Shortly before eleven, Julia spotted the van making its way up from the road—the van that had collected the rain forest experts from their supersecret hotel near London Airport.
The four humans set off on the long walk through the majestic rooms that led to the front door. They couldn’t say much on the way, of course, because they knew that some of the furniture was listening, and some of the pictures of mythological weirdos and old dukes and their favorite hunting dogs had their ears wide open.
A posse of footmen was waiting at the front portico, while Mr. Peabody went up and down the line checking that their livery was on straight. And there was Olivia, now wearing a frilly pink dress.
When the van stopped and a footman leapt forward to slide open its door, Megan held up the file folder sign she and Joey had made:
WELCOME
SEA-LEVEL
TASK FORCE
Megan’s mom had met all the experts before at conferences, and as they came up to greet her, or hug her, or kiss her cheek, she whispered, “Sea level,” to Sir Brian, and to Heinrich the zoologist from Germany, and to Pierre the botanist from France, and to Laura the lemur lady from Australia, and to Martin the climatologist from Ghana.
Last out of the van was a tall man in a light-colored suit who needed more than a change of subject for the meeting. He needed a new identity.
“Dr. Patel!” said Susie, sweeping down on him. “So glad you could make it, because your problems in Fiji are so troubling! How much of your country is in danger from rising sea levels?”
From where she was standing, Megan could see her mom’s right eye, which was winking nonstop as she gazed into the ex-president’s face. First that face gazed back with an expression that was totally blank, but then the new Dr. Patel got it.
“Fiji has indeed hundreds of islands,” he said. He spoke English with great care, as if each syllable were a jewel to be polished in his mouth before he’d let it out. “And nearly all of them are threatened.”
He turned back to the van, because emerging from the backseat was a total distraction from sea levels, rain forests, and fake scientists from Fiji. It was a boy. Who’d said anything about a boy? But there he was, grabbing the president’s hand. A boy of about six, wearing an English school uniform.
“I hope you don’t mind that I brought my son Chaz,” said the ex-president. “He is currently living with a relative of mine in London, where he attends an English school.”
“We are delighted to have your little chap as our guest, Dr. Patel,” said Mr. Peabody. “My daughter will entertain him while you are at your meetings. Now, if your party would care to gather in the blue drawing room, morning coffee will be served.”
Except for one problem.
The blue drawing room was on the mouse map. There was one voice-activated microphone behind the Louis the Fourteenth credenza, just below the portrait of a duke’s favorite dog. Another was tucked behind a picture of the tenth duke at the age of three, and the fake snuff box on an eighteenth-century desk housed a motion-activated video camera.
“Thank you,” said Megan’s mom, “but we’d rather start off in our suite, so could you please arrange for coffee to be brought up there? I mean, you have to see our place,” she said to Sir Brian. “It’s a hoot.”
She led the parade back toward the spiral staircase of the South Tower. A parade with Olivia tagging along, talking to Chaz.
Megan hung back to listen.
“You don’t have to go with the grown-ups,” Olivia was saying. “You can come and play with me. I have some toys in my room and you can have lunch with me and then we can play hide-and-seek. Would you like that, Chazzy?”
Trey gave Megan a sharp jab from her pocket, meaning no way they should let the kid out of their sight, because who knew what he might say about his father’s real job, and real name, and real purpose for being here?
The procession had reached the bottom of the spiral staircase when Megan took control. She grabbed Chaz’s hand and said, “Thanks, Olivia,” meaning, “You can get lost now.”
For a moment Olivia clutched at Chaz’s other hand, saying, “But my daddy said! He said I should look after him.”
“Later,” said Megan, and led Chaz up the spiral stairs. But not before Olivia had sung out, “She’s weird, Chaz. She’s not normal. One of the footmen told me. She has a mouse and it’s not like a pet mouse. It’s a pest.”
A footman brought trays of coffee and cookies to the South Tower. As soon as he had gone, all eyes turned accusingly on Susie and Jake.
“For what purpose,” asked Martin, the climatologist from Ghana, “must we hide our true reason for being here?”
“Changing the topic of our meeting, changing my name,” said President Pindoran. “That does not bode well.”
“After all our efforts to preserve secrecy,” said Heinrich the zoologist, putting down his cup as if it too might be spying on him. “After all those cat-and-mouse games that you said would keep us safe. How can this be?”
“Susie, it is well known that you have excellent contacts,” said Sir Brian. “You are able to discover facts about climate deniers, for example, that elude the rest of us. But now, have even you been bamboozled?”
“Yes,” admitted Susie. “Bamboozled is about right. Jake?”
Jake stood up to face the group, his back to the fireplace. He told the group about quilters. Quilters with big hands and stubbly faces. Quilters with hair in places where it doesn’t usually grow on a quilter.
“We double-checked this room,” he continued, “and here, it is safe to talk. But we have a strong suspicion that Loggocorp has planted listening devices in many other corners of this house.”
The experts exploded, in different ways. Pierre and Heinrich said things in French and German that sounded rude. Martin the climatologist shook his head sadly, and Laura the lemur lady flapped her hands as if that could make the unpleasant facts go away.
Ex-President Pindoran reached for his son. “I had thought England to be so safe,” he said. “That is why I sent Chaz to live in London, while the generals have our own country in such turmoil.”
“Let’s just leave!” said Sir Brian. “Let’s just tell that Peabody chap to bring back our van so we can go somewhere else!”
“We can’t leave,” said Susie. “This is where we’ll meet the person from Coconut Man’s family. I got a message. He’ll meet us here today or tomorrow.”
Chaz’s eyes were huge.
“Does Coconut Man have a family?” he asked.
His father gave him a hug.
“The legend of Coconut Man is strong in my country,” he explained. “The children believe that he brings them gifts, much like your Santa Claus.”
“Well, his descendants can give the children the best gift of all,” said Laura, smiling at Chaz. “They can leave the forest intact, so the lemurs can thrive.”
“But with this house full of spies…” Heinrich objected.
“We have the advantage, don’t you see!” said Jake. “That’s where the rising seas come in. You can bamboozle these Loggocorp people.”
“Lull them to sleep,” said Susie.
“Bore them to death,” said Jake. “Feed their microphones with red herrings. Nothing except facts about the ocean. With luck, they’ll give up and go away.”
Megan noticed that for the first time, a few smiles were showing.
“Well, it’s worth a shot,” said Sir Brian.
Martin the climatologist made the obvious objection. “Hours and hours of talk about sea levels?” he asked. “Hands up anyone who feels qualified to do that!”
No hands went up, but they didn’t have to, of course.
“We’ve thought of that,” said Susie. “Joey?”
Joey reached under a seat cushion where he’d hidden the stack of research papers that had come overnight from Cleveland, and handed them to Susie.
“Here are your red herrings,” she said. “All the herrings that Loggocorp can possibly
digest. We can take turns reading these papers aloud in our conference room, which we’re sure is bugged. Then we can come back here to work on the real presentation for Coconut Man’s descendant.”
Laura had gotten up to look through the window.
“We could talk freely outside,” she said, “in these lovely, lovely gardens.”
“Or not,” said ex-President Pindoran, joining her at the window.
Chaz ran over to look.
“It’s some ladies,” he said.
“Very special ladies,” said the president, putting his hands on Chaz’s shoulders. “Come and see, everybody.”
A group of quilters was making its way to the gazebo, an elegant structure like a little bandstand in the middle of the smooth expanse of lawn. Some of them seemed to be working on their disguise a bit harder than necessary, as if this whole quilter caper was hilarious. A tall one was taking tiny steps, occasionally putting up a hand to pat carefully curled gray hair. Two were swaying their hips like caricatures of runway models, and some of the others fell about laughing, looking far more like young men than the middle-aged women they were supposed to be.
The woman in the pink jacket—the only real woman, as far as Megan could tell—ran from one to the other, giving them sharp taps to bring them back into line, looking anxiously for watchers at the palace windows while the actual watchers drew back.
“Clowns!” said Heinrich the zoologist.
“Yes, but dangerous clowns,” said the ex-president. “Dangerous to my country.”
When they reached the gazebo, the quilters swarmed all over it, some standing in clumps to mask what might be going on behind them.
“Bet they’re planting microphones,” guessed Jake. “Probably with sticky backs, so they can put them anywhere, like under those seats.”
“One more habitat for red herrings, don’t you think?” said Sir Brian.
“An excellent place for fish to swim,” said Pierre.
“Fishes?” said Chaz, with a laugh. “Fishes can’t swim in that little house!”
Susie bent down to give him a hug.
“It’s just a figure of speech,” she said. “Megan? Can you explain figures of speech? And maybe play with Chaz while our friends work on the proposal for the Coconut guy?”
“Which had better be good,” said Heinrich grimly.
“Very, very good,” said Pierre, gazing down at the lawn. “Now we know what we are up against.”
Yes, in a palace full of quilters who could offer millions of dollars for the rights to the forest, the proposal to save it would have to be very good indeed.
egan hadn’t expected that her role in saving the rain forest would involve babysitting. Wouldn’t it be better if Joey played with Chaz, teaching him boy stuff like sliding into third base? So she could listen to these great scientists? But Joey had sat down next to his dad as if he were part of the planning group, and was definitely avoiding her eye.
Megan sighed, while Chaz looked up at her expectantly. She grinned at him. It was hard not to, because he was exceptionally cute. But what did six-year-old boys like to do? Board games? Coloring? Hide-and-seek?
There were no board games in this royal room. No nice fat boxes of crayons. And hide-and-seek? No way she could let Chaz loose in the palace, stuffed as it was with quilters. It was Chaz who came up with a suggestion.
“That girl said you have a mouse,” he said.
“I do,” she said. With a silent apology to Trey, Megan fished him out of her pocket.
“Cool,” said Chaz. “Can I hold him?”
All mice know that next to the cat and birds of prey, the most dangerous creature on the planet is the human male between the ages of two and about fifteen. And when Chaz reached out, hoping to pluck the mouse out of Megan’s hand, Trey threw her an anguished look that meant “Communication needed.”
“This is a very special mouse,” she said. “I think he wants to tell me something.”
“Mice can’t talk!” said Chaz with a broad grin, as she held Trey up to her face.
“Make it a game,” he whispered. “Let me go, then tell him to whistle ‘God Save the Queen.’ It’s the same tune as ‘My Country, ’Tis of Thee.’ Remember that one?”
For the first time in the history of the world a mouse hummed to a human.
“Got it,” said Megan. “Okay, Chaz, I’m going to show you one of Mousie’s tricks. He’ll go hide, then all you have to do is whistle ‘God Save the Queen’ and he’ll come running back. You know how that goes, right?”
She whistled the first few bars of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.”
“Course I know it,” said Chaz, as Trey scampered off and vanished behind a tapestry. “We sing it every day at school.”
He puckered up his lips, but whistling wasn’t going to happen, so he sang the tune instead. And a mouse came running back. Not the familiar mouse with a notch missing from his ear where a rat had once chomped it, but a British mouse responding briskly, as they all do, to their national anthem.
It was brilliant. A mouse game that could keep Chaz happy indefinitely, as mouse after mouse sprinted for the tapestry and mouse after mouse came back when he sang out the first bars of their song.
Now Megan was free to listen as the group began work on the presentation they would make when the person from Coconut Man’s family appeared. The presentation that could save the rain forest.
It was after lunch that the first red herrings swam into quilters’ ears.
The rain forest experts were gathered around the table in their designated meeting room, bristling though it was with hidden microphones. Megan and Joey sat in a corner of the room with Chaz, who was busy playing games on a tablet that one of the experts had loaned to him.
The plan worked beautifully. What reached the ears of the quilters was purest herring, as the experts took turns reading journal articles on the rising seas.
Herring One, for example, consisted of facts and figures about the rate of ice melt in Greenland and the Antarctic, and its effect on coastal cities. Herring Two focused on the expansion of water as it warms. Herring Three was about the loss of farmland, as higher tides and storm surges left layers of salt behind.
And Megan could imagine quilters’ heads spinning, because this was surely not what they expected.
The quilters couldn’t know, of course, what the rain forest experts were actually doing while their parade of ocean facts marched by. The whiteboard in the conference room was soon covered with rain forest facts and suggestions for the rain forest’s future, like setting up a foundation that would be run by ex-President Pindoran. Hiring Mariscans to guard the forest and protect the lemurs. Building a lab on the edge of the forest so researchers could study plants that might hold the key to new medicines. Providing an educational center where people from all over the world could learn the importance of keeping the wilderness intact.
At one point Megan felt Trey climb out of her pocket as he went off to check with the central command post in Mouse Hall. When he came back, he worked his way up to her ear to whisper, “It’s working! The quilters are totally flummoxed. Gobsmacked. Yelling at each other. One of them just used Mr. Peabody’s phone to call someone in London. He said it looked like this group wasn’t the one they’d expected after all!”
At about four o’clock, Heinrich carefully rubbed all evidence of rain forest planning from the chalkboard. Sir Brian stood up and yawned loudly.
“It is a little stuffy in here, and the weather is fine,” he said. “A little exercise will wake us up. I suggest that we stroll through these magnificent grounds while we discuss the next topic: protecting coastal cities.”
The first stop on that stroll was the gazebo, where two experts reminded each other of the massive steel walls that spring into place to protect Dutch cities from storms, and another mentioned the barriers that keep the River Thames out of the London streets. Good herrings for the microphones under the seats.
Then it was time for the tru
th stroll, and the group set off across the huge lawn while they discussed the real ideas that had been proposed on the whiteboard inside.
Megan and Joey missed that bit. Chaz was about to explode with the need to run around, and Susie had asked them to play with him. They chased him, pretending he was hard to catch, until he turned out to be really hard to catch, diving into the duke’s maze. When Megan and Joey arrived at the entrance, all they could hear was a distant “You can’t find me!”
Which was followed in a few seconds by a wail. “I’m lost! Come and get me!”
“Let’s just leave him,” said Joey.
“We can’t,” said Megan. Soft whimpering sounds were now emerging from deep in the maze.
“Just sit down and wait, Chaz,” Megan called. “We’re coming.”
They both set off into the maze, with Joey taking the first left and Megan the first right, but it soon became plain that it would be far easier to get totally lost than to find a small boy stuck somewhere in the middle. So they traced their way back to the opening.
“We could fetch his dad,” suggested Joey. “And the others. They could all hold hands so no one gets lost.”
Which looked like the last thing the clump of experts wanted to do now, as they were heading off to the farthest point on the lawn, with Laura the lemur lady walking backward in front of them, waving her arms excitedly to make her point.
“You guys,” said Trey, climbing out of Megan’s pocket.
“What?” asked Joey.
Trey gave him the exasperated look that mice use when humans think they can do things that are plainly better left to another species.
“Give us two minutes to map the maze,” said Trey. “Then have him sing ‘God Save the ’Tis of Thee,’ or ‘My Country the Queen.’ Whatever.”
The mapping didn’t take long. After centuries of living in dark labyrinths under houses and palaces, mice have developed an extraordinary sense of geography, like a built-in GPS. Julia took the left side of the maze, running straight through its dense yew hedges and memorizing its turns and dead ends, while Trey took the right.
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