Mousemobile

by Prudence Breitrose

  “Catch him!” wailed Megan. “Stop him!”

  “No way,” said Joey. And indeed the boy was flying now, leaping from rock to rock with the ease of someone who knew that piece of mountain inside out.

  “He’ll tell his family,” said Megan. “And they’ll guess that Uncle Fred is the guy in the cartoon! They’ll connect him to Cool It!”

  They were paralyzed for a moment as the implication sank in.

  “Maybe we should try to hike over to Green Stars?” suggested Megan. “Maybe take a geography mouse…”

  “But those guys will come up here,” said Joey. “When that kid tells them about us, they’ll come straight up. And they’ll find…”

  Oh, just an RV stuffed with mice and their computers. Just the beating heart of the Mouse Nation. And here they came already: two men running out of the lodge and up toward the ridge.

  Megan and Joey were stuck. Stuck because there was no way they could run back to the RV without having the men follow.

  “We have to go down,” said Joey, “to keep them from coming up here.”

  Megan nodded miserably.

  And that’s when Savannah took charge, because she was, after all, a mouse, and in times of danger, mice think really fast.

  “You go on,” she said, with none of the usual high breathiness in her voice. “I’ll go back and tell the boss what’s happened. He’ll know what to do.”

  She took off alone down the cliff, back the way they’d come, back to her nation.

  Megan was doing some of the quickest thinking of her life as she and Joey started down the hill to meet the men who were bounding up to meet them. What if she told them that she was Megan, she’d never heard of Savannah, and it must all be a case of mistaken identity—stolen identity? But then how could she explain why the four of them were snooping around here?

  By the time the men were close enough to talk, she’d made up her mind. She put a hand on Joey’s shoulder to slow him up and whispered, “I’m Savannah, okay? It’ll be easier that way.”

  The men had stopped, and one of them turned and yelled down into the valley, “Danny was right. It’s her!”

  And as Megan and Joey reached them, he said, “Savannah, this is an unexpected pleasure! Did you decide to talk to us after all?” He swept off his baseball cap to reveal a bald head.

  “And that man with the beard,” said the other man, who had greasy hair down to his shoulders. “He’s your uncle, right? The one who rented the RV? The one you called the Big Cheese?”

  And it was a measure of the seriousness of the occasion, and the fear that had settled over them, that neither Megan nor Joey cracked a smile.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” said Megan. But please, she thought, not yet. Not until she had time to think of what she could possibly say that would get them out of this valley. That would keep these humans away from the Mousemobile, and its cargo.

  A man was waiting for them on the porch of the lodge, a man with vigorous white hair, his suspenders holding up jeans that sagged on the downward slope of a very large belly.

  “It’s Savannah all right, Jim-Bob!” Greasy-hair called out, “It’s really her!”

  “Savannah!” said Jim-Bob while they were still twenty yards away, spreading the name out in a deep voice that seemed to echo off the mountaintops. “This is an honor. As you must know, I’ve been hoping so much to meet you.”

  “My guess is her uncle and that other guy were spying on us, boss,” said Baldy. “Spying on WATCH. And trying to get away with that cockamamy story about taking pictures.”

  “Savannah will tell us everything, won’t you, young lady,” said Jim-Bob. “What those men want, here in my valley. How deeply they are involved with that organization, the one that is doing so much to perpetrate the climate hoax. I think we can have some very interesting conversations, you and I.”

  Jim-Bob led them into the old dining room of the lodge, where several tables had been pushed together to make long desks that were covered with computers and printers and scanners and monitors. At the far end of the room were some comfortable chairs, though the two men sitting in them didn’t look comfortable at all.

  True, they weren’t tied up or handcuffed. At first sight they could have been normal guests in a normal situation—if you didn’t notice that men and a couple of women were blocking all the doors. Megan ran to Uncle Fred and wrapped her arms around his neck while she whispered, “I’m Savannah, okay?” And Joey must have whispered the same thing to his dad, because Jake said, “Hi, Savannah! I see you’ve met these nice men.”

  “Sit down, young lady, and make yourself comfortable,” said Jim-Bob, his voice even more resonant indoors. “We may be here for a while.”

  He turned to Uncle Fred. “So you are the uncle,” he said. “Well, maybe you don’t know that your niece is smart beyond her years. She has seen through the fraud of climate change, and at one point offered to expose your efforts in that regard for what they are—a deliberate attempt to sabotage this country’s economy. Am I right, Savannah?”

  What could Megan say? That the person Jim-Bob should really be talking to was a mouse?

  She mumbled, “Not exactly,” but Jake was going along with Jim-Bob’s scenario.

  “Savannah told us everything,” he said. “We’ve read all those e-mails, and trust me, she’ll be punished. Grounded for life!” He laughed. “What an idea—trying to get an Amazon gift certificate out of you? I guess she wanted it for that new bike she’s been clamoring for! But we were curious after we read those e-mails. We wanted to see what sort of setup you had here at WATCH. Very impressive, and now we’ve seen it, we’ll be on our way.”

  He stood up as if this were a normal situation, and took a step toward the door.

  “Not so fast!” said Jim-Bob, signaling to one of his men, who moved to block Jake’s path. “Did you know you were trespassing on my property as soon as you left the road? And that I can make a citizen’s arrest?”

  He rubbed his hands and settled into a chair, as Jake sat down again. “You’d better get used to the idea that you may be here for a while—for just as long as it takes one of you to give me some information. Because something tells me this kid was telling the truth, and that you do know who’s working behind the scenes to undermine some of our greatest senators. And some of our most fearless advocates for sanity in the media.”

  In the silence, Megan could hear the big clock on the wall ticking. No one moved.

  “You’re going to talk?” asked Jim-Bob. “Anyone?”

  More silence.

  “Tell you what, boss,” said Baldy. “That RV? Gotta be parked up behind the bluff, because that’s where we lost sight of it. Why don’t I take a couple of guys and go search it?”

  “An excellent idea,” said Jim-Bob. Then, leaning forward as if he were sharing a secret, he said, “We have lookouts here, and saw you coming all the way up from the main road. Now, would you like to give me the keys to the RV? Or should my guys break in, to see what they can find?”

  The four humans looked at each other with much the same thought: there was no way that could be allowed to happen.

  “I’ll talk to you,” Megan found herself saying quickly, because that seemed to be the only way to keep everyone away from the Mousemobile. “But I’m awful hot. Could I have some water?”

  “Forgive me,” said Jim-Bob. “I was forgetting the rules of hospitality. Maisie! Water for our guests.”

  Three women had been hovering in a doorway, with the boy Danny leaning against one of them, beaming with pride. One of the women detached herself and came back with a tray bearing four glasses of water, the ice cubes clinking.

  What now, wondered Megan. Should they throw the water in their captors’ faces and run for it? But ice cubes against men with dogs—not a great matchup. So she used her water only to delay. Slow sips.

  It could win them a few minutes, at least. But a few minutes until what?

  avannah—the real Savannah—had i
magined herself in many movie roles, but usually her imaginings were gentle and pink, to the sound of soft music. She’d never seen herself as a star in a movie where the future of her world was at stake.

  It was Julia who later told Megan what happened in the Mousemobile after she and Joey took off. The first sign of trouble came with the shrill shout of the boy, and the distant yelling of men, and then the long silence, as the mice looked at each other and at the Big Cheese, who sat very still, waiting, listening.

  Then a watch mouse gave a squeak and pointed at a pink blob hurtling toward them, sometimes falling, sometimes rolling for a few yards, sometimes bouncing off trees before taking another leap down the slope.

  As Savannah came close, she grabbed one last sapling at the base of the hill and swung from it so she could land—SPLAT—on the windshield of the RV. There she clung to one of the wipers and managed to loop her ribbon over it so she was free to use paws and ears and tail for one of the most urgent MSL messages ever delivered: the news that all four humans were in the hands of the people who lived in this valley. People who recognized Miss Megan from her photograph.

  At first Julia thought that it might be a trick, that Savannah might be lying about what she had seen. But just looking at her stuck on that windshield, with hawks circling above, Julia had to believe she was telling the truth, and it was clear that the Big Cheese took her news very seriously.

  He was perfectly still for a moment. Then he summoned two directors to leap up into his cage and work with him on his Thumbtop. Julia could only guess what was happening from a sign or two—words like “Good trail” and “Urgent” and “Bring help.” And yes, “Green Stars.”

  The Big Cheese closed his eyes, as if the step he was taking was indeed a momentous one, and made the sign for “Send.” One of the directors clicked something—and all anyone could do now was wait. Wait and watch Savannah as she struggled to free her ribbon from the windshield wiper. But she was trapped because the ribbon was wedged tight between the blade of the wiper and its metal holder, and there wasn’t a lot she could do but dangle and gaze upward at the circling hawks.

  “The muscle mice wanted to rescue her, to bring her inside, but there was no way they could get out of the Mousemobile,” Julia told Megan later. “We sat as close as we could, me and Curly and Larry, talking to her through the windshield, to calm her down. Savannah said, ‘You hate me and you want those hawks to eat me,’ and we said of course we didn’t, she was a hero now. And then we started talking about doll clothes just to keep her mind off those hawks up there, though she didn’t seem to take that stuff seriously anymore.”

  And who would, as hawks wheeled above, gazing down at what should have been a delicious mouse snack, except for that pink frosting. What was up with that? Was it good for the hawks or bad for the hawks? And luckily for Savannah, they decided not to find out.

  In the lodge, Trey was suffering from none of the paralysis of thought that was tormenting his humans. In times of danger, mice think with exceptional clarity. As soon as he realized that Megan was being brought into the building, he slid out of Uncle Fred’s pocket and made his way to an empty room. There he gave the mouse-shout: a high-pitched call to action that humans can’t hear.

  It didn’t take long for mice to come running. First, one or two cautious guys stuck their heads out of holes, then they gave their own squeaks to tell their friends and relatives that it was safe to emerge, and soon Trey had an army of about thirty mice—growing by the minute as word went out to the sub-clans in outlying cabins, who made their way cautiously toward the lodge.

  When enough mice were assembled, Trey stood on a chair and explained in MSL what was happening. And as one of them told him, these mice could hardly wait to get their teeth into those humans. Normally mice grow fond of their host families over the years, but these guys knew about climate change and hated the way these humans were spreading lies about it.

  In the next valley to the south, a mouse was guarding the Thumbtop that had been smuggled into Camp Green Stars in the toe of one of Miss Susie’s shoes, then hidden under the dresser in her cabin. The mouse had been dozing through the morning, a little envious of the other members of his clan, who were all in the camp’s lecture room listening to a talk about Greenland and what would happen if all its ice melted.

  Then a soft beep told him an e-mail message had arrived. He couldn’t believe what he read at first, but once he’d gone through it a second time, then a third, he realized this was much more than a one-mouse job. He ran to the lecture room, where his high-pitched call of alarm shook loose the twelve mice who’d been listening to the lecture from a hiding spot at the back.

  Luckily, the humans were so focused on the speaker that no one noticed a dozen mice gathering near the door to make strange signs to each other before they took off in the direction of the camp office.

  Luckily, too, the woman who worked in the camp office was at the lecture herself, so the mice were free to bring in their Thumbtop and print the instructions and the map that had been attached to the Big Cheese’s e-mail. Then they formatted a message they could print on a sticky note. A message that read:

  Megan needs help

  more info

  your cabin

  They pulled the sticky note off the sheet of paper that had carried it through the printer, stuck it on the back of a messenger mouse, and watched him sprint for the lecture room.

  Susie Miller was sitting in a chair quite near the door, so the messenger mouse didn’t have to pass too many famous toes and risk any famous EEEKs. And it was easy to brush against Susie’s flip-flops in a way that pulled the sticky note off his back. True, she gave out a soft squeak of surprise when she felt a note arriving on her foot, but the mouse had picked a time when the lecturer had just made an iceberg joke, and the audience was laughing, so no one heard. And no one noticed when Susie gasped at the note, slipped out of the room, and ran to her cabin, where she found two sheets of paper on her bed.

  One was a map showing a trail that led up the valley for half a mile before diving left, up and over the shoulder of the mountain, and down into an old resort on the other side.

  The other bit of paper told her what had happened—how Mr. Fred and Mr. Jake and Joey and Megan all seemed to be in the hands of the humans who ran the We’re Against the Climate Hoax organization. She should come now. A Jeep could make the trek to the next valley in five minutes. And she should bring help.

  That was all Susie needed, of course. Like any mother bear whose cub is in danger, she let instinct take over—not even pausing to wonder how messages had turned up on her foot, and then on her bed. She sprinted back to where the Greenland lecture was just breaking up, and grabbed Rocky Stone and two other famous action heroes, saying only, “My daughter…over there…the next valley…danger…”

  That was enough—more than enough—and the action heroes ran with Susie to the camp’s Jeep, passing Daisy Dakota, who begged to come too. The Jeep roared uphill, out of the camp, with Megan’s mom in the passenger seat, one action hero driving, and two more squashed into the back with the most famous teenager in the world.

  Megan wished—oh how she wished—that the four Humans Who Knew had learned enough MSL to come up with a plan, under the eyes of their captors. As it was, with Jim-Bob’s men standing around watching them like hawks, all they could do was think privately about ways to get out of this mess, which wasn’t much use when they needed to act together.

  As Megan sipped her water, she looked from Uncle Fred to Jake and back again. Was that the germ of an idea on her uncle’s face, that slight raising of an eyebrow? She took the risk of going over to his chair, and buried her face on his shoulder as she whispered, “Any ideas?”

  “Find Trey,” he whispered back. “Say you have to go to the bathroom, and I bet he’ll follow you in.”

  “Enough of that, young lady,” said Jim-Bob.

  “I just wanted to tell him I was sorry,” she said. “Sorry I’ll have to tell
you some stuff. And I will tell you, but first, could I please use your bathroom?”

  “Of course,” said Jim-Bob. “Maisie! Take Savannah to the little girls’ room.”

  The woman led Megan to the big ladies’ room, then hung around by the row of sinks talking about how good it was that Savannah would help them undermine the efforts of those so-called climate scientists.

  While she talked, Maisie was looking into a mirror to reorganize her hair, which she wore pinned to the back of her head in a bun. Luckily, it took so much of her attention that she didn’t notice the mouse scurrying behind her, then under the door to a stall. A mouse with a piece missing from one ear.

  “Oh, Trey,” Megan whispered, as he ran up to her shoulder. She was so glad to see him, she was almost crying. “What do we do? How can we get out of here?”

  “Easy-peasy,” he whispered, and sounded like he meant it. “Here’s the plan. There’s a clock in that room, right? In three minutes—at eleven o’clock, straight up—do something to distract those guys. Like point out the window and yell. That’s when we’ll attack.”

  “Who will?” Megan asked.

  “Me and the guys who live here. It’s a big clan—at least fifty mice. And they hate their humans. We’ll get them all EEEKing and squawking so bad, you guys can run for the car, then get that Mousemobile out of here.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ll try to come with you, but if I don’t, no big deal. Just tell your uncle to leave the Thumbtop under the cushion of his chair. And I’ll use it to set something up—I’ll get out of here somehow.”

  “I’m not leaving you!”

  “Megan!” Trey said sternly. “Listen to me. This is way more important than one mouse, and you know it.”