Umbrella Mouse to the Rescue

by Anna Fargher

  ‘How wonderful to see you looking more like yourself, mon ami!’ the rabbit said, affectionately patting GI Joe on the back.

  ‘The last time we saw you, we weren’t sure you were going to make it,’ the beaver added, with his wife and son nodding beside him.

  ‘Me too, buddy,’ GI Joe cooed as Noah’s Ark’s tabby cat and squirrels approached with their tails bouncing behind them as they bounded over on all fours. ‘If it wasn’t for some friends we made along the way –’ he smiled at the members of the Maquis, who beamed in return – ‘I’d’ve been a goner.’

  ‘We were starting to worry you would miss the battle.’ The cat pressed her forehead to Madame Fourcade’s and the hedgehog smiled broadly. ‘The humans are rising up on the streets of Paris.’

  ‘And we shall help them triumph.’ The hedgehog’s eyes shone with tears of relief, seeing her troop safe and well. ‘Is Noah’s Ark all accounted for?’ she asked the cat, her voice hushed with concern.

  ‘The mice are yet to arrive,’ the cat replied sombrely. ‘The rats lost them in the forest.’

  ‘We must not think the worst.’ Madame Fourcade patted a reassuring paw on the cat’s fur, but Pip noticed her eyes glaze with worry. ‘It was an arduous journey for us all. They could still emerge.’

  ‘We were wondering when you’d get here!’ said a squirrel, grinning at Pip as she and two others squeezed her inside a warm hug.

  The large crowd of animals inside the chamber surrounded them now, murmuring excitedly to one another with twitching noses and ears. Behind them, the white mouse zigzagged her way through the throng, closely followed by the scruffy stray dog and the ginger cat.

  The white mouse chuckled, clutching Pip’s paw in both of her own and shaking it fondly. ‘The mouse that beat the invaders on their own turf! Fair dinkum! We meet at last!’ Her voice was kind yet firm, and Pip sensed the fearlessness of the bigger mouse. She liked her at once. ‘I’m Nancy and I’m in charge of this rabble of Resistance groups, along with this dog and cat.’ The scruffy stray dog and the ginger cat nodded in greeting and sat on their haunches. ‘I’m here to help as a member of Churchill’s Secret Animal Army, just like you,’ Nancy continued. ‘Those old cobbers of ours in London are going to be pleased to know you’ve found us. They’ve been asking about you morning, noon and night.’

  ‘Cobbers?’ Pip’s brow furrowed.

  ‘Our mates in London: Bernard Booth and Dickin.’ Nancy chuckled and Pip grinned, thinking of her dear friend. The white mouse gave her a little wink and turned to the hedgehog. ‘And, Madame Fourcade, it’s a pleasure to put a face to your Morse code.’

  ‘I hope my radio operator arrived ahead of us?’ The hedgehog darted her eyes over the group of birds to the left of the room.

  ‘Robert’s here.’ Nancy pointed her paw to the bullfinch, feverishly tapping Morse code beside a beautiful kingfisher with a bright orange body and turquoise wings. ‘He’s firing messages alongside Noor, one of the finest operators in Churchill’s Secret Animal Army. She’s the first female wireless operator sent into France and she does a bloody good job of it too.’

  ‘Nancy,’ Claude interrupted, and the white mouse turned her gaze to the gull. ‘My scouts have seen the human Allied army win the battle around Falaise in the west. They’re advancing east so there’s a real chance they’ll come to Paris’s aid.’

  ‘And we met sky-dogs on our journey too,’ Pip added, excitement popping the whiskers on her cheeks. ‘They were sent to stop any counter-attacks against the Allied army and to help any Resistance group they can.’

  ‘This confirms it,’ said the scruffy dog, smiling beside Nancy. ‘With the Allied landings in the south, victory to the west and advances into the north of France, we are successfully pushing the enemy back into Germany! Our liberation is at hand!’

  All the animals in the chamber stirred with excitement.

  ‘Claude,’ Nancy ordered. ‘Go back to your colony, keep track of the Allied progress to the outside of Paris and report back to us tomorrow.’

  The gull nodded and promptly waddled out of the hideout. At the same moment, the kingfisher let out a gasp and ripped her headphones from her ears. Darting her head this way and that in search of the white mouse, Noor spread her brightly coloured wings and fluttered across the chamber while the other birds behind her continued tapping Morse code.

  ‘I have a message from Bernard Booth!’ Noor cried, speaking rapidly as she landed beside them. Pip gazed up at her, transfixed by the flash of orange around her eyes and the vivid feathers speckled in different hues of blue around her head. ‘He is delighted you have found us, Pip and Madame Fourcade, but, Nancy,’ she said, grinning, ‘Bernard believes the ceasefire and the evacuation of Axis personnel indicates the enemy is weak, but even if only a scant amount of troops remain in Paris, their weapons will still outnumber the Resistance’s. Without military aid from the Allied armies, the uprising could fail and Hitler could retaliate. He says we must sabotage everything we can – now, under the cover of darkness – and do our best to undermine the enemy before the uprising starts again. The weaker they are, the more chance the insurgence will hold long enough for the Allied armies to arrive.’

  ‘The Resistance radio station is broadcasting!’ Robert the bullfinch cried out, and at once the raven hurried over to him and bent his ears to his headphones. ‘It’s a weak signal, but the humans are telling the Parisians to rise up again!’

  The ginger cat’s pupils dilated with excitement. ‘The ceasefire won’t hold for much longer.’

  ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ The white mouse’s eyes blazed as she called out to the animals in the chamber.

  ‘My friends, the time has come!’ the dog cried. The animals quietened with their ears pricked. ‘After years of oppression, we are going to kick the Nazis back to Berlin! Get into your groups and head into the city. Those who itch: spread your fleas! Those who know engines: chew through the fuel and engine lines of every enemy vehicle and tank you can lay your paws on, and take candle wax with you to seal up the holes! Cats: hunt every Goliath Rat you can find, and everyone with teeth – rip through anything as long as it undermines the power of the invaders! The rat and raven guards will be securing this hideout while you are away, and we will welcome you back with victory ringing in our ears! Now go! And fight bravely! Our freedom is at hand!’

  Pip’s heart stirred as all the animals in the chamber roared with enthusiasm and huddled together into their different factions to organize sabotage missions.

  ‘Noah’s Ark!’ Madame Fourcade cried as the animals gathered around the hedgehog and the umbrella with their eyes glowing with determination. ‘We must set out at once. Leo, Philippe,’ she said, spotting them glance at the group and shuffle awkwardly, ‘are you joining us?’

  ‘We would be delighted, Madame!’ Leo beamed and Pip was surprised to feel her cheeks flame.

  ‘Their wit and wings will be a great help,’ Nancy said, smiling, padding over to the group, and Leo and Philippe stood taller with their eyes twinkling with pride. ‘I’ve known their tricks since they joined the Resistance in Marseille.’

  ‘Du Stinkstiefel! ’ Philippe the parrot barked.

  Pip, Madame Fourcade and GI Joe gaped in astonishment.

  ‘You can speak human?’ Pip’s ears pricked, listening to Philippe utter German in a throaty human voice. ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘I said You smelly boot,’ Philippe chuckled.

  ‘It’s his favourite German phrase,’ Leo chortled, ‘and he’s learned many more since the enemy arrived four years ago.’

  ‘He’s our resident comedian,’ Nancy added. ‘He’s had the Resistance in stitches over the years.’

  ‘Do you ever use your speech to distract the humans?’ Pip said, her mind tingling with ideas.

  ‘When the time is right.’ Philippe met her gaze and their eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘I entertained guests at a hotel bar,’ the parrot added. ‘The more I made them laugh, the kin
der my owner was to me.’

  ‘He was a brute.’ Leo scowled. ‘Philippe was so scared of him he used to pluck out his feathers when he came near. So one night my little sister and I chewed through the hinges to his cage door and set him free. We’ve been friends ever since.’

  ‘Génial! And where is your little sister now?’ Madame Fourcade asked.

  ‘When Mussolini joined Hitler in 1940, my family moved to Marseille with the old artist we lived with in Lake Maggiore,’ Leo replied. ‘We stowed away inside his suitcase and we had many adventures together.’ He sighed. ‘Until I lost them all in a bombing raid – an Italian one! Can you believe it? I’ll only go back to Italy when the Allies have won the war.’

  A sad silence unfurled around the animals as Leo hung his head. Pip ached for him. He’d lost his family in the same way she had and she immediately felt closer to him, sharing a mutual sorrow that words could never describe. They were both orphans trying to find their way home, and knowing him somehow made her feel closer to her mother’s family in Gignese.

  ‘Hard times make us fiercer fighters,’ Nancy said at last, giving Pip a wink. ‘Count me in, Noah’s Ark. I know just the sabotage for us.’

  Pip and her friends’ ears pricked, and the white mouse grinned mischievously.

  ‘We’re going into the belly of the beast: the enemy’s military headquarters.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  HÔTEL LE MEURICE

  After a feast of catacomb mushrooms and tinned sardines, with the rest of the animal Resistance energetically discussing their sabotage missions, Pip left the umbrella in the care of Robert the bullfinch and the other radio operators, and clambered on to Philippe’s back with Madame Fourcade. They followed Nancy, Leo and GI Joe, leading the way through the labyrinth of limestone corridors, lit by another long string of little electric bulbs.

  It wasn’t long before they landed again beside a towering pile of rubble, lying in disarray where a wall had collapsed many years before. A dark triangular opening was hidden behind it, and as the white mouse guided the animals through it Pip glanced over her shoulder at the lights, distracting any would-be followers away from the secret passage and further into the maze beyond.

  The darkness inside the opening swallowed them whole. For what seemed like hours, the animals trod blindly up a steep burrow, tripping now and again on the uneven ground. Just as Pip felt their climb would never end, the track softened beneath her paws, and the pungent smell of earth seeped into her nose.

  ‘Help me with this door,’ Nancy said as the path came to an abrupt end, and Pip’s ears twitched, feeling little spindly roots tickle them from above.

  They were all dusted with falling soil as they pressed against the ceiling and lifted a loosened plant. As it collapsed gently on its side, their lungs were filled with fresh air, and Pip and the others blinked at a sprinkling of stars glittering around murky clouds above.

  ‘Come on,’ Nancy whispered, leading the animals out of the hole into a flower bed filled with white and pink peonies in bloom. Pip clambered after her and looked up at a tall marble statue of an angel gazing into the distance beside verdant trees stirring in a humid, summer breeze.

  ‘GI Joe,’ Nancy whispered as the animals replaced the uprooted peony plant in the ground and hid the opening to the catacombs from view. ‘Follow us to the Hôtel Le Meurice. On a night like tonight, the windows will be open to cool the men sleeping in their beds. We’ll creep inside and wreak as much havoc as we can.’

  ‘Let’s go.’ Pip smiled, excitement overtaking the tiredness that had clung to her over the last few days. This sabotage sounded easy, and after all the years she’d spent exploring the James Smith & Sons umbrella shop in London she was looking forward to being inside a building again.

  The birds leaped into the air with a burst of their wings and soared over treetops and formal gardens decorated with statues towering over colourful flowers. Ahead, enemy soldiers armed with rifles guarded the Luxembourg Palace, silhouetted in the moonlight. Its white clockface struck two as the animals flew silently over the palace’s bell tower and Pip’s heart stirred, spying two squirrels spiralling up its flagpole. A moment later, a scarlet swastika flag rippled and fell through the summer breeze, and Pip and her friends beamed with pride.

  The birds continued north and Pip’s eyes widened at the boulevards below. Men and women were defying sleep and working through the night, prising up paving stones, pickaxing cobbled streets and piling the debris across the roads. Further down the street, a tree fell and crashed against the tarmac. Pip and her friends chuckled with glee, seeing the dark shapes of the beavers scurrying away to the nearby River Seine, shimmering by the light of the moon under bridges connecting the left and right banks of the city.

  Soaring across the water, Philippe and GI Joe passed over an elaborate arch crowned with four bronze horses pulling a chariot, and cut across the manicured Tuileries Gardens. Pip smiled, spotting a flash of a magpie’s black-and-white feathers, flying over a row of Tiger tanks parked on the grass to their left, and they arrived at a six-storey building with three red flags gently billowing above its grand front entrance. The words Hôtel Le Meurice were mounted in gold to balcony railings wrapped around its first floor, where the French doors were cracked ajar, just as Nancy had predicted.

  ‘Pip, Leo, come with me,’ Nancy whispered, slipping off GI Joe’s back on to the balcony with her eyes roving over the building. The mice nodded and dismounted from the birds. ‘We’re the only ones small enough to squeeze under the doors inside.’

  ‘We’ll do the rooms upstairs while you three tackle down here,’ GI Joe cooed, craning his neck upwards with the others.

  ‘Damage papers, telephone cords, radios – whatever you can see that could hinder the enemy’s efforts,’ Madame Fourcade ordered from Philippe’s back, ‘and keep an eye out for any information we can use against the enemy, like photographs, maps or drawings.’

  Pip smiled at her friends. ‘Good luck!’

  ‘We’ll meet you back here when we’re done –’ Madame Fourcade’s eyes blazed – ‘and be careful!’

  With that, GI Joe and Philippe took to the air with Madame Fourcade, and disappeared into an open window on the second floor.

  Pip, Nancy and Leo tiptoed to a crack in an open French door. Pushing their way past a net curtain, they shimmied under heavy, velvet drapes and entered a large bedroom with glass chandeliers glinting from the ceiling in the gloom. Pip gaped as her eyes travelled over ornate sconces dotted about the walls above an antique Louis XIV sofa and chairs. To their left, a low rumble of snores sounded from a bed and Pip swallowed, spying the bulbous shape of a reclining man.

  ‘Look,’ Pip whispered, pointing to a telephone on a bedside table.

  Nerves coiled in her stomach as they darted across a silk rug. Keeping one eye on the man lying in the bed, they approached a black cord running from the skirting board to the telephone stand towering above their heads. They wrapped their teeth around it, but suddenly the man uttered a loud snort, and Pip, Nancy and Leo raced under the bed. The man snuffled as he turned on his side and the mice breathed easier, edging forward again and gnawing clean through the line.

  ‘Come on . . .’ Pip’s eyes were wide with adventure as she let go of the wire. ‘Let’s go next door!’

  With Nancy and Leo at her heels, she bounded across the room and slipped under a door leading to a grand corridor with paintings hanging inside elaborate, gilded frames. Squeezing under the first door on the left, they arrived in a large room with a map of Paris leaning against the wall above a broad desk covered with documents.

  The mice bolted to it and climbed a wire dangling from a gold lamp. Scaling it to the top, Pip and Nancy pored over sheets scrawled with writing while Leo nibbled through another telephone line on the other side of the table.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ Pip asked, searching the papers for any intelligence, but she couldn’t make sense of the German words. Her whiskers drooped, th
inking of Hans. As a German rat fighting with the Resistance, he would have loved to be with them now.

  ‘Nothing yet.’ Nancy sighed, shredding a sheet with her teeth and claws in frustration.

  ‘What’s this?’ Pip’s eyes fell on a detailed black-and-white drawing of a building the mice recognized at once. The word DYNAMIT was scribbled against each corner of its first-floor gallery.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Leo gasped.

  ‘They’re going to blow up the Eiffel Tower!’ Nancy shuddered. ‘This must be the retaliation Bernard Booth suspected.’

  ‘Not if we stop them,’ Pip said, hurrying back to the lamp perched on the end of the desk. ‘Quick, we have to find the others.’

  Pip clambered down the cable with Nancy and Leo chasing after her, but suddenly the Hôtel Le Meurice quaked as a gargantuan gust of air blasted through Paris, and the mice tumbled to the ground.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE EIFFEL TOWER

  The explosion had rocked the Hôtel Le Meurice on its foundations and Pip’s mind was paralysed by memories of the bomb blast that had killed her parents and destroyed her home in London. The bloodstained bricks and broken glass flashed before her eyes and she trembled with terror, the memory of the smouldering bus on the street with flames flickering around the people inside fresh in her mind.

  ‘Pip? Can you hear me?’ a faraway voice asked. ‘Are you all right, topolina?’

  ‘Topolina?’ Pip groaned, opening her eyes and finding Leo’s kind face looking down at her with his brow furrowed with concern. She frowned, not understanding the last word.