“Oh, that’s all right,” said Mario.
“You sit, please,” said Sai, and brought another chair to the table.
Mario sat down and the Chinese gentleman sat opposite him. Sai Fong put the cricket cage in the middle of the table and then went back and forth to the stove, bringing over steaming bowls of Chinese food. Chester was very curious to see what it tasted like, since he had never even had chop suey.
“This chow yuk—Chinese vegetable,” said Sai Fong, setting down the first bowl. There were all kinds of green vegetables in the chow yuk—string beans and pea pods, and also pieces of diced chicken. Next came fried rice with pork, cooked a delicious brown, with a nutty, meaty flavor. Then chow mein with pan-fried noodles and cashew nuts. But it wasn’t all soupy like the chow mein Mario had seen at the Automat. He could have made a meal just out of the pan-fried noodles alone. And last there was duck cooked with pineapples. The pieces of roast duck were swimming in a luscious, sweet sauce. Finally Sai Fong brought over a big pot of something.
“You know what this is?” he asked, and lifted the lid.
Mario looked in. “Tea,” he said.
“Ha he!” laughed Sai Fong. “You make very good Chinaman,” he said, and smiled broadly at Mario.
Mario had a hard time learning to use the chopsticks. They kept slipping out of his hand. “Make believe two very long fingers,” said Sai Fong.
“Two long fingers—two long fingers,” Mario told himself over and over again. And then he could work them. He got so that he could almost feel the food on the end of them as he lifted it into his mouth.
Chester was served his dinner too. Sai Fong got a tiny saucer out of the cupboard and put a dab of each course on it for the cricket. And he had never tasted anything so good! He especially liked the chow yuk, because vegetables were his favorite. Every so often he would have to stop eating and chirp for joy. Whenever he did, the Chinese gentleman and Sai Fong smiled and chattered to each other in Chinese. Mario felt the same way Chester did, but he couldn’t chirp. All he could do to show how much he was enjoying everything was to answer, “Yes, please,” each time Sai Fong asked him if he wanted more.
When the four of them had eaten as much of the chow yuk and chow mein and pork fried rice and duck with pineapples as they wanted, Sai Fong brought out some candied kumquats for dessert. Mario had two and several more cups of tea. Chester was so full he could only nibble on a piece of one.
“Now,” said Sai Fong, when they were all finished, “what is problem with cricket?” He lit his white clay pipe and the old Chinese gentleman lit one too. They sat smoking, with the wisps of smoke curling up around their chins, looking very wise, Mario thought.
“The problem is,” Mario began, “that my cricket eats money.” And he told them all about the two-dollar bill. Sai Fong had to translate everything into Chinese for his friend. After each new sentence the old man would nod his head and say “Ah” or “Oh” or “Mmm” in a serious voice.
“So I think he must not be getting the right things to eat,” Mario concluded his story.
“Very excellent deduction,” said Sai Fong. He began talking rapidly in Chinese. Then he stood up and said, “You wait, please,” and went into the shop. In a moment he was back, carrying a big book under his arm. As the two Chinese were reading it, they would stop now and then and mutter something to each other.
Mario went around behind them. Of course he couldn’t read the Chinese characters, but there were pictures in the book too. One showed a princess sitting on an ivory throne. On a stand beside her was a cricket cage just like Chester’s.
All of a sudden the Chinese gentleman began to squeak with excitement. “Yu le! Yu le!” he said, tapping the page with the stem of his pipe.
“Here is! Here is!” Sai Fong exclaimed to Mario. “This story of princess of ancient China. Had cricket for pet and feed him mulberry leaves. It say, ‘Just as silkworm who eat of mulberry tree spin beautiful silk, so cricket who eat leaves spin beautiful song.’”
“Then we’ve got to find a mulberry tree,” said Mario. The only one he knew of right off hand was in the Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn, and that had a fence around it.
“But I have tree!” said Sai Fong, and his face curled up in a smile as wide as a Halloween pumpkin’s. “Right outside window.” He went to the window and pulled up the shade. In the courtyard outside a mulberry tree was growing. One of its branches almost stuck into the kitchen. Sai pulled off about a dozen leaves and put one in the cricket cage. But Chester didn’t touch it.
Mario was dismayed. “He doesn’t like it,” he said.
“Oh, he like!” said Sai Fong. “He just full of Chinese dinner now!”
And that was exactly the truth. Any other time Chester would have been gobbling up the leaf. But he was stuffed now. Just to show them that leaves were what he wanted, however, he managed to take one bite.
“You see?” said Sai Fong. “He eat leaf when he hungry.”
Chester was feeling so contented that he had to sing for a while. Everyone listened very quietly. The only other sound was the creaking of the rocking chair, which went very well with the cricket’s song. Sai Fong and his friend were very touched by the concert. They sat with their eyes closed and expressions of complete peace on their faces. When it was over, the old Chinese gentleman blew his nose on a silk handkerchief he took out of his sleeve. His eyes were moist. Dabbing at them with the handkerchief, he whispered something to Sai Fong.
“He say it like being in palace garden to hear cricket sing,” Sai Fong translated to Mario.
The boy thanked Sai Fong for the Chinese dinner, but said he would have to be going now, because it was late.
“You come back any time,” said Sai Fong. He put the eleven mulberry leaves in a little box and gave it to Mario. “Plenty leaves on tree. I save all for cricket.”
Mario thanked him again. The old Chinese gentleman stood up and bowed. Mario bowed to him. Sai Fong bowed, and Mario bowed to him too. In the cage Chester was bowing to everybody. Mario backed toward the door, still bowing, and went out. It had been a very nice evening. He felt formal and polite from all the bowing, and he was glad that his cricket had been able to make the two Chinese gentlemen so happy.
TEN
The Dinner Party
Late one night Chester Cricket was very busy inside the newsstand. As soon as the Bellinis went home, he hopped out of the matchbox and began to clean up. First he pushed in the box so its sides were even and then slid it over beside the alarm clock. Next he pulled a piece of Kleenex out of the Kleenex box and dragged it back and forth across the shelf. When the shelf was dusted, he picked up the tissue in his two front legs and polished the cricket cage so its bars shone. He wiped off the glass in the front of the alarm clock and the radio too until he could see his own reflection. The dial of the clock was luminous and it shed a very soft green light. Chester wanted everything to be perfect on this particular evening. There was going to be a party.
It was exactly two months since Chester had arrived in New York, and the three animals wanted to celebrate the anniversary. Nothing too formal, you understand—just a little dinner for everyone. Tucker Mouse had volunteered to let them use the drain pipe, but Chester didn’t want to eat amid all the waste paper and rubbish his friend had collected. So after many conferences, they resolved on the newsstand. It was sheltered, and quite big enough, and the radio could provide nice background music.
Tucker Mouse jumped up beside Chester. “How is the food coming, Tucker?” asked the cricket. Tucker had been put in charge of refreshments.
“Hic hic hic,” laughed Tucker Mouse, rubbing his front feet together, “wait till I tell you.” He lifted up one foot. “I have: two chunks liverwurst, one slice ham, three pieces bacon—from a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich—some lettuce and tomato—from said sandwich—whole-wheat, rye, and white crusts, a big gob cole slaw, two squares from a Hershey chocolate bar, the end of an Oh! Henry candy bar—with nuts!—and n
ow comes the climax.” Tucker paused. “Iced soft drinks!”
“How did you get the ice?” asked Chester.
“Wait, I’ll tell you,” said Tucker. “All day I’ve been hiding by the lunch counter. When the soda jerks made a Coke I grabbed the ice they spilled, which I then took to the drain pipe. There,” he went on with especial pride, “it happens I have a heatproof, insulated bag saved up for just such an occasion. I put in the ice, shut up the opening—we have ice! Nice, eh?”
He sat back on his haunches and grinned at Chester.
“Very nice,” said Chester. “Where have you got the drinks?”
“In paper cups,” said Tucker. “And no mixing of drinks either. For each kind of soft drink—another cup.”
“That’s wonderful,” said the cricket with admiration.
“Oh, it’s nothing really,” said Tucker, waving a foot. “I mean, it’s something—but nothing too much.” He looked around at the shelf and clock and everything. “You are to be congratulated on the cleanliness. Of course, it isn’t as important as food-getting, but to be clean is very nice too.”
While they were talking, Harry Cat came in through the opening at the side of the newsstand. Chester hopped down, like a good host, to greet his new guest.
“How was the concert?” he asked. Harry had been down to Washington Square to hear an open-air concert of chamber music. How you could play chamber music outdoors Chester didn’t understand—but it was New York and anything could happen.
“Very good,” answered Harry. “But I don’t think the violinist played nearly as well as you do.”
It made Chester very happy to hear that, but he had to turn away so Harry wouldn’t see him blush.
“Harry, help me with the food,” said Tucker. He jumped down to the floor and scurried over to the drain pipe.
The mouse and the cat put all the different courses over to one side with the soft drinks so everyone could just go up and help himself. It was buffet style. Tucker and Chester sat on the shelf and Harry, who was taller, sat on the stool. But his head was on a level with theirs.
Tucker Mouse took great pride in cooling the soft drinks. There were four cups, one with Coca-Cola, one with Pepsi, one root beer, and the last orange pop. Tucker put a big piece of ice in each and then made a show of stirring them up with a straw he had found that afternoon.
“Ah,” he sighed. “Where but in New York could a mouse have ice in his Coca-Cola?”
“We should have music,” said Harry. He reached over and flicked on the radio.
First they got a news report. But that wouldn’t do for a party. Harry twisted the dial and went through a quiz show, an amateur hour, and a play about the Deep South before he got what he wanted. Music is very nice for a party because it gives you time to eat your fill without having to make conversation.
Harry Cat was working on his second piece of Oh! Henry candy bar when he suddenly stopped munching and listened to the tune the radio was playing. His head began to sway from side to side.
“That’s my favorite song,” he said, beginning to hum along with it.
“Sing it, Harry,” said Chester Cricket.
“You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for,” blurted out Tucker Mouse through a mouthful of bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.
But Harry was in a party mood, so he cleared his throat and began:
“When I’m calling youuuuuuuu
Oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo—”
Harry had a delightful yowl that went very well with the lyrics of the song.
“You see what I told you?” groaned Tucker.
Harry went right on, however:
“Will you answer truuuuuu
Oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo?”
“Maybe we should turn back to the amateur hour,” said Tucker Mouse, helping himself to the Hershey bar.
“I think Harry sings beautifully,” said Chester.
“You sing now, Chester,” said Harry Cat.
Secretly the cricket was very anxious to perform for them, but he had to have some encouragement first. He limbered his wings and said, “It’s not really singing, you know—”
“Singing, playing—who cares, as long as it doesn’t sound like Harry,” said Tucker Mouse. He slurped up the last of the orange soda and they all fell silent.
It was well along in August by now, and just the time of the year that crickets all over the world like most. Chester hadn’t done nearly as much chirping as usual this summer because he was living in New York, but tonight he played to his heart’s content. He thought of his meadow and the stump, the brook and the old willow tree. The song swelled up from his wings and filled the newsstand.
When it was over, Tucker and Harry applauded and congratulated Chester. “Now play us something we know,” suggested Harry Cat.
“Well, I don’t know if I can,” said Chester. “All my songs are my own compositions.”
“Listen to the radio and play what it does,” said Harry. He turned up the music.
Chester cocked his head to one side. The radio was playing the “Blue Danube” waltz. When he had heard enough to memorize the melody, Chester joined in. And he played it perfectly! The cricket was such a natural musician that he not only chirped the tune—in a few minutes he was making up variations and spinning them out without ever losing the rhythm of the waltz. He found that by tilting his wings he could make the notes go higher or lower, just as he wanted.
Chester got an ovation from his friends. Harry Cat, who had crept into the Metropolitan Opera House a few times and knew how people acted there, shouted, “Bravo, Chester! Bravo!” Of course after such a sample of his talent for imitating songs, his friends insisted that he keep on. And Chester was happy to oblige. There’s nothing like a good audience to encourage a performer.
The next selection from the radio was a group of Italian folk songs. Chester picked out the different melodies and chirped them along with the orchestra. After the folk songs came a group of operatic arias. It was easier for Chester to play the ones written for tenors than the ones for sopranos, contraltos, and basses, but he did them all beautifully.
Each time he stopped after singing a new piece, the animals shouted, “More! More! More!” So Chester went right on. Now came a South American rumba. The rhythm was very tricky and it took the cricket a few minutes to catch on to it, but once he had it, he never lost the beat. Chirping away, he sounded like a pair of lively castanets.
“Imagine!” exclaimed Tucker Mouse, “he plays pop as well as classical.”
Tucker was feeling very lively himself because of all the soda water he had swallowed. The South American tempo began to excite him. He jumped up and started to dance around the shelf.
Harry Cat burst out laughing, but that didn’t bother Tucker. He was a carefree soul. “Chester can play—I can dance,” he panted. “We should go into vaudeville.”
“If you danced as well as he played, you could,” said Harry.
“So I’m just learning,” said Tucker, and threw himself into a wild twirl next to Papa Bellini’s pipe.
He couldn’t see where he was going and he toppled over into the box of kitchen matches. The box flipped over. A shower of matches fell around the shelf and onto the cement floor. There were several yellow bursts and the sharp scratch that a match makes when it’s lit. Most of them fell far enough away from the wooden walls so they could burn themselves out without danger. But one match, unluckily, struck right next to a pile of that morning’s newspapers. The spurt of flames it sent up lit the frayed edge of the papers and quickly spread over the whole bundle.
“Watch out!” shouted Chester. Harry Cat leaped up to the shelf just in time to keep his tail from being burned. The cricket was the first to realize what had happened—and what was likely to happen if they didn’t put the fire out. “Get the Coca-Cola,” he said. “Pour it over.”
“I drank it all,” shouted Tucker.
“You wou
ld!” said Chester. “Is there any ice?”
Harry and Tucker dumped what was left in the insulated bag down on the flames. But it wasn’t enough. The fire sputtered, died down, and then flared up again, larger than ever.
“Maybe we can smother it,” said Harry.
There was a pile of magazines on the very edge of the shelf, just above the fire. Harry strained and pushed and succeeded in toppling them over. They all peered over the edge to see if the fire was out.
“Oh fine!” said Tucker. “She’s still burning and you blocked the hole to get out!”
They were trapped. Harry and Tucker jumped down and started pulling away the magazines furiously. But the fire crept closer and they had to back away.
“What a way to go,” said Tucker. “I should have stayed on Tenth Avenue.”
For a moment Chester got panicky. But he forced his thoughts back into order and took stock of the situation. And an idea struck him. In one leap he jumped onto the alarm clock, landing right on the button that set off the alarm. The old clock began ringing so wildly it shook itself around the shelf in a mad dance. Chester hopped back to his friends.
“Any alarm in a fire,” he said.
They waited, crouched against the wall. On the opposite side of the stand the flames were lapping against the wood. Already the paint on it had begun to blister.
Chester could hear voices outside the newsstand. Even at this hour there were always a few people in the station. Somebody said, “What’s that?”
“I smell smoke,” said another. Chester recognized the voice. It was Paul, the conductor on the shuttle. There was a sound of footsteps running away, then running back again, and a hammering began. The newsstand shook all over.
“Somebody get the other side,” said Paul.
The cover was wrenched off. Clouds of smoke billowed up. The people standing around were astonished to see, through the fumes and glare of the fire, a cat, a mouse, and a cricket, running, jumping, to safety.
ELEVEN
The Jinx
From the drain pipe the animals watched Paul put out the fire. He dragged what papers he could out of the newsstand and got a bucket of water to douse the rest. And he watered down the walls to make sure they wouldn’t flare up later. When the danger was over, he called up Papa Bellini on the telephone.