But it takes a lot.
This mouse was about as tall as a loaf of bread if you stood it straight up and gave it a tail. Her fur was the color of lightly toasted toast, with the exception of her little ears and long tail, which were pink. She was wearing a shiny silk jacket that was the color of emeralds, which matched her eyes. She had big puffy sleeves and gold buttons, and looked very regal.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, with a bit of what seemed like a British accent, her whiskers quivering as she clutched the foam moon with her tiny claws. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“We were just looking for our moon,” Jo said, pointing, “which you seem to have.”
“Oh yes.” The mouse looked down at the moon clutched in her paws. “Quite right, quite right. Yes. I was just . . . taking it for a wee stroll.”
“Oh,” Ripley said. Because why wouldn’t you take a moon for a walk?
Jo stepped forward. “Maybe we should introduce ourselves. I’m Jo.” She pressed her hand against her chest then gestured at the curious campers behind her. “This is April, Mal, and Molly, and the person hugging you right now is Ripley.”
Ripley wasn’t so much hugging the mouse as she was bent over with her arms circled around this amazing mousey creature like a protective halo. It was taking just about every ounce of Ripley restraint for Ripley not to grab this clearly adorable creature and crush it into her chest in a massive hug.
“Hellooooo!” Ripley said, beaming down on the mouse with pure Ripley joy.
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” the mouse said, bowing slightly.
Ripley, sensing the mouse needed space, stepped back, while continuing to beam at her.
“And you are?” Jo asked.
“Ah yes,” the mouse smiled, possibly nervously. “Apologies. I am . . . Castor.”
Castor looked up at the expectant faces lit by flashlights.
“From Saskatoon,” Castor said.
“Saskatchewan,” she added.
“52.1332° N, 106.6700° W?” she added again.
“Huh,” Molly said.
“How specific,” April noted. “And Canadian.”
Jo threw a quick glance at April, who seamlessly caught it and threw a quick one back.
“Didn’t mean to cause a bother,” Castor said, holding out the moon.
“Okay,” Jo said, reaching forward and taking the moon from Castor’s outstretched paw. “Well. Now that we’ve got our moon, we’re going to head back to our cabin. Because it’s late.”
Jo considered. The cave was ice cold and damp, and it did not look like an ideal place to leave anyone, let alone something as sweet and fuzzy looking as Castor. So she said, “You’re welcome to join us.”
“Oh my.” Castor looked around. “I wouldn’t want to put you at any inconvenience.”
“No inconven—” April began.
“IT WILL BE AWESOME!” Ripley gushed, with the best of intentions and a bucket of Ripley exuberance. “You can even sleep on my bunk, because I technically have two bunks so there’s TONS of room!”
“Well, I suppose, if it’s absolutely no trouble,” Castor said, “then, that would be very lovely.”
“YAY!” Ripley sprang forward and swung Castor up on her shoulders. “LET’S GO!”
“Rip,” Jo cautioned, “you have to ask before you swing someone up on your shoulders.”
“Ha ha,” Castor chuckled, grabbing onto Ripley’s shoulder to steady herself. “It’s quite all right. Thank you, Ripley.”
And with that, Ripley was off skipping back to camp with Castor bouncing on her shoulders, her heart bursting with happiness.
April stood next to Jo, who stood next to Mal, who stood next to Molly.
“Recap,” April said. “Talking mouse. Fancy coat. Moon thief.”
“Possibly moon borrower,” Jo noted.
“From ‘Saskatchewan,’ ” April said, using air quotes, which a person generally uses when they don’t fully believe something.
“British accent,” Molly added.
“Canadian accent?” Mal wondered.
It was, admittedly, an odd combination.
But.
“Not the oddest combination we’ve come across,” Molly said.
“So we’re keeping our Lumberjane senses on alert,” April noted.
“Yes, we are,” Jo said. “We’ll also go check in with Rosie in the morning.”
Thinking about Rosie made her think about the letter she still had folded in her pocket. A letter that was, for Jo, figuratively but not actually, even bigger than a talking mouse.
“Won’t Jen, like, immediately notice that we have a talking mouse in our cabin?” Molly added, as they headed back to the cabin.
Jen might have noticed if she was not up to her eyebrows dealing with stuff for Galaxy Wars. She’d left a note for the cabin on her pillow, which read, simply, GO TO SLEEP.
So they did.
Hey. A talking mouse doesn’t mean you don’t still have to get a good night’s sleep.
Within minutes of heads hitting pillows, most of Roanoke, including their newest guest, was sound asleep.
Except for Jo, who lay in bed, thinking.
CHAPTER 15
Recipients of the Lumberjane Time After Time badge know that people who were around a long time ago used the sun and moon to tell time.
The earth going around the sun once = a year.
A full orbit of the moon = a month.
Eventually, to make thing easier and more exact, some scientific types came up with (ta da!) the second.
A second is an actual thing that exists outside whatever it is you use to tell time (cuckoo clock, cell phone, oldtimey pocket watch). Which you can find out more about by looking up the number: 9192631770.
Sixty seconds is a minute. Sixty minutes is an hour. Twenty-four hours is a day. Three hundred and sixty-five days makes a year.
A decade is how long a night feels when you’re nervous about something and don’t know what to do.
Jo had spent her night silently arguing with the letter, still shoved in her pocket, about alternate realities.
Specifically, the letter had made its case for the undeniable benefits of the program it was now calling S.T.A.A.R.
Think of it this way, the letter said, its voice sure, being a scientist is your destiny, correct?
Correct, Jo thought. I mean, I think so.
That’s a yes?
Yes.
So then what’s the problem? The letter seemed on the edge of exasperated.
By the time the sun rose, the voice in Jo’s head was hoarse. And Jo still didn’t know what to do, although she was pretty sure lying awake in bed, arguing with a voice no one else could hear, wasn’t helping.
This is what scientists DO, the letter insisted. They don’t sit around at summer camp getting baking badges and canoeing. They move on and spend their summers in rooms lit with energy-saving bulbs and get down to the matter of improving the world as we know it with knowledge!
But, Jo thought. I don’t want to leave.
Well, the letter began, only to be interrupted by—
“RISE AND SHINE!” April’s eyes peeked over the edge of the bunk. “What are you doing? Let me guess.”
“Thinking,” Jo said quietly, because that seemed to be the most accessible description for what was going on in her head.
April scrunched her eyebrows up in a concerned BFF look that said, but did not say out loud, “I am worried about whatever it is you’re thinking about.”
Jo felt her best friend’s worried gaze like a small weight in her hand.
This is the thing about having a friend with whom you have developed a psychic bond. There’s a part of you that’s always connected to them and vice versa, like a string you cannot break.
It is the greatest and most complicated phenomenon known to scouts, this bond. This string that is endlessly stretchable and able to tie you in knots.
Which is not to say April knew
what to do over on her side of the string, except send Jo an endless stream of psychic emails saying, “I’m here. No matter what.”
“Ready for breakfast?” Jo asked.
Which was weird because when was the last time Jo even ate breakfast?
“I’m ready when you are,” April said.
“Hey,” Mal sat up in bed. “Have either of you seen our fuzzy guest and our blue-haired cabin mate?”
It was early enough that the camp still had that “just woke up” vibe, the sun just starting to turn the sky blue from purple.
Few enough people were up that no one had spotted Castor. Not when she crept out of Roanoke cabin, not when she scurried across the grass to the kitchen, not even as she sat crouched next to the back door of the mess hall, sniffing at the air with her little pink nose, her eyes darting this way and that as she slowly, but surely, crept forward.
No one except . . .
“WHO goes there?” BunBun hollered from behind the screen door. She was dressed in a tinfoil cap and tiger ears and was carrying a drum made out of a can of beans.
“I beg your pardon!” Castor tumbled backward.
“Hey, BunBun! It’s me and my new friend, Castor,” Ripley chirped, appearing from around the corner.
“Oh,” said Castor. “Uh. Yes. Hello.”
BunBun turned and marched back into the mess hall. “I’M VERY BUSY.”
“Your guards are very robust in their duties,” Castor said, nervously rubbing her paws together.
“Ha ha, BunBun’s not a guard!” Ripley pressed her face against the screen. “She’s just awesome.”
Castor looked like she wanted to run. Her tail twitched.
“Are you hungry?” Ripley asked.
“Oh.” Castor twitched her tail again. “Um, not terribly. Just perhaps a mite peckish.”
Ripley grinned. “You like cheese, right? Cuz we have lots of cheese. I like Beemster and Burrata and American Cheddar but there’s regular Canadian Cheddar too if you like.”
“Oh,” Castor said lightly, running a paw over her ear in a casual mousey gesture. “Is there?”
Pushing open the door, Ripley peered inside. “Yeah! Technically we’re supposed to wait for breakfast but sometimes Kzzyzy lets me grab a snack. HEY, KZZYZY!”
“WHAT?!”
Kzzyzy was in an acrobatic flurry of pots and pans, and she barely looked up to see that Ripley had a guest.
“I’m just getting a snack,” Ripley called out.
“Don’t mess up my larder!” Kzzyzy called back over the howling of Mama Cass.
“I’M VERY BUSY!” BunBun shouted from somewhere in the kitchen.
Ripley and Castor wound their way past many mixing bowls and a series of burners, all of which had things furiously bubbling on the top.
“Here is where they keep the bird seed,” Ripley said, as they walked past a room full of barrels.
“Here is where Rosie keeps all her special stuff,” Ripley said, pointing at a door that seemed to have a bit of a green glow coming out from underneath.
“Here’s where we keep all the stuff I think you’ll like,” Ripley said, pushing open a metal door.
Inside were shelves and shelves and shelves of cheese.
So much cheese that the air seemed to be heavy with mozzarella.
Castor’s whiskers quivered. “This is q-quite a supply,” she stammered.
Ripley took a tiny chunk of cheddar from one of the wheels and handed it to Castor. “Here you go!”
“Thank you,” Castor said, as she curled her claw around the slice, her eyes still roaming here and there, taking in the cheese, the door, and the missing padlock that was no longer on the door, because BunBun was using it as a necklace.
Not that anyone had noticed.
Except for Castor.
“We should get going,” Ripley said, stepping out. “Breakfast is soon. There will be tons more food there.”
“Tons. Quite,” Castor whispered, running her claw along the shelf, careful to pick up her tail as Ripley shut the door. “Indeed.”
CHAPTER 16
After breakfast, with Jen busy with Galaxy Wars stuff and nowhere to be found, Roanoke marched over to Rosie’s cabin to ask if Rosie thought it would be okay if Castor stayed in the cabin.
“How long do you plan on staying?” Rosie inquired.
“Oh, a day or two at most.” Castor assured her. “Just passing through.”
“Aw,” Ripley grumbled, hanging her head. “Don’t leave yet.”
“I think a few days is okay. We’ll just need some sort of notice from a parent or guardian to let us know someone knows you’re here,” Rosie said, rubbing her chin.
“Oh, quite right,” Castor nodded. “I could get in touch with someone, yes, of course. My whereabouts on this plan—er, in this place, are certainly known.”
“Excellent,” Rosie boomed, as she coiled a very long silver chain on a rather large spool sitting on her desk. “So a letter of some sort shouldn’t be a problem.”
Castor shook her head. “Certainly not.”
“Well, that was shockingly easy,” Molly said, as they left the cabin. “What do you want to do now?”
“Um . . .” Mal was already stepping away. “I have to go practice my song,” she said.
April had her Surf’s Up badge, which meant spending her day with Seafarin’ Karen.
“Hang ten, dudes!” she called, as she ran to get changed into her board shorts.
Ripley had to work on her Sew Be It badge, although she was sorry to go. “I’ll be back real fast,” she promised Castor, and she bounced off.
Castor adjusted the cuffs on her jacket. “Well then,” she said, looking in the direction of the mess hall and the unguarded cheese, “I suppose I will just acquaint myself with the local grounds while you all are off doing your relative duties.”
“Hey! We could give you a tour!” Molly piped in.
Technically, Molly’s varied experiences with tours of various historic monuments had been that they were pretty dry experiences with plaques and posing next to plaques, but camp was way more interesting than the site of the factory that made the first safety pins, Molly’s father’s favorite.
“That’s a great idea,” Jo said. Because Jo was looking for a distraction from the piece of paper in her pocket, and because Jo wanted to keep an eye on Castor.
“Oh, I don’t want to be a bother,” Castor protested. “I’m sure you have better and more important things to do than to escort me about.”
“Actually,” Jo said, “showing you around is kind of a Lumberjane thing.”
“A Lumberjane . . . thing?” Castor tilted her head.
“Helping,” Jo explained, “is kind of a Lumberjane thing. Like something we try to do as Lumberjanes. Anyway, I’m sure there’s lots of stuff around here that would be of interest to you. What are some of your hobbies?”
“Oh,” Castor scratched her head. “Hobbies? I’m sorry, not familiar with the term.”
“You know,” Molly said, adjusting the slumbering raccoon on her head. “Like the things you like to do, like pottery or, um, painting or whatever?”
Castor squinted. “Sorry. Still not following.”
“Okay, well,” Jo started walking across the grass. “We’ll just start walking around and pointing at things and telling you things and you can shout out any questions.”
Castor gave a tiny mouse shrug and followed Molly and Jo toward the center of camp.
Just about every square inch of the camp was covered in scouts doing what scouts do, including: team jump rope (for the Skip It badge), weaving, boxing, and a round of tai chi.
“So this is a pretty typical day at camp,” Molly said. “Which means it’s pretty kernuts around here.”
Castor wasn’t sure what a kernut was but assumed it was a type of cheese.
Castor squinted and pointed. “What’s that?”
“That’s Jazzercise,” Molly said, holding her hands up and waving her fingers
in demonstration. “Which is not really a word. But it’s like a dance-y exercise, I guess? I believe that move is technically a RuPaul shimmy.”
“Blimey.” Castor’s nose twitched. “And why would you spend your time doing something like that?”
“It’s good exercise,” Jo offered. “Good for flexibility and coordination.”
“And it’s FUN,” Molly said.
Castor hopped over to Jo’s other shoulder and pointed to a figure running through the camp with great speed. “And is that also Jazzysize?”
Jo squinted. “Um. Oh. Actually, I think that’s someone getting chased by a bee.”
“Goodness.” Castor shook her head. Sniffed the air. Pointed. “And are those also for Jazzysize?”
Molly stepped over to where Castor was pointing and picked up a white volleyball, tossing it in the air. “These are volleyball courts.”
“And what do you use the net for?”
“You hit the ball over it,” Jo explained.
“Then what?” Castor ran a paw over her whiskers.
“Well. Then someone hits it back.” Molly said.
“And why do you do that?” Castor wondered.
“It’s a great cardiovascular workout,” Jo began. “Hand-eye coordination . . .”
“And it’s FUN,” Molly added emphatically.
“This is a very strange place,” Castor said quietly. “A strange, FUN planet.”
The last leg of the tour was the arts and crafts cabin.
“And this,” Molly explained, throwing open the doors, “is where we make things!”
Jo put her hand down on one of the tables next to a pile of felt.
Castor crept down her arm, her body twitching. “What . . .” she stammered. “This is . . .”
Castor cautiously crawled up to a bucket of buttons of all shapes and sizes and plunged her paw inside to pull out a large green button the size of her face.
“All of this,” she said, her voice hushed. “You can just… take?”
“Yeah, there’s pipe cleaners and anything long and bendy on this wall, this wall is for round and shiny, this wall is for paint, and this wall,” Molly said, gesturing, “is Ripley’s favorite, THE GLITTER WALL.”
Castor stepped forward and pushed her paw into a bucket of yellow sparkles. “Glitter,” she said, her voice hushed.
Lumberjanes: The Moon Is Up Page 5