by Anna Fargher
‘It means little mouse.’ Leo smiled. ‘Are you OK? You hit your head and fainted.’
‘That crash,’ she said, blinking. ‘Was it a bomb?’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ Nancy replied, urgently heaving Pip, quivering with fear, up on to unsteady paws. ‘Now get your skates on. This place will be crawling with humans any minute!’
At that moment, another crash thundered outside the building and the mice threw themselves to the floor.
‘Get up!’ Nancy whispered, dragging Pip and Leo by the paws. ‘This is no time for dawdling! Come on!’
The mice scrambled to the door and squeezed under it again, but as soon as they popped out on the other side they froze, flattening themselves against the wall. Two Goliath Rats were bounding up a grand staircase to their left. Pip held her breath until they disappeared, hearing the unmistakeable sound of humans storming through the building.
‘Run!’ Nancy shoved the younger mice forward.
The three dashed down the corridor and slipped back under the bedroom door with men’s footsteps and voices pounding in their ears.
‘Look out!’ Nancy whispered, forcing Pip and Leo to a halt by the wrists and motioning her head to the man now sitting upright on the bed with his back turned to them, grappling with the telephone by the light of a silver candelabra. ‘Tread slowly!’ she added. ‘Human eyes catch sight of our speed.’
‘Hallo?’ the man growled into the receiver, aggressively tapping his pudgy fingers on the cradle. The mice edged forward towards the open balcony doors. ‘Hallo? HALLO?’
The man slammed the handset back on the receiver with a jingle of its bell, and the mice darted under a chair as he cursed. With heavy footsteps shuddering the floorboards, he stormed across the room to open his bedroom door and slammed it closed behind him.
‘Was war DAS?’ he roared in German, and the mice rushed to the heavy velvet curtains with their hearts drumming in their throats.
‘Eine Explosion im Grand Palais, Herr General von Choltitz! ’ Pip heard another man reply shakily as the mice arrived outside, their mouths falling open at a towering flame scorching the night.
‘There you are!’ Madame Fourcade’s prickles bristled beside GI Joe and Philippe on the balcony.
‘Is that the Grand Palais?’ Pip gazed out at the blaze. ‘They’ve just said there was an explosion there.’
‘Looks like the ceasefire’s gone up in smoke, liddle lady.’ GI Joe sighed.
‘It’s terrible.’ Madame Fourcade’s face crumpled, gazing at the nightmarish red glow. ‘It is one of Paris’s treasures.’
Nancy frowned. ‘Was it an air raid?’
‘We saw no planes.’ Philippe shook his head sadly. ‘It must have been tank shells or explosives.’
Madame Fourcade’s brow furrowed, recognizing the worry creasing Pip’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘We found diagrams.’ Pip swallowed. ‘We think the enemy is planning to blow up the Eiffel Tower.’
‘What! ’ cried Madame Fourcade, GI Joe and Philippe.
‘But there’s no military value in destroying it!’ GI Joe’s feathers ruffled around his neck in outrage. ‘It’s madness.’
‘It has symbolic significance.’ Madame Fourcade shook her head in despair. ‘It represents the whole of France. Destroying it will crush the French spirit.’
‘Not if we stop it from happening!’ Pip interrupted, paws clenched in determination. But before she could say more the door inside the bedroom banged shut and pounding footsteps charged towards them. Flinching in alarm, Pip and Madame Fourcade scrambled on to Philippe’s back while Nancy and Leo leaped to GI Joe.
A clap of thunder rumbled overhead as the man ripped open the curtains and stormed on to the balcony. Staring across the Tuileries Gardens at orange flames raging inside the Grand Palais, he cursed in German, having no idea he had just missed a parrot and a pigeon who now soared over the treetops towards the River Seine.
The streets of Paris hummed with life as the birds raced west along the left bank, past men and women standing on their balconies in their nightclothes, and pointing at the inferno on the other side of the river.
Rain pitter-pattered on the animals’ fur and feathers as the birds followed a broad, tree-lined boulevard running alongside the water. As they neared the Eiffel Tower, stretching high above the rooftops, Pip gazed down at the streets from Philippe’s back and caught sight of two young men sprinting along the pavement. They wore white shirts rolled up around their arms. In their right hands they carried rifles, and tricolour armbands were wrapped above their left elbows. One reminded her of Peter, the son of the owner of her umbrella shop in London. His dark hair flopped in the same way around his head as his lean body charged past buildings with French flags hanging proudly from windows below. She wished with all her might that, wherever Peter was fighting the war now, he was alive and safe.
The young men raced on as a truck stuffed with enemy soldiers slowed at a junction ahead. It lurched in their direction with a screech of its tyres, and Pip peered over her shoulder to see the young men dart left through a large stone arch beneath a towering church spire. A moment later, the vehicle roared down the street, and a wave of shutters closed over the windows above as the Parisians watching the fire from their balconies hurried away from the Axis soldiers below.
The row of buildings overlooking the river abruptly came to an end and GI Joe and Philippe swooped sharply upwards to land on the last grey rooftop facing the Eiffel Tower. The animals crouched behind a chimneystack and Pip craned her neck to see the peak of the tower. It was the most gigantic thing she’d ever seen and she couldn’t fathom how its hefty metal frame could stand without toppling over. Lowering her eyes, she could just make out the inside of the enormous first-floor gallery. At each corner that she could see, a silhouette of a soldier stood behind a long-barrelled machine gun.
‘The diagram we found had explosives rigged to the ledge beneath those men,’ she whispered as sheet lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the clouds in electric blue. ‘But I can’t see where they are from here and we’ve got to find a way to get rid of those soldiers. We need a closer look.’
‘I’ll take you – a pigeon blends in better than a parrot.’ GI Joe glanced at Philippe, cocking his head. ‘Sorry, buddy.’
‘I have other talents.’ Philippe shrugged nonchalantly and instantly Pip’s memory sparked with the sound of the parrot’s throaty human voice.
‘That’s right!’ she grinned. ‘Philippe, do you think you can distract those soldiers while we sabotage the explosives?’
‘Oui,’ Philippe croaked, and the others looked at one another excitedly.
‘Then hop on.’ The pigeon cooed. ‘Let’s see what we can find.’
‘But for whiskers’ sake, chérie,’ Madame Fourcade added as Pip settled herself behind GI Joe’s neck, ‘don’t let those soldiers see you!’
‘We’ll be back before you know it.’ GI Joe winked and jumped into the air.
Gunfire clattered in the city as the pigeon flew over treetops towards the Eiffel Tower. Nearing its hulking iron lattice, Pip gaped at its intricate filigree arches rising and falling between four enormous legs made from crisscrossing metal beams. Above them, a trellis of girders supported the tower’s gigantic first floor. Swerving sharply to the right, GI Joe followed the lower ledge of its balcony, now thudding metallically with falling raindrops.
‘I see one!’ Pip cried as they approached the first corner where a massive pile of cylinders had DYNAMIT printed on the side with an eagle carrying a swastika. Every stick was about the size of the candles Pip had seen used at dining tables. They were taped together in four blocks and each central cylinder had a black wire protruding from it.
‘Shhh,’ GI Joe cooed quietly. ‘Look!’
Pip bit her lip. Over their heads, an enemy soldier peered through binoculars at the flames raging inside the Grand Palais across the River Seine. Beside him, a long barrel of a gun pointed to
the bridge stretching across the water below.
The pigeon flew them anti-clockwise round the tower. Sure enough, Pip and GI Joe spied explosives placed evenly around the first floor, and each one had an enemy soldier and a machine gun aimed into the city below.
‘Hurry back to the others,’ Pip said as GI Joe completed his loop. ‘I’ve got an idea!’
She stared at the Eiffel Tower over her shoulder, her fur quivering with nerves.
She hoped this was going to work.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SOLDIERS
Pip and Leo’s whiskers pulled on their cheeks as GI Joe charged forward beside Philippe, who was carrying Madame Fourcade and Nancy on his back. Soaring through the rain falling heavily in the gloom, they headed for the western corner of the Eiffel Tower’s first-floor gallery, where a ledge jutted out from beneath the balcony.
The birds landed on its metal surface with a scratch of their claws, and Pip heaved a sigh of relief as the raindrops masked the sound. The mice and the hedgehog dismounted, with the wind blustering around their fur, and stared out at the fire flickering around the Grand Palais in the distance. A flash of sheet lightning turned the clouds violet above, and Pip lifted her head to the left where a soldier stood with his back turned and his arm resting on his machine gun.
‘There it is,’ Pip whispered, pointing her paw towards the man’s feet, where a big pile of dynamite stood starkly against the painted iron. ‘Another is strapped to the other side of this corner, and it’s the same around the whole first floor. Let’s disarm each one.’
‘Bonne chance, mes amis,’ Philippe said. ‘I’ll distract the soldiers one by one. Wait for my signal each time, then rip those wires to shreds.’
Thunder rumbled overhead as the parrot dived from the ledge and disappeared into the darkness. Minutes passed, and the animals stared nervously out over the rooftops in silence, watching bursts of explosions from distant battles that now raged in the city below.
‘Heil Hitler! ’ Philippe shouted somewhere in the gloom, and Pip saw the soldier instantly turn towards the sound and salute. ‘Komm her! Jetzt! ’ Philippe’s voice sounded again.
At once, the man obediently marched away from his post, retracing the path the animals had just made.
‘It’s working!’ Leo whispered excitedly.
‘Lead the way, young Pip,’ Nancy said beside him.
Thunder crashed as Pip bounded forward, but a moment later she yelped in terror, feeling her paws skid on the wet iron.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Madame Fourcade leaped forward, snatching her by the wrist, with Pip’s hind legs dangling over brink. ‘I am not losing you to a stumble after everything we have been through!’
‘Everyone tread carefully!’ Nancy ordered, helping Madame Fourcade drag Pip to safety with Leo. Pip could barely stand for the fright quaking her limbs. ‘None of us are dying tonight! Have I made myself clear?’ Nancy bossed, nudging the animals forward. ‘Now get going! Philippe’s ruse could come unstuck any minute!’
The animals hurried across the ledge as quickly as they could, listening to the parrot bark German orders into the night. A few seconds brought them to the first corner of the first-floor gallery, and GI Joe kept watch as Pip and the others climbed over the heap of explosives.
‘Wait, chérie,’ Madame Fourcade whispered urgently as Pip and Leo snatched up a black cord protruding from the centre of one of the four blocks of dynamite. She looked up at Nancy with wide eyes. ‘How do we know it won’t blow up when we bite the wires?’
Pip and Leo let go of the fuses at once and a fearful silence radiated around the animals. The rapid, thudding raindrops hitting the Eiffel Tower echoed Pip’s heartbeat thumping in her ears.
‘Dynamite is simple.’ Nancy’s eyes shone in the gloom. ‘Cut the wires and it cannot detonate!’
Without a moment’s hesitation, everyone nibbled and chewed the wires until all the fuses parted and frayed.
‘Super! ’ the hedgehog cried as Pip released the last wire from her jaws.
‘We’ve got to do this three more times before the Eiffel Tower is safe.’ Pip glanced towards the next corner to their left. ‘We need to carry on, but it’s too dark and too far away to see if Philippe has distracted the second soldier yet – he could spot us if we get there too soon.’
‘You guys keep going,’ GI Joe said, flexing his wings. ‘I’m gonna find out.’
‘Come on!’ Nancy pushed them forward as the pigeon burst into the air. ‘The longer we wait, the longer those dingbats have to work out what’s going on.’
The headiness of the height and the peril of the sabotage pulsed through their bodies as Pip, Leo and Madame Fourcade chased after Nancy, moving as quickly as they could across the ledge through the rain. As they neared the second heap of dynamite, their ears pricked, hearing Philippe shriek, ‘Heil Hitler! Komm her! ’ ahead, and at once Pip and her friends felt lighter on their paws seeing another soldier step away from the corner to follow the parrot’s voice.
‘Go, go, go!’ GI Joe swooped alongside them with a huge smile upon his face. ‘Neither of these men have wised up to what’s happening!’
‘Let’s hope it lasts!’ Nancy said as the animals arrived at the second pile of explosives and gnawed through the fuses again. Leo and Pip shredded the last wire, but suddenly the animals froze, hearing human footsteps thud past them. The first soldier was searching for the second.
‘Hallo du! ’ he shouted after him.
‘Ja?’ the other replied in the darkness beyond.
‘Was ist los? ’
Pip and her friends stared at each other in dismay.
‘They’re on to us,’ Philippe whispered, flying low and landing beside the others. His brow furrowed as his eyes darted anxiously to his friends. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We’re halfway there,’ Pip said, nerves jangling in her stomach, ‘and we’ll be faster if we go in two teams.’
‘You’re right.’ Madame Fourcade nodded gravely with the others. ‘But if we don’t act fast they could suspect the explosives are being sabotaged, and then we’ve failed.’ Everybody’s ears flattened at her words. ‘Philippe, reveal yourself to these two men so they know they have nothing to worry about. Be playful and charming. Hopefully they’ll think you’re just a lost pet parrot and nothing else. Then fly as fast as you can to the third soldier and distract him from his explosives in whatever way you can, before continuing to the final pile of dynamite.’
‘Bonne idée.’ Philippe spread his wings and jumped into the air crying, ‘Hallo! Du bist wundervoll! ’ The two soldiers instantly smiled and pointed at the parrot as he zoomed onwards to the third soldier, before they turned away and calmly walked back to their posts.
‘Pip and Leo,’ GI Joe added urgently as Philippe jumped into the air and disappeared into the darkness. ‘I’ll take you to the fourth corner while you and Nancy tackle the third, Madame.’
‘Let’s show these young whippersnappers how it’s done.’ Nancy nudged Madame Fourcade as Pip leaped on to GI Joe’s back and reached out her paw for Leo to climb up. He squeezed it in thanks as he settled behind her.
‘We’ll meet you at the end of the road, chérie,’ Madame Fourcade said, and Pip’s chest tightened as she watched them hurry away.
‘Go, GI!’ Pip cried.
With a furious flap of his wings, the pigeon soared over Nancy and Madame Fourcade, bounding through the gloom towards the third soldier, who had stumbled backwards with surprise, having a parrot perched on his shoulder singing the German national anthem. Flying low, GI Joe rocketed towards the final corner and a lump rose in Pip’s throat, catching a last glimpse of Madame Fourcade and Nancy racing along the ledge to jump on to the third heap of dynamite. Pip closed her eyes and made a wish that no harm would come to them.
As GI Joe completed the loop round the Eiffel Tower and headed towards the flames glowing inside the Grand Palais again, Pip’s stomach plunged.
‘Geh weg! ’ the last so
ldier cried, hurling his arm at Philippe, hopping along the ledge beside him. The parrot leaped away, squawking, ‘Du Stinkstiefel! ’ and circled the darkness above the man, who stubbornly ignored his insults and remained hunched over his machine gun, aimed at the bridge crossing the River Seine below.
Pip glanced over her shoulder for Madame Fourcade and Nancy, and her heart sank, finding no sign of them. Wracking her mind for a way to complete the sabotage before it was too late, suddenly her brain pinged, remembering something that had happened once with her friends Dot and Joe in London.
‘All humans, no matter how big and brave, are frightened of creatures suddenly crawling over their skin,’ Pip said, trying to sound as confident as possible, but, in truth, her idea made her gut churn with fear. ‘I’m going to jump inside that soldier’s collar and distract him while GI Joe flies you to the last explosives.’
‘What? ’ GI Joe balked, wings slowing with shock.
‘That’s crazy, topolina.’ Leo shook his head firmly. ‘We’ll wait for Nancy and Madame Fourcade, and we’ll disarm the dynamite together.’
‘But if this soldier sees or hears us, everything we’ve done will be wasted!’ Pip looked over her shoulder again for the hedgehog and the white mouse, her insides thudding with worry. ‘Something must have happened. It’s up to us to finish this now.’
‘Then let me do the soldier and you do the wires!’ Leo pleaded, his voice cracking with worry.
‘I’ve done it before and I can do it again,’ she cried, speaking rapidly as GI Joe approached the final soldier. ‘It happened once when my friends and I sneaked into the theatre behind the umbrella shop in London. We were trying to get a better view of the stage when I slipped and fell from one of the balconies, right into the back of a man’s collar below.’
She didn’t mention how terrified she’d been scuttling across his shoulders and down his sleeve to escape through the cuff of his jacket. She’d then raced under the seats, blood screaming in her ears, and her friends had tittered for days afterwards.