But like most puppies when they are frightened, he couldn’t keep quiet. “What are we going to do?” he said.
“The first thing we’re going to do is not worry,” said Harry. “But we do have to talk.”
The time had come to discuss Huppy’s future, and with the dog present, because it was his future, after all. Harry explained, as gently as he could, while Huppy’s head hung down to his chest, that a cat and a mouse could live in a drainpipe, but—but—a growing dog couldn’t. It wasn’t that Tucker and he didn’t want him there, or love him very much, it was just that it was—impossible. A dog needed space where he could live, and hopefully, a place to play. Harry said he’d been racking his brains for four months, and the only thing he’d been able to think of was—he looked away, down Forty-first Street, although Huppy hadn’t lifted his eyes from the sidewalk—was for Huppy to go to Connecticut. The two of them would put him on the Late Local Express, at Grand Central Station.
“Where’s Connecticut?” said Huppy.
Harry described Connecticut, where it was, how it looked, and began rhapsodizing about a beautiful, natural park up there, called the Old Meadow—“Renamed ‘Tucker’s Countryside,’” put in the mouse, “and for very good reason!”—and how they had this friend, Chester Cricket, who was very nice and could probably see that Huppy got adopted by a human family, and—
“I don’t want to go to Connecticut!” said the dog.
“I don’t blame you,” sighed Tucker Mouse. “The country is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there either.”
“It sounds so far away,” said Huppy. “Don’t you even want to visit me?”
Tucker jumped up and tried to grab the dog’s neck but fell back and had to content himself with hugging a foreleg. “Of course we want to visit you!”
“Besides,” said Huppy, “I like New York!”
“There you are,” said the mouse. “You’re born in New York, you like New York—despite the mess it is. Despite the fact you’ve been thrown away in an alley on Tenth Avenue. Harry, this is a New York dog with a New York problem. We’ve got to solve it right here in New York. Leave Chester in peace.”
“Then solve it!” said Harry, somewhat sulkily. “Well?”
“Well—” At the end of ten minutes of whisker wiggling, Tucker only came up with a meantime idea—until they could find Huppy a permanent home. He went over it with them. If Harry could get them back to the drainpipe that night—“Oh, I can. Once I’ve been through even the craziest labyrinth, I can find my way back again.” And if Huppy would only not grow for one day—“I promise!” So Tucker outlined his meantime idea.
They all agreed it would have to do.
The next night the plan was in effect. It was late, almost dawn, and the three animals were sitting in the very same doorway on Forty-first Street. Outside, the winter thaw still held, but inside them there was a dismal kind of chill. All day long, after certain arrangements were made, Tucker and Harry had been busy acting natural. And earlier that night there had been an especially tasty scrounged-up dinner—with unmelted ice cream for dessert—but no one would have called the atmosphere festive, despite all the small talk the cat and mouse made. Huppy had lapped his ice cream in silence. And in silence the three of them now were waiting.
Lulu Pigeon flapped down in front of them. “Okay, men,” she said, “it’s all set. Let’s go.”
“I need ten breaths of fresh air!” announced Huppy anxiously.
Harry gave the pigeon a private look, and said, “Go ahead, Huppy—help yourself.”
Everybody pretended not to be counting, and the puppy took many more breaths than ten.
But soon Lulu Pigeon began to fidget. “We ought to get moving. Max said just before the sun came up. And Max isn’t the kind of a guy you keep waiting.”
“Come on.” Harry nudged the dog with his shoulder. “And don’t worry.”
“I’m not!” insisted Huppy in a voice that broke off at the end in a squeak.
“Well, I am!” Tucker Mouse muttered to himself.
Tucker’s plan was that since Lulu Pigeon had said dogs lived in Bryant Park, Huppy should stay down there—“temporarily, for a little while,” he kept explaining to Huppy and Harry all day. (What Lulu had really said was a pack of dogs hung out in the park, but Tucker didn’t like the sound of those words too well, so he left them out.) He’d sneaked down to the park that afternoon and talked it all over with the pigeon. She said jake by her but she’d have to ask Max—the gang leader. (Tucker didn’t like that much either.)
They waited beside the stone basin of the winter-silenced fountain. Without anyone’s knowing exactly when, a chunk of the darkness, which had also been waiting, took the shape of a dog and slipped up behind them. “This him?” came a muffled, deep voice.
“Gosh, you scared me!” squawked Lulu. The others had jumped up and turned around too.
“Quiet, bird.”
Lulu flapped and said softly, “Yeah, Max—this is Huppy.”
“Hi, kid.” The voice seemed to be hiding a laugh somewhere.
Huppy hung his head down. “Hello.” He couldn’t see anything funny.
The pigeon introduced Tucker and Harry to Max. He was a gray dog, tough and much bigger than the cat. His eyes weren’t round, like Huppy’s eyes, beneath his fur; they were lifted a little—not slanted exactly, but questioning something: suspicious eyes. Ordinarily the animals in New York get along with each other fairly well, but Harry suspected that if he’d met Max on a prowl in the street he’d have gotten a snarl—maybe barking, and a fight. Not now, though. Lulu had explained everything, and Max just flicked his eyes disdainfully over both cat and mouse. “Come on, kid,” he commanded Huppy softly. “Almost sunup. The cops’ll be making their first rounds soon.”
“Just like that?” burst out Tucker Mouse. “You take him away—”
“Sure, Tucker baby,” said Max. “Just like that. You want me to show him the ropes, don’t you?”
Tucker was about to launch into a string of orders—what he wanted, and didn’t want, Max to do—but Harry shushed him and simply said, “We want you to take care of him. For a couple of days. Until we can find him a permanent home.”
“Oh—a permanent home.” Max laughed. “I’ve heard that before. And so has every other stray mutt in New York.”
From the east a dull morning, lowering with clouds, inched toward the city. The wind had grown colder.
“Go on, Huppy,” urged Harry Cat. “Go on with Max. We’ll be back tonight. To make sure you’re all right.”
“Goodbye,” said Huppy.
They watched him shamble reluctantly off, and then run, to keep up with the lean and stealthy dog.
“I guess I’d better get going too,” said Lulu.
“So go,” muttered Tucker.
The cat and the mouse headed back to Times Square.
To put a dent in an iron silence Harry said, “I think the weather’s going to change.”
“The heck with the weather!” fumed Tucker Mouse. “What did you think of Max?”
“Well, I thought he looked—I mean, he looked—”
“He looked as if his father was a wolf and his mother was a weasel!” It didn’t help Tucker one bit to remember that the whole thing had been his own idea.
And it didn’t help either one of them to see Huppy’s house when they got back home—empty.
“We aren’t going to throw it out,” declared Harry.
“You’re darn right we’re not!” It was loyalty, love—a pledge to Huppy—to keep it there, useless though it had become.
All morning long Tucker furiously rearranged his possessions. That was his way of trying to think. Harry’s was just to sit in the drainpipe opening and watch—and not watch—the commotion go by; like having a background radio on but not bothering to listen to it.
Noon came, and the people who tramped down the subway stairs were dusted with white: it was snowing outside.
�
��There he is again,” said Harry.
“Who?” The mouse was holding a special prize: a red unbroken Christmas tree bauble, salvaged only a month ago.
“Mr. Smedley,” said Harry.
“I don’t know why he comes down here so often.” Tucker couldn’t decide where to relocate this latest treasure. “Sometimes he doesn’t even buy a paper—just stands by the newsstand for hours, talking with Mama and Papa Bellini.”
Mr. Smedley was the piano teacher who first—after Tucker—had discovered Chester Cricket’s great gift. It was his letter to The New York Times that had made the cricket famous.
The mouse made up his mind: propped up on the high heel—the left rear corner—the ornament would look best. “He must be lonely.”
“Lonely?”
“Lonely!” A crash! Red smithereens shimmered all over the drainpipe floor. Tucker didn’t even notice them. He dashed up beside his friend. “Dumb me!”
“How stupid can an alley cat get! Right here, before our eyes—all this time.”
They stared at the unsuspecting man, whose future seemed already leashed to him.
“He’s lonely, he’s lonely,” gloated Tucker Mouse in a singsong voice. He rubbed his claws together. “Now who can you think of to keep Mr. Smedley company?—and maybe take some piano lessons!”
FIVE
Snow—and Other Complications
With the problem of Huppy—they thought—neatly solved, Tucker and Harry took the remainder of the afternoon off, for rest, relaxation, and self-congratulation. To be sure, a few details remained to be settled—such as how they could introduce Huppy to Mr. Smedley, and whether he would like the dog, much less want to adopt him—but in the first rush of relief, neither cat nor mouse could bother his head about such trivial practicalities. Besides, there was no chance to take any action today. Mr. Smedley stayed only for five or ten minutes, chatting with the Bellinis, who owned the newsstand—then he vanished downstairs to the IRT subway tracks. It definitely was a day for just lounging around, as snowy days often are, and for feeling the comfort and coziness of being indoors while it’s storming outside.
And it really did snow! The animals could tell that because rush hour began an hour ahead of time. The people were let out of offices early to try to beat the weather home. By six o’clock the subway station was almost deserted, and those few human beings who straggled in looked like huffing and puffing snowmen.
But who cared?—in a drainpipe carpeted with clean newspapers, when all worries had been swept away. The only thing that nagged at the edges of Tucker’s and Harry’s pleasure was the thought of Huppy—out there in the blizzard somewhere. But they’d find out all about that tonight.
When Tucker’s salvaged watch read ten, Harry said, “Come on—we promised.”
“Don’t need to tell me,” declared Tucker Mouse.
They were both looking forward to the journey down to Bryant Park—because after being inside in a snowstorm, the next best thing is to be right out in the teeth of it. There was this pleasure also: one of the rare times that New York City looks really clean is when there’s a blanket of snow over it. A fresh blanket, that is; in a couple of days New York snow turns sooty and dirty. (Another clean minute can come in the summer, just after a drenching rain. But that, too, does not last long.)
The cat and the mouse crept up through the pipes. But at their usual exit hole they were met with a hard blank wall of white.
Harry scratched at its surface. “Solid as concrete.”
That could mean only one of two things: either there was a howling wind outside that had packed the snow down this hard, or so much snow had fallen that the pedestrians had trampled it into a solid mass. In either case, it meant there would be no frolicking down an empty Forty-second Street, jumping in snowdrifts just for the fun of it.
In fact, it meant there was no going down Forty-second Street at all. After scratching his way a few feet, Harry’s claws were in ruins. “No use,” he said, “I can’t make it. We’ll have to wait till tomorrow.”
“But Huppy—”
“Chances are, he and Max have holed up somewhere anyhow.”
But the next day, a Friday, the blizzard continued. The cat and the mouse tried every single pipe route they knew, including the long way to Forty-first—with precisely the same result each time: no going out.
On Saturday morning the storm ended at last. The people in the subway station appeared without their white icing. But their teeth were chattering now. A cold spell had followed the snow. And since it was the weekend, nobody bothered to shovel out. The city lay frozen, glistening under the futile sun, still—as if bewitched by a sorcerer’s winter spell.
The cold crept all the way down to the drainpipe. Tucker Mouse, who’d taken to sleeping in Huppy’s house, shivered under four layers of newspapers. Harry wrapped himself in the piece of red flannel shirt. “Those two dogs had better be holed up!” said Tucker. “Otherwise, they’ll be frozen to death.”
“They’re holed up,” Harry hoped.
“And what about Lulu? Why doesn’t she fly over here and tell us what’s happening?”
“She’s probably down in that antique shop, buried under some moldy cushions right now.”
“That kookoo bird,” grumbled the mouse, and rubbed his ears to prevent frostbite.
By Monday—“I’ve had it!” shouted Tucker. In a flurry of ripped newspaper he jumped out of the card-board box. “Let me out of here, Harry! I’m going stir-crazy!”
“I don’t feel exactly like a June bug jumping around Central Park myself!” said Harry.
But it wasn’t until Tuesday that the frigid enchantment was broken. The chill air seemed to breathe and come alive again. From the street above sounded gigantic scraping, as trucks with snowplows attached to their fronts did their final work. There was clanking, too, of iron chains: the last stalled snow-covered cars were being hauled away from the curb. The gutter would be clear tonight. In the afternoon a neater, nearer rustling told the animals that the sidewalk at last had been shoveled out. Their exit hole was free. Mama and Papa Bellini opened their newsstand in time for the evening rush, and most important—it seemed like fate to Harry Cat—Mr. Smedley dropped by to chat with them about the big blizzard.
“Okay—this is it,” said the cat.
“This is what?”
“Tonight you go down to Bryant Park.”
“I go down!” exclaimed Tucker. “And what, might I ask—”
“I’m following Mr. Smedley.”
“What? What?” the mouse dithered. “We’ve got to have a plan.”
“I’m telling you the plan,” said Harry. “You go to the park—I’m pretty sure Huppy’ll be there tonight, he must know how much we’re worried about him—say hello, by the way, for me—and I’m shadowing Smedley. We’ve got to find out how the land lies, don’t we?”
“But—but—”
“No buts!”
“—he may live in the Bronx.”
“Then I’m going to the Bronx! Watch out—he’s leaving. Have a good supper, Mousiekins. Stay here till most of the traffic dies down—and don’t bother waiting up for me. I’ve got a feeling this may take a long time.”
The cat chose his moment, then disappeared amidst hurrying, random feet.
* * *
Tucker Mouse got back from his travels at three o’clock the next morning. (To be exact, 3:05: the numbers on his watch were luminous and shed a nice glow at the back of the pipe.) His home was empty. Despite what Harry had said, the mouse decided that he would wait up. After what he’d seen and heard in the past three hours, sleep was out of the question now. And when Tucker waited, he really waited. He paced, he rearranged, he stared out angrily into the subway station. There are some poor people for whom waiting is harder work than working, and Tucker Mouse was such a one.
Occasionally he took time out from his waiting to fume. “Blood,” he muttered to himself. “Hooligan!” His face pinched into a grimace as he mout
hed two words: “Tucker baby!” Then he began to wait again, more intensely than before.
By that afternoon he was tired out and had to lie down. It didn’t help. It only transferred all the useless activity inside his head.
He was so preoccupied—like a stretched rubber band, he lay on the papers in Huppy’s house—that he didn’t hear Harry Cat slip in. “I’m back.”
“At last!”
“Who first?”
“You first.”
“Okay,” said Harry. “I almost lost Smedley on the IRT platform, but I found him and followed.”
“Just wait till you hear what’s happened to Huppy!”
“All right,” sighed the cat. “You first.”
“Well—” Tucker’s story burst out of him. “I waited till midnight, then went down to the park, a forlorn and lonely figure, creeping his way through ice and snow—”
“Just skip the poetry and get to the point.”
“—a forlorn and lonely figure!” Tucker glared at his friend. A day’s waiting, he thought, entitled him to tell it his way. “And what do I find in Bryant Park? A pack of dogs going sliding! You know, at the back of the park is the New York Public Library. The wind blew a big drift up against it, and the sun today melted just enough snow to make ice tonight—and there were all these dogs going sliding! And you know what they were sliding on?” The mouse paused dramatically. “Their bottoms!”
“I didn’t think they had toboggans,” said Harry.
Tucker ignored the dig. “So up I marched, very fearlessly, expecting that I would be chewed up. Which I almost was!—by those hoodlum mutts. Excuse the word, but that’s what they were. They mauled me something awful, till the head hooligan—that’s Max!—came sliding down on his fanny and said, ‘Lay off the rodent.’ Meaning me—Tucker Mouse!”
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