by King, Daren
“The breadcrumbs are fresh today,” the waiter said, scratching his whiskers. “We also have a squashed sausage.”
“That doesn’t sound very posh. What do the humans eat?”
“This is the food the humans don’t eat,” the waiter explained. “We serve whatever they drop on the floor.”
“I wonder what the Tinby would eat,” Sandra said. “If it had a mouth, I mean.”
But the Tinby was not at the table.
MOUSE NOSES ON TOAST
WHILE PAUL AND SANDRA WERE DECIDING WHAT TO order, the Tinby had made a decision of its own. It would find out what humans ate for a posh meal and ensure its friends had the same.
Tinbys are skillful climbers, and this Tinby was one of the best. By the time Paul and Sandra stepped out from under the charming antique dresser, it was already halfway up the leg of the nearest table.
“There it is!” Sandra cried, pointing at the small checked shape. “We must do something.”
But they could only stand and watch.
At last, the Tinby flipped itself up onto the tabletop, where it leaped for safety behind the salt and pepper shakers and stood very still, blinking its small black eyes.
“I think it wants us to follow,” Paul said.
The Tinby had had a change of plan. Rather than bring the food to its hungry friends, and have to carry a dinner plate down a table leg without spilling anything, it would lead its friends to the food.
But how would Paul and Sandra reach the tabletop? Not even a mouse can climb a varnished table leg, and Sandra’s hands were made of tinfoil.
As the man paid the bill, the Tinby looked at what was left of his meal. Where you or I would see a plate of half-eaten spaghetti, the Tinby saw an opportunity. Before the waiter had time to remove the plate, it tied together five spaghetti strands and dangled them over the edge of the table.
Paul and Sandra did not like this, not one bit. What if the spaghetti snapped? What if the knots became undone? What if they got tomato sauce on their fingers?
Paul sighed. “We’d better do what the Tinby wants, or it will sulk.”
So the mouse and the Christmas-tree decoration climbed the clever pasta rope, Sandra going last so that she could secretly laugh at Paul’s blue bottom.
When they reached the top, there was no Tinby.
They were about to give up and climb back down when the Tinby appeared from nowhere, like magic.
“It was here all along,” Sandra said. “We couldn’t see it, as it matches the tablecloth.”
Sandra was right. The Tinby and the tablecloth were patterned with the same yellow and lime-green check. All it had to do was close its small black eyes and itwas invisible.
A married couple was shown to the table. Paul and Sandra hid behind the camouflaged Tinby, and watched closely. The married couple was rich. The man wore a silk tie with a gold tie clip, and the diamond on the lady’s wedding ring was as big as Paul’s head.
But the real shock came when they ordered their meal.
“I will have the colorful parrot soup,” the lady said, “with extra beaky bits.”
“And I,” said her husband, “will have mouse noses on toast.”
The waiter flipped open his notebook and wrote this down. “Would that be with whiskers, sir, or without?”
The man thought about this.
From his hiding place behind the Tinby, Paul thought about it too. He thought about his mouse friends under the floorboards in the storeroom. Were they running around without noses?
Surely humans didn’t eat mouse noses on toast? Perhaps Paul’s nose was poking out from behind the Tinby, and the rich man could see it, and had invented the meal as a joke?
But no.
A minute later, the waiter returned with a silver tray and placed two plates on the table. And there, on one of the plates, was a slice of toast, and on the slice of toast were half a dozen little brown noses.
TINBY TROUBLE
THE TINBY WAS COOL, SO COOL THAT IT SOMETIMES SMELLED of mint. It took a lot for the Tinby to lose its cool, but something about the plate of mouse noses on toast pushed it over the edge.
Before Paul and Sandra could stop it, the Tinby was on the toast, rolling in the butter and kicking the noses with its little square legs.
The lady cried out in horror. Her husband tried to grab the Tinby, but it ran up the silk tie and onto his head. The man leaped up from his chair and began waving his arms madly, trying to knock the Tinby from his hair, but the Tinby was nimble and would step out of the way with split-second timing.
Some customers carried on eating as though nothing had happened. Others decided that the man was under attack from a swarm of bees, and ran to the toilet to hide.
The waiter tried to help by hitting the man on the head with a French loaf, but this made him even more frantic, and gave the Tinby a chance to escape. It ran up the side of the French loaf and somersaulted onto the top of the charming antique dresser, where it disappeared into the dust.
Bertrand Violin, the restaurant manager, came out of the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. Bertrand was an old man with a bad back. His back was so bad he was bent almost double, and could only look at tabletops and shoes.
With no Tinby to hide them, Paul and Sandra had crouched behind a small silver bowl. As Bertrand made his way through the restaurant, Paul and Sandra began to fear for their lives.
“Quick! In here!” Sandra cried. They lifted the lid from the silver bowl and climbed inside.
The sides of the bowl were decorated with a pattern of tiny holes. Paul put his eye to one of the holes and peered out.
Bertrand Violin was studying the rich man’s tie. He knew a lot about ties, and could tell that this tie ought to be plain, not covered in buttery footprints. “What has happened?” he said, holding the tie to his tongue.
“Mr. Violin,” the waiter said, “we did have a minor incident with an overgrown bug, but it has been dealt with, I assure you.”
The rich man was so timid that this would have been the end of it, buttery tie or no buttery tie, but his wife had other ideas. “Demand an apology,” she said, jabbing him in the ribs with the diamond wedding ring.
“My wife demands an apology!”
“Demand compensation,” yelled the rich woman, unscrewing the ring from her finger, “or this ring goes in the soup!”
“Sir, madam,” Bertrand Violin said gently, “please return to your chairs. This matter will be dealt with, you have my word.”
“We don’t want your word,” the rich lady said. “We want dinner free of charge. And a double helping of pudding.”
“Certainly,” Bertrand said, leading them back to their chairs. “Waiter! A bottle of champagne, on the house.”
Inside the silver bowl, Paul and Sandra began to wonder what they were lying on. It was dry and powdery, and smelled of unwashed socks.
“It’s cheese,” Sandra whispered. “We’re inside a bowl of Parmesan cheese!”
“My bottom will be purple,” Paul whispered back. “If we don’t get out of here soon, it will fall off, and I won’t have anything to sit on.”
Outside the bowl, the rich married couple was discussing what had happened. “It looked like an insect,” the man said. “A huge yellow beetle, with exotic lime-green markings.”
“We should call the health inspector, have the place closed down,” his wife said. “It’s unhygienic. And look at that!”
“What, dear wife?”
“A rat’s tail, poking out of the silver bowl.”
“How odd,” the man said. “It’s in the shape of a question mark.”
“Stab it with a fork.”
The man picked up a fork and lifted the lid.
THE RESCUE
NOTHING COULD PREPARE PAUL AND SANDRA FOR THE terrifying experience that was to come. The world was torn from beneath them, and their brains were sent hurtling to heaven.
What actually happened was this. Rowley Barker Hobbs had grown tir
ed of waiting for his bone and had scampered around to the rear of the restaurant, where he had entered the backyard through a gap in the fence.
He had expected the backyard to be like his overgrown garden at home, but filled with hundreds of bones. It would be raining bones, and bones would grow on trees. Imagine his disappointment when he found himself in a narrow concrete passage, with several trash cans at one end and not a bone in sight.
He was pleased to see Paul Mouse standing on the lid of one of the cans, wearing sandals and a pair of sunglasses. When he looked more closely, he saw that it wasn’t Paul at all. He said hello anyway, as he was Rowley Barker Hobbs.
The mouse lifted his sunglasses. “Who are you?”
“Rowley Barker Hobbs,” said Rowley Barker Hobbs.
“Larry,” the mouse said, holding out a paw.
The paw was too small for Rowley Barker Hobbs to shake, so he lay on his back instead, to show Larry Mouse his tummy.
“That’s a nice tummy,” Larry said. “Tell me, Mr. Hobbs. Do you live in this building, by any chance?”
Rowley Barker Hobbs shook his head.
“I was hoping you could show me around. I’m looking for some friends of mine. Mouses. Do you know where they might hang out?”
Rowley Barker Hobbs did not know, but he knew how to chase his tail, so he did.
“If you help me find them,” Larry said, hopping onto the dog’s back, “I will buy you a bone.”
A bone? The very word made his tail wag.
Perhaps the bone would be magic. Yes, it was a magic bone that grew bigger with each lick, bigger and bigger and bigger, until the whole world was one giant bone with Rowley Barker Hobbs sitting on top.
The thought of a magic bone sent Rowley Barker Hobbs racing around the yard, knocking over the trash cans and saying hello. Larry Mouse had to grip the fur tight or he would have fallen off.
The chef opened the back door to see what all the noise was. Rowley Barker Hobbs knocked him flying, and raced through the kitchen to the dining area, where he said so many hellos that several customers spilled their food and several more fell off their seats.
Just as Paul and Sandra were quivering under the approaching fork, Rowley Barker Hobbs ran into the rich man, who stood up too quickly and flipped the table over with his knee. The silver bowl soared across the room and hit the far wall with a clang.
Paul and Sandra tumbled out, and landed on the dessert trolley, where they bounced on a strawberry jelly and sploshed into a tasty peach-and-cherry trifle.
“We’re alive!” Paul said as they climbed out.
“Just about,” Sandra said, wiping trifle from her eyes. “What happened?”
“Rowley Barker Hobbs happened,” Paul said.
The restaurant was in chaos. None of the customers were eating now. Several had walked out. The dog was still circling the tables, the chef chasing him with a rolling pin.
Rowley Barker Hobbs only calmed down when he saw his two friends. He skipped up to the dessert trolley and gave them each a hello lick, swallowing the trifle in one gulp.
THE SAVAGE
PAUL AND SANDRA WERE HELPED ONTO THE DOG’S BACK by a mouse they had never seen before, a hippy mouse in sunglasses and sandals. They might have lost their Tinby, but Rowley Barker Hobbs had found them a new mouse friend.
Out on the sidewalk, Paul bent over so Sandra could examine his bottom. It had turned the brightest shade of electric blue.
“Is it bad?” Paul asked anxiously. He was already upset after losing his cape and hat in the trifle.
“No,” Sandra said, rubbing her bruised wings.
“It looks awful from where I’m standing,” Larry said.
This made Paul cross. “Who asked you anyway?”
“Take no notice of Paul,” Sandra said. She introduced herself, and asked Larry his name.
“Larry,” the hippy mouse said, shaking her tinfoil hand. He held out a paw for Paul, but Paul refused to shake it.
“Paul is allergic to cheese,” Sandra explained. “It makes his bottom turn blue.”
“The fur falls out too,” Paul said, “and my tail curls up like a question mark.”
“I know a cure for cheese allergies,” Larry said. “I will tell you later. First, you have to shake my paw.”
Paul apologized for being rude and shook Larry’s paw. There was something about this mouse he hated, but if Larry knew a cure for cheese allergies, Paul Mouse was all ears.
“You two wait here with Mr. Hobbs,” Larry said. “I have to answer a call of nature.”
On one side of the restaurant was an area of wasteland where an old wooden house had once stood, and this was where Larry went for a pee. He had just found a suitable place when a strange creature leaped out of the brambles and began dancing around him in a circle.
Larry ran.
“That was quick,” Sandra said when he reached his friends.
“You’ve peed all down your leg,” Paul chuckled.
But something was wrong. Larry was so out of breath he could only stand and point.
Sandra put her arm around him, and led him to a shaggy armchair paw.
“I was attacked by a savage,” Larry said at last. “I’m lucky to be alive.”
“What did it look like?” Paul asked, suddenly concerned.
“Like a pack of playing cards on legs,” Larry explained. “Its chest was covered in medals. I thought it was going to eat me.”
“I think we should investigate,” Sandra said, “don’t you, Paul?”
Paul nodded. As long as the savage didn’t throw cheese at them, he was ready for anything.
MORE TINBY TROUBLE
PAUL, LARRY AND SANDRA LEFT ROWLEY BARKER HOBBS on the sidewalk and ducked through a gap in the brambles. The plan was to approach from the opposite direction and take the savage by surprise.
“I don’t like this place,” Sandra said. “It gives me the creeps.”
“It gets worse,” said Paul, who had explored the area before. “Where the old wooden house used to be, that is where the rats live.”
Mouses hate rats. Christmas-tree decorations don’t like them much either.
“It happened just over there,” Larry said, pointing nervously.
“Then we need to head left,” Paul whispered. “This path curves around to the right, straight into rat territory.”
So they took a path off to the left.
This was a mistake. It wasn’t long before the brambles met overhead, then closed in all around them until they found themselves in a dead end.
When they turned around, they saw the savage. It had been following them, its little square legs picking their way silently through the undergrowth.
Larry’s fur stood on end.
Paul and Sandra recognized it immediately as the Tinby, their Tinby, who lived with them in the shoe box at the bottom of Rowley Barker Hobbs’s garden. But there was a coldness in its eyes.
As for the medals, this was stranger still. After they had left the restaurant, the Tinby had returned to the rich couple’s table, grabbed the mouse noses from the toast and stuck them across its front.
Paul stepped forward to say hi, but the Tinby jumped back, startled.
“That’s not like the Tinby,” Sandra said. “Tinbys aren’t afraid of anything, and we’re its friends.”
This was news to Larry. “You know this creature?”
“We did,” Sandra said.
Larry was confused, so Paul and Sandra explained what had happened.
They told him about the trip to the Mouse Restaurant, by the far wall of the human restaurant, under the charming antique dresser.
They explained how the mouse waiter had offered them food that the humans had dropped on the floor, and how the Tinby had gone in search of something posh.
Then they told Larry how one of the humans had ordered mouse noses on toast, a meal so horrific that the Tinby had gone insane.
“I have heard of mouse noses on toast,” Larry said. “A
delicacy, like caviar. I thought it was a myth.”
When they rejoined Rowley Barker Hobbs on the sidewalk, the Tinby didn’t follow. It was a wild thing now, and would live alone in the brambles, guarding its medals and dancing its mad Tinby dance.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hobbs,” Larry said as the padded nose came down to say hello. “Not only did I not get you that bone, but we’ve lost your Tinby.” He turned to Paul and said, “I promised Mr. Hobbs a bone if he would help find my friends. They live in the restaurant somewhere, but I don’t know where.”
“Mouses?”
“Cheese addicts,” Larry said. “Graham Mouse is always on the Old Stilton, if I remember, and Mazie and Suzie use cream cheese as fur conditioner.”
“You know Graham, and the twins?”
“We lived together in a cupboard in the old wooden house,” Larry said, “just before it was pulled down. They moved into the restaurant with lots of other mouses, but I stayed on in protest. I tied myself to the plumbing with a piece of string.”
Paul laughed.
“It may seem funny to you,” Larry said, “but some of us stand up for our beliefs.”
“But the building was pulled down,” Paul said.
Larry looked at the sidewalk, ashamed. “When I heard the bulldozers I got scared, and paid a rat to gnaw through the string. That was three years ago, and I haven’t seen the other mouses since.”
OLD FRIENDS
GRAHAM AND THE TWINS HAD THOUGHT LARRY MOUSE had died in the wreckage. Imagine their surprise when his sunglasses dropped through a gap in the floorboards, followed by one of his sandals and then Larry himself, who landed on his head with a painful thud.
“Larry!”
The twins, Suzie and Mazie, hugged him warmly. Graham Mouse patted him on the back.
“How did you find us?” Suzie asked, handing Larry a thimble of freshly squeezed cheese juice.
“Paul brought me here,” Larry said, putting on his sunglasses. “He has a blue bottom!”