Pulling hard at the oars, Alistair glanced to his left and right and over his shoulder but could see no sign of land. “Tibby,” he asked, “which direction should I be rowing in?”
Tibby too looked all around, then she squinted at the sky. “That way.” She pointed to her left, which was Alistair’s right.
Alex and Alice gaped at her.
“How do you know?” asked Alex. “I mean, we’re in the middle of the sea with no landmarks or map or anything.”
“Tibby knows all kinds of amazing things,” said Alistair, feeling rather proud of his new friend.
Tibby pointed at the sun. “Shetlock is south, and the sun sets in the west. Since it’s early afternoon and I’m facing the sun, south must be to my left. But there’s something else. See those white fluffy clouds? They’re called cumulus clouds. If you see a group of them in an otherwise cloudless sky, they’re usually sitting over land.”
“Wow. That’s a handy thing to know,” said Alice as Alistair corrected course with the oars.
Tibby shrugged modestly. “Your brother’s not the only one who likes to read,” she said.
For the first hundred strokes, Alistair felt jubilant. He was with his brother and sister, and he would soon be in Shetlock. The adrenaline of their flight from the Marmaduke had given him a surge of energy, and his strokes were strong and swift. For it wasn’t just Sophia and Horace they had escaped—they had left all their pursuers behind: the Sourians who hated them for being ginger, the Queen’s Guards, even Oswald and Feast Thompson and Slippers Pink. His oars rippled through the water as easily as a breeze through silk.
By the second hundred strokes he had settled into a steady rhythm. He no longer had the sensation that he was gliding effortlessly, but they were making good progress. The two ships were now some distance away, and the cries of the fighting sailors were faint.
“Alistair,” said Alice, “if you weren’t kidnapped, why did you disappear like that? And how did you end up on a pirate ship?”
So it was as Alistair had suspected—his brother and sister didn’t seem to have any knowledge of his disappearance. “Well, I heard a tap on the shutters. . . .” He proceeded to explain how he had been plucked from their bedroom window in Smiggins and deposited on Tibby Rose’s front path in Templeton.
“He landed right on top of me!” Tibby added. Then, because Alistair was becoming breathless trying to row and talk at the same time, Tibby Rose started to recount everything that had happened to them since they followed Uncle Ebenezer into Templeton and discovered how very unpopular ginger mice were in Souris. When she reached the bit about their discussion with Feast Thompson and Slippers Pink (leaving out Slippers’s revelation about the secret paths of Gerander, of course), and how they had run off to Sadiz before Oswald returned for them and then got jobs aboard the Sickert, Alistair rested his oars for a moment. He had done over four hundred strokes and was starting to tire.
“We’re both going to join FIG,” he explained. “Tibby decided she didn’t want to go back to Templeton, and she’s Gerandan too, because of her father. What do you think? It would be great if the four of us joined together.”
“Alistair, that’s incredible,” Alice exclaimed. Alex was gazing at his brother in awe.
“It is, isn’t it? Tibby’ll be like D’Artagnan joining Aramis, Porthos, and Athos, and the four of us will set off to—”
“Uh, I was with you till the dart and yarn joined the ram,” said Alex.
“And what book would that be from, Alistair?” Tibby Rose demanded. Alice giggled at Tibby’s long-suffering sigh.
“The Three Musketeers, of course. Aramis, Porthos, and Athos are the three musketeers, and then they’re joined by a fourth, D’Artagnan, who—”
“Actually, Alistair,” Alice interrupted, “I didn’t mean it’s amazing that Tibby is our fourth musketeer. Though it is wonderful,” she added, smiling warmly at Tibby, who gave her a shy smile in return. “What I meant was . . . I mean, the raft and escaping from the Queen’s Guards and almost going down a waterfall and joining a pirate crew. I never knew you were so brave!”
“Brave?” Alistair had to laugh. “I’ve been scared stiff and desperate to get home the whole time. And getting home was worth taking some risks for.” Then his smile faded. “But I don’t think we have a home anymore. We won’t be safe in Smiggins.” He sighed. “But at least we’ll all be together. And maybe . . . maybe if we join FIG we can continue Mum and Dad’s fight to free Gerander.” He tugged at his scarf absentmindedly.
“I love the idea of being part of FIG, like Mum and Dad were,” said Alice. “But I’m not sure how Aunt Beezer and Uncle Ebenezer would feel about it. Uncle Ebenezer said he gave up on FIG after Mum and Dad died. He even throws out the letters they send him without reading them.”
That explained why his aunt and uncle had never told him he was going to Templeton—because they didn’t know. Alistair was pleased that they hadn’t hidden it from him. But it meant they would have been surprised and upset by his disappearance, as he had first feared.
Alistair picked up the oars and resumed rowing as Alice, helped by Alex (who didn’t always agree with Alice’s version of events), filled them in on their conversation with Aunt Beezer and Uncle Ebenezer the morning they had discovered Alistair missing, and how they had learned all about FIG and Gerander and set off to find their brother.
As Alex and Alice’s story unfolded, the other two were excited all over again by their fortunate meeting with Alistair and Tibby Rose on the Marmaduke and their escape from Horace and Sophia, but when the Marmaduke and the Sickert vanished over the horizon (six hundred strokes), Alistair’s earlier euphoria vanished with it. With the sun beating down relentlessly, it was rapidly becoming clear to him what a foolish thing he had done. Here they were, in a tiny lifeboat in the middle of the sea. He had no idea how far from land they were or how long it would take them to get there. Why hadn’t anyone stopped him? They had all seemed to think he knew what he was doing. But of course, he had no idea at all. . . .
By seven hundred strokes, the top of his head and the tips of his ears were burning. His neck itched under his scarf, the muscles in his arms were screaming and his back ached. Blisters were forming on his hands where he gripped the oars.
“That’s it,” he gasped. “I can’t row any farther.”
“I’ll do it,” Alex volunteered, and he and Alistair swapped places.
Alistair sat with his head in his hands, trying to shade himself from the sun’s glare, while Alice and Tibby Rose talked quietly. From a few words he heard, he gathered that Tibby Rose was telling Alice about her parents, and how she had come to be living with her grandfather and great-aunt.
The afternoon wore on, and Alex was replaced on the oars by Tibby Rose and then Alice. Conversations about FIG and Gerander were replaced with desultory complaints about the brightness of the sun, their raging thirst, and gnawing hunger.
Hours passed and they seemed to get no closer to the clouds Tibby Rose had pointed out. By the time Alistair had had three turns on the oars, he was starting to despair—how long could they survive in the middle of the sea with no food or water or shelter?
Then Tibby, who had been scanning the sea as Alice rowed and Alex dreamed aloud of an ice-cold blue cheese and strawberry smoothie with plenty of pepper, suddenly said: “Look over there. Does that look like land?”
Hope leaping in his chest, Alistair squinted at the horizon. And squinted harder. “I can’t tell,” he said with a shrug. “It’s so far away it just looks like a smudge to me.”
But eventually the smudge on the horizon, an indistinct line of gray at first, gradually resolved itself into a muddle of cliffs and vegetation. Then Alistair caught sight of a jumble of red-tiled roofs spilling higgledy-piggledy down a steep green slope. Shambles! Alistair took over the oars and began to row with renewed vigor.
As they drew nearer, he could make out more details of the town. The row of uneven buildings lining the quay
, rising two or three stories above the shop awnings, painted in vivid hues that caught the eye and held it: a tall, narrow lemon yellow building with a single line of pale blue shutters beside a large stately mustard structure with shutters of forest green and graceful wrought-iron balconies; a cheerful, slightly shabby salmon pink house with mauve shutters, geraniums blooming in the pots on the windowsills, stood cheek by jowl with a neat cream building trimmed in red. After the stark whites and cool grays of Souris, Alistair’s heart lifted to see the warm colors of home.
His arm muscles were screaming by the time they landed on a small beach at the western edge of the port but he didn’t care. He nimbly alighted, followed by Alice, Tibby Rose, and Alex.
“I never thought I’d be glad to see Shambles again,” said Alice as they hurried along the quay. “But I am.”
Alistair felt his spirits rising. He was in Shetlock! Suddenly, the rigors of the day were forgotten, and he was no longer tired. “Let’s go home!”
20
Home
Alice and Alex led the way through Shambles, and soon they were on the road which would, eventually, lead them to Smiggins.
The sun was finally setting as they drew alongside the river Alice and Alex had followed in the dark. Half hidden behind a delicate line of mauve clouds, the sun was visible only as a golden glow tinged with orange then red, reflected sharp and bright in the rippling river. Stretching away into the distance on the other side of the road were neat rows of olive trees and almond trees, interspersed with golden fields separated by lines of tall cypresses. The sensation of the warm gentle breeze on his fur and the familiar scent of the flowers growing wild along the verge combined to awaken in Alistair a feeling of pure happiness.
They walked through the night, past the Riverside Inn (with a sniff from Alice) and past the point where the path over Mount Sharpnest diverged from the road (no one, not even Alex, suggested they take the shortcut). They walked through the next two days and nights as well, stopping to sleep when they could walk no longer, but never for more than a few hours at a time.
When they were hungry, they looked for nuts and berries, and Tibby would hunt for mushrooms. (Tibby was the only one who could tell the difference between a field mushroom and the similar-looking but poisonous Death Cap.) If it was nighttime, they would find a sheltered spot and gather dry leaves and grass for tinder and twigs for kindling, then Tibby Rose would start a fire burning while Alistair and his brother and sister looked for heavier sticks and branches with which to feed it.
Sometime after midnight on the third day, they reached Stubbins, and detoured through the sleeping streets to show Tibby Rose the house where they had lived with their parents.
Alistair moved away from the others to lean against the small picket fence. Gazing at the stone cottage, which was barely visible in the dark, he tugged at the ends of his scarf and remembered again his final glimpse of his mother. Keep it safe and never lose it, she had said as she gave him the scarf. And then, unbidden, the tune Timmy the Winns had played by the fire near Pamplemouse filled his head. Was this where he had heard it before? Was it a song of his mother’s? He began to hum, and then suddenly he was remembering the words—not the words Timmy had sung, though.
“A burning tree
A rock of gold
A fracture in the mountain’s fold,
In the sun’s last rays when the shadows grow long
And the rustling reeds play the Winns’s north song.”
He was murmuring the words to himself when Tibby appeared at his elbow.
“Are you okay, Alistair?” she asked. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”
“I think I am, Tib,” he said, still trying to put the pieces together in his mind. “Or thousands anyway.” Remembering that Slippers Pink had warned them never to reveal the secret about his mother’s special knowledge, he kept his voice low so his brother and sister wouldn’t hear. “You remember Slippers told us about how my mother knew about the paths of Gerander? I think my mother might have sung one of those secret songs to me.”
“Really?” Tibby sounded excited. “How do you know?”
Alistair described the song about the river that Timmy the Winns had played while she slept. “And I think I recognized the tune because my mother sang it to me the night before she went away,” he finished. “I was just standing here thinking about that night, and suddenly the words of the song came to me.” He sang them to her under his breath.
When he was finished, Tibby nodded thoughtfully. “A fracture in the mountain’s fold . . . It could be a secret path, couldn’t it? Though the rock of gold and burning tree sound a bit unlikely. They could be landmarks, I suppose—but how would we ever find them among all the rocks and trees in Gerander?”
Before they could puzzle any further, they were interrupted by Alice calling softly, “Alistair, Tibby Rose—we should set off soon if we want to reach Smiggins by dawn.”
They walked back to the road to join the others.
“Four more hours and we’ll be home,” said Alex. “Hey, sis, remember how mad Horace was because he’d thought he’d only have to go from Smiggins to Stubbins to find us, and instead he ended up walking all the way to Shambles?” He chuckled.
“But why would he think you were going to Stubbins?” Alistair asked.
“Hmm,” said Alex. “Good question.”
“There’s something that I’ve never quite figured out,” Alice said. “You see, Mr. Grudge said he’d seen a pair of mice, one gray and one black, standing beneath our window with a ladder. So of course when we first saw Horace and Sophia, we presumed they were the kidnappers. But if they were the kidnappers, how come they didn’t know where you were? It turned out that they had come to kidnap you, but then Mr. Grudge must have chased them away. Of course, you were already gone by then, but they couldn’t have known that, since they never got to climb the ladder—except they did know. That’s why they were following us to get to you. . . . But they were surprised when we didn’t know where you were.”
Alice had stopped walking by this time, and was staring into the distance with a preoccupied expression. “Could it have been someone from FIG? A double agent?” She looked briefly alarmed, then murmured, “No, Uncle Ebenezer would have told FIG that we didn’t know where you were. Who else then?”
“Come on, sis,” Alex urged. “We’re almost home. Can’t you walk and think at the same time? It’s not that hard to do.”
“Oh, how would you know?” Alice snapped. “It’s not like you ever think.”
Alistair almost laughed at Alex’s wounded expression. If there was one thing that made him feel like he was nearly home, it was hearing his brother and sister argue.
“Don’t worry,” he said to Tibby Rose, who was staring at his bickering siblings anxiously. “They’re always like this. It’s normal.”
“Oh no!” said Alice suddenly.
“What’s wrong?” said Tibby Rose.
“It couldn’t be.”
“What is it?” said Alistair.
“But I think it is!”
“Spit it out, sis,” demanded Alex rudely.
“Mrs. Zetland!”
“Mrs. Zetland what?” said Alistair, noticing that Alex’s white fur looked ghostlike in the moonlight.
“Oh no,” said Alex.
Alistair sighed. “Would you two stop ‘Oh no’ing’ and just tell me what you’re going on about?”
“Okay,” said Alice. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“Especially since you’re Mrs. Zetland’s pet,” Alex said.
“Though maybe that was all part of her act,” said Alice.
“Good point.” Alex nodded.
Alistair was starting to feel extremely frustrated with his brother and sister. “Just tell me,” he demanded through gritted teeth.
“Mrs. Zetland is a spy,” said Alice simply.
“What?” Alistair looked at his sister in amazement. “What are you talking about
?”
“Who’s Mrs. Zetland?” asked Tibby Rose.
“She’s our downstairs neighbor,” Alex explained. “And she makes really good biscuits.”
“The morning we left to find you,” Alice said to Alistair, “we met her on the stairs and she asked us where we were going, and why you weren’t with us. We didn’t want to tell her the truth, so we said that we were on our way to Stubbins and you’d gone on ahead of us. She was the only person we spoke to—it must have been her who told Horace and Sophia that they should follow us there to find you. And she must be the reason why they knew so much about us.”
It was a more somber group who resumed the journey to Smiggins. Still, when he saw the first houses of his hometown in the pale light of dawn, it was all Alistair could do not to break into a run; he no longer felt his aching feet and tired legs.
But as they drew close to their apartment house, Alistair’s high spirits were momentarily dampened. He’d known that Smiggins was no longer safe, that danger was close—but he hadn’t realized that danger lived in the flat downstairs. It was a timely reminder that the life he once knew had changed irrevocably, and he felt a twinge of sadness as he and Tibby Rose tiptoed behind Alex and Alice past Mrs. Zetland’s door on the way up the stairs to his aunt and uncle’s apartment.
Alice knocked on the door so lightly that Alistair was sure his aunt and uncle—who were still asleep, no doubt—couldn’t possibly hear it. But the door was flung open almost immediately.
As Uncle Ebenezer opened his mouth to exclaim, Alistair and the others hastily made shushing noises. Ebenezer accepted the need for silence without question, and stood aside to let them rush in, then quickly but soundlessly closed the door behind them.
“Alex, Alice—and Alistair!” Ebenezer cried as he surveyed the four mice standing before him. “Dear . . . purple?. . . Alistair!” His eyes shone with tears and Alistair found that he was so overcome with emotion at the sight of his uncle that he couldn’t speak. He threw his arms around Ebenezer’s portly body and squeezed.
The Secret of the Ginger Mice Page 18