Mouse Mission

by Prudence Breitrose

  “Your dad’s really good,” said Megan.

  Emily sighed. “Yeah, but he can’t seem to sell anything.” She reached for a flash drive and stuck it in her computer. “He said it would be so great if you could show it to your uncle. Maybe he can help my dad to, you know, get someone interested? Do you mind?”

  Megan felt chills like little mouse feet running up and down her spine. Here it came, the dropping of the other shoe. Jeff Crumline’s attack. Faceless at work. Whatever. A game that was hard to resist, a game that was designed to suck the brains out of Uncle Fred’s computer, then Jake’s computer, and her mom’s, and from there to the computers of every rain forest expert in the world. An attack on all Loggocorp’s enemies in one go.

  It didn’t take long for Emily to copy the game onto the flash drive and hand it over.

  “You can give the flash drive back tomorrow,” she said.

  Right. When it would be too late for some computers at least. When the damage had been done.

  Megan forced herself to smile and say, “Thanks” as she took the tiny flash drive and put it in her pocket. Then she watched as Emily seemed to sigh with relief, like a kid who’d finished a job for her dad and could get back to her own life.

  “Want to play a video game?” she asked, pointing to a console in the corner. “I’ve got a new one about a girl detective. It’s really cool.”

  “In a minute,” said Megan. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “It’s down the hall,” said Emily. “I’ll show you.”

  “I saw it,” said Megan. “Be right back.”

  Out in the hallway, she opened the door to the bathroom, then closed it again from the outside. Then she grabbed her backpack from the table near the front door and hurried into a room she’d glimpsed when they came into the house, a room full of computers. She moved aside a couple of the books that were loosely stacked on the shelves that covered one wall and lifted up the cargo from the caboose, piece by piece: two mice, one ball of herbs, one empty plastic bag for poop, one full bag of cheese crackers, and a Thumbtop that had been wiped clean of almost everything except its camera.

  “Can those mice send a message, at least?” Megan had asked.

  “Sure,” said Uncle Fred. “When they’re ready to be picked up.”

  “What if the Crumlines find them before that?” asked Megan.

  “Then they’d have to push the Doomsday button,” he said.

  Ah yes, the Doomsday button. Every Thumbtop in the field had one so that if by chance a mouse clan knew their Thumbtop was about to fall into the hands of Snuggles, they could send a last urgent message to Headquarters. Then they’d kill the computer with one click, leaving nothing for the humans to find but an empty case with no brain.

  “Bye, guys,” whispered Megan. “Good luck. We’ll get you out in a couple of days.”

  ’m proud of you,” said Susie Fisher, grinning for the first time in days.

  She was sitting in the kitchen when Megan came back from Planet Mouse, where she’d left the little flash drive at the top of the stairs for the IT mice to study.

  “I’m not proud of me,” said Megan. “It’s not Emily’s fault that her dad’s such a creep.”

  “So maybe you two really can be friends!” said her mom. “When all this is over.”

  Megan gave her The Look. That famous mouse look, that silent, chilling glare that can freeze certain mammals in their tracks. And it sort of worked.

  “Okay, okay,” said her mom. “It’s your life. Right?”

  And that life wasn’t too easy for Megan the next day, because Emily acted as though they could really be friends, as if everything that happened at her house was normal, as if that little flash drive really did hold only a cool game. When there was no way, right? It must be awash with viruses, stuffed with secret commands.

  Maybe Emily didn’t know what her dad was up to? Because she asked Megan if they could hang out after school again today.

  Luckily it really was Megan’s day for mousekeeping at the factory, filling the food bowls and emptying the poop. So she could honestly say she was busy without the risk of going red, which happened all too often when she had to lie.

  Emily’s smile vanished so fast that Megan felt guilty enough to say, “How about next Tuesday?”

  The grin on Emily’s face was embarrassing. Nobody should be so needy.

  Normally the report on the flash drive would have been sent to the humans by e-mail, but all e-mails between mice and humans had stopped until further notice, for reasons of security. So it was a messenger mouse who rang the Incoming bell that night with a Thumbtop strapped to his back.

  Susie peered at the screen of the Thumbtop through the magnifying glass that she wore around her neck.

  “Oh no!” she exclaimed. Then laughed, because what she read out was:

  Flash drive is clean except for good game (now on our Web site for general mouse use).

  “What!” exclaimed Megan, as her worldview—and in particular her Emily-view—readjusted itself, and she went a bit red. “So when Emily was searching through my computer—”

  “Probably just wanted to find out what girls like you are interested in, like she told you,” said her mom, with a slightly smug smile. “When are you seeing her again?”

  “Tuesday,” said Megan in a small voice.

  But Tuesday never happened. At least not in this hemisphere.

  It was early the next afternoon that the mice on the Crumlines’ bookshelf sent out their signal. Mayday, mayday. Help. The herb smell must be wearing off, because the cats had started to look up at the bookshelf in a way that might make the humans suspicious.

  This time it was Joey’s turn, which is why at about four o’clock he just happened to be pedaling past the Crumlines’ house with his basketball under one arm when he spotted the antique hoop that Megan had described, clinging to the eaves.

  And when he just happened to feel the need to use that hoop, the sound of his bouncing ball brought out Ryan, blinking in surprise. Of course he joined in, in his clunky little-kid way, but Joey did almost all the running around, which meant he got all sweaty. Then it was the most natural thing in the world to ask for a drink of water, and go into the house for it, and while he was there to wander into the room full of computers, saying, “Man, your dad really has some cool stuff.” It was perfectly natural too to stand with his back to the bookshelf so that two mice and a Thumbtop and two plastic bags and a bundle of herbs could tumble gratefully into the hood of his sweatshirt.

  Back at Planet Mouse, Joey ran up the stairs and sat down on the fourth stair from the top, leaning back so the mice could unload themselves from his hood, and hand over the precious Thumbtop to the IT team that was waiting for it.

  It was after dinner at The Fishery. Everyone was a little tense, waiting for word from Headquarters—word about Jeff Crumline and what really went on in his computer room.

  Megan was loading the dishwasher while mice cruised the tabletop for crumbs from the apple pie that her mom had bought from a store, because with all this tension, neither she nor Jake felt like cooking.

  Savannah had decided to spend the evening with her humans. As she put it, “I don’t want to be anywhere near the Big Cheese right now, not after what he did to me and my poor Larrykins. If I saw him I might just puke!” (which was safe to say because puking is something mice can’t actually do).

  Sir Quentin too had taken refuge in The Fishery as he nursed his disappointments over the canceled gala. It was beneath his dignity to hunt for crumbs, so he was sitting on a countertop reading an old copy of Shakespeare’s plays that Jake had saved from college.

  Was the bell for incoming unusually loud? Certainly all the humans jumped and ran to the corner of the room as Trey shot out of the tunnel. They were summoned. Immediately. Megan couldn’t get any more out of him as he rode on her shoulder over to Planet Mouse.

  It was Joey who ran up the stairs to collect the old birdcage, which was bulging w
ith mice because the Big Cheese had ordered three of his directors to ride with him. He introduced the Director of Information Technology, as you’d expect. The Director of Security—also no surprise. But the Director of Transportation?

  “May we ask who is to be transported where?” asked Jake, when the Big Cheese had made the introductions.

  “All in good time,” said the Big Cheese, as Trey translated. “Stay tuned. First, let us share the photographs of the Crumline computer, the screenshots, if you will. Here.”

  He pushed a Thumbtop toward the door of the cage. Uncle Fred connected it to the monitor in the corner of the office so the screenshots would be big enough for humans to see.

  To Megan it didn’t make much sense at first: pages of computer code that could all have been games, as far as she knew. But then came e-mails. E-mails about listening devices. E-mails about rain forests. E-mails from Loggocorp. The smoking gun.

  “These e-mails give us ample evidence of Mr. Crumline’s involvement in Faceless, and evidence also that his son was assisting him,” said the Big Cheese. “However,” he added, with a look in Megan’s direction, “Miss Megan will be glad to hear that the young female knew nothing of this. Indeed, our operatives report that the father made it very clear to the son that the girl-child must be kept in ignorance.”

  According to one e-mail, someone was profoundly disappointed that Jeff Crumline had failed to find out through that Fisher woman what exactly Sir Brian was planning with regard to the Marisco rain forest. Loggocorp would have to redouble its efforts to get information about Sir Brian’s plans the old-fashioned way—by hiring humans in Great Britain to follow his group, starting at the hotel near the airport where they had arranged to assemble.

  “As you know, Sir Brian has arranged for trusted students to meet the rain forest experts at the airport and drive them to a certain hotel,” said the Big Cheese. “That hotel may now be compromised, so the British branch of the Mouse Nation has made reservations at a different one. From there the experts will be driven to the location where they will meet Coconut Man’s descendant, as originally planned.”

  “Great,” said Susie, reaching out to Uncle Fred to borrow his phone. “If you give me the name of that new hotel, I’ll get a message to…”

  “Put away the phone,” said the Big Cheese, with the sign for a slight smile. “We have a better solution. One as old as time. We suggest that you should tell Sir Brian in person.”

  “What, me?” said Susie. “Go to London?”

  “Why not?” said the Big Cheese. “It is my belief that your presence there will be immensely valuable, both for your contributions to Sir Brian’s group and as a liaison with the British branch of the Mouse Nation. Because it is they, of course, who will introduce the group to the descendant of Coconut Man. A person who can make decisions for the whole family. To allay suspicion, we will also purchase a ticket for you, Mr. Jake. You can let it be known that this is what humans call a second honeymoon.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Jake, with a huge grin. “Fred, you can move into our house for a few days, right? Keep an eye on the kids?”

  “Not this kid,” said Joey.

  “Huh?” said Jake and Susie together.

  “Remember, Dad? When you went to that trade show in Paris last year? You absolutely promised I could come the next time.”

  Megan laughed. “And Mom definitely promised that the next time she goes to Europe, I’m coming too.”

  Susie Fisher put her head in her hands for a moment, but when she looked up she was grinning.

  “When do we go?” she asked.

  Thanks to the Transportation Department and the Mouse Nation’s credit card (in Uncle Fred’s name), the humans didn’t have to bother with details like booking plane tickets and rental cars. That left time for them to dig out their suitcases and find their passports and clean socks. And it left time for Lakeview Middle School to give its permission, and for teachers to set up homework assignments.

  Even in the bustle of getting ready, you couldn’t miss what was going on with the mice, who would all have to be left behind. It was Britain’s fault, because of its strict laws to keep the disease of rabies out of their country. As the mice knew, if a dog or a cat sets one paw on British soil it is whisked off to quarantine for months unless it has a special passport. And pet mice? Forget about it. No way a mouse can get into Britain unless he (or she) is part of a batch headed straight for a research laboratory.

  Julia was looking particularly sad. Ever since she and Megan had met just over a year ago, they’d hardly ever been apart. When the humans had a final meeting with the Big Cheese, Julia was crouched on Megan’s right shoulder leaning against her neck in the comfort position. Trey was in the comfort position on her left shoulder, and Sir Quentin, who was interpreting for the Big Cheese, drooped.

  “You will be provided with an interpreter who will enable you to communicate with British mice,” the Big Cheese said. “Talking Mouse Ten will join you at London Airport.”

  Though that’s not the way it came out from Sir Quentin. Something about a designated representative of the murine population of that sceptered isle, spoken in a voice almost too soft and sad and envious for them to hear.

  While the humans were doing their final packing, the Big Cheese felt more serene than he had for days. His security team and his IT team would continue to work on the rain forest case, of course, to keep his humans and their secrets safe. But the need for “all paws on deck” was over, which was good because ever since he’d postponed the Megan Day show, morale around Headquarters had taken a hit.

  “The Youth Chorus is acting up,” the Director of Media told his boss. “It’s hard for the Master of Mouse Music to control them. One of the Mousettes ate her pom-pom. And Talking Mouse Seven, Savannah. Remember what Victorian heroines used to do?”

  The Big Cheese thought back to the course on Human Literature that all mice take online. “They swooned?” he suggested. “Got the vapors?”

  “Vapors is about right,” said the director. “She’s on the set, lying on the couch, looking as if her world has ended. Oh, and Cleveland Mouse 42, the one they call Larry, is lying on the ground beside her. Could be dead, if you didn’t know better.”

  The Big Cheese smiled. “Since our humans will now be in charge of their own destiny,” he said, “we can spare enough mouse power to proceed with the show. Please spread the word that rehearsals will start anew. We still have time before Megan Day.”

  Savannah leapt off her couch, Larry sort of reinflated himself, and Curly along with him. They rushed through the pipe-tunnel to The Fishery with the news that at least the mice who were taking part in the gala show were happy.

  he humans were gathered in the kitchen of The Fishery, in the chaos of departure. Curly, Larry, and Savannah had said their good-byes and sprinted back to Headquarters for rehearsals. But Sir Quentin, Trey, and Julia were lined up on the kitchen table, all with the droop to their whiskers that you’d expect. The droop of mice about to be abandoned.

  “Maybe we could smuggle them into England,” said Joey.

  “Are you kidding?” said Susie. “Do you know what would happen if we were caught? The British are so strict about animals coming in! The mice would probably be killed. And we might go to jail.”

  So it was good-bye. When Uncle Fred drove up, ready to take the humans to the airport, Megan gave Sir Quentin a soothing scratch behind the ears and lifted Julia up for a good-bye nuzzle, nose to nose.

  Then Trey.

  But Trey didn’t want the usual nose-to-nose farewell. Instead he whispered, “Ear,” and when Megan put him on her shoulder he whispered something that was not good-bye at all. Something more like, “See ya.”

  “What? What? What?” Megan whispered, but Trey had wriggled free. She looked around to see if there were any more clues. Any changed expressions on a mouse? No, all three were apparently still sunk in gloom. But could that be a wink from Uncle Fred? And once everyone was in h
is car, what did it mean when he dashed back into the house for a shopping bag, saying he’d be doing his marketing on the way home, even though the bag looked as if it had something inside it already?

  As Uncle Fred gave Megan a last hug at the airport, he whispered instructions. In forty-five minutes precisely, she should put her backpack down in the corner of a certain gift shop, next to the pile of newspapers.

  It didn’t take long to go through security. Plenty of time for Megan to saunter into the gift shop and put her backpack down for a moment beside the pile of newspapers in the corner. She stood as close to the backpack as possible, trailing her jacket over it so no one would see the shapes darting out from behind the newspapers—one of them dragging an empty plastic bag—and into the caboose that was conveniently open.

  After that, in the short night over the Atlantic Ocean, Megan saw nothing of mice, felt nothing, heard nothing except for some brief whispers as they flew into the dawn, a voice in her ear that told her what should happen after they landed.

  If there’s one thing that helps cope with jet lag it’s the knowledge that your backpack is illegal and that you’ll have only a few seconds to fix it.

  This time it wasn’t a gift shop that Megan had to look for. There weren’t any in this part of London Airport: just endless corridors, one much like the other. At last Megan saw what she’d been told to expect, a huge poster proclaiming that London was the capital of the world, with a small construction site just beyond it. It was there that weary passengers trooping toward the immigration hall saw an eleven-year-old girl put her heavy backpack down for a minute and pull a jacket out of it, taking just a little longer than she needed.

  Then all Megan had to do was to throw the plastic bag from the caboose into the trash. No point trying to explain mouse poop to the customs guys.

  As the humans passed through immigration and waited for their bags, Megan started to get nervous. Not about the customs guys, but about her parents. How would they feel about the risk she’d taken, smuggling mice into England? The risk that their friends might be caught, and exterminated?