to each of the four place settings.
“Napkin on the left, Winston,” she told her little brother as they set the table for dinner. “Spoon on the right.”
“Okay, Sophie,” replied Winston. “Wait. Which side is left again?”
Sophie tried to be patient as she reminded him. She took a deep breath. Her nose twitched. Her whiskers quivered with glee. Delicious aromas filled the Mouse family’s house in the hollow of a big oak tree.
Sophie’s father, George Mouse, was at the stove. He was stirring a big pot of radish soup.
Sophie’s mother, Lily Mouse, peeked into the oven. She was trying out a new recipe—clover and juniper berry cake.
Sophie came over to look at the cake too. “We should probably try it before you add it to the bakery menu.” She smiled sweetly at her mother. “Don’t you think?”
Lily Mouse owned the only bakery in Pine Needle Grove. She was known for making the most delicious cakes and pastries—often with unexpected ingredients.
Lily Mouse smiled back at Sophie. “Yes, of course,” she said. “We will all have a test piece—after dinner!”
Before long, the soup was ready. George Mouse ladled it into walnut-shell bowls. Then all four mice sat down for Friday night dinner.
As they slurped their soup, Sophie and Winston had lots to tell about their week at school. Mrs. Wise, their teacher at Silverlake Elementary, had assigned the students a fun project.
“We have to prepare a presentation about our own species,” Sophie explained. “The frog students will talk about frogs. The birds will talk about birds. And the mice will talk about mice. Next week, we’ll each give our presentations to the class. It’s to help us learn more about one another.”
Winston’s eyes were wide with excitement. “And since we’re both mice, Sophie and I get to work together!” he added.
Winston was six years old. It was the first year he was old enough to come to school at the schoolhouse.
“Winston suggested we say that mice are fast and can scurry places quickly,” Sophie pointed out.
“And Sophie said we should talk about how we’re small and can fit into tiny spaces,” Winston added.
George Mouse smiled. “Very true,” he said. “Can you think of other things we mice are good at?”
Sophie and Winston thought it over. Winston put his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. Sophie gazed out the window, puzzling over the question.
But neither one could think of anything. Something was distracting them. They both sniffed the air.
Their whiskers twitched.
They looked at each other. Then they shouted it out together.
“The cake is ready!”
A Sunny Saturday
Sophie sat up in bed. She yawned and stretched. Sun streamed in through the knothole window.
“A perfect day to play at the lake!” she cried. She and her friends Hattie and Owen had made plans. They were going to meet at Forget-Me-Not Lake after breakfast.
Sophie jumped out of bed and hurried to get dressed. As she pulled on her jumper, she paused. Her latest painting sat just where she’d left it on her easel. It was of a beautiful marigold she had seen the other day.
“Maybe this evening I’ll paint a scene of our day at the lake,” Sophie said to herself. She couldn’t wait to use her new color, cornflower blue. She’d made it by grinding up bright-blue cornflower petals. “With a touch of green it could be just right for painting the water!”
Sophie ran downstairs. Winston and Mrs. Mouse were nibbling on freshly baked peach and poppy seed muffins.
Sophie reminded her mom that she was running off to meet Hattie and Owen.
“Okay,” said Mrs. Mouse. “But have some breakfast first!”
Sophie grabbed a muffin. Then she took two more for Hattie and Owen. She wrapped them up in a linen napkin and tied it into a bundle.
“Your father is working today,” Mrs. Mouse said. Mr. Mouse was the town architect. He was overseeing the construction of a rabbit’s new house. “Winston will come with me to the bakery. Come find us there if you need anything. And be home in time for dinner!”
“I will!” Sophie cried. She grabbed the napkin bundle and headed for the door. Then she stopped and turned. “And Winston, let’s work on our project tonight!”
She heard Winston cheer as she headed out into the fresh air.
Forget-Me-Not Lake was a pretty long walk from Sophie’s house. She headed toward town, then turned off onto the path that led to the lake. Along the way, she passed Oak Hollow Theater. Sophie had gone there once to see a play. The audience sat on carved-out logs that were arranged in rows on a slight slope. The stage was at the bottom. In that log, there were several large holes. When the setting sun hit at just the right angle, it streamed through the holes and made spotlights that lit up the stage. Sophie thought it was beautiful.
Finally, the path came out of the woods. Sophie was standing on the bank of a big, glistening lake. It was surrounded by forget-me-nots—tiny blue flowers with yellow centers that bloomed in bunches on little green stems. That’s why it was called Forget-Me-Not Lake.
Very close by, a voice made Sophie jump. “Finally! We were wondering when you’d get here!”
Sophie turned. Her friend Owen was hanging from a tree. His tail was wound around a low branch.
“Owen! You startled me!” Sophie cried. Then she laughed. “You’re too good at sneaking up on me.”
“Sorry,” said Owen. “I can’t help it. That’s just how we snakes are, I guess.” His eyes lit up. “Hey! I should add that to my presentation for school!”
Sophie looked around. “Where’s Hattie?” she asked.
Owen looked around too. “Huh,” he said. “She was just here. Hattie! HAT-tie!”
There was no answer.
Sophie tried. “HAT-TIE! Where are you?” She turned to Owen. “Where could she have gone?”
Green with Frog Envy
SPLASH!
Suddenly, in a flash of green, Hattie broke the still surface of the water. She leaped out of the lake and landed right at Sophie’s side. Water droplets flew off of her and onto Sophie.
“Whoa!” Sophie cried. “Good underwater hiding place!”
“Did I surprise you?” Hattie asked hopefully. Usually it was Sophie or Owen who won at hide-and-seek.
Sophie nodded and unwrapped her napkin bundle. “I brought treats from my mom,” she said.
“Yum!” exclaimed Owen.
The three friends climbed onto a large rock that was sitting in the shallow water. They sat down and nibbled muffins while they talked. They had just been together the day before at school. But they never ran out of things they had to tell one another.
“This morning, a groundhog popped up from under our kitchen floor!” Owen shared. “He said he must have taken a wrong turn. He promised to fix the hole. But you should have seen my mom’s face!”
Hattie and Sophie giggled.
Then Hattie shared her exciting news. “My parents are going out tonight. And Lydie’s going to watch me!” Lydie was Hattie’s big sister. “She said she’d show me how to make braided ribbon
-grass bracelets!”
Soon, the friends’ talk turned to the school project. “I’ve started working on mine,” Owen said. “But I can’t think of many cool things that snakes can do.”
Sophie and Hattie looked at Owen as if he were crazy. “What do you mean?” said Hattie. “You can reach way up high and way down low with your tail, for one thing.”
“Yeah!” Sophie agreed. “Remember how you saved me? That time I fell into that hole in the meadow? You lowered your tail all the way down so I could climb out!”
Owen smiled proudly. “That’s true,” he said, remembering. “Oh! And I just thought of something else!”
Owen dove into the water—splash!—and stayed under.
“What is he doing?” Sophie asked.
“I have no idea. Oh, wait!” cried Hattie, pointing. “Look at all those patterns on the surface! Owen is making them!”
Sophie watched the S-shaped wavelets ripple across the water, catching glints of sunlight. It was so beautiful!
Owen came up at last, and Sophie and Hattie clapped.
“I wish I could do that!” said Hattie wistfully. “Being a frog isn’t all that fun, I guess.”
Sophie gasped. “What?!” she said.
“But Hattie,” Owen said, “you can hop farther than anyone!”
Hattie seemed to think about it for a minute. Then she got a twinkle in her eye. She hopped off the rock onto a lily pad. She bounced to another, and another. Finally, she hopped into the air, flipped, and did a swan dive into the water.
When she came up from underwater, Sophie and Owen cheered.
“Amazing!” Sophie called.
“Wow!” Owen cried.
Sophie felt it was her turn now. “Winston and I have started making a list of things mice can do,” she said. Which cool thing should she demonstrate for her friends? Sophie ran through the list in her mind.
But as she did, Sophie’s heart sank. Scurrying quickly and fitting into small spaces didn’t seem so interesting. Sophie kind of wished she could make cool water patterns or do perfect dives into the lake. But Sophie had never learned how to swim.
For the first time since Mrs. Wise gave the assignment, Sophie felt a pang of doubt. She didn’t say it out loud. She knew her friends would say she was being silly. But Sophie wondered. . . .
Was being a mouse the least exciting of all?
Odd One Out
Just then, a flock of ducks flew by. Sophie, Hattie, and Owen were distracted, watching them splash down on the far side of the lake.
Lucky ducks, thought Sophie. They can swim and fly!
“So,” said Hattie, “what should we do today?”
Sophie tried to push her doubts out of her mind. After all, it was a sunny Saturday in Silverlake Forest. The friends had nothing to do all day except have fun.
“Ooh!” said Owen excitedly. “We could swim across the lake. We could race!”
“Or we could judge each other’s diving!” Hattie suggested.
Sophie didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to spoil their fun. But she couldn’t do either one of those things.
It didn’t take long for Hattie to realize it too. “Wait. That’s no fun,” said Hattie. “Let’s think of something all three of us can do together.”
Sophie smiled. She loved how Hattie could almost always tell what she was thinking.
“How about tag?” said Owen.
Sophie shrugged. Hattie did too. They played tag a lot at school during recess.
“Lily pad hopping?” Sophie said. She and Hattie did that a bunch when it was just the two of them at the lake. Sophie rode on Hattie’s back while she jumped from one lily pad to another.
But Hattie couldn’t carry Owen and Sophie at the same time. Plus Sophie could tell it wasn’t what her friends really wanted to do.
“You know what?” said Sophie at last. “You two play in the water. I’ll go pick some flowers to use for paint.”
Hattie squinted at Sophie. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly.
“Are you sure?” Owen asked.
Sophie nodded. “Yes, it’s really okay!” she replied. And she meant it. It would be good to gather a bunch of paint supplies. She was running low at home.
Plus, thought Sophie, when Hattie and Owen are done in the water, we’ll do something else—all together.
So Sophie wandered along the shore of the lake. She picked buttercups to use to make buttercup yellow paint. She found pink clover flowers to make clover pink.
She glanced over at the lake. Hattie and Owen were splashing each other.
Sophie wandered some more. She picked some tiny wild strawberries for making berry, berry red.
Hattie’s voice and Owen’s laugh drifted over on the breeze. Sophie looked their way to see them lining up to race across the lake.
Soon Sophie had ingredients for making at least ten different colors. She sat down on the shore of the lake and watched Hattie and Owen play. They were bobbing up for air. Then they were returning underwater to speak in bubble-talk.
The minutes dragged by. Sophie tried hard not to feel left out. After all, she had told them to go ahead and play in the water. She just didn’t think they’d do it for so long.
Sophie sighed. Here we are at Forget-Me-Not Lake, she thought. So why does it feel like my friends have forgotten me?
Library Quest
The rest of Sophie’s day with her friends was much better. They skipped rocks on the water. They found ripe blackberries to snack on. They played leap frog along the path back to town.
Even so, when Sophie got home, she didn’t feel like working on the school project. “We’ll do it tomorrow,” she told Winston, who met her at the front door.
The next morning, Sophie woke up in a better mood. It helped that what woke her was the scent of her mother’s rosemary-mint scones wafting upstairs.
She also woke up with an idea. She and Winston could go to the library later. Maybe they’d find books with some really fascinating facts about mice!
First the siblings had to do their morning chores. Sophie swept out the bedrooms and hung the wet laundry to dry. Winston gathered dandelion greens for that night’s salad and counted how many vegetables were left in the root cellar. Lily Mouse said it was good counting practice.
When they were finished, they walked into town with their mother. She headed for the bakery while Sophie and Winston went off to the library. “Come have a snack when you’re done!” she called after them.
The library was the oldest and biggest building in town. Inside, wooden shelves of books rose up to the ceiling. Tall ladders on wheels helped the librarians reach the top shelves.
Sophie and Winston went right to the young readers’ section in the back. They saw two of their friends sitting at a tree-stump table: their rabbit classmates, Ben and his little brother, James.
Sophie said hello and Winston hurried to James’s side. The two younger siblings were the same age. They usually sat next to each other at school.
“Are you here working on your project too?” Winston asked.
James nodded. He pointed to a picture in the book he was reading. “Did you know that we rabbits can swivel our eyes all the way around?!” James asked.
“So we can see behind us without turning our heads,” Ben added.
Winston’s jaw dropped. “That is so cool!” he cried in awe.
Sophie smiled politely. Another thing mice can’t do, she thought to herself.
Sophie wandered off to find the books on mice. At the end of a row of shelves, she found Malcolm Mole reading in a comfy corner.
“Hey, Sophie!” he said. “Did you know moles can dig up to eighteen feet in one hour?”
Sophie shook her head. “I did not know that,” she said. She knew for sure that mice couldn’t do that either.
In front of the section of animal books, Sophie found Piper, her hummingbird friend. She was hovering in front of the hummingbird books.
“Sophie, isn’
t this just the best project?” Piper said. “I didn’t know that we’re the only birds that can fly backward!”
Sophie gulped. It seemed like everyone in class had something exciting to share in their presentation.
She scanned the shelves for mouse books. With a sigh of relief, she found them. They were right between the books on mountain lions and musk oxen.
Then Sophie had a terrible thought: What if they didn’t have any amazing mouse facts in them after all?
The Swim Lesson
Sophie found five books about mice. She carried the stack to an empty table. Then she sat down and started flipping through them.
She read about what mice liked to eat.
Sophie shrugged. “Boring,” she said.
She read about mice and climbing.
Everyone knows that, she thought.
Then she turned the page.
Sophie’s heart was racing with excitement—and nervousness. She had never met a swimming mouse before! She bet most of her classmates hadn’t either.
What if she, Sophie Mouse, could learn to swim? That would be an exciting tidbit for the presentation! This book made it sound like something she could do—if she had the courage to try.
“Okay!” said Hattie. “Let’s review our water safety rules!”
Sophie, Hattie, and Owen were back at Forget-Me-Not Lake. Sophie had asked her friends to give her a swim lesson. But now . . . Sophie was having second thoughts.