Mouse Noses on Toast

by King, Daren

  “I could wear my jumper,” Inch squeaked. “My nan knitted it for my birthday.”

  The jumper was red, and as thick as a thick slice of cheese. The mouse who fetched it from the storeroom had trouble carrying it up the stairs.

  “This is a thick jumper,” Larry said, feeling the wool.

  “Nan doesn’t want me to catch cold,” Inch squeaked, pulling the jumper over his ears. “Which way do I go? Downside up or upside down?”

  “Upside up,” Sandra said.

  Inch squeaked a startled squeak. “I don’t want noses on my head.”

  “Then plug the hole upside down,” Larry said.

  Climbing into that hole was the hardest thing Inch had ever had to do, apart from addition. It would be scary enough for a human, but Inch was a tiny mouse. To Inch, the room below looked as big as outer space.

  When the noses were piled on, Inch almost squeaked his last squeak. If you have ever had your rude parts sniffed by two thousand tiny nostrils, you will know how he felt.

  Hurry up and pull my tail, Inch thought.

  But Larry had a problem. To give the signal, he had to look through the hole. How could he look through the hole when it was plugged by a mouse?

  “You should have thought of that,” Paul said, “before you sent poor Inch into that hole.”

  “I hope he’s all right,” Sandra said.

  “Are you all right in there, Inch?” Larry called.

  “No!” came the tiny, squeaky reply. “The noses have gone down my jumper. The whiskers are tickling my tum!”

  “Inch, can you see a huge man with a bald head eating six plates of mouse noses on toast?”

  “Yes!” came the tiny reply. “Unplug me quick, I need a wee!”

  “We’d better get him out of there,” Sandra said.

  “There’s too many noses,” Larry said. “I can’t see his tail.”

  “Then get in there and find it!”

  Larry was horrified. “Me?”

  Graham gave him a mean look, and he knew the game was up. He had to prove he was brave, or the mouses would never squeak to him again.

  DIRECT ACTION!

  GRAHAM STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE NOSE PILE, calling Larry’s name.

  “You’d better go in and get him,” Sandra said, chewing her halo nervously. “You’re his best friend.”

  “Best friend my foot,” Graham said, and in he went.

  Any second now, Sandra thought, Graham will come leaping out, dragging Larry by the ear. But another minute passed with no sign of Graham or Larry.

  “You two go in there,” Sandra said to the twins. “He’s your friend too.”

  Suzie and Mazie kissed each other good-bye and in they went.

  The twins won’t get lost, Sandra thought. Mazie will look after Suzie and Suzie will look after Mazie. But two minutes later there was no sign of either one.

  Sandra turned to Paul. “I know you two don’t get along,” she said, “but you would miss him if he wasn’t around.”

  Paul took a deep breath and dived in.

  A minute later another mouse disappeared into the nose pile, followed by another and another until there were no mouses left, just a silver Christmas-tree decoration and a dog with a happy, happy tail.

  “Perhaps you could help,” Sandra said.

  Rowley Barker Hobbs gave the noses a sniff to check they weren’t a new type of bone, and shook his shaggy head.

  “Well, I can’t go in there,” Sandra said. “I’m an angel, and drowning in noses is not very angelic. We’d better call the police.”

  But when they reached the bottom of the stairs, something soggy happened.

  Mouse noses are wet, like dog noses. If you want to pile them up on old wooden floorboards, you had better dry them out first, or the floorboards will rot and the noses will fall through.

  This is bad enough, but if your nose pile contains twenty-five mouses without parachutes, you have a disaster on your paws.

  As the huge bald man bit into his sixth slice of mouse noses on toast, he heard an awful sound. The sound of soggy wood splintering. The sound of a thousand noses slipping through a soggy, splintery hole. The sound of twenty-five mouses screaming in terror.

  SPLEAURAAAAAAAGH!

  From the bottom of the stairs, all Sandra and Rowley Barker Hobbs heard were the painful cries of the huge bald man. They raced in to find him flat on his back on the tiles, covered from head to shoe in soggy, sniffy noses.

  The mouses had a soft landing. This was a man who had eaten six slices of mouse noses on toast every day for ten years, and that was just for starters.

  He would follow the mouse noses on toast with a piping hot bowl of colorful parrot soup with extra beaky bits, a platter of deep-fried ostrich feet and a broad blue elephant-ear omelet, with a giraffe’s neck on a spit for the main course and a bowl of stripy-bee sweets for dessert.

  The chef heard the noise too. He was on the toilet reading a cookbook, and by the time he had pulled up his trousers and dashed through to the restaurant, the mouses had scampered away.

  THE PETITION

  “I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS,” PAUL MOUSE SAID, POURING a thimble of water over his head. “I’m going home.”

  “Me too,” Graham said.

  “Graham, you are home,” Larry said, drying his sunglasses on a mouse towel. “You can’t go home if you’re home already.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Graham said angrily. “I’ll box your big ears!”

  The mouses were in the mouse bathroom, washing off the icky, sticky noses. The bathroom had been made by gnawing a hole in a pipe. Water dripped into an old tin bathtub with the words REFORMED HAM printed on the side.

  “My jumper smells of boogers,” Inch squeaked.

  “Jumpers can be washed, Inch,” Sandra said, patting the tiny mouse on the nose. “No one was seriously hurt, that’s the main thing.”

  “Stop complaining,” Larry said. “The Direct Action went perfectly to plan.”

  Paul shook his head. “But at what cost? Look at poor Inch. He’s terrified.”

  “I’m ferry tied,” said Inch, who had trouble with any word longer than his tail.

  But Larry wouldn’t listen. “Right,” he said, clapping his paws. “Where do we strike next?”

  “We’ve had enough Direct Action for one day,” Sandra said. “How about we try something sensible? We could stand in the street and ask people to sign a petition.”

  Everyone agreed that this was a good idea, and ten minutes later they were all standing out on the sidewalk.

  The streets were deserted. The only human to pass by was an old lady.

  “Excuse me!” squeaked the mouses, “will you sign our petition?”

  The old lady didn’t even look down.

  “This is hopeless,” Larry said. “Where is everybody?”

  “Rowley Barker Hobbs has figured it out,” Sandra said. “Look!”

  They all looked.

  “He’s peeing up a lamppost,” Larry said.

  Halfway up the lamppost, someone had fixed a wooden sign, with a picture of the Prime Minister and an arrow pointing up the street.

  “Of course!” Paul said. “Today is the day the Prime Minister comes to town. The arrow points to the Town Hall, where the Prime Minister gives his Big Speech.”

  Larry clapped his paws excitedly. “Let’s get some more signatures and take the petition to the Town Hall. If we hurry, we can present it to the Prime Minister in person.”

  “How many do we need?” Sandra asked.

  “One hundred,” Larry said. “You always need one hundred. It’s the law.”

  “And how many do we have?”

  Larry looked at the sheet of paper. “None.”

  “We could sign it,” Paul said. “How many would that be, Sandra?”

  Sandra counted. There were the twenty-three mouses who lived under the storeroom, and Larry and Paul, which made twenty-five. Then there was Sandra herself, and Rowley Barker Hobbs, and
Rowley Barker Hobbs’s nose, and Rowley Barker Hobbs’s tail, and Rowley Barker Hobbs’s four paws, which added up to thirty-three.

  “Close enough,” Larry said. “We can get a few more on the way.”

  THE PRIME MINISTER

  LARGE CROWDS ARE VERY FRIGHTENING FOR TWENTY-FIVE mouses and a Christmas-tree decoration, especially when their taxi keeps jumping up at people.

  “I wish Rowley Barker Hobbs would stop saying hello,” Paul said as they neared the Town Hall.

  “Mr. Hobbs!” Larry yelled. “Keep your paws on the ground, or we will fall off!”

  Rowley Barker Hobbs was a multilingual dog and could say hello in three different languages: jumping-up language, licking language and tail-wagging language.

  “Stick with tail-wagging language for now,” Sandra said, perching on Rowley Barker Hobbs’s nose.

  “How about licking language?” Rowley Barker Hobbs said, licking a woman’s hand.

  “The sooner we reach the Town Hall,” Sandra whispered in the woolly ear, “the sooner we get you that bone.”

  There is nothing like the thought of a bone to keep a dog on the right track, and soon enough they reached the Town Hall gates, where hundreds of tourists were taking photographs of the back of a policeman’s head.

  Being tiny is hopeless most of the time, but it can come in handy. Sandra and the mouses were able to run under the gates and through the Town Hall door without getting arrested or squished.

  The Prime Minister was in a posh office, rehearsing his speech. “Intonation, intonation, intonation,” he muttered to himself. “Must work on my intonation.”

  When he looked down at the posh desk, he saw a mouse wearing sunglasses and sandals. “I like your suit,” the mouse said. “The purple tie matches your nose.”

  The Prime Minister didn’t say anything. He wasn’t used to being squeaked at.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” the mouse said, bowing low. “My name is Larry Mouse. I represent a group of pet-sized political extremists, the MADAMNOTs. Mouses, Angels and Dogs Against Mouse Noses on Toast.”

  The Prime Minister just stared. Had he been working too hard? Was he seeing things?

  “We have traveled many miles by paw-power to bring you this petition,” the mouse said. He held out a sheet of paper, black with paw prints. “If you would consider—”

  Before the mouse could squeak another squeak, the Prime Minister’s bodyguard whacked him across the room with a broom.

  The Larry who returned to his friends in the corridor was an ashamed sort of Larry, with a red bottom.

  “You’ve got a red bottom,” Paul said, pointing rudely.

  “No I haven’t.”

  Paul was in hysterics. “Your bottom is redder than mine is blue. Are you allergic to something?”

  Larry nodded. “High-speed brooms.”

  “So what happened?” asked Graham. “Did you give the Prime Minister the petition?”

  Larry thought about this. If he told the truth, they would think he was a failure.

  “Larry,” Sandra said firmly, “did you or did you not give the Prime Minister the petition?”

  “Yes,” Larry said shiftily. “In fact, yes.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He vowed to introduce a ban on nose-based food products,” Larry said. “He’s going to announce the new law tonight, in his Big Speech.”

  “Then we’d better find a seat,” Sandra said. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  Larry was less keen. “Can we go home? I fancy a big lump of cheese.”

  “I smell a rat,” Paul said, giving Larry a sniff. “We should hear what the Prime Minister has to say. If Larry is telling the truth, this could be a historic mouse moment.”

  THE PRIME MINISTER’S SPEECH

  THE ATMOSPHERE WAS ELECTRIC. THE HALL WAS PACKED with politicians, journalists, TV cameras and members of the Royal Family. One of the most powerful men in the world, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, was about to give his Big Speech.

  Larry and Paul had the best seats in the house, on the Prime Minister’s shoes. Sandra and the other mouses watched from the side of the stage, hidden among the folds of the velvet curtain. Inch was so excited he wet himself.

  At last, the Prime Minister gripped the podium with his hands and cleared his throat.

  To Larry, the speech seemed to go on for hours. Every few minutes, Paul would ask him when the Prime Minister would start talking about mouse noses on toast. “Any minute now,” Larry would say, his paws crossed behind his back.

  Just as the Prime Minister was about to unveil his new food policy, something plopped onto the shoulder of his suit. It was brown, and had whiskers.

  “The Tinby!” cried Sandra, clapping her silver hands.

  If the viewers at home had watched closely, they would have seen a Christmas-tree decoration dash across the stage, where it ran behind the podium and hopped aboard the Prime Minister’s left shoe.

  “Paul, Larry,” cried Sandra, “did you see what happened?”

  “Not from down here,” Paul said.

  “All I can see,” Larry said, “is the Prime Minister’s hairy nostrils.”

  Together they climbed the Prime Minister’s suit and leaped onto the podium. From here, hidden among the microphones and wires, they could see across the entire hall. And the first thing they saw was a mouse nose plopping onto the top of the Prime Minister’s head. When he looked up, another mouse nose hit him in the eye, splat!

  “A direct hit!” said Paul. “Where are they coming from?”

  “The Tinby must be up in the ceiling,” Sandra said.

  The Prime Minister had barely uttered a word when a fourth mouse nose hit him in the other eye, splat! He stumbled blindly away from the podium, catching his suit on a nail. The nail pulled his trousers down, revealing a pair of red, white and blue boxer shorts.

  Several posh people fainted, and one of the Prime Minister’s biggest supporters dropped his flag and began to cry. Most people just laughed, but notfor long.

  Up in the ceiling, the Tinby was leaping from rafter to rafter, spraying the room with icky, sticky noses.

  Tinbys can be lightning-fast, and this Tinby was the fastest in the business. Within minutes, every person in the hall was covered from head to shoe. Where the Tinby had got so many noses, I do not know. Perhaps it had bought them mail order, and paid for them with a yellow and lime-green checked check.

  The Prime Minister had to be led from the stage by bodyguards. The police were called but were too afraid to enter the building. The army were called, but they were afraid too, so the army sergeant called the marines, who stormed the building.

  No one was hurt, but several people were treated for shock, and the Royal Family had to have their jewelry cleaned by experts.

  THE PRIME MOUSE MINISTER

  UP IN THE RAFTERS, SANDRA AND THE MOUSES COULD find no sign of the Tinby.

  “I hope the marines didn’t shoot it,” Sandra said. “It could be hurt.”

  “Tinbys are far too busy to waste time getting shot,” Paul said. “Even mad Tinbys.”

  Larry shook his head. “I doubt the Tinby is mad at all. What could be more sensible than throwing noses at the Prime Minister?”

  “But what about all those people?” Sandra said, gazing down at the terrible mess the Tinby had made of the hall. “They didn’t deserve to have noses thrown at them. I bet they don’t all eat mouse noses on toast. Some may even be vegetarian.”

  “And besides,” Paul said, “whatever your politics, that was no way to treat a Prime Minister.”

  “Indeed.”

  Paul spun around. On the next rafter stood a mouse in a smart suit.

  “I,” the mouse said grandly, “am the Prime Mouse Minister. I was here to give my annual Small Speech, but after what happened, I don’t think I’ll bother.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Paul said. “I’m Paul, and this is Sandra and Larry, and this is Graham and the twins.”
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  “Never mind the introductions,” the Prime Mouse Minister said. “Who was that creature? I thought it was a bar of soap, till it started throwing noses.”

  “That,” Larry said, hopping onto the Prime Mouse Minister’s rafter, “was the Tinby.” And he told the Prime Mouse Minister all that had happened, and about their political work as the MADAMNOTs, Mouses, Angels and Dogs Against Mouse Noses on Toast.

  The Prime Mouse Minister was impressed. “Nothing could be more abhorrent than a plate of mouse noses on toast. Alas, no Prime Minister could publicly support a group of terrorists, but off the record I wish you the best of luck.”

  “We’re not terrorists,” Sandra said. “This is a peaceful campaign.”

  “It doesn’t look peaceful to me,” the Prime Mouse Minister said.

  “The Tinby isn’t a MADAMNOT,” Sandra said. “Mad, yes. MADAMNOT, no.”

  “Peaceful protest can only achieve so much,” the Prime Mouse Minister said. “Your bar of soap has the right idea. If the campaign is to bear fruit, you may have to take a more, shall we say, direct approach.”

  “Direct Action!” Larry said with a cheesy grin.

  RAID!

  MOUSES ARE NOT THIEVES. THE ONLY THING MOUSES steal is cheese, which isn’t really theft, as mouses secretly own all the cheese in the world.

  But the mouses were on a special mission.

  On Larry’s orders, Suzie and Mazie scampered into a human clothes shop and stole three pairs ofwoolly gloves.

  The marines wear black woolly hats pulled down to cover their faces, with a hole for each eye. Larry explained that these were called balaclavas, and that mouse balaclavas were made from woolly gloves by gnawing off the tips of the fingers and poking eyeholes with a stick.

  Sandra chose not to wear one, as balaclavas are not very angelic.

  “Shouldn’t they be black?” Graham said, pulling his balaclava over his ears.

  “Pink is in fashion,” Mazie said.

  The Mouse Nose Abattoir was on the edge of town, surrounded by forest. The Four-Legged Terrorist Transportation Unit stopped behind the safety of a tree stump, and Sandra and the mouses climbed down.