CHAPTER 10
“Hope is putting faith to work when giving up would be easier.”
—Isaiah
I’m choking down a chunk of mystery meat.
Or it could be a bit of underdone potato. It’s covered in so much spoiled, greasy gravy, it’s hard to say.
My stomach lurches. The vinegary smell is triggering my gag reflex. I feel like a cat hacking up a hairball as I spit out the mealy glob.
Come on, Isaiah, I tell myself. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Yes, we can, says the little voice in my head that doesn’t want to suck down any more disgusting slop. How about finding food the old-fashioned way, like gathering nuts and berries?
Where are we going to find nuts and berries? I ask myself.
We could try talking to the squirrels, suggests the little voice. They’re sort of mouse-ish and seem friendlier than rats…
Suddenly, I hear something that silences my internal debate.
My food barrel is catching a faraway sound—a song—and amplifying it until it surrounds me. Suddenly, this garbage can has become a symphony hall.
The singer’s voice is beautiful. Absolutely incredible.
An angelic soprano singing a lilting melody very similar to the lullaby my mother used to croon right after I was born.
It’s the song of a mouse.
Oh, yes, it’s true. Mice can sing. We’re some of the very few mammals who can carry a tune—whales, bats, humans, and mice. In fact, we use the same part of our brain to serenade each other as humans do. Mice also get goosebumps, like the tingly ones I have now from listening to the sweet singing. We have so much in common with people, you’d think they’d treat us better.
But I don’t want to dwell on that right now. I don’t even want to think about it.
I just want to rest here for a moment and listen to this lovely love song. Because that’s what it is. Usually, boy mice sing love ballads to attract girl mice. But this song is being sung by a girl. I can tell. Of course, she isn’t singing it for me. How could she? We haven’t even met.
Yet.
Forget food. I must seek out and find this midmorning nightingale.
I march out of the trash barrel with renewed determination. There are mice in Suburbia. Singing mice, at that. Now I don’t feel so alone in the world anymore—I simply have to find this musical mouse! She must be nice to sing so delightfully.
I roll in some fragrant clover to wipe the garbage juice off my body. I nibble some grass because it has chlorophyll (that’s what makes it green), and chlorophyll is excellent for battling bad breath. I want to look and smell my best when I meet this magnificent melody maker.
I also grab a pretty yellow dandelion. It’s only right that I bring her flowers. I’m a huge fan.
I perk up my ears. Listen for her voice. Follow her song.
Because wherever it leads, that’s where I want to be.
CHAPTER 11
“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to a mouse.”
—Isaiah
Well, hidey-ho!
Not only does the girl mouse have a beautiful voice, she also has a be-YOO-tiful smile and lovely curling eyelashes longer than most whiskers.
Of course, she hasn’t seen me yet.
This is probably a good thing. The magnificent songstress is blessed with dark brown fur, the color of rich, hot cocoa. Mine, as you might recall, is blue. Bright, blazing, electric neon blue.
I know the brown-furred beauty will probably stop singing the second she spies my mind-boggling blueness. After all, it is extremely shocking. So, for now, I will simply tarry here in the shrubbery, sniff my dandelion, and listen to her sing to herself and the bees buzzing around the rosebuds. Bees always like to hum along whenever mice sing their songs.
My, what a sweet, dare I say dulcet, voice she has. Dulcet, of course is another word for sweet but I think dulcet sounds much more soothing and melodious than sweet, so…
Uh-oh.
She stopped singing. She’s looking around. She senses someone is watching her. All mice are very good at sensing intruders, because it could always be a cat.
I decide to take a chance. I pop out from my hiding place and bow deeply.
“Have no fear, beautiful songstress!” I say.
She yelps anyway. But she doesn’t run away, which I take as an encouraging sign.
“It is only I, Isaiah.”
“Y-y-you,” she stammers, “you’re blue.”
“Actually, I’m not feeling blue at all. Your singing makes me very happy.”
She doesn’t appreciate my little quip. Regular mice seldom do. Instead, she points a paw at me.
“Your fur. It’s weird.”
“Indeed it is. However, I prefer to think of it as ‘special.’”
“It’s weird.”
“Perhaps. However, I know a mouse named Abe with crimson fur. My sister Winnie, on the other hand, is chartreuse.”
“What are crimson and chartreuse?”
“Crimson is red. Chartreuse is a color halfway between yellow and green.”
“Color?”
Oops. I forgot. Regular mice (not me) are colorblind. All they can see are black, white, and—yes—blue. I must look like a mouse-shaped piece of sky.
“I suppose you’ve never seen a blue mouse before, living as you do here in the Land of Suburbia…”
Now her brown fur bristles. I see the hackles on her neck shoot straight up. “What’s wrong with where I live?”
“Nothing. It’s only that—”
“I’ve been places, you know. I’ve been next door. And that house over there, too!”
“I’m sure you have. You also have the sweetest, most dulcet singing voice I’ve ever heard.”
“What does dulcet mean?”
“Sweet. Like honey.”
Now she looks even more upset. “You weren’t supposed to listen to me sing.”
I can tell she isn’t exactly charmed by me so far. I smile and wiggle my whiskers the way I’ve seen my big brother Rudolpho do whenever he flirts with girls. “Mademoiselle, how could I possibly resist?”
“Easy. You could walk away.”
Which is what she does.
Away from me.
CHAPTER 12
“No mouse’s head aches while he or she comforts another.”
—Isaiah
I’m not exactly sure why, but I follow after her.
Probably because I’m tired of being alone, and loneliness is an empty feeling worse than hunger. She is the only soul who hasn’t wanted to kill or capture me since I escaped, and I can’t just let her go.
“I don’t mean to bother you,” I call, trying my best to keep up with her. “But, you see, recently I lost my whole family. Of course, you might wonder how that could be possible, for one mouse to lose ninety-six others, but we were fleeing the Horrible Place. It was Benji’s idea. Benji’s my big brother. Well, one of them. I have forty-eight brothers and—”
Suddenly, the pretty brown mouse stops in her tracks so she can spin around to look at me.
“You lost your mischief?”
I nod sadly.
By the way, a mischief is the proper term for a group or family of mice. Like a gaggle of geese, a troop of baboons, a peep of chickens, or a scourge of mosquitos. A mischief of mice!
“But,” I add, “I’m quite certain my family will soon escape again and come looking for me. I left something of a scented trail for them to follow. They’ll be able to sniff the ground and track me. I have a very distinctive odor.”
The girl twitches her whiskers as she inhales the air around me. “You smell like garbage rolled in clover.”
I use my front paws to smooth out my matted fur. It’s still sort of sticky from all the rotten juice sloshing around at the bottom of that trash barrel.
“Well,” I say, “I had a rather unfortunate day yesterday. And, frankly, today hasn’t been much better. Actually, it might’ve been two days ago that we fled t
he Horrible Place. I’ve lost track of time…”
“Just like you lost your family.”
I look down at my feet. Oh, the shame of it all. “Yes,” I mumble. “We were being chased, and I should have stayed with them…”
She softens. Slightly. “My name is Mikayla. My mischief lives in that house over there.”
“You have a mischief?”
“Of course I do. And guess what? I haven’t lost mine.”
I know she’s just teasing me, but still, it stings. The truth, I have found, often does.
“What’s that thing in your ear?” Mikayla asks.
I touch the tag that was clamped on my ear when I was born. It said 97, which was what the Longcoats called me at the Horrible Place. I would’ve told them my real name, if they’d bothered to ask.
But all I say is, “I don’t want to talk about it.” All of my family has ear tags, but none of the mice out here do. It’s just another way I’m “weird.”
“Tell me, Isaiah,” she says, looking me up and down, “when was the last time you had something to eat that didn’t come from the bottom of a garbage bin?”
I burp up something foul that reminds me of my so-called breakfast. “It’s been a while,” I admit.
“Well, thanks to the Brophys, we always have plenty of food. It’s good stuff, too. And we don’t mind sharing,” says Mikayla, finally taking pity on me. “Come on. Follow me.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. “What are the Brophys?” I ask as we scamper ahead.
“Our human hosts. They’re total slobs. They eat in every room of the house. And I mean every room, even the one for, you know…”
I nod. I believe she is referring to the laundry room. Or perhaps the living room, which of course, is for living, not eating. I read that human homes have rooms for all sorts of purposes. Dining rooms for dining, bathrooms for baths, and TV rooms for staring at electronic boxes.
“The Brophys make scavenging easy,” says Mikayla as we follow a smudge mark along the back wall of the ramshackle rattletrap of a house she had pointed out earlier. The smudge is a buildup of dirt and oil from mouse fur rubbing against the wall. It’s like a road sign for a regular route taken by Mikayla’s family.
“You’re certain the rest of your family won’t mind me barging in like this?”
“Not as long as you pull your weight, which shouldn’t be too hard because, frankly, Isaiah, you look like you weigh less than a maple leaf.”
It seems Mikayla enjoys poking gentle fun at me.
And, to tell you the truth, I don’t really mind. It’s what family members do with each other.
Wait a second. Mikayla said I need to pull my weight. Is it possible?
Well, hidey-ho and what do you know? Mikayla’s not just taking me into her den for a visit. She’s inviting me into her mischief!
CHAPTER 13
“Those who give have everything. Those who don’t have nothing at all.”
—Isaiah
Wowzers!
And I thought my family was big.
Mikayla has more than two hundred brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins once removed.
Mikayla lets loose with a shrill whistle. It’s not as pretty as her singing, but it sure gets folks’ attention.
“Everybody!” she shouts. “This is Isaiah. He’s sort of an orphan and sort of lost. He has an earring and his fur is blue. Deal with it.”
“Welcome, Isaiah,” says an old mouse who, I’m guessing, is the grandfather of everybody else huddled in the bustling burrow. “My name is James the Wise. Might I ask you a question?”
“Certainly,” I say.
“Why is your fur so… so…blue?”
“I’m not certain, sir. It’s just always been that way. Blue.”
“Welcome, new blue friend,” he proclaims. “Your orphan days are behind you. This shall be your new home. Our mischief is your mischief.”
The other mice squeak with glee. I do, too! After a night alone in the wild, I am safe in a mischief again.
But then I remember something important.
“Can you be my ‘right now’ family? My forever family is trapped inside the Horrible Place. But they’re all going to escape again, I know it,” I say to James with a nervous chuckle, because I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the hospitality, which, by the way, we mice are famous for.
Seriously.
Mice will always take in strangers, stragglers, or lost babies. (I think I might be all three.) In fact, we mice would make excellent innkeepers. Except we’d probably scare off all our human guests when we fluffed up their pillows.
“Of course,” says James, “until you and your family are reunited, our home is your home.”
My stomach makes that gurgly noise again because my nose has picked up the scent of something delicious. Something with chocolate.
“And, uh, don’t mean to be rude, sir, but what about your food?”
He smiles. “What’s ours is yours. Food included.”
I’m so happy, I want to hug Mikayla. But my savior has disappeared somewhere in the sea of brown and gray surrounding me.
One thing about blue or red or chartreuse fur—it sure makes it easier to find your friends.
A muscular gray mouse pops out from the crowd clustered behind the elderly James the Wise. “We’ll show you around. Rustle you up some grub, too. I’m Gabriel. This is my sister Gwindell,” he says, pointing to a smaller gray mouse.
I smile shyly. “Um, hi. Do either of you know where Mikayla went?”
“Away,” says Gwindell with a wave of her paw. “She’s like that. Sort of artsy-fartsy, if you know what I mean.”
“She’s a wonderful singer,” I say.
Gabriel laughs. “A singer?”
“Impossible,” says Gwindell. “Girls don’t sing. I should know.”
“Come on, Isaiah,” says Gabriel, clapping me on the back. “This way to the breakfast buffet. The Brophys had bacon this morning!”
“Bacon?” I say. “What’s that?”
“A human word.”
“But what does this word bacon mean?”
“‘Crispy deliciousness,’” says Gwindell. “You’ll see!”
CHAPTER 14
“Burdens always seem lighter when friends help you carry them.”
—Isaiah
After our feast of bacon and more bacon (which, by the way, is the most crisply delicious food I have ever nibbled), Gabriel and Gwindell give me a quick tour of their burrow.
Their home is extremely clean and well organized—another thing mice are particularly good at. It’s true. Rats may be dirty, but we mice like to stay clean and dry at all times. It’s why I took particular offense at that rolling-pin-hurling baker when she called me a filthy rodent. I take great pride in my cleanliness. In a way, we mice bathe so often, we’re similar to cats.
Yipes!
I did it again. I just scared myself by saying cat. I have to stop doing that.
“This here is the sleeping area,” says Gabriel, as we scurry past a tidy row of straw beds tucked into a cozy nook.
“You’ve already seen the dining area,” adds Gwindell. “Please don’t bring any food or beverages to bed with you.”
“Unless you want ants,” says Gabriel with a shudder of disgust.
“And way down here,” says Gwindell, as we continue down a tunnel, “is the… you know…”
“Always do you-know-what down there,” adds Gabriel.
Actually, I don’t know, but it sure smells foul. Like my cedar shavings after I…
Oh.
“You do your droppings all the way down here?” I ask.
“Well, duh,” says Gabriel. “You don’t want to drop where you eat or sleep, do you?”
“No,” I say, with another nervous chuckle. “Of course not. That would be unsanitary.”
“And gross,” adds Gwindell. “Seriously gross.”
But guess what? That’s exactly what they m
ade us do back at the Horrible Place. It was one of the things that made it so spectacularly awful. Especially if you ever rolled over in your sleep. Not that I ever did. I was usually too afraid to even close my eyes.
“So,” says Gabriel, “you ready to check out the rest of the house?”
“There’s more?”
“Lots more. And—there might be more bacon.”
“Or Doritos,” adds Gwindell.
“Doritos,” I say. “D-O-R-I-T-O-S.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
Most mice can’t spell. I, of course, can. I also can’t forget that crumpled bag I saw before I reached the ledge outside the Horrible Place. Those were Doritos, too.
“What exactly are Doritos?” I ask.
“More Brophy deliciousness,” says Gabriel.
“If you get the ones that taste like nacho cheese,” says Gwindell, “and not the ones that smell like salad dressing or Buffalo wings.”
I have no idea what she means, but there’s no time to ask. We scamper, single file, through the walls and into the beams underneath a sagging floor. Gabriel leads the way. He’s one of those mice who automatically makes everybody else feel safer, like my big brother Benji.
“With three of us,” says Gabriel, “we should be able to bring back a huge haul!”
“This way,” says Gwindell. “We’ll take the sink drain. It’ll put us right in the Brophys’ kitchen.”
We scuttle up the side of the pipe and into a cabinet cluttered with cans, spray bottles, and another overflowing trash can.
“Slightly used food!” I say, darting up the side of the garbage pail. “There’s a half-eaten sandwich in here,” I report. “Smells meaty, too! I see a slice of pizza with a chomp mark in it.”
“Leave it,” says Gabriel. “These Brophys are such pigs, we’ll soon be eating high off the hog. No need to dip into their half-chewed garbage scraps.”