Fredle went back to the protection of the post and waited there until Missus had come to pick up the baby and gone off, back to the house, with Sadie at her heels. Then he returned to his nest, to curl up for a short sleep. He wanted to be well rested when he went out looking for a way into the house, on the fourth and final side, where nobody had ever searched before, at least as far as he knew.
10
The Way In
It was night when Fredle found a way back into the house. Just as he had suspected, and hoped, one of the wooden window frames on the fourth side of the house had pulled away from the mortar, leaving a crack large enough for a mouse. He pushed his nose into the opening and sniffed the air.
Only a mouse could squeeze through that narrow opening, Fredle knew; or ants and spiders, which didn’t worry him; or a snake, he guessed, if snakes ever wanted to go inside. But he’d never heard anything about any snake living down in the cellar. He was just scaring himself. He smelled the familiar odor of damp ground and other things, too, soap smells and wood smells and human smells, also an unpleasant heavy odor. He lifted his nose. Was there just a hint of food? What food could there be in a cellar?
He stuck his head in, to look and listen. All he could see was darkness, although in the distance there was a faint gray window shape, almost light. What he heard was the kind of silence that comes when many small noises mix together, none of them human, none of them clumsy and loud and doggy. Here inside no wind whistled. The air lay still.
Fredle shoved until his shoulders and front legs were inside. The ground below felt close, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the dense darkness, he thought he could see, just below him, a more solid blackness, which was earth, not air. He reached a paw down—careful not to lose his balance. If he was wrong about how close the ground was, and if he fell, tumbling through empty air until he hit hard bottom, he could hurt himself so badly that he would just lie there, unable to move, until he was went. However, reaching down, he felt the familiar soft, cool touch of dirt, so he wriggled through until he stood on all four paws in darkness.
Far ahead lay that dimness, the kind of dim light he remembered from his home behind the pantry wall, not really light at all, just not darkness. Turning to look behind him, he saw through the glass of the window to the clear night air outside, where there were no walls to lock the darkness in, where spaces stretched endlessly and, in not very long, one of the moons might make an appearance among the stars.
He could go home now. No other mouse had ever went and then come back again, but Fredle was about to. He had never in his life felt so clever, and the happiness and pride he was feeling were almost more than could be contained in one small body. He wanted to jump in circles; he wished he could bark like Sadie, or fly like a crow, soar up into the air with happiness.
Then he thought of something not so happy; he thought of leaving outside. He wished he could say goodbye to Neldo before he returned home, and even Bardo, too. That was probably not possible, but he wouldn’t mind taking a last look at the stars, and the cupped flowers—
No, the flowers were too far away. It would be foolhardy to go around front, and besides, it was a dark night and he wouldn’t be able to see their colors. The stars, however, were just beyond the window and so Fredle scrambled back out through the crack.
That night, the stars were hidden behind clouds that rushed across the sky, running after the wind. Fredle was surprised at how disappointed he was, not to see them. The way in, he thought, staring up in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of even one single white brightness, would not move, would not close. It would wait. Maybe he should go foraging in the compost and then go back to his own small nest and wait until a cloudless night before he returned inside. If he did that, he would be able to see the flowers one more time, too, and maybe even have a chance to tell Sadie what he was doing.
Fredle knew that to wait was not necessarily a smart choice, although he couldn’t see that it was particularly stupid. He decided, therefore, not to decide right then. Instead, he decided to go to the compost and say goodbye to Neldo, if she was there, and Bardo. And if they weren’t there? Better to decide everything on a full stomach, he decided, and he set off.
The wind whispered in his ears as he scurried, keeping close to the foundation. He went through low bushes, past the other low window on the fourth side of the house, through more bushes, and around the corner to the protection of the garbage cans, where he would start his dash—at night, you were foolish not to cross open spaces at your best speed—across the road and grass to the safety of the garden fence post. Inside, he remembered, there were no raptors, and no wind and rain, either. In the adventure of being outside, he had almost forgotten how comfortable life could be inside, and how safe.
Just as Fredle reached the corner, there came an outburst of furious barking. He froze, close up to the stone foundation, safely hidden—or so he hoped—behind the thick branches of one of the low bushes. He recognized Sadie’s bark, high and happy, and then Angus’s, which was lower and louder, more serious, more threatening.
“Robbers!” Angus half barked, half snarled. “Out! Out!”
“We see you!” barked Sadie, cheerfully.
A scurrying sound mixed in with the wind’s whisper, and then Fredle heard a thump. A high, nasal voice said, “Cheese it, guys. It’s the dogs!”
“I’m warning you,” snarled Angus. “You thieving sneaks, get out!” he barked.
There was more scurrying.
“Look how fast they run,” said Sadie. “Let’s catch them!”
“Try it. Just you try it,” growled the nasal voice, which now sounded dangerous and full of teeth.
“No, Sadie, don’t follow them.” Angus was quieter now. “You know what’ll happen.”
“But those aren’t skunks.”
“They’re more dangerous than skunks,” Angus said. “Mister says. Mister’ll be here”—and he barked three times, sharply—“any minute.”
Sadie echoed his barks. “We’re here! Mister! We’re in the garbage!”
Fredle heard the kitchen door bang and quick footsteps of a human on the porch, on the steps, and then Mister said, “Good dogs. Angus? Come! Sadie? Come!”
“We chased them away!” barked Sadie.
“Quiet, girl. Good job, both of you. Let me turn this flashlight on and we’ll do a check.”
“Yes, check,” said Angus. “Check the barn, check the garden, check the chickens.”
“A flashlight!” Sadie barked, more excited than before. “I can dance! I can be the dancing dog!”
Angus growled impatiently. “This isn’t a game, Sadie. This is serious.”
Fredle was so curious about all this that he forgot to be afraid. He crept close enough to see the two dogs, who were standing near the garbage containers. The man was coming toward them, following a stream of light.
“I’ll check the garden with Mister,” Angus said. “You guard the garbage.”
Fredle saw one dark dog shape run off, and he saw a garbage can lying on its side. Sadie had her nose in the contents, which were spread around on the ground.
Suddenly Angus turned and came back. “Don’t eat any of that. You’re not hungry.” He ran off again.
“Maybe I am,” Sadie said softly, continuing to sniff and snuffle. “I won’t eat if I’m not supposed to, but I can still be hungry. What are you doing here, Fredle? It wasn’t you, was it? Did you knock over the garbage? Are you friends with the raccoons?”
“There were raccoons?” answered Fredle. “I didn’t see them.”
“We chased them off. They’re frightened of us. They know how to take the top off a garbage can and now there’s a big mess.”
Lured by all the good food odors, Fredle came closer. He was smelling flavors he’d noticed in the air of the kitchen at night, after the humans had gone away, some of them delicious in ways he’d never smelled before. There was even something sweet and—
“Chicken bones are bad fo
r you,” Sadie warned him.
Fredle had tracked the sweetness down to a pale, round paper container. “What’s this?”
“Ice cream.” She stuck her nose down to smell it. “We aren’t allowed ice cream and neither is the baby.”
“Is it poisonous?” It didn’t smell poisonous and it didn’t smell like that dark brown chocolate, either. Fredle crept up to the rim of the round container lying on its side on the ground.
“Because of all the sugar. Patches doesn’t like sugar, but I wish—and there are nuts in it, too,” Sadie said, with longing. “I’m not allowed,” she told Fredle.
Fredle crept over the rim and down into the container, to where the ice cream puddled.
“Sadie!” barked Angus. “I said, don’t eat anything!”
“I wasn’t, I was just—”
“Angus and Sadie, come!” Mister called. The light showed Angus running back toward Sadie. “I’ll get this mess picked up later,” Mister said, “but first we have to check the garden. We can’t let raccoons destroy the vegetable crop.”
“Wait for me!” Sadie barked, and she followed Mister off into the darkness.
Fredle didn’t notice them leaving. He had taken his first taste of ice cream and forgotten about everything else. It was so creamy sweet and nutty sweet, all he could be was tasting it.
So deep had Fredle sunk into the deliciousness of ice cream that he barely heard the dogs barking in the garden. He filled his mouth and tasted. He was so concentrated on sweetness that he didn’t hear the whispering voices or the soft steps that approached as soon as the dogs had gone. If he had been paying attention to anything other than ice cream, he would have heard this conversation:
“It’s not like that’s the only ice cream container you’ll ever see, Cap’n.”
“It’s the only one right here right now.”
“The farmer could come back any minute.”
“I’ll risk it.”
“The dogs.”
“Those dogs—they’re pets. If you’re so nervous, you can wait here.”
“You know me better than that, Cap’n. I’m not nervous.”
“You could fool me, Rad. In fact, you are fooling me.”
“Cap’n, be—”
And Fredle was knocked down onto the bottom of the container, into a puddle of ice cream, and then in a rush he felt himself rising—carried in the container—up into the air. At first it felt the same as when Missus had trapped him and taken him outside, but after that everything was different.
The container was moving so fast and so unevenly that he couldn’t get his feet under him to look up and see what was going on. Now he did hear the voices.
“You’re brave, Cap’n, but still—Hey, they didn’t wait for us. Let’s get out of here. It’s a good thing that farmer went to check the garden first.”
Above his head, Fredle heard a strangled sound: “Gugg-huh?”
“No, no gun. Another good thing. I hope there’s enough ice cream to make it worth the chance you took. I don’t want to have to fight off everyone else to get my fair share.”
After that, Fredle’s ride became, while no more comfortable, at least rhythmic. He slipped from side to side in the container at regular intervals, while also bouncing up and down with equal regularity. His feet could find no purchase in the ice cream, so he couldn’t get his balance for long enough to look up to see what it was that was carrying him. Not a human, he knew, and not a dog. Besides, he didn’t really need to see what it might be. He had his suspicions, and they were not happy ones. He remembered his mother’s worried voice: Will you never learn that your sweet tooth gets you in trouble?
Gradually he became frightened, and his fear grew into terror as the journey went on, and on. His legs wanted to run in panic, but they couldn’t. Bouncing made it impossible for his nails to grip, and besides, it was painfully, terrifyingly obvious to him that even if he could get a grip and run, there was nowhere to run to.
It continued on, this blind, helpless journey. Where would it end?
It would end in went, he couldn’t help but know that. He heard little squeaking sounds coming out of his mouth.
And still he was carried along. In one way, Fredle wanted the journey never to end, but with each bounce, each slide, his fear expanded, until he thought his whole body would explode. His heart beat so fast he almost couldn’t see, and he knew he couldn’t hear anything except for the wild pounding of his heart.
Fredle had been afraid many times in his life, out foraging in the kitchen, climbing up walls behind Axle, and especially when he’d been so sick and they had all joined together to push him out. After that he’d been afraid alone, outside, day after day. But this was a worse fear, larger and darker and unending, all-encompassing—
Until suddenly, unexpectedly, fear left him.
Fredle felt himself growing calm. His heart slowed, his ears opened. It wasn’t that he had stopped being bounced about, being slid from side to side, and it wasn’t that he had thought of a way to escape; neither of those had happened. Nothing had changed in his situation. But something had changed in Fredle.
He knew what was going to happen and he knew how bad it was, and that was that. He didn’t know for sure what creature had captured him but he suspected raccoons. So if it was any consolation, he would see a raccoon before he went.
It was no consolation.
He didn’t know how long he had to live, either, and about that he had no way to even guess. All he could do was wait, and so he did.
Finally the container stopped moving. It dropped down onto the ground, and then Fredle could look up. When he did, he saw a large, hairy face with a short, pointed snout and bright little black eyes gleaming out of a wide black stripe.
The head was so big that he couldn’t see its ears. He could see the whiteness of teeth, as the mouth opened. “Whazzis?” it asked in the nasal voice Fredle had heard earlier. The eyes stared down at Fredle. “C’mere, Rad. C’mere and look what I’ve caught.”
That face withdrew and another, identical to the first, took its place. “Tell me it’s not a mouse,” a different voice said. “You caught us a mouse, Cap’n. Rimble, you ever seen a mouse close to? You wanna take a look? You ever tasted fresh mouse?”
What was probably a third face appeared, although it could have been either of the first two. Fredle couldn’t tell them apart. “Good work, Cap’n,” it said.
“That’s why I’m the boss,” said the first voice, Cap’n.
“Pity I’m not hungry,” said the second, Rad.
“I’m hungry,” said a fourth, and was immediately answered by the others: “Doesn’t count, Rec.” “You’re always hungry, Woo-Hah.”
Even if he couldn’t see them, Fredle could hear them, but he couldn’t have spoken, even if they had asked him to. He had forgotten every word he ever knew.
“So you all say, but what I say is, you never know where your next meal is coming from,” Rec answered.
“How long’s it been since we got ice cream?” asked the third voice, Rimble’s, Fredle guessed. “And now we’ve got ice cream plus a mouse. I’ve said it before and I say it again, there’s nobody like the Cap’n. Here’s to Cap’n Rilf, hurrah!” he said. “Smartest raccoon on both sides of the mountain!”
At least, Fredle thought, he’d been right about them being raccoons.
“The mouse is just luck,” Rilf admitted.
“I hate not to be hungry when there’s mouse on the menu,” Rad said. “And a house mouse, by the size of him.”
“We all know that after this they’ll be extra careful about the tops on the garbage cans for a while,” Rec observed, “so we better fill ourselves up while we can. The garden’s just being planted, the dogs are outside more, and finding food’s not going to get any easier.”
“Yeah, but we’ll be heading off to the lake, now it’s getting warm again, right, Cap’n?” asked Rad. “It’s not long now and there’s plenty to eat there. Remember fish?”
br /> “I haven’t noticed that it’s ever easy finding food,” Rimble pointed out. “Here or there, it’s hard work.”
“This mouse is mine,” Rilf announced.
“If you say so,” they answered reluctantly.
“It’s mine and we don’t eat it until I say so. Got it?”
“Yessir, Cap’n,” they answered, and one of them knocked the container over on its side, then picked it up from the bottom, and Fredle tumbled out into the raccoon-filled night.
Crouching as close as he could get to the ground—as if that would make him less visible—Fredle looked up at four hairy faces, each one with a black band around two bright black eyes. Four narrow snouts pointed down at him, four mouths and four sets of sharp, gleaming teeth.
Fear returned, as strong as before. Fredle huddled on the ground, shivering with terror and wet with ice cream.
The mouths all came at him at the same time. They opened wide, four bright white tooth-filled circles. Then four tongues came out to lick at Fredle, licking all over him, his head and back, stomach, paws. They knocked him around with their big, rough tongues, and rolled him over. They didn’t say a word until they had licked him clean. Then one of them picked up the container in his paws and stuck his nose into that for a little while, before passing it on to the raccoon next to him and turning his attention back to Fredle.
They were big, these raccoons. Not as big as the dogs, but to Fredle they looked huge, and he knew that compared to him, they were huge.
“I’m Rilf,” said the raccoon who had just passed the ice cream carton along. “It’s Captain Rilf to you, mouse.”
The others were busy passing the container around, each taking a turn.
Fredle couldn’t swallow.
“And you’d be?” Rilf asked.
“You don’t want to know its name,” protested Rad as he passed on the ice cream container.
“Why not?” asked Rec, who Fredle could now see was larger even than his large friends. “You got a problem with eating something whose name you know?”
“Not everyone’s a greedyguts, like you,” said Rimble.