Mouse Mission

by Prudence Breitrose

  Megan checked her watch. By now the two mice must be close to the center, so she called out, “Sing ‘God Save the Queen,’ Chaz. And someone you know will lead you out.”

  She expected, of course, a joyous cry of “Mousie,” but that’s not what came from the depths of the maze. Instead it was “God save the…Oh, hallo. Have you come to rescue me? Are you a good witch or something?”

  good witch? For a second Megan wondered if there was some deep secret her mice had kept from her. All their talk about how you don’t need magic when you have mice—was that just to make her think they couldn’t do magic? When secretly they knew how to transform themselves into witches?

  But the voice she heard next was very human.

  “Hold my hand, sonny, and I’ll lead you out,” it said, “even though I’m not exactly a witch!”

  Megan and Joey watched the dark entrance of the maze until a woman emerged leading Chaz—a couple of tears still making wet lines on his cheeks. He broke away and ran to Megan, giving her a hug.

  Megan made herself smile at the woman, who smiled back and said, “So we meet again,” because this was the quilter Megan and her mom had talked to earlier. The one in a bright pink jacket. The one who was an actual woman.

  “Such a dear little boy,” she said, and headed back toward the big house. Chaz ran off to join his father, as the experts made the turn at the far end of the huge lawn and started back toward the maze.

  Joey ran off too, following Chaz, but Megan was in no hurry to go anywhere. She’d just been hit by a huge wave of jet lag and all she wanted to do was to lie down, to be alone, to take a nap on the grass, dry and warm in the soft October sun. She gazed up at the clouds, which looked like the map of Lake Erie…mice…herrings.

  Her eyes were closed and she was almost asleep when she felt Trey coming back from the maze, nesting gently against her neck. But no one could have slept through the arrival of Julia, who jumped onto Megan’s ankle, ran all the way along her body to pull on an ear, then started poking at Trey who said, “Hey, cut it out. What the…? Uh-oh.”

  “What?” said Megan, abandoning all thoughts of a nap. “What do you mean, ‘Uh-oh’?”

  She sat up, and Julia stood in front of her, launching a torrent of MSL, her gestures faster than any Megan had seen her make before. Trey translated: it was the story of what Julia had been doing with those young mice yesterday afternoon. She didn’t want to tell Megan at first, because in a mild way she’d been doing harm to a human, which was a violation of the Treaty Between the Species—the part that read:

  * Mice will never hurt humans.

  But now it all came out.

  When Megan and Joey had returned to the South Tower after the ride yesterday, Julia had slipped away behind the tapestry and down through the walls to Mouse Hall. There, she had asked some young girl mice to lead her to Olivia’s room because she hated the way Olivia had sneered at Megan and Joey that morning. Nobody, no human alive, was allowed to treat Megan like that. To imply that Megan wasn’t properly dressed. Or that she couldn’t properly ride. Or that she wasn’t properly brought up. Whatever.

  As Julia had suspected, the girl mice often visited Olivia’s room, curious about what young human females read, and write, and put up on their walls. Two of the mice led Julia up there. Even better, they helped with one of the more common revenge tricks that mice play on humans—tying unmatched shoes together in a knot that few humans can unpick.

  When that business was done, Julia took a moment to look around. Two things about the room interested her. One was the magnificent quilt on the bed. And the other?

  Trey had reached this part of the translation when he stopped and gazed at Julia in silence for a moment before he turned to Megan.

  “Better save this for when your mom can hear it,” he said. “It’s serious stuff.”

  The experts had almost finished their circumnavigation of the lawn, so it didn’t take Megan long to cut the three Humans Who Knew out of the pack.

  “Can’t it wait?” Susie asked. “We were just deciding what point to make first when son of Coconut Man shows up, or great-great-grandson—whatever.”

  She was looking more cheerful than she had for weeks, and Megan hated to squelch her good mood.

  “Sit,” she said. “Julia has something very important to tell us.”

  The humans sat on the grass with their backs to the experts as Trey translated the rest of Julia’s story.

  There was a photograph on Olivia’s dresser. A picture of a woman working on the quilt that was now on Olivia’s bed, with the message, “For darling Olivia. From Auntie Flo.”

  “And it was the same woman,” Julia continued. “The quilter who was in the maze, where she was probably planting a bug.”

  “She’s the one we talked to yesterday, Mom,” said Megan. “The real woman.”

  “That quilter?” exclaimed Susie, her voice squeaky. “Olivia’s aunt is a quilter? So the Peabody family’s involved in this? That must be how Loggocorp knew we were here—from Peabody. But what’s his connection to Loggocorp?”

  Joey’s imagination was off and running. “Maybe Loggocorp wants to cut down all the duke’s trees.” He waved at the beech woods, marching up to the creek that bordered the huge lawn. “And it’s Peabody’s job to get the duke to sell them.”

  “That would be too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?” said Jake. “If Loggocorp just happened to have an ally here?”

  “Maybe,” said Susie. “But he’s here! For whatever reason. That’s what we have to deal with. And maybe it’s not just him. Maybe all those footmen are working for Loggocorp too. All those maids.”

  “We’d better tell the duke,” said Jake. “Tell him his palace is riddled with spies.”

  “Hey, maybe he’s already in on it too,” said Joey. “Maybe he’s being paid off by Loggocorp. He needs money, remember, to keep up this place. Maybe that was his own red herring, when he said he was worried about climate change.”

  That brought everyone up short. Megan gazed at the huge house. All those windows gazing back, and behind each one a spy? Including those windows on the far right, the ones in the North Tower?

  “We’ll ask Sir Quentin,” said Trey. “He’s on watch in the duke’s apartment.”

  “D’you think Sir Quentin would notice anything?” said Joey. “D’you think he’d ever be suspicious of his precious duke?”

  Trey gave him a very sharp look. “Five is a mouse,” he said curtly.

  Yes, and mouse instincts always take precedence over behavior that a mouse has learned. In a battle between Sir Quentin and the underlying mouse, the basic mouse would come out on top, even if it meant betraying a duke.

  “I won’t tell the others about the Peabodys,” said Susie. “It would be hard to explain how we knew, without the mouse part. I’ll take everyone back to our room as if nothing has happened. We’ll keep working on that presentation and hope the Coconut guy shows up soon, so we can get out of here.”

  A couple of maids delivered trays of tea with crumpets and Marmite sandwiches to the South Tower, but there was one problem (besides the Marmite, which got Pierre launched on a long speech on how only the British would eat that sludge left over from the process of brewing beer).

  The problem was Chaz. He’d recovered enough from his adventure in the maze to be bored out of his skull. He kept tugging at his father’s knee, or elbow, and whining, “There’s nothing to do.” A classic six-year-old pain in the butt.

  “Megan?” called out Susie. “You and Joey. Can you…?”

  Megan sighed, because from the scowl on Chaz’s face, it would require more than a few rounds of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” to entertain him.

  “We could take him off to explore,” she said, picking up her jacket and trailing it behind the couch where Julia and Trey had been hiding, so they could climb into pockets.

  “An excellent idea,” said the ex-president. “But I suggest that you not go outdoors, my son, so t
hat no maze can suck you in.”

  It was a bit like a maze indoors too, after they’d marched Chaz through the tourist part of the house, answering his questions—more or less—about the things that were happening in some of the stranger pictures.

  Once they reached the last of the rooms with red velvet ropes—a pink parlor for the use of past duchesses—there was a decision to make. Whether to turn back the way they had come or to make a circle, threading their way back through narrow passages that led past the kitchen. Then past the quilters.

  “Better go straight back,” said Megan, whispering because who knew what piece of furniture, what picture, might be listening?

  “Oh, come on,” whispered Joey. “We have to act natural, remember? We don’t suspect a thing!”

  So they took Chaz through the back part of the house, past the kitchen and the servants’ hall, where a clinking of cups suggested that it was teatime there too. Then on past the game larder with its rows of dead pheasants, past the room full of guns, past the broom closet that hid the entrance to Mouse Hall.

  And straight into disaster.

  It came in the form of Aunt Flo, emerging from the quilters’ room. She broke out a huge smile at the sight of Chaz.

  “Hallo, my friend!” she said. “I think I see a little boy who would like some chocolate cake.”

  unt Flo grabbed Chaz’s hand and marched him briskly back the way they had come. Megan and Joey could only follow them into a room where people in various uniforms and liveries were sitting around a long table drinking tea. Yes, there was chocolate cake. There was also Olivia, eating a small and ladylike piece of it.

  “Hello, guys,” said John the footman. “Didn’t fancy those Marmite sandwiches? Can’t blame you for that. Here, have some cake.”

  Megan and Joey looked at each other. It couldn’t hurt, could it, sitting down for a few minutes? If they kept Chaz between them, kept him safe?

  Except for one thing. Except for the conversation, which was hard to control, especially when a round woman who seemed to be a cook asked, “And what have you been up to this afternoon, little man?”

  “Making fishes with my daddy,” said Chaz, his mouth full. “Red herrings for the Coconut Man.”

  Megan and Joey looked at each other, aghast.

  “It’s a game we play in America,” said Joey quickly. “Make the fish and win a coconut.”

  “It’s really fun,” said Megan, her fingers crossed to cover the lie. “Someone makes a cardboard fish, which can be any color and any sort of fish—I like it best when it’s a trout. A blue trout. One person is the fisherman and that person hides the fish…”

  She looked around. Most of the people around the table were listening solemnly, with the slight smile English people get when they think Americans are being strange. Except Aunt Flo, who looked as if someone had lit a lightbulb above her head.

  “What’s that Coconut Man called, Chaz?” she asked.

  “That’s a secret!” said Chaz. “But I think my daddy knows.”

  Megan put her hands in her pockets for a quick stroke of Trey and Julia, who had come along for the ride. Should she bring one of them out? Set off enough EEEEKing so everyone would scatter and they could escape and Chaz could do no more damage?

  Joey jumped in with his own rescue attempt.

  “What are you talking about, Chaz?” he said. “The coconuts’ names aren’t secret! There’s Fred and Harry. And Sarah. That gets you the highest score, remember? When you win the Sarah coconut?”

  Yes, the maids and the footmen and the cook were properly fooled. But Aunt Flo was leaning forward as if a new question was coming, and Megan knew that they had to get Chaz out of there now. Before he said anything more specific about coconuts in general and the descendants of Coconut Man in particular.

  “Look at the time!” she said. “Gotta go now. Bye, everyone, and thanks for the cake.”

  She grabbed one of Chaz’s arms as Joey grabbed the other, and they ran him out of the room, turning south toward their tower and safety.

  They’d underestimated Chaz, though. They hadn’t gone far when he wriggled free, roaring, “I didn’t finish my cake,” and sprinted away at top speed. Megan and Joey took off after him, of course, as he headed back toward the servants’ hall. But they weren’t the ones to stop him.

  Chaz had disappeared around a corner, barely ten feet ahead of them, when they heard an awful sort of splat, followed by a wail of pain and a gruff, “I say, old chap, are you all right?”

  As Megan and Joey raced around the corner, there was the duke. His Grace. Billy. Sitting in his wheelchair with Chaz on his knee, howling.

  “Rotten show, what?” said the duke. “Poor little fellow. Ran into my wheelchair. Confounded thing has a mind of its own. Couldn’t find the brakes.”

  Chaz had a gash on his knee, and his blood was dripping onto the duke’s tweed trousers.

  “I’ll take him up to my quarters in the North Tower,” said the duke. “Would you like that, little man?” He was speaking now in the sort of soft voice people use on babies. “I’ll mend your knee and give you a treat, to make up. Would you like some chocky bickies? And some sweeties?”

  “We’d better take him back to his dad,” said Joey.

  “Nonsense!” said the duke. “His father’s a busy man, saving the oceans. I’ll make his knee as good as new. Come along.”

  They should have insisted, of course. That was their first big mistake—not insisting. But how do you insist with a duke? In his own palace?

  They had to trot to keep up as the duke motored along the passages that led to the North Tower. While they ran, they noticed movement at the back of the wheelchair, and a mouse stuck his head out of the bag hanging there. Sir Quentin? Megan tried to remember the MSL for “Who are you?” but the duke was rolling into an elevator, and she and Joey had to run to get in with him before it groaned its way up to the second floor.

  The elevator disgorged them straight into the duke’s sitting room, which was furnished with slightly shabby chairs and couches in patterns that did not match, grouped around a fireplace where logs were burning.

  Megan tried, one more time.

  “We’d really better take Chaz back to…”

  “What?” said the duke. “And have the little chap bleeding like a stuck pig all over my house? He’s not going anywhere until I’ve patched him up and he’s had his chocky bickies.”

  As the duke rolled into his bathroom to look for a Band-Aid, with Chaz still on his knees, the mouse who’d been riding on the wheelchair jumped onto the coffee table and made a little bow to Megan and Joey. And yes, it was indeed Sir Quentin.

  “Welcome to what I almost think of as my own abode,” he whispered. “I was outraged when a messenger from Mouse Hall asked me whether His Grace might be in cahoots with the villains under his roof! I have been able to scrutinize His Grace at every turn and can report that in my view he is above suspicion!”

  “Good work, Sir Q!” whispered Joey. “So your job here’s kind of done, right? Well, I have another one for you—to take a message to my dad.”

  He looked over at Megan, who nodded. Yes, some talking mouse should definitely tell their parents where they were and reassure them that Chaz was in good hands.

  At the prospect of leaving his duke, Sir Quentin drooped.

  “I had been hoping to find further proof exonerating His Grace,” he said. “To ensure that not one thread of suspicion should besmirch his good name.”

  Julia gave him an exasperated look and launched into a burst of MSL.

  “She’ll go,” Trey translated, “because I’d better stick with you guys, just in case. She’ll fetch Ken from Mouse Hall and get him to tell your parents.”

  Julia gave Megan a quick farewell nuzzle and sprinted for the duke’s kitchen, because kitchens nearly always have a gap under the counters that leads to the mouse system of trails behind the walls.

  And it wasn’t until she had gone that Megan’s mind cli
cked onto what Trey had said. He’d better stay with them just in case? In case of what? But before she could ask, the duke emerged from his bathroom with Chaz still on his knee and still bleeding.

  “Don’t seem to have the right sort of sticky plasters here,” said the duke, rolling over to tug on the long bellpull beside his fireplace. As always happened, a human appeared—a footman this time, but one whom Megan didn’t recognize. Nor did the duke.

  “You’re the new chap, what?” he asked.

  “I am, Your Grace,” said the man, and Megan got the feeling that he hadn’t yet been fitted for his permanent footman outfit, because the one he was wearing looked a bit tight.

  “Take this little man down to the first-aid room and ask someone to patch up his knee,” said the duke. “Then bring him back for his chocky bickies.”

  “I want Megan to come with me,” said Chaz, and she stood up, but the duke waved for her to sit down again.

  “I want, I want,” he said. “We can’t have everything we want in this world. Run along like a good little man while I talk to these young Yanks.”

  Later, Megan wondered how she and Joey could possibly have let Chaz go like that? But when a duke gives you orders, it’s hard to disobey, and she and Joey sat obediently while the duke asked them about America. Was it anything like all those programs on the telly? The Simpsons, for example. “Don’t suppose your ladies really have blue hair, what?” And the food? What exactly was a milkshake? And a Sloppy Joe? American football, now. He’d seen it once on television.

  “Team kept stopping the game for some kind of debate! Never saw such a thing!” he was saying, when Megan finally got the courage to be rude, and stood up.

  “If you don’t mind, we’d better go and find Chaz,” she said.

  “I say, time has flown,” said the duke. “I wonder what’s keeping the little fellow. Perhaps you should check up on him. He’ll be in the first-aid room next to the scullery. That’s where we patch up the trippers when they trip. I say, that’s not a bad joke, what? Trippers tripping? If he’s not there, he’s probably in the servants’ hall with everyone making a big fuss over him. Dear little chap.”