Young Fredle

  Because he was watching so warily, he saw the shadow moving across the openings. Once again, fear conquered him. He froze in watchful terror as the shadow filled up one opening and then thrust itself in.

  “I bet you’re glad to see me,” it said, in a voice that was almost familiar.

  It was a mouse.

  5

  Bardo

  Fredle’s legs gave way beneath him and he sank down onto the soft floor.

  “You’re frightened,” the other mouse remarked, amused, and that irritated Fredle, so he stood up, tail high. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Not if I was you,” the mouse said. “If I was a fat, strong house mouse like you? I wouldn’t be afraid of anything. Especially not of me.”

  Now that Fredle had calmed down a little, he noticed that this was the scrawniest mouse he’d ever seen, and that the little brown fellow had an orange peel under his front paws. Fredle relaxed. “Are you the one who’s been bringing me food?”

  “I sure am. You house mice don’t know anything about finding food, so I’m helping you out, since winter’s over and starvation isn’t a problem for the rest of us.”

  “Then thanks,” Fredle said. “Except for that I just had those stalks for—”

  “Stalks?”

  “The ones just outside the wall. The wall you came through.”

  “That’s a lattice, not a wall.”

  “Oh. A lattice. OK,” Fredle said. “Just past the lattice, then, there used to be stalks but now they’ve all been cut down and—”

  “Grass,” said the little mouse. “It’s grass. You have to be pretty desperate to eat grass.”

  “I was sick.”

  “You know? I’ve seen dogs do that. Eat grass. And I’ve heard it said—but everybody says it’s one of those old stories, you know—that when dogs eat grass something’s wrong with them.”

  “I think it made me feel better,” Fredle said.

  “Name’s Bardo,” said the other mouse. “What’s your handle?”

  “Handle?”

  “What you go by? What they call you and you answer? Your name.”

  “Oh. Fredle.”

  This was a strange encounter and Fredle felt that he didn’t understand what was going on. All he could do about it, however, was learn new words. “What’s winter?” he asked.

  “Winter’s cold, there’s snow covering the ground. It’s almost impossible to forage in winter, besides the usual dangers like the cats, or some raptor.”

  “Raptor? What’s a raptor?”

  “A bird of prey,” Bardo answered, with a long, patient sigh. “You know, owls or hawks, eagles. You know what a bird is?”

  Fredle didn’t say anything.

  Bardo sighed again. “Birds.” He thought. “Birds are covered in feathers—but you probably don’t know what a feather is.”

  Fredle didn’t.

  “Feathers,” Bardo said. “Feathers cover birds, like our fur covers us. It’s like if we had blades of grass all over our bodies.”

  That sounded impossible to Fredle, but he didn’t say so.

  Bardo went back to take a quick look out through the lattice wall. Peering out, he said, “Birds have two legs, like the humans, but they don’t just go along the ground. They mostly go up into the air.”

  “They jump?” Bardo was shaking his head as he turned around to come back to where Fredle stood.

  “No, birds have wings, long, flat, broad things, one going out at each—I’ll show you, there’s always some crow around, a crow’s your typical bird. The point is that birds fly through the air, which means they can come at you out of the air, down from the sky. The raptors have long talons for catching mice.” He turned to face Fredle and held up his paws, showing his sharp nails.

  Fredle didn’t need to ask him about talons. He could imagine.

  “And they screech.” Bardo waited. There was a long silence as they stared at one another. Then, “That nest of yours,” Bardo said. “It’s just a hole in the ground.”

  “You mean, in the floor?”

  “I mean in the ground, soil, dirt. I thought you house mice liked things comfortable, but you haven’t even lined that hole in the ground with grass.”

  “So what if I like things comfortable?”

  “I’m just telling you you’d better bring in some grass before it dries out in the sun and gets stiff, or gets rained on and starts to rot. That’s my advice. Or you could hightail it back up the steps to the porch, ha-ha.”

  There were so many new words, Fredle didn’t even know which ones were important to ask the meanings of. “Porch? Steps? Sun?”

  “Don’t you know anything?” Bardo laughed. “The porch is what you came down from, down the steps. I saw. Missus was carrying you.”

  “I didn’t see you. Where were you?”

  “I happened to be in the area. I’ll tell you, Fredle, I didn’t have much hope for you. I’ve never seen a mouse look so gray.”

  “All house mice are gray,” Fredle told him. Now he went over to an opening. What had Bardo been looking for, or looking at, out there?

  “I know that, but you looked grayer.”

  “Are all of you field mice that brown color?”

  “If we weren’t, we’d be easy pickings at night,” Bardo told him.

  Finally there was something Fredle knew about. “But night’s the safe time for foraging,” he explained.

  “You’re talking about inside, where the living is easy,” Bardo answered. He was a restless creature, uneasy, and he had begun pacing back and forth between the lattice and Fredle. “You don’t know anything about real life, you house mice. Food is left out for you, inside, all you have to do is pick it up and eat. I’ve heard the stories. I know.”

  “There is a cat,” Fredle pointed out.

  “An indoor cat,” said Bardo, scornfully. “Until you’ve gone up against the barn cats, you don’t know anything about how bad a cat can be. Those barn cats take on rats.”

  Fredle had heard about rats, which were giant mice, smart and strong, with a reputation for being vicious.

  “Field mice are entirely different from you house mice,” Bardo said. “That’s why we’re different colors, to show how different we are.”

  Fredle had always thought a mouse was a mouse, and that all mice were pretty much alike. In his experience, all mice needed food and a home and the company of other mice. Now he wondered if Bardo knew something he didn’t. He went up close to the field mouse to ask, “In what ways? How are we different?”

  They were talking nose to nose, while around them the light faded. “I have to go,” Bardo announced. “I’ll come back and I’ll bring more food when I do, so you stay right here. I’m your go-between.”

  “Go-between between me and who?” Fredle asked, to delay the time when he would be alone again. “Between me and what?”

  Bardo was already out beyond the lattice, but he stuck his head back through the opening to advise Fredle, “You should go get yourself some of that new-cut grass. It’ll make a softer nest than dirt.” And he was gone.

  Fredle took a thoughtful bite of the orange peel, chewed at it, swallowed, and took another bite. He decided to take Bardo’s advice about bringing in some grass. It would be hard work, but it would be good to have a soft place to sleep; it would almost be a nest, it would be almost like home. First he would eat, then he’d go out through the lattice, waiting until the air was dark and those bright things would shine, and be beautiful to see.

  Those bright things being beautiful made Fredle feel less lonely. Not being hungry helped, too.

  * * *

  The next time Bardo appeared, it was day. “Rise and shine,” Bardo said, his nose right up against Fredle’s ear. “Rise and forage.”

  Fredle startled awake. “What? Who? Bardo?”

  “Accustomed to a long day of unbroken slumber, are we? You’ll learn better. You’re outside now, Fredle.”

  “What do you want?”

  Bardo ha
dn’t brought the promised food, and besides, Fredle wasn’t hungry. He was sleepy.

  “I’m the go-between, remember? It’s my job to show you how to survive outside, although—frankly?—not many house mice can do that. In fact, there’s never been one that did, but I like to think there’s always a chance.”

  It took Fredle a minute to think to ask, “Have there been others? Other house mice, I mean.”

  “The cats drop one every now and then, and if it’s not too cut up it can sometimes make it to shelter. But that happens in summer and those mice don’t last long, in any case. You’re a little earlier than the others and you didn’t get here by cat, so who knows? You might be up to it.”

  “None of them just—somehow—came out of the house?” Fredle asked. Bardo shook his head. “And what’s summer?”

  “Summer’s warm weather, the opposite of winter. I’m here to give you a tour of the farm,” Bardo said. He looked into the shadows as if expecting to find out hidden things, his paws moved on the ground as if ready to start running, and the end of his long tail twitched. “Stay close and keep quiet or I can’t answer for your safety.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for night?”

  Bardo gave his short, sharp, sarcastic laugh. “Ha-ha. You house mice just don’t know, do you? Out here, night’s as dangerous as day. Owls,” he said, “foxes, and never forget those cats. All of them are out at night. Hunting.” He turned back to the lattice wall, scrambled up and through, then stuck his head back in to add, “Not to mention the raccoons. They’re the worst of all, real omnivores. You coming?”

  Fear made Fredle want to say No. Curiosity made him want to say Yes.

  “Or not?” asked Bardo.

  “Yes,” Fredle decided, but he didn’t move.

  “I don’t have all day,” Bardo said.

  So Fredle scrambled out into daylight. He blinked as fast as he could, because even though it wasn’t as bright as before, when he first stood out in it, daylight still hurt his eyes.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Bardo told him. “Keep looking down at the ground until you do. Lucky for you it’s cloudy today.”

  Fredle, sticking close behind his guide, didn’t know what cloudy meant, but he wasn’t about to ask. He was tired of asking questions, as if he didn’t know anything and Bardo knew everything.

  They crept along beside the lattice wall, and it was a good thing they hadn’t come to the end of it when they heard a stamping, just ahead of and above them. “Back! Back inside!” Bardo ordered as he scrambled up through an opening, and Fredle followed. They huddled close up against the back wall and listened.

  The stomping ceased and they heard Missus. “Have a drink of water. Then I want you two to burn off some of that energy. Run around, wrestle, chase cats, whatever. If it starts to rain, I’ll let you back in, I promise.”

  At the splashing and slurping, Fredle whispered, “Only the dogs.”

  Bardo shook his head, impatient. “Be quiet!” he hissed.

  Fredle shook his head right back at Bardo, and whispered, “You don’t know dogs. They don’t eat mice.” He crossed to the lattice wall. Bardo either didn’t understand or decided to pay no attention. He neither moved nor spoke. The two mice both kept very quiet and listened carefully, one huddled up against the farthest wall in case of danger, the other close to the lattice, so as not to miss anything.

  The dogs were large, clumsy creatures, spilling water all around as they drank out of the same large bowl. When he had drunk his fill, Angus decided, “We’d better check on the chickens, in case of foxes. Or raccoons—those raccoons like to come in close. Or weasels. We better smell around the chicken pen for anything suspicious.”

  “Do you smell mouse?”

  “Not again, Sadie. How about you stop with all this mouse-smelling?”

  “This is a different mouse. This is a mouse under the porch.”

  “All mice smell the same.”

  Sadie wasn’t listening. She came snuffling up to the lattice wall. At the approach of her large black snout, Fredle froze. With her dog’s sharp ears, Sadie might hear him moving. Were a dog’s sharp ears sharp enough to hear even the almost soundless brush of mouse paws on soft ground? Fredle wondered.

  The snout blocked a whole opening, and blocked out much of the light, too. It snuffled, sniffing. “Someone’s there.”

  Fredle didn’t move. Bardo didn’t move.

  “I can smell you.”

  The mice were silent.

  Sadie said, “I can smell you,” in case she hadn’t been heard the first time. She waited some more, snuffled some more, and then asked, “Who’s there?” She waited and waited.

  Fredle finally answered her, in a faint, whispery voice, as small as an ant’s, “Nobody.”

  “Oh,” Sadie said, disappointed. “But I thought—” Then the snout was gone and the empty opening once again filled with light.

  The two mice waited for a long time, silent, patient, the way mice do, making sure that all danger has passed. At last, Bardo broke the silence. “That was pretty stupid.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “She’ll figure it out before long.”

  “Then we’d better get going,” Fredle announced. This time, he led the way out through the lattice wall. Once outside, however, his confidence left him and he let Bardo re-take the lead.

  Keeping close to whatever wall was there, the lattice first and then a solid green wall that turned two sharp corners, they came to another lattice, a duplicate of Fredle’s. “Those were steps back there,” Bardo told Fredle. “Humans use those steps for going into and out of the house, and so do the dogs. And the house cat does, too, sometimes. You never know when the house cat might show up.”

  This lattice wall, like his own, had stalks of cut grass spread out in front of it. “Is this where you have your nest?” Fredle asked.

  “What would our nest be good for here? No, our nest is way far away. You don’t know but it’s a dangerous trip I take to come find you. It’s dangerous everywhere out here so do me a favor and get moving, Fredle. Maybe inside things are different, but outside we don’t hang around out in the open.” Bardo hurried on ahead. “You have to know where the compost is if you don’t want to starve. Because I certainly don’t plan to spend the rest of my life bringing you food.”

  Fredle ran after him.

  When they arrived at the end of that second section of lattice wall, Bardo crouched up against a huge, high, green plastic container. “These hold trash,” he told Fredle. “There are two of them, impossible to chew through—although sometimes the raccoons knock them over, they know how to do that, they’re raccoons—and some food’s left for us. But garbage cans make good cover. Knowing where there’s good cover is important, outside.”

  “Inside, too,” Fredle told him. Bardo might think that house mice had it easy, but Fredle knew better.

  Bardo stared across more cut grass, ears cocked forward. “The barn cats, in daytime—” he said, but didn’t finish that thought. “Although daytime is safer than nighttime out here,” he advised Fredle, without taking his watchful gaze from what lay ahead. “Looks like rain,” he said mysteriously.

  Fredle also looked around. The grass lay like a floor, green, drying to pale brown. In the distance before him a different kind of lattice wall rose up, shiny thin lines of wall with tall, thick posts every now and then along its length; Fredle could see right through this wall to brown soil where little green things stood in rows. The air hung heavy and gray above everything. There were no white streaks across it, there was no sun shining even though it wasn’t night, there was no blue ceiling. Bardo glanced up briefly and said, warningly, “Clouds covering the sky, and it smells like rain coming. Let’s get going.”

  Sky, Fredle noted to himself. Clouds.

  “Head for that fence, Fredle. This is the real dangerous part of the trip. Although, you’re so much bigger and fatter than I am, I’m not too worried. If one of the barn cats is out hunti
ng, he’ll go for you.”

  Before Fredle could take in what he was being told, Bardo had dashed off into the cut grass and was running away.

  Fredle ran after him, across the grass and then over a wide strip of dirt—rough terrain, where he stumbled and scrambled down and then up over the rises—to more cut grass until finally they came to a halt, breathless, behind one of the posts.

  “Cover,” panted Bardo. “There are posts all along this fence. They make good cover.”

  Once he’d caught his breath, Fredle asked, “Is that compost behind the fence?”

  Bardo shook his head. “It’s the garden. You know, vegetables?” He didn’t even give Fredle a chance to say Of course I know vegetables before he went on, “Beans, peppers, tomatoes, lettuces—sometimes if you dig you find a potato. Potatoes are the best. Or carrots, carrots are good, too, you have to dig for carrots, too. Missus comes here, in the daytime, and so do the barn cats, sometimes, so it’s not good for foraging.”

  Then how did Bardo know so much about it? Fredle wondered, but what he asked was, “What about at night?” He asked that even though he wasn’t sure he’d dare to make the long journey at night, if there would be owls coming out of the air at him as well as ground-level hunters.

  “Raccoons,” Bardo answered. His voice grew serious and his feet shifted uneasily, as if just saying that word made him anxious. “No mouse in his right mind gets close to a raccoon. They’re wild, unpredictable. Dangerous, the way—You never know what they might do, they might do anything. Keep clear of raccoons, Fredle.”

  “Where’s your nest?” Fredle asked. “Here in the garden?”

  “Ha-ha. No, we’re woodshed mice. Over that way,” Bardo said, without indicating which way he was speaking of. “Past the chicken pen. There’s a snake—Snakes live on mice, look out for snakes, Fredle. They’re all over that woodshed. You have to know their habits to keep safe from them.”