The Cricket in Times Square

by George Selden

  “Well, it must have been two—no, three days ago,” Chester Cricket began. “I was sitting on top of my stump, just enjoying the weather and thinking how nice it was that summer had started. I live inside an old tree stump, next to a willow tree, and I often go up to the roof to look around. And I’d been practicing jumping that day too. On the other side of the stump from the willow tree there’s a brook that runs past, and I’d been jumping back and forth across it to get my legs in condition for the summer. I do a lot of jumping, you know.”

  “Me too,” said Tucker Mouse. “Especially around the rush hour.”

  “And I had just finished jumping when I smelled something,” Chester went on, “liverwurst, which I love.”

  “You like liverwurst?” Tucker broke in. “Wait! Wait! Just wait!”

  In one leap, he sprang down all the way from the shelf to the floor and dashed over to his drain pipe. Chester shook his head as he watched him go. He thought Tucker was a very excitable person—even for a mouse.

  Inside the drain pipe, Tucker’s nest was a jumble of papers, scraps of cloth, buttons, lost jewelry, small change, and everything else that can be picked up in a subway station. Tucker tossed things left and right in a wild search. Neatness was not one of the things he aimed at in life. At last he discovered what he was looking for: a big piece of liverwurst he had found earlier that evening. It was meant to be for breakfast tomorrow, but he decided that meeting his first cricket was a special occasion. Holding the liverwurst between his teeth, he whisked back to the newsstand.

  “Look!” he said proudly, dropping the meat in front of Chester Cricket. “Liverwurst! You continue the story—we’ll enjoy a snack too.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” said Chester. He was touched that a mouse he had known only a few minutes would share his food with him. “I had a little chocolate before, but besides that, nothing for three days.”

  “Eat! Eat!” said Tucker. He bit the liverwurst into two pieces and gave Chester the bigger one. “So you smelled the liverwurst—then what happened?”

  “I hopped down from the stump and went off toward the smell,” said Chester.

  “Very logical,” said Tucker Mouse, munching with his cheeks full. “Exactly what I would have done.”

  “It was coming from a picnic basket,” said Chester. “A couple of tuffets away from my stump the meadow begins, and there was a whole bunch of people having a picnic. They had hard-boiled eggs, and cold roast chicken, and roast beef, and a whole lot of other things besides the liverwurst sandwiches which I smelled.”

  Tucker Mouse moaned with pleasure at the thought of all that food.

  “They were having such a good time laughing and singing songs that they didn’t notice me when I jumped into the picnic basket,” continued Chester. “I was sure they wouldn’t mind if I had just a taste.”

  “Naturally not,” said Tucker Mouse sympathetically. “Why mind? Plenty for all. Who could blame you?”

  “Now, I have to admit,” Chester went on, “I had more than a taste. As a matter of fact, I ate so much that I couldn’t keep my eyes open—what with being tired from the jumping and everything. And I fell asleep right there in the picnic basket. The first thing I knew, somebody had put a bag on top of me that had the last of the roast beef sandwiches in it. I couldn’t move!”

  “Imagine!” Tucker exclaimed. “Trapped under roast beef sandwiches! Well, there are worse fates.”

  “At first I wasn’t too frightened,” said Chester. “After all, I thought, they probably come from New Canaan or some other nearby town. They’ll have to unpack the basket sooner or later. Little did I know!” He shook his head and sighed. “I could feel the basket being carried into a car and riding somewhere and then being lifted down. That must have been the railroad station. Then I went up again and there was a rattling and roaring sound, the way a train makes. By this time I was pretty scared. I knew every minute was taking me farther away from my stump, but there wasn’t anything I could do. I was getting awfully cramped too, under those roast beef sandwiches.”

  “Didn’t you try to eat your way out?” asked Tucker.

  “I didn’t have any room,” said Chester. “But every now and then the train would give a lurch and I managed to free myself a little. We traveled on and on, and then the train stopped. I didn’t have any idea where we were, but as soon as the basket was carried off, I could tell from the noise it must be New York.”

  “You never were here before?” Tucker asked.

  “Goodness no!” said Chester. “But I’ve heard about it. There was a swallow I used to know who told about flying over New York every spring and fall on her way to the North and back. But what would I be doing here?” He shifted uneasily from one set of legs to another. “I’m a country cricket.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Tucker Mouse. “I’ll feed you liverwurst. You’ll be all right. Go on with the story.”

  “It’s almost over,” said Chester. “The people got off one train and walked a ways and got on another—even noisier than the first.”

  “Must have been the subway,” said Tucker.

  “I guess so,” Chester Cricket said. “You can imagine how scared I was. I didn’t know where I was going! For all I knew they could have been heading for Texas, although I don’t guess many people from Texas come all the way to Connecticut for a picnic.”

  “It could happen,” said Tucker, nodding his head.

  “Anyway I worked furiously to get loose. And finally I made it. When they got off the second train, I took a flying leap and landed in a pile of dirt over in the corner of this place where we are.”

  “Such an introduction to New York,” said Tucker, “to land in a pile of dirt in the Times Square subway station. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  “And here I am,” Chester concluded forlornly. “I’ve been lying over there for three days not knowing what to do. At last I got so nervous I began to chirp.”

  “That was the sound!” interrupted Tucker Mouse. “I heard it, but I didn’t know what it was.”

  “Yes, that was me,” said Chester. “Usually I don’t chirp until later on in the summer—but my goodness, I had to do something!”

  The cricket had been sitting next to the edge of the shelf. For some reason—perhaps it was a faint noise, like padded feet tiptoeing across the floor—he happened to look down. A shadowy form that had been crouching silently below in the darkness made a spring and landed right next to Tucker and Chester.

  “Watch out!” Chester shouted. “A cat!” He dove headfirst into the matchbox.

  FOUR

  Harry Cat

  Chester buried his head in the Kleenex. He didn’t want to see his new friend, Tucker Mouse, get killed. Back in Connecticut he had sometimes watched the one-sided fights of cats and mice in the meadow, and unless the mice were near their holes, the fights always ended in the same way. But this cat had been upon them too quickly: Tucker couldn’t have escaped.

  There wasn’t a sound. Chester lifted his head and very cautiously looked behind him. The cat—a huge tiger cat with gray-green eyes and black stripes along his body—was sitting on his hind legs, switching his tail around his forepaws. And directly between those forepaws, in the very jaws of his enemy, sat Tucker Mouse. He was watching Chester curiously. The cricket began to make frantic signs that the mouse should look up and see what was looming over him.

  Very casually Tucker raised his head. The cat looked straight down on him. “Oh, him,” said Tucker, chucking the cat under the chin with his right front paw, “he’s my best friend. Come out from the matchbox.”

  Chester crept out, looking first at one, then the other.

  “Chester, meet Harry Cat,” said Tucker. “Harry, this is Chester. He’s a cricket.”

  “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Harry Cat in a silky voice.

  “Hello,” said Chester. He was sort of ashamed because of all the fuss he’d made. “I wasn’t scared for myself. But I thought cats and mice we
re enemies.”

  “In the country, maybe,” said Tucker. “But in New York we gave up those old habits long ago. Harry is my oldest friend. He lives with me over in the drain pipe. So how was scrounging tonight, Harry?”

  “Not so good,” said Harry Cat. “I was over in the ash cans on the East Side, but those rich people don’t throw out as much garbage as they should.”

  “Chester, make that noise again for Harry,” said Tucker Mouse.

  Chester lifted the black wings that were carefully folded across his back and with a quick, expert stroke drew the top one over the bottom. A thrumm echoed through the station.

  “Lovely—very lovely,” said the cat. “This cricket has talent.”

  “I thought it was singing,” said Tucker. “But you do it like playing a violin, with one wing on the other?”

  “Yes,” said Chester. “These wings aren’t much good for flying, but I prefer music anyhow.” He made three rapid chirps.

  Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat smiled at each other. “It makes me want to purr to hear it,” said Harry.

  “Some people say a cricket goes ‘chee chee chee,’” explained Chester. “And others say, ‘treet treet treet,’ but we crickets don’t think it sounds like either one of those.”

  “It sounds to me as if you were going ‘crik crik crik,’” said Harry.

  “Maybe that’s why they call him a ‘cricket,’” said Tucker.

  They all laughed. Tucker had a squeaky laugh that sounded as if he were hiccupping. Chester was feeling much happier now. The future did not seem nearly as gloomy as it had over in the pile of dirt in the corner.

  “Are you going to stay a while in New York?” asked Tucker.

  “I guess I’ll have to,” said Chester. “I don’t know how to get home.”

  “Well, we could always take you to Grand Central Station and put you on a train going back to Connecticut,” said Tucker. “But why don’t you give the city a try. Meet new people—see new things. Mario likes you very much.”

  “Yes, but his mother doesn’t,” said Chester. “She thinks I carry germs.”

  “Germs!” said Tucker scornfully. “She wouldn’t know a germ if one gave her a black eye. Pay no attention.”

  “Too bad you couldn’t have found more successful friends,” said Harry Cat. “I fear for the future of this newsstand.”

  “It’s true,” echoed Tucker sadly. “They’re going broke fast.” He jumped up on a pile of magazines and read off the names in the half-light that slanted through the cracks in the wooden cover: “Art News—Musical America. Who would read them but a few long-hairs?”

  “I don’t understand the way you talk,” said Chester. Back in the meadow he had listened to bullfrogs, and woodchucks, and rabbits, even a few snakes, but he had never heard anyone speak like Tucker Mouse. “What is a long-hair?”

  Tucker scratched his head and thought a moment. “A long-hair is an extra-refined person,” he said. “You take an Afghan hound—that’s a long-hair.”

  “Do Afghan hounds read Musical America?” asked the cricket.

  “They would if they could,” said Tucker.

  Chester shook his head. “I’m afraid I won’t get along in New York,” he said.

  “Oh, sure you will!” squeaked Tucker Mouse. “Harry, suppose we take Chester up and show him Times Square. Would you like that, Chester?”

  “I guess so,” said Chester, although he was really a little leery of venturing out into New York City.

  The three of them jumped down to the floor. The crack in the side of the newsstand was just wide enough for Harry to get through. As they crossed the station floor, Tucker pointed out the local sights of interest, such as the Nedick’s lunch counter—Tucker spent a lot of time around there—and the Loft’s candy store. Then they came to the drain pipe. Chester had to make short little hops to keep from hitting his head as they went up. There seemed to be hundreds of twistings and turnings, and many other pipes that opened off the main route, but Tucker Mouse knew his way perfectly—even in the dark. At last Chester saw light above them. One more hop brought him out onto the sidewalk. And there he gasped, holding his breath and crouching against the cement.

  They were standing at one corner of the Times building, which is at the south end of Times Square. Above the cricket, towers that seemed like mountains of light rose up into the night sky. Even this late the neon signs were still blazing. Reds, blues, greens, and yellows flashed down on him. And the air was full of the roar of traffic and the hum of human beings. It was as if Times Square were a kind of shell, with colors and noises breaking in great waves inside it. Chester’s heart hurt him and he closed his eyes. The sight was too terrible and beautiful for a cricket who up to now had measured high things by the height of his willow tree and sounds by the burble of a running brook.

  “How do you like it?” asked Tucker Mouse.

  “Well—it’s—it’s quite something,” Chester stuttered.

  “You should see it New Year’s Eve,” said Harry Cat.

  Gradually Chester’s eyes got used to the lights. He looked up. And way far above them, above New York, and above the whole world, he made out a star that he knew was a star he used to look at back in Connecticut. When they had gone down to the station and Chester was in the matchbox again, he thought about that star. It made him feel better to think that there was one familiar thing, twinkling above him, amid so much that was new and strange.

  FIVE

  Sunday Morning

  The next morning Mario came back to the newsstand with his father. Usually he slept late on Sunday, but today he was up before either of his parents and kept urging Papa Bellini to hurry.

  They lifted off the cover and Mario dashed inside. He held up the matchbox and looked in. There was Chester, lying on the Kleenex. The cricket wasn’t asleep though—he had been waiting for Mario. He chirped once.

  Papa smiled when he heard the chirp. “He must like it here,” he said. “He didn’t run away in the night.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t,” said Mario.

  For breakfast Mario had brought a crust of bread, a lump of sugar, and a cold Brussels sprout. He wasn’t quite sure what crickets liked, so he decided to try him out on everything. Chester jumped over Mario’s little finger into the palm of his hand where the food was. Back in the meadow his usual diet was leaves and grass, and every now and then a piece of tender bark, but here in New York he was eating bread and candy and liverwurst, and finding them very tasty at that.

  When Chester had had as much as he wanted, Mario wrapped what was left in a piece of wax paper and put it inside the cash register. Then he slipped the cricket back inside the matchbox and took him over to one of the lunch counters.

  “Look,” he said to the counterman. “This is my new pet. He’s a cricket.”

  The counterman’s name was Mickey. He had red, curly hair. “That’s a fine cricket,” he said, peering in at Chester.

  “May he have a glass of water, please?” asked Mario.

  Mickey said, “Sure,” and gave him the glass. Mario held Chester by the hind legs and lowered him carefully until his head was just above the water. Chester dunked his head in and had a big drink. Then he pulled it out, took a breath, and went in for another.

  “Why don’t you let him stand on the rim?” said Mickey. He was very interested in watching Chester, since he had never seen a cricket drinking from a glass before.

  Mario set his pet on the edge of the glass and gently drew his hand away. Chester bent down to try to reach the water. But the glass was too slippery. He toppled in. Mario hauled him out and dried him off with a paper napkin. But Chester didn’t mind the dunking. He had fallen in the brook a couple of times back in Connecticut. And he knew it would take him a while to get used to city life—like drinking out of glasses.

  “How would the cricket like a soda?” asked Mickey.

  “Very much, I think,” said Mario.

  “What flavor?” Mickey asked.

  M
ario thought a minute. “Strawberry, I guess,” he answered. That happened to be his own favorite flavor.

  Mickey took a tablespoon and put a drop of strawberry syrup into it. Then he added a drop of cream, a squirt of soda water, and a dip of ice cream about as big as your fingernail. That is how you make a cricket’s strawberry soda. He also made one for Mario—a little larger than Chester’s, but not too big, because it was free.

  When the sodas were gone, Mickey took a paper cup and wrote CRICKET on it. “This is his own cup,” he said to Mario. “You can come over and get fresh water any time.”

  “Thanks, Mickey,” said Mario. He put Chester back in the matchbox. “I’ve got to go to get him a house now.”

  “Bring him back soon,” Mickey called after them. “I’ll make him a sundae too.”

  At the newsstand Papa Bellini was talking to Mr. Smedley. Mr. Smedley was the best customer the Bellinis had. He was a music teacher who came to buy Musical America at ten-thirty in the morning on the last Sunday of every month, on his way home from church. No matter what the weather was like, he always carried a long, neatly rolled umbrella. As usual, Papa and Mr. Smedley had been talking about opera. More than anything else the Bellini family liked Italian opera. Every Saturday during the winter, when the opera was broadcast, they would sit clustered around the radio in the newsstand, straining to hear the music above the din of the subway station.

  “Good morning, Mr. Smedley,” said Mario. “Guess what I have.”

  Mr. Smedley couldn’t guess.

  “A cricket!” said Mario, and held Chester up for the music teacher to see.

  “How delightful!” said Mr. Smedley. “What an enchanting little creature.”

  “Do you want to hold him?” asked Mario.

  Mr. Smedley shrank back. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. “I was stung by a bee when I was eight years old, and since then I’ve been a little timid about insects.”

  “He won’t sting you,” said Mario. He tipped the matchbox up and Chester fell out in Mr. Smedley’s hand. It made the music teacher shiver to feel him. “I heard him chirping last night,” said Mario.