Mousemobile

by Prudence Breitrose

  “I wonder what Susie’s doing right this minute?” mused Jake.

  “Eating a soy burger, probably,” said Uncle Fred. He never seemed to get over the fact that his sister actually liked food that was good for her. “Organic.”

  “Is there any way we can let her know, d’you suppose?” asked Jake. “That we’ll be dropping by?”

  “Her phone doesn’t work there, remember?” said Megan. “We’ll just have to turn up.”

  “What, in that?” asked Uncle Fred, pointing over his shoulder at the Mousemobile. “You know what she’d say if she saw us roll up in that gas-guzzler?”

  “She doesn’t have to see it!” said Megan. “At least not at first. I’ve worked it out. We hide the Mousemobile in the woods or whatever. Then we drive to Green Stars in the Prius and take Mom for a walk, away from those movie stars, and I’ll hold up Trey and say, ‘Mom, Trey has something to tell you.’”

  And how good would it feel to say that, finally? To know that her mom couldn’t take it as a joke this time, couldn’t think of it as yet another example of her daughter going mouse? She’d see Trey’s lips moving. She’d feel his mouse heart beating under the warm mouse fur. Megan couldn’t help doing a pirouette at the thought.

  Sometimes she felt a bit guilty showing how glad she was to have a mom when Joey was around, because his own mom had been killed in a car crash when he was six. True, now that they lived so close to each other in Cleveland, Megan could “lend” Joey her mom from time to time, like when Susie went over to help him with his biology homework. Or they’d all go to a movie with Jake or on a picnic, which made Megan feel like they were more of a family. Except for that one problem: None of them could tell Susie the most important fact in their lives. Tell her the truth about mice.

  Halfway through his second sandwich, Uncle Fred looked up.

  “Mouse alert!”

  A mouse with a piece missing from one ear was sprinting toward them over the hot concrete. Trey.

  “Hey, you guys want to know what happened?” he asked. “How Savannah got us into this mess?”

  “You better believe it,” said Jake.

  “Then be in our room at one o’clock,” said Trey, and added with a sideways glance at Megan and Joey, still wet from the pool, “Wearing clothes. Okay?”

  On the dot of one o’clock, the four humans filed into the mouse room, wearing clothes. They picked their way to their designated seats on the end of the big bed, facing a desk where a number of mice were assembled, including one wearing a pink bow, and one with a knotted red thread around his neck.

  But who were those other mice, Megan wondered—the twelve mice in an enclosure set off by pencils on the desktop? And that mouse sitting on a stack of sticky-note pads, with a piece of black cloth tied around his neck?

  A judge, Megan realized. And that must be the jury—for a trial. But so soon? And what sort of trial? She wondered if it might be like the one in Alice in Wonderland, with upside-down logic and cries of “Off with their heads.” But of course that was fantasy, and mice are nothing if not real.

  “These legal guys know their stuff,” whispered Trey. “The judge learned it when he hung out in the courthouse in San Jose—and the prosecutor too.”

  “Is there a lawyer for the defense?” asked Megan, remembering courtroom scenes from the movies.

  “They didn’t want one,” said Trey. “Said they’d represent themselves, and besides, I guess there isn’t much defense. The case looks solid. Wish me luck—I have to translate.”

  The judge banged his gavel—not that you could hear it, because it consisted of an old piece of chewing gum stuck to a toothpick. But it worked, and all movement among the spectators stopped.

  A bailiff mouse read out the charges from a Thumbtop at his feet, as Trey translated.

  “Talking Mouse Seven and Director of Forward Planning, you are hereby accused of the high crime of plotting to betray your nation. How do you plead?”

  “Guilty,” said the director, using gestures almost too small to see.

  “Guilty,” said Savannah. “Like, I did it, but I can explain. I…”

  Her voice trailed off as the judge gaveled for silence and signaled for the prosecution to begin.

  The first witness was a mouse who had worked in the Department of Purchasing. The bailiff held out a copy of the Treaty Between Mice and Humans—his nation’s most sacred document—and the witness briefly laid his paw on it before he used both paws to say in MSL, “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  “What happened on July twenty-seventh of this year?” asked the prosecutor.

  “I was looking at a catalog of computer supplies online,” said the mouse. “That mouse”—he pointed at Savannah—“came up and sort of leaned against me.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She wanted a favor,” the mouse replied. “She wanted to look at doll clothes.”

  “Doll clothes!” repeated the prosecutor, gazing around at the assembled spectators to make sure the words had sunk in. “Clothes for human playthings! And then?”

  “I told her that wasn’t my job. But then my boss came by.”

  “Can you identify him?”

  “That guy,” said the witness, pointing at the slumped form of the director.

  “The former Director of Purchasing,” said the prosecutor. “And did he join the conversation?”

  “You got it. He ordered me to find doll clothes online. I found some on Amazon.com, and that lady mouse saw a pink dress she wanted, kind of sparkly. My boss said, ‘You’d look lovely in that gown, my dear, but I cannot order it for you. Our leader, the Chief Executive Mouse, would never allow it.’”

  Megan glanced at the Big Cheese in his special place to one side of the court. He was looking straight ahead, completely still except for a twitch in his tail.

  “And?” prompted the prosecutor.

  “She said, ‘Oh, he’s so last century.’ And my boss said, ‘We’ll do something to bring him ’round. We’ll show him that a few luxuries won’t hurt.’ Next thing I know, we’re ordering doll furniture. A whole bedroom set for the Chief Executive Mouse.”

  “And that worked really well,” said the prosecutor, with the sort of sarcasm that lawyers often used in the courtrooms where he’d learned his craft.

  “No, it didn’t work well, actually,” said the witness, a mouse with a literal mind. And he described how they’d set up the furniture in their leader’s quarters—a bed, chairs, a couch, even a carpet. The Director of Purchasing and Talking Mouse Seven hovered nearby, expecting to be thanked. But when the Chief Executive Mouse saw the furniture, he went ballistic. He fired the Director of Purchasing right then and there, saying he couldn’t be trusted with the nation’s credit card, and would henceforth be known as the Director of Forward Planning.

  “Was your boss happy with that title?” asked the prosecutor.

  “He was not. He told us later, ‘I’d like to tell our leader where he can put his Forward Planning.’”

  “Like somewhere rude?” asked the prosecutor.

  “Right,” said the mouse. “Because it’s not a real job, apparently. The Chief Executive Mouse does all the main planning himself. And my boss started talking about revenge.”

  “Well, how about that,” said the prosecutor, pretending to be surprised and looking around the room as if to encourage everyone else to be surprised too. “Revenge. So your whole department switched to Forward Planning. And then?”

  “Well, a day later Talking Mouse Seven came by, and she was very sad because she’d just read that memo, the one we all got?”

  “The memo reminding us of our mouseness,” said the prosecutor. “That memo?”

  “Yes, that one. She said, ‘Now he’ll never let me get nice things.’ But my boss said he’d thought of a way to get stuff for her, after all. You don’t need a credit card, he said. An Amazon gift certificate would be just as good.”

  “An Amazon g
ift certificate!” repeated the prosecutor. “And he was to procure this how?”

  “He didn’t tell us,” said the mouse.

  “No further questions,” said the prosecutor. He turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, as we shall now see, these mice were about to embark on a scheme that threatened the very fabric of our nation. To satisfy their need for revenge, to satisfy their greed, these mice were planning… CONTACT.”

  That word had a violent effect on the spectators. Contact had happened only three times in the history of the world: first with Miss Megan, then with Master Joey, and then with Mr. Fred and Mr. Jake together. Contact was never to be attempted unless it was essential, and when it was essential, it required a huge amount of research and care. And these mice were planning to make contact with a human? Of their own choosing? Just like that? The spectators couldn’t take it, and the motel floor became a storm-tossed sea of waving paws and ears and tails. When no amount of pounding with his gavel would restore order, the judge had no choice but to call for a brief recess.

  hen the court reassembled, the prosecutor continued to lay out his case.

  “I shall now show,” he said, “that these two mice were not satisfied with making contact with any old human. Oh, dear me, no. They deliberately chose the worst of the worst—humans who hate us because we are so successful at educating the world about climate change.”

  That brought a gasp from the spectators (you gasp by opening your mouth and taking a step backward), and the judge gaveled for stillness before the next witness took the stand, a mouse who worked for Operation Cool It.

  “And your job on Cool It is…?” the prosecutor asked.

  “I do opposition research,” said the mouse.

  “Which means?”

  “I keep track of all the human organizations that say climate change is a hoax, or that it isn’t happening, or that it’s normal so there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “In other words, organizations that oppose our aims in Operation Cool It.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Did the director send you a request?” asked the prosecutor, as an e-mail was displayed on the big screen:

  From: DFP@mousenet.org

  To: Oppres8@mousenet.org

  Subject: Climate Deniers

  Could you please tell me which climate deniers are most eager to stop Operation Cool It? I need it for Forward Planning.

  “Yeah, that’s what he sent me,” said the mouse.

  “And you gave him the name of an organization?”

  The mouse shrugged. “Hey, he’s a director, so I had to. I told him about WATCH.”

  Another click and up came a Web site:

  W A T C H

  We’re Against the Climate Hoax

  People, there’s a secret organization right here in America that’s trying to wreck our economy with false information about climate change.

  Why is this group different from all those other losers who are saying the same thing?

  Because they’re effective! They’ve found a way to make two senators change their votes! They’ve silenced Bash Limpley, one of our most valiant voices in the media! They are the ones who are misleading millions of Americans.

  Anyone with information on this shadowy group can earn a big reward!

  “A reward,” said the prosecutor. “For information about Operation Cool It.”

  He let those words hover for a moment in the deathly hush of the room. Then he continued.

  “Believe it or not, the Director of Forward Planning and Talking Mouse Seven reached out to the leader of WATCH.”

  He waved, and the IT mouse brought up the next e-mail:

  From: Savtm7@gmail.org

  To: Jimbob@WATCH.org

  Subject: The climate hoax

  Dear Mr. Jim-Bob

  I saw your Web site and I know who’s making all those people think climate change is real. I’ll tell you if you give me an Amazon gift certificate for $100.

  Savannah

  The prosecutor let the silence run for a few moments before he said, “Now, the leader of WATCH was obviously interested. But he was cautious in his reply.”

  He waved a paw for the next e-mail:

  From: Jimbob@watch.org

  To: Savtm7@gmail.org

  Subject: Re. The climate hoax

  I am intrigued, but as I’m sure you will understand, I’m not ready to enter into any deal unless we can check you out face-to-face. Please tell me where you live, and I can arrange for a local member of WATCH to get in touch.

  The prosecutor gave his audience plenty of time to read the e-mail, then he said, “Call the Director of Forward Planning.”

  The director shuffled forward and took the oath.

  “Mr. Director,” said the prosecutor, “what exactly was your intention when you and Talking Mouse Seven first contacted this human?”

  “We weren’t going to tell him anything about Cool It,” said the director. “How could we? We’re mice! Once we got the gift certificate we would have cut off communication completely. I know that’s against human rules, but we thought this human deserved to be tricked. When he asked to meet us in person, I told Talking Mouse Seven, no way. I realized it had been a foolish idea all along, and we should break off contact immediately.”

  “And how did Talking Mouse Seven take your words?”

  “She was mad at first,” said the director. “But she saw my point.”

  “And the next time you saw her…”

  “She wanted to show me an e-mail she’d written, though she wasn’t going to send it. It was just to let off steam, she said. Sort of pretending we were in one of the movies she watched at the Talking Academy. Like Blondes at Bay she said. Or Blondes Fight Back.”

  “No further questions,” said the prosecutor. “Call Talking Mouse Seven.”

  Megan had half expected Savannah to frisk up to the witness stand, to sashay, but she walked on all fours like a normal mouse, her head low and sad.

  The prosecutor took up the tale where the director had left it.

  “Talking Mouse Seven, please read us that e-mail you drafted,” he said, as a technology mouse brought it up on the big screen.

  “Must I?” asked Savannah. “It makes me feel kind of dumb. It was just pretend, like I was in a movie? Like Hostage Blondes?”

  “Read,” said the prosecutor.

  And Savannah did, in a voice so soft, Megan had to strain to hear it:

  Alas, Jim-Bob! I am unable to meet you or your friends because of circumstances beyond my control. As you can see from my picture, I am a helpless young female. I am under the control of an uncle who might punish me severely if he knew I was reaching out to you. We call him the Big Cheese because he is the one in charge of the organization I was telling you about. He is the one who tells me secrets, like the truth about who got into Senator Court’s apartment to eavesdrop on his conversations, and who forced that radio guy Bash Limpley to change his mind.

  I wish I could tell you more in person, but I am not allowed out alone. And you would not want to visit me here, because we’re in an old, old, old building behind Great America in Silicon Valley and it’s full of MICE! So many mice that I sometimes think it is they who are holding me captive! I can see 32 of them right now and there are 36 in the room next door.

  So farewell to you, Jim-Bob—I wish we could meet, but it is not to be.

  Savannah

  “So you attached the picture of Miss Megan, then you saved the letter to show your friend the director. Just to pretend you were living out a movie?”

  “Right. It was just pretend.”

  “But?”

  Savannah put her face down in her paws for a moment, then she looked up and said, “I hit ‘send’ instead of ‘save,’ Okay? But it was by mistake. I didn’t mean to!”

  And in the silence she lowered her head again, her shoulders shaking with the mouse equivalent of sobs.

  After Savannah left the witness box, the rest of the
prosecutor’s case consisted of e-mails. First, a reply from Jim-Bob:

  Well, that was a surprise. I hadn’t realized you’re a little girl, and you are a very strange girl, if I may say so, but the important thing is that you’re old enough to know that climate change is a hoax. And from your mention of Senator Court and Bash Limpley, I can tell that your information would be extremely valuable to our cause!

  So here’s the deal. If you can manage to go behind your uncle’s back and give us that information, I am prepared to pay you double what you asked!

  Two of our members live near Silicon Valley. They’re a lovely couple, and you may see them in your neighborhood driving a small green truck. Kevin will e-mail you soon, and any time you are able to get away and talk to him, just say the word!

  The prosecutor was plainly enjoying his role as storyteller.

  “Our two prisoners ignored this message. And they ignored e-mails from this man Kevin. Indeed, they hoped they had seen the last of WATCH,” he said, pacing up and down in front of the jury. “But Talking Mouse Seven had already said too much. Not just about her access to secrets that might earn WATCH hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil and coal companies. But about something else. Something that could help this Kevin find the building she was writing from. Do you know what that was?”

  He paused and looked around the room, as if expecting a mouse to stick up a paw with the answer.

  “Mice!” he said. “She told him about mice. That’s when Kevin alerted county officials to what he called an ‘infestation’ in the neighborhood of Great America. The exterminators must have guessed that the building in question was ours. They did indeed arrange to visit our Headquarters. And Kevin must have been lurking nearby in his green truck, waiting to see who left the building. Waiting to follow.”

  The prosecutor spun around sharply to face the jury, one paw raised for attention.

  “We shook him off!” he said. “Twice! But Talking Mouse Seven gave Kevin the clues he needed to keep following us!”