The Black Paw

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  ‘There he goes!’

  ‘Get him!’

  Oz glanced frantically back over his shoulder. The sharks were gaining on him. For once, though, he held the advantage. For once, the odds weren't stacked overwhelmingly against him.

  Oz's father was the manager of the museum's Spy City Cafe, and since moving from California to Washington DC, two months ago, Oz had spent nearly every afternoon here in the building at Ninth and F Streets. When the dismissal bell rang at Chester B. Arthur Elementary School, Oz hopped the bus from Georgetown to Dupont Circle, then transferred to the Metro's red line for the short subway ride to the museum. He knew its layout like the back of his hand.

  He also knew he couldn't last much longer. Oz didn't even run this hard in PE. Sweat was dripping off his forehead and spattering on to his glasses, which had slid down again and were perched on the end of his nose. He swiped at them and ducked into the Secret History of History exhibit.

  A quiet room with red walls, polished wood floors and oriental carpets, it was usually a soothing place. A place Oz liked to hang out and read all about espionage – information he figured he'd need some day when he was a spy. It was here that he'd got the idea for his social studies report about the Trojan Horse, the trick the ancient Greeks used to infiltrate and conquer the city of Troy. Oz didn't linger now, though. Now the red paint on the walls seemed to flash ‘Warning!’ and ‘Danger!’ He fled past the model of the hollow wooden horse with Greek soldiers crawling from its belly and ran on.

  Emerging into a hallway, Oz paused for a fraction of a second, panting heavily. To his left was Fly, Spy! – an exhibit about World War Two surveillance pigeons. To his right was the Library, with famous books about spies lining its shelves. Both were dead ends. He stared at the long hallway ahead. If he kept running, he'd probably pass out. Then the sharks would have him for sure. There was no other option; he'd have to risk the wrath of museum security.

  Oz darted to the left towards a floor-length red velvet curtain. A rope was draped across it, on which hung a No ADMITTANCE sign. Oz ignored the warning and ducked under the rope. He pushed past the curtain to the stairway beyond and paused, wheezing.

  ‘Hey, where'd he go?’ It was Tank. He was close – heart-stoppingly close. Just on the other side of the curtain, in fact. Oz held his breath.

  ‘He can't have gone far,’ Jordan replied. ‘Did you see him run? He waddles like a possum.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tank, sniggering. ‘Maybe he hides like one too. He's probably stuffed under a table or something. I'll double back.’

  ‘We'll keep going,’ said Jordan. ‘Send someone for me if you find him.’

  Oz heard the sharks walk away. His heart started beating again. His ruse had worked!

  ‘Hey, what's behind that curtain?’

  It was Tank again. Oz froze. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, hoping that for once, just this once, maybe he really would turn invisible. And then –

  ‘You boys move along now,’ said another voice. A gruff voice that Oz recognized. It was Herbie, one of the security guards. ‘You see the sign. That's off limits. Nothing for you to see back there.’

  Tank grunted, and Oz heard him shuffle reluctantly away.

  ‘Never mind, guys,’ said Jordan to the rest of his followers. ‘We'll find him. He can't have gone far.’ And with that, he too moved off.

  Oz rested where he was for a few moments, breathing shakily. His luck had held. He'd bought himself a little time. The sharks would catch him eventually – they always did – but for now he was safe.

  Oz tiptoed up the stairs to the fourth floor, where a warren of cubicles housed the museum's administrative offices. He crept quietly past them to the elevator and emerged moments later on the ground floor. Passing under the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the former head of Russia's dreaded secret police, which hung suspended from the lobby ceiling, Oz took shelter in the hallway behind the Spy City Cafe. There he crawled under an open metal stairway and wedged himself into the shadows. The smell of chocolate chip cookies wafted out from the kitchen. He sniffed the air longingly. Chocolate chip cookies were his favourite, and his dad had promised to bake a fresh batch as a treat for him and his schoolmates. But going into the cafe meant he'd have to talk to his dad, and Oz wasn't ready to face his dad just yet. His dad could read him like a book. One look at his hot, sweaty, tear-tracked face and his dad would know that he, Oz, had failed yet again. That his son was a fat loser with no friends.

  Starting over at a new school was never easy, especially for a chubby kid with a weird name. Oz knew this from bitter experience. He'd done it four times already since kindergarten, thanks to his mother's career as an opera singer. Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, New York – all had been home at one time or another in the past few years. And now they'd landed here in Washington DC, where his mum would start her new job at the National Opera as soon as she returned from her Australian tour.

  Oz slumped further into the shadows. He'd hoped maybe this time things would be different. Maybe this time he'd fit in. Make some friends. He'd even managed to make a bit of a game of things by pretending that staying off the radar screen was training for his future career as a spy. At his last school, Oz had managed to keep away from the sharks – and there were sharks at every school, he'd learned – until nearly Valentine's Day. But here it was only Hallowe'en and he was already shark bait.

  Oz hung his head. Some secret agent he'd make. He was a complete failure as an aspiring spy and as a human being. He didn't have one single friend. Not even Delilah Bean, the sharks' other favourite target. Why did I even bother trying to protect her? Oz thought glumly. It wasn't as if she'd spoken two words to him since the beginning of school.

  ‘Loser,’ he whispered to himself, and slumping farther into the shadows, he surrendered to his dark thoughts.

  Just then, at the far end of the hallway near the Ninth Street entrance, an elegant little nose emerged from a ventilation shaft. The nose caught the scent of chocolate chip cookies and twitched appreciatively. A second later Glory poked the rest of herself through the hole. Frowning, she plunked her flamingo pink skateboard on to the hallway floor and placed one hind paw atop it. With the other, she gave a powerful thrust and sped towards the stairway. So consumed was Glory with worry about the Black Paw, and her father's death, and whether Fumble had tattled to Julius, that she didn't see Oz sitting motionless beneath it.

  Nor did Oz, still mired in misery, notice Glory.

  Her face set in a scowl, whiskers sticking out like angry quills, Glory ripped down the hallway at a tremendous speed. At the last minute, she spotted Oz's trainer. She squeaked in alarm and tried to swerve out of the way, but it was too late.

  ‘EEEEEEEEEYOWWWWWWWW!’ she cried as she collided with Oz's foot. Glory's skateboard went flying in one direction; she went flying in another.

  The skateboard landed with a crash and so did Glory. She lay flat on her back for a long moment, stunned and breathless. What the heck was that? she wondered. Her helmet had been knocked askew and she couldn't see a thing. She reached up with one paw to push it aside and assess the damage, and as she did so she gave another frightened squeak. Oz was on his knees beside her, his face looming close to hers.

  Boy and mouse stared at each other in shock.

  Glory gaped at Oz, frozen with fear. Her bright little eyes flicked towards the narrow gap under the Ninth Street exit door. Could she make it? Her whiskers quivered in terror and her heart was pounding so hard she was sure the human could hear it. Every instinct in her little mouse body told her to run. But as she stared up at Oz, she felt an odd prickling of recognition. There was something familiar about him, something she couldn't quite put her paw on.

  if he wasn't entirely mistaken, she had been riding it like a skateboard.

  Just a little road rash,’ Glory responded automatically, the words popping out before she could stop them.

  She gasped. So did Oz, who scrambled hastily backward in panic. Glory's bri
ght little eyes widened in fear. Her paw flew to her mouth. She'd just spoken to a human! She'd broken the Mouse Code!

  Oz stared at her in disbelief. ‘You – you can talk?’ he stuttered, prodding anxiously at his glasses. He must be hallucinating.

  Glory stared back at him in alarm, her paw still firmly clamped over her mouth. If Julius got wind of this, she was finished. Boy and mouse regarded each other warily. For the first time, Glory noticed that the boy's cheeks were tracked with tears. She felt a rush of sympathy. He looked as miserable as she felt.

  Hoping she wouldn't regret this later, Glory nodded slowly. She sat up and took her paw away from her mouth. ‘Tough morning?’ she asked.

  Oz gaped at her stupidly, at a loss for words. Finally, he shrugged, but made no move to come closer.

  ‘Me too,’ said Glory.

  He didn't look familiar at all – just a round human boy with a round moon of a face topped with a shock of pale blond hair. Round wire-rimmed glasses partially obscured his eyes. A shame, thought Glory, for the boy's eyes were his best feature. Dark as bittersweet chocolate, they shone with an alert intelligence that – Glory gasped. It was the eyes! The boy's eyes were familiar!

  She cocked her head and scrutinized Oz carefully. He knelt in the shadows, motionless, inspecting her just as carefully. And then in a flash Glory had it. The boy reminded her of her brother B-Nut!

  Glory smacked a paw against the side of her head and shook herself vigorously. The crash must have knocked more than the wind out of her. As bright as B-Nut? Impossible. The boy was only human, after all.

  ‘Are you hurt, little mousie?’ whispered Oz fearfully. The mouse had hardly moved since the crash. He desperately wanted to pick her up and inspect her for injuries, but he was afraid she might bite him. Not that she looked dangerous. She looked – she looked – well, to be honest, she didn't look like any mouse Oz had ever seen before. That thing on her head could almost be a helmet. And the lolly stick –

  They eyed each other again. Oz's gaze fell on the flamingo pink skateboard, and he flicked it towards her with a pudgy finger.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Glory. She stood up and brushed the dust off her glossy brown fur. Then she thrust out a paw. ‘I'm Glory Goldenleaf, by the way.’

  Oz hesitated. He was still convinced that this was all a dream. A very bizarre dream. Or if it wasn't a dream, maybe it was a trick. What if the mouse – what if Glory – bit him? Those tiny teeth looked needle sharp.

  ‘It's OK, I don't bite,’ said Glory, accurately reading his thoughts.

  Oz blushed. He scooted closer, still a bit reluctantly, and reached out a tentative forefinger. ‘Oz Levinson,’ he managed to croak, and they shook solemnly. ‘That was some wipeout.’

  ‘Crash and burn is my speciality,’ Glory said ruefully. ‘If there's lame air, I'll find it. So is that Oz as in the movie?’

  Oz cleared his throat. ‘Uh, no,’ he said. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Then Oz as in what?’

  ‘Uh, Oz as in… as in…’ Oz's voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Oz as in Ozymandias.’

  Glory's whiskers twitched. ‘You mean the poem “Ozymandias”?’ she cried in delight. ‘“I met a traveller from an antique land” – that poem?’

  Oz nodded glumly.

  ‘I love Shelley!’ said Glory. ‘He's one of my favourite poets!’

  Oz gaped at her again. ‘He is?’

  ‘Sure, I've read all his poems.’

  Oz's mouth dropped open even further. ‘You mean, you can read?’

  Glory shrugged. ‘Sure, can't you?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ replied Oz, flustered. ‘All fifth-graders can read.’

  ‘So can all mice,’ said Glory.

  Oz wanted to pinch himself. He was talking to a mouse. A mouse who could read. A mouse who rode a skateboard. And more than that, a mouse who was friendly. Who hadn't made fun of his name.

  ‘I hate my name,’ Oz blurted.

  Glory seemed astounded at this news. ‘Why?’

  ‘It's stupid, and everyone makes fun of it when they find out.’ Which they always did. The sharks had a nose for stuff like that. And even though he always wrote just ‘Oz’ on his school forms and assignments, somehow the teachers always found out, and then they had to read the stupid poem aloud, and then that was that. He wasn't invisible any more. He was on the radar screen. Shark bait. With a name like Ozymandias, he might as well have a bull's-eye painted on his forehead.

  ‘Yeah, I guess I know a little something about that,’ said Glory.

  ‘Really?’

  Glory nodded. ‘Uh-huh. My real name is Morning Glory.’

  ‘Morning Glory, like the muffin?’ said Oz.

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘What's wrong with that?’

  Now it was Glory's turn to be embarrassed. ‘Oh, nothing, I guess. My mother is from the Bakery Guild. It's a family tradition. A stupid one. She named all of us mouselings after sweets. I'm part of the muffin litter – “batch”, as she puts it. So are my sisters Pumpkin and Blueberry, and my brothers Bran, Chip – that's short for Chocolate Chip – and B-Nut. For Banana Nut.’

  Oz's forehead furrowed as he considered this information. ‘Makes sense,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘But I still don't see why that's embarrassing.’

  Glory stroked the tip of her scalded tail, reluctant to admit the truth. If it wasn't for her name, no one would ever guess that she was half house mouse like her mother. In looks, thankfully, she took entirely after her father, the dashing field mouse general Dumbarton Goldenleaf, commander-in-chief of DC's illustrious Mouse Guard. Before Dupont sent him the Black Paw, that was, Glory thought sadly.

  She jerked her head up. Dupont! The crash had driven all thoughts of the rat's hit list – and her mission – out of her mind.

  ‘I've got to go,’ Glory said hastily, gathering up her things and hopping back on to her skateboard. ‘I'm late.’

  ‘So soon?’ said Oz, disappointed. Glory was the closest thing to a friend that he'd found since moving to Washington. The closest thing to a friend since kindergarten in Seattle, in fact.

  Glory heard the dejection in the boy's voice. She hesitated a moment, torn. She'd broken the Mouse Code! If she was lucky, no one had spotted her. She might be able to get away with it this once. But if she encouraged further contact, she was risking her career.

  Oz regarded her solemnly, his brown eyes – so like B-Nut's – brimming with sorrow.

  Glory sighed. ‘Tell you what, kid,’ she said. ‘Do you know what a dead drop is?’

  Oz nodded. He'd learned all about dead drops – what spies called the places they left information for each other – up in the Top Secret exhibit.

  Glory tapped the bottom rung of the stairs with her paw. ‘This will be our dead drop. If you ever want to reach me, just leave a note taped underneath.’

  Oz brightened. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I'm around here a lot after school. My dad runs the cafe.’

  ‘He does? Is he the one who makes those great chocolate chip cookies?’

  Oz nodded.

  Glory sniffed the air. ‘Mmmm-mmmmm. Maybe you could leave me one later.’

  ‘Sure,’ promised Oz.

  Glory waved a paw. ‘Good luck, Oz.’

  ‘Good luck, Glory.’

  And with that, Glory leaped on to her skateboard and zoomed off through a mouse hole in the shadows.

  ‘Morning, Glory!’

  Glory rolled her eyes at the stout grey mouse offering a mock salute from across the Spy Mice Agency's Central Command.

  ‘Stow it, Fumble,’ she snapped, adding, ‘stupid house mouse,’ under her breath. What an idiot! If she'd heard that stupid greeting once, she'd heard it a million stupid times before.

  Julius wants to see you,’ Fumble added, a smug smile creeping across his broad face.

  Great, thought Glory. There goes my job. She scowled at her colleague in reply, squared her elegant little shoulders, and strode across the room.

  The Spy Mi
ce Agency headquarters hummed with activity. In one corner, a cluster of mice – including Fumble - were seated on empty film canisters around the overturned margarine tub that served as their conference table. Some were busy scribbling reports with pencil stubs; others were listening intently through mouse-sized headphones (made from pistachio shells and pipe cleaners) to radio transmissions from field agents still out on assignment. Including Glory's own brother B-Nut, who was on his daily aerial surveillance run.

  Thinking of B-Nut softened Glory's scowl. She glanced over at the opposite corner of the room where her other brother Chip and his fellow Foragers were busy unloading their bulging backpacks.

  ‘Good haul today, Chip?’ she called.

  Her brother grinned and held up a belt buckle, a toy whistle, a handful of paper clips and a baby's dummy. ‘Prime stuff,’ he replied. ‘Can't wait to see what the lab whips up out of these.’

  In yet another corner, the computer gymnasts were limbering up for their shift, which would begin upstairs on the administrative floor after the museum closed. While some performed a series of yoga stretches, others leaped up and down in formation as the lead mouse called out, ‘QWERT! ASDF! YUIOP!’

  There but for a bit of luck go I, thought Glory. Just last summer she'd been plucked from those very ranks to train as a field agent. Glory had always been a good speller in school, and joining the computer gymnasts – mice trained to use human keyboards after hours to tap out email messages, surf the Internet and so on – had seemed a natural career step. She could have gone far with those skills, for good computer gymnasts were needed everywhere here in the nation's capital. Still, Glory was grateful that she had caught the eye of the Spy Mice Agency director, who had recruited her as a field agent instead.