“Anyway,” Tibby Rose lowered her voice, “this was just an excuse to get away from Great-Aunt Harriet so we could talk. So you really don’t know what you’re doing here?”
“I haven’t got a clue,” said Alistair. “I just want to find a way home. Preferably without the help of the Queen’s Guards. From the way your grandpa and great-aunt were talking about them, I’m guessing they don’t like ginger mice—though I can’t see what difference that makes.”
“No, that was odd,” Tibby Rose agreed. “And what was all that stuff about surveillance—and Grandpa going into town to talk to someone called Granville? I didn’t know my mother had a godfather. How come I’ve never met him?”
“They sound like spies,” said Alistair. “Plus there was your great-aunt talking about protecting you at any cost. What was that all about?”
Tibby shrugged. “Beats me. I mean, I suppose they are a bit overprotective. No going into town, no going to school . . .”
Alistair stared at her. “It sounds as if you never leave the house!”
“I don’t,” said Tibby.
“Are you some kind of prisoner?”
“No! Well, maybe I am, kind of,” she said. She looked surprised by the idea. “Though I’ve never thought about it that way before.”
Alistair shook his head. “Look, I think I’d better get out of here,” he said. “Your aunt seems very suspicious and I don’t want any trouble—I just want to get back to Smiggins.”
“No, wait,” said Tibby Rose. “Don’t leave! Stay for a while. At least until Grandpa Nelson has talked to this Granville.” She was almost pleading with him, and Alistair paused. Perhaps he should wait. It seemed so rude just to take off when really, despite Great-Aunt Harriet’s gruffness, they had been very kind, sharing their breakfast with him. Then he recalled again that conversation in the kitchen. What had Tibby’s great-aunt meant about keeping him here? Why? And for how long?
“Please,” said Tibby Rose, and Alistair realized from her voice that she was desperately lonely. He felt a twinge of sympathy.
“I’m sorry, Tibby Rose,” he said. “But my family will be so worried about me. I really do have to go.”
Their whispered conversation was interrupted by Grandpa Nelson calling, “I’m just off into town to do the shopping,” and Great-Aunt Harriet calling back, “Mind you’re home in time for lunch, Nelson.”
The old white mouse opened the screen door and stepped onto the front porch. He had a brown hat in one hand and a walking stick in the other. “Are you up there, Tibby Rose?” he said in the direction of the tree.
“Yes, Grandpa,” she said. “I’m showing Alistair my treehouse. See you later.”
Grandpa Nelson waved his hat in their direction, then put it on his head and stumped down the steps, along the path snaking across the lawn, and set off down the lane.
“I’m going to follow him,” Alistair decided. “There’s sure to be someone in town who knows how to get to Shetlock from here.”
Tibby looked disappointed.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Why don’t you come with me as far as town? Then you can follow your grandpa home again.”
Tibby tilted her head to one side, looking uncertain. “I’ve never been to town before,” she said wistfully. Then, in a determined voice: “I’ll do it. Maybe I’ll get to see my mother’s godfather.”
The two mice climbed down the ladder and watched from the shadow of the tree until Grandpa Nelson had rounded the first bend in the winding lane, then darted after him.
They stuck close to the bushes by the side of the road, ready to dive into them if Grandpa Nelson should turn around, but they needn’t have worried; Grandpa Nelson didn’t once look over his shoulder.
“Well, if he is a spy, he’s not a very alert one,” Alistair commented. “He’s about as cautious as Alex and Alice.”
“Who are they?” Tibby Rose said.
“My brother and sister,” Alistair told her. “In fact, we’re triplets.”
“Triplets?” said Tibby Rose. “I’ve never even had a friend, let alone a brother and a sister—I’ve never had a mother or father for that matter.”
“I don’t have a mother and father either,” Alistair said. “They went on a business trip four years ago and were in an accident. . . .”
By the time they had reached the bottom of the hill, Tibby Rose knew all about the death of the triplets’ parents and Uncle Ebenezer and Aunt Beezer and their apartment in Smiggins, and Alistair knew how Tibby Rose got her name (though he’d never heard of the first Tibby, the explorer) and how bored and lonely she felt in the big old white house on the hill with only her grandfather and her great-aunt for company.
At the bottom of the hill, the lane joined a street lined with single-story gray houses, each with a tidy patch of lawn, flowerbed, and a white picket fence. The only differences between them that Alistair could see were in the colors of the flowers and the numbers on the identical blue letterboxes. The houses looked very stark compared to the soft pinks and pale yellows and mellow ochres of the houses in Smiggins.
There were mice here and there, weeding their immaculate gardens or walking along the footpath with shopping bags, and nearly all of them had a greeting for Dr. Nelson, stumping along steadily a block or so ahead of them.
Tibby Rose’s grandfather returned their greetings with a tip of his hat or a wave of his cane, but he didn’t stop to talk. He was clearly in a hurry, though his pace was slow.
A few times, Alistair thought he heard whispers and muttered exclamations, but whenever he looked around to see if they were directed at him or Tibby Rose, the other mice were always looking intently at a space just over his shoulder, or at the ground—anywhere but at him and Tibby. He felt a strange prickling at the back of his neck.
Soon the houses gave way to shops. Most of these were single-story, but there was a scattering of two-and three-story brick office buildings. Templeton was clearly a more businesslike place than Smiggins, and the footpath became increasingly crowded; Tibby Rose, who was looking a little alarmed by the busyness and bustle, stuck close to his side.
There were mice with briefcases and mice pushing prams, mice on bicycles and mice pushing barrows of fruit and vegetables. Alistair and Tibby Rose were shoved and jostled, and Alistair was taken aback to catch the eye of a thin brown mouse with a thin brown mustache who seemed to be glaring at him. Templeton was certainly an unfriendly place, Alistair thought. The mice of Smiggins always greeted each other when they passed on the street, whether they knew each other or not. Alistair quickly tore his gaze away only to be startled by the giant image of an imperious-looking mouse in purple velvet robes and a diamond-studded tiara painted on the side of the tallest building. Above her was painted an enormous silver and purple flag. This must be Queen Eugenia, he guessed. He had learned about the Sourian queen at school.
It was becoming harder and harder to spot Grandpa Nelson’s brown hat bobbing through the crowd, and then Alistair couldn’t see him at all.
“We’ve lost him,” said Alistair, but Tibby Rose grabbed his arm. “There!” she said, pointing, and Alistair saw a flash of snow-white fur heading down a smaller street to their left.
“Ginger spies,” someone hissed as the young mice weaved through the crowd in pursuit. “The Queen’s Guards will get you.”
Alistair jumped in fright. Had that been directed at them?
Tibby Rose’s grip on his arm tightened. “Did you hear that?” she gasped. Alistair thought her rose-tinged fur looked paler than usual.
“Yes,” he said grimly. “I’m starting to see what your grandpa meant by unwelcome attention.” It occurred to him that they might actually be in danger here, though for the life of him he couldn’t work out why. Because they were ginger? It just didn’t make any sense.
They turned the corner and drew to a halt. The street was virtually deserted—and Grandpa Nelson was gone.
“What do you—,” Alistair began, but he was c
ut off by a voice behind him saying, “Well I never. Never in my whole life did I see a ginger mouse, and now I seen two at once. Or is my eyes playing tricks?”
The two young mice turned to see a spotted mouse behind the counter of a newspaper stand rubbing his eyes. He sounded amazed but not hostile, Alistair was pleased to note.
“Nope,” he said, when he had opened them again. “That’s two ginger mice all right. Now what are you two doing here?”
After an awkward pause, Alistair whispered, “Just follow my lead, okay? And look innocent.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Tibby Rose muttered back. “We are innocent, as far as I know.”
“Um, good morning, sir,” Alistair began politely, moving toward the piles of newspapers stacked in front of the kiosk’s counter. There was a paper called the Templeton Times, he noticed, and the Souris Sentinel.
Looking up, he saw magazine racks on both sides of the kiosk, opening like wings off the counter. These, too, held a range of titles Alistair had never heard of: Mousewife Weekly and Grouch Gardener. His aunt and uncle read the Shetlock Times and the Smiggins Mail, but he couldn’t see any copies of those here. It dawned on Alistair, staring at the unfamiliar covers, that he really was a long way from home. Indeed, it was as if his home didn’t even exist. He felt a moment of panic, but then his eye lighted on a familiar masthead. It was Gourmet Mouse—his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Zetland, had dozens of well-thumbed copies. Feeling calmer, and noticing that both Tibby Rose and the newspaper seller were looking at him curiously, he swallowed and said the first thing that came into his head.
“We were—we were just looking for a white mouse with a brown hat and a walking stick. He . . . d ropped something, and . . . we want to give it back.”
Tibby Rose nodded innocently. “That’s right,” she said.
“White mouse, you say? Brown hat, walking stick? Ah, you must mean Dr. Nelson. He just went through there.” The spotted mouse indicated a door with the words Templeton Times printed on it. “Visiting with his old friend Granville, probably. You know Granville? The newspaper editor?”
Alistair and Tibby Rose shook their heads.
“Huh. I thought everyone knew Granville. Yes, I reckon Granville would be pretty pleased to see old Dr. Nelson. Time was when those two lunched together most every day, back when the doc was still working at the hospital.” He put his elbows on the counter and leaned forward confidentially. “’Course, that was a long while ago now. Ten years, eleven, maybe more. We haven’t seen that much of Dr. Nelson since his sister got that terrible disease.”
“Disease?” said Tibby Rose in surprise.
The newspaper seller inclined his head sorrowfully. “Poor old Miss Harriet,” he said. “Why, she was the principal at my school when I was but a little feller—many, many years ago that. She was a tough old mouse; I would have sworn she’d never know a sick day in her life. But . . .” He lifted his shoulders, seemingly in acknowledgment of the strange way the world worked. Alistair, who had gone to sleep in one country and woken in another, knew exactly what he meant.
“What—what kind of disease?” Tibby Rose asked faintly. She was gripping Alistair’s arm again.
“Oh, awful . . . awful,” said the spotted mouse. “Puffed up like a balloon and covered all over in purple spots. And the pain . . .” He paused, then said again: “Awful.”
Tibby Rose started to laugh but at a jab in the side from Alistair smothered it into a choking sound that could have been a sob.
“Please excuse my sister,” Alistair said to the mouse behind the counter. “She’s very soft-hearted. Hates to hear about anyone in pain.”
The other mouse nodded approvingly. “And it’s a credit to her,” he said. “They reckon Miss Harriet caught a strange sickness from her niece. You know—the one what ran away then came back sick? Well, Miss Harriet has not set foot outside that house since the day her niece came home. Didn’t even come to that poor girl’s burial.” He sighed. “It’s a sad thing—two good mice like Dr. Nelson and Miss Harriet growing old all alone in that big old house, and her so sick. Everyone in Templeton is mighty cut up about it, I can tell you.”
Tibby was gaping at the newspaper seller in astonishment, and Alistair wasn’t surprised. Could it really be true that no one in town even knew she existed?
Suddenly a rhythmic stamping filled the air and the spotted mouse straightened. “The Queen’s Guards,” he muttered, his eyes darting from left to right and then snapping back to Alistair and Tibby Rose in alarm. “You two had better . . . the Queen’s Guards, you know . . . ginger mice . . .” As the marching steps grew louder, he cast a desperate look around and then swiftly lifted a hinged section of the counter to reveal a door into the kiosk.
“Quick,” he said. “In here.”
Without stopping to think, Alistair pushed Tibby Rose ahead of him into the dark space.
The spotted mouse lowered the counter into position just as the footsteps rounded the corner into the laneway, pulling to an abrupt stop in front of him.
“Everything all right then, Watson?” barked a gruff voice.
Through a crack in the slats of the kiosk, Alistair, crouched by the feet of the spotted mouse, could just make out the bottom halves of six white mice in red coats and tall, shiny black boots.
“Fine, sir, fine indeed,” replied the newspaper seller cheerily, as though he didn’t have two ginger mice hidden under the counter.
Why did they have to be hidden though? Another mystery. But Alistair had seen the scared look on the newspaper seller’s face as he had ushered them into his booth; there was no doubt he believed that Alistair and Tibby Rose were in danger.
Alistair tried to make eye contact with Tibby Rose, but she was scribbling on a scrap of paper with a pencil stub she’d found on the floor beside her.
“And what brings the Queen’s Guards to my humble kiosk this morning?” the spotted mouse was asking curiously.
Alistair rolled his eyes impatiently. Watson the newspaper seller was clearly a very kind mouse, but did he really have to engage everyone who crossed his path in conversation? Then the younger mouse heard something that made him press his ear to the gap in the slats and listen intently.
“Reports of unrest around the border with—”
As Alistair and Tibby Rose exchanged wide-eyed glances around the legs of Watson, another guard hastily cut off the first guard’s sentence.
“No reason,” he said sharply, and Alistair saw the heel of one shiny boot coming down on the toe of another. “No reason at all,” he repeated over the ensuing yelp.
And with that, six pairs of shiny boots (with one boot limping slightly) turned and marched back down the laneway.
When the sound of heels on pavement had faded, Watson looked down at the two mice kneeling at his feet with his eyebrows raised questioningly. But when Alistair opened his mouth to explain—though exactly what or how or why he was going to explain he really had no idea—the spotted mouse held up a hand.
“It’s probably better if you don’t say nothing,” he said. “What I don’t know can’t hurt me.” He shook his head and whistled between his teeth. “I reckon you two look mighty young to be wandering the town alone, but I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
No, thought Alistair. We have absolutely no idea. I wish we did.
“And I just don’t buy that rubbish about every ginger mouse being our enemy.” He stroked his whiskers thoughtfully and then muttered, “Can’t say as I’d blame you though, after everything your people have suffered.” Just as Alistair was about to ask what he meant, the spotted mouse cleared his throat and said briskly, “Anyway, you came here wanting to do a good turn by old Doc Nelson, so I done a good turn by you.” He rubbed his whiskers and added, “What goes around comes around, see?”
As Watson turned his gaze in the direction of the street down which the Queen’s Guards had marched, Alistair felt Tibby Rose press the piece of paper she had been writing on into his han
d.
Glancing down, he could just make out the words in the dim light: Dear Grandpa Nelson, I have gone to help Alistair find his way home. Please do not worry about me. I understand now that you were keeping me hidden, though I don’t know why. Tell Great-Aunt Harriet I’m sorry, and that I hope she can go out again. Thank you both for looking after me so well. Love, Tibby Rose.
Alistair looked at Tibby Rose. She nodded, her expression both sad and defiant. Then, as Watson turned his attention back to them, she quickly mimed folding the piece of paper. Alistair did so, and when the newspaper seller said, “So about that thing the doctor dropped?” he held out the folded note and replied, “This fell out of his pocket. Perhaps you could give it to him when he has finished his meeting with Mr. Granville.”
Watson took the note and said, “That I can surely do.” He lifted the counter. “And you two had better be running along.”
As Alistair and Tibby Rose left the shelter of the kiosk Alistair heard him muttering, “Two ginger mice . . . At the same time! . . . Well I never.”
5
The Road to Shambles
Alex and Alice hurried down the stairs, eager to be on their way, but when they reached the second floor their path was blocked. It was Mrs. Zetland, still in her dressing gown, her gray fur in disarray. The two mice groaned under their breath. They liked Mrs. Zetland—she enjoyed cooking and almost always had a freshly baked biscuit close to hand—but she did like to talk . . . and talk . . . and talk.
“Good morning, you two,” she said. “You’re up awfully early for a couple of mice on summer holidays. In fact, the whole family seems to be. Beezer off to work, and your uncle galloping down these stairs as if his fur was on fire. Though what better time to rise early than in summer? The early mouse gets the cheese, as they say. Not that I’m much of a morning person myself—still, I never say no to a bite of cheese. Now where might you be off to, I wonder . . . and where’s that delightful brother of yours?” She looked up the stairs inquiringly.
The Secret of the Ginger Mice Page 4