The Nutcracker Mice

by Kristin Kladstrup

  Irina knew it was much worse for Papa. He felt responsible for everything that had happened to them. She said, “You’re the best custodian in the world. What’s more, you’re kind! You’re kind to everyone!”

  His smile was wry. He said, “Even to mice?”

  She hugged him. “Especially to mice!”

  PLEASE, FLEUR! PLEASE be quiet!” begged Esmeralda.

  The Russian Mouse Ballet Company’s prima ballerina lay on her stomach inside the mousetrap in the costume department, her face buried in her arms. She was sobbing uncontrollably. Which was marginally better than shouting. Which was what Fleur had been doing in the dark early hours of the morning — when Esmeralda, Conrad, and Maksim, returning from scrounge patrol, had heard her cries: Help! Help! Somebody, help!

  They had tried to get her out of the trap by forming a chain of mice — Maksim holding on to Conrad’s feet, Conrad holding on to Esmeralda’s, and Esmeralda reaching down into the trap. “Grab hold of my hands!” Esmeralda had told Fleur.

  Maksim had pulled on Conrad’s feet, and Conrad had pulled on Esmeralda’s, and Esmeralda had lifted Fleur up from the bottom of the trap. Things had looked promising until Fleur had scraped her arm on a sharp spike. She had shrieked and kicked, and Conrad had lost hold of Esmeralda, and now Esmeralda was inside the trap as well.

  “Hush, Fleur! Somebody might hear you!” said Esmeralda. At this hour, the Mariinsky was more or less empty, but there would be a custodian on duty. “Conrad and Maksim have gone to get help,” she added, trying to sound more hopeful than she felt.

  Fleur rolled over onto her back. “I was hungry. I just wanted something to eat!”

  All the Mariinsky mice were hungry, but nobody else had ignored the warnings about the mousetraps. How could Fleur have been so foolish?

  Esmeralda kept these thoughts to herself. She said, “Look! Here they are now!”

  Maksim and Conrad had brought Gringoire with them. Maksim reached through the bars of the mousetrap to grasp Esmeralda’s hands. “Conrad says your brother will come up with a way to get you out,” he told her.

  Indeed, Gringoire was already circling the mousetrap, studying the bottom edge. He stopped suddenly and said, “Do you see this here?”

  Everyone came to look.

  Gringoire said, “There’s a crack in the floorboards. It goes under the mousetrap. If we could find something long and narrow, we could wedge it into the crack.”

  “What good is that?”

  Gringoire ignored Maksim’s question. His eyes narrowed, as they always did when he was thinking hard. “We need something long and rigid. We’ll also need something to use as a fulcrum.”

  Conrad said, “What’s a full of crumb — or whatever you said?”

  “A fulcrum is the point on which a lever rests.”

  “What’s a lever?” asked Maksim.

  Gringoire explained. “It’s a simple machine used for lifting. ‘Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the Earth,’ said Archimedes. Only we mice are not going to move the Earth. We are going to use a lever to move this mousetrap.”

  Esmeralda had never heard of Archimedes, but she guessed that he or she must have written one of the books in the attic. She said, “Long and rigid . . . like a broomstick?”

  “Too heavy. We must be able to carry our lever here, and we have to be able to wedge the end of it under the mousetrap.”

  “A butter knife!” said Conrad. “There’s one that fell behind a chair in the tsar’s salon.”

  Gringoire shook his head. “Too short.”

  Esmeralda closed her eyes, trying to think of something long and rigid — something light that mice could carry. “What about Monsieur Drigo’s conducting baton?”

  “Perfect! And I think we can use a thread spool for the fulcrum.”

  “There’s a whole pile of them over there,” said Conrad, gesturing to a table on the other side of the costume department.

  “We also need more mice,” said Gringoire. “As many as we can find.”

  “We’ll have to wake them up,” said Conrad.

  “Watch out for the custodian!” said Esmeralda.

  “Right!” said her brother. “Gurkin’s on duty tonight. But don’t you worry. I think he’s given up checking the mousetraps. I’ve heard him bragging about how they’re always empty. He seems to be under the mistaken impression that we mice have moved out of the theater.”

  Not nearly soon enough for comfort, Gringoire and the others returned with the necessary supplies. They had also roused a team of rescuers, among them Madame Giselle.

  The mice gathered around as Esmeralda’s brother gave directions. He pointed to where he wanted them to place the thread spool. “We’ll put the fulcrum here. I think we’d better turn it on its side. That way the lever will be less likely to slip off. Madame Giselle, you hold the spool in place.”

  Though wild-eyed with worry, the ballet mistress did as she was told.

  Gringoire went on. “The rest of you need to place the lever on top of the fulcrum.”

  The mice set to work positioning the baton, following Gringoire’s directions: “That’s it! No, no! Move it a little more this way!”

  Once the baton was in place, Gringoire and Maksim maneuvered its tip into the crack beneath the mousetrap. “Next we’re going to apply a downward force on the high end of the lever,” said Gringoire. “Climb up now, as many as can fit. I’ll make sure this end stays wedged under the trap.”

  One by one, the mice climbed onto the baton. They crouched along its length, balancing like birds on a telegraph wire.

  Nothing happened.

  Gringoire said, “Try crowding all together, as close to the far end of the lever as possible.”

  “There isn’t room!” Even as Conrad said this, he slipped. Just in time, he grabbed the baton. He hung there, dangling above the ground.

  “That’s the way! If more of you hang on like Conrad, you can shift your collective center of gravity away from the fulcrum.”

  Maksim and two other mice dropped down into a dangling position. Above them, the other mice pushed their way to the end of the baton.

  “The mousetrap is moving!” shrieked Fleur.

  Sure enough, as the mouse end of the lever descended, the mousetrap end moved up.

  “Shift your weight just a bit more, and I think we’ll have it,” said Gringoire.

  “Shh!”

  Everyone froze, listening. Someone was whistling the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

  Gurkin, thought Esmeralda. And then . . .

  Only one mouse let go of the baton — but that was enough. The mousetrap end of the lever bumped to the ground, jolting the mice at the other end into the air.

  The whistling stopped abruptly. The door of the costume department creaked open.

  The mice fled. Esmeralda saw their tails whisk out of sight beneath the nearest cupboard.

  Fleur was crying again — cowering next to Esmeralda with her eyes shut tight. Esmeralda kept hers open. She watched the custodian approach. He set his lantern on the floor. Its light flashed across her vision and she blinked.

  And then Gurkin was staring right at them. Fleur whimpered. Esmeralda felt sick.

  The custodian sneered, displaying stained and crooked teeth behind a bristly ginger-colored beard. He picked up the baton and studied it. He scratched his head and looked around. He said, “Hello? Is anyone here?”

  Gurkin dropped the baton and reached for the trap, then appeared to change his mind. Abruptly, he stood up, grabbed the lantern, and left the room.

  Esmeralda let out a gasp. Conrad and Maksim rushed out from under the cupboard; Gringoire followed close behind. He said, “I think he’s gone to get something flat to push under the mousetrap. We’ve got to get you out before he comes back.”

  This time the mice moved with precision born of experience. Slowly, the cage rose up.

  “You go first,” said Esmeralda.

  Fleur tried to
push herself through the hole at the bottom of the trap. “I can’t fit!”

  “She needs more room! Shift the weight farther away from the fulcrum!”

  By now the mice knew that by fulcrum, Gringoire meant the thread spool. The mousetrap tilted up farther. Fleur pushed herself through the hole and began to crawl along the floor toward the outer edge of the mousetrap.

  “Stay where you are, everyone!” said Gringoire. “She’s almost out from under —”

  But someone moved. The mousetrap fell and Fleur gave a scream. “My foot! My foot!”

  Madame Giselle wrung her hands. “Oh, Fleur! Oh, my poor, dear Fleur!”

  Gringoire shouted, “Lift it up again! Apply more force!”

  Slowly, the mousetrap rose up.

  “She’s out,” said Gringoire.

  Fleur gave a moan. Her foot was twisted at an odd angle.

  “Your turn, Esmeralda!” said Gringoire. “Hurry now!”

  Before she could move, however, they heard Gurkin’s footsteps. The mice on the lever leaped down, and the trap crashed to the floor. Everyone except Maksim, Conrad, Gringoire, and Fleur rushed to hide under the cupboard.

  “Run!” cried Esmeralda, her hands gripping the bars of the mousetrap. “Take Fleur with you!”

  Maksim’s hands curled around hers. “I don’t want to leave you!”

  Gurkin was at the door. “You can’t help me now. Get away, Maksim!” cried Esmeralda.

  He gave her an agonized look and let go.

  Gringoire limped toward the cupboard. Maksim and Conrad followed, carrying Fleur between them. Esmeralda saw them reach safety, then shut her eyes as Gurkin’s lantern flashed across the room.

  She heard the floor creak. Then she heard Gurkin let out a gasp. He must be surprised to see only one mouse in the trap, she thought.

  Now she could smell him. She could smell his hands — a dreadful odor of grease and vinegar and human — as Gurkin lifted the trap. She was sliding. Her eyes flew open as the custodian shook the trap, and she had to throw herself out of the way of the sharp spikes. He shook the trap again, and Esmeralda slid out the hole in the bottom.

  She landed hard. She picked herself up and ran into a metal wall. She turned and ran into another wall. And another! She looked up and saw the custodian’s yellow-toothed sneer.

  “I got one of you, anyway!” muttered Gurkin.

  Then a roof slammed down on her prison, shutting out the light.

  YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL for turnips,” Mama told Irina.

  Now that Papa was out of work, Mama seemed to make turnip stew more often than not. It was easy to get tired of turnip stew, and being tired of turnip stew sometimes led to complaining. The only good thing about turnips, as far as Irina was concerned, was that they made her think of a story she liked.

  One night, she asked Papa to tell it to her at bedtime. He said, “You’re too old for that one. You’ve heard it a hundred times!” But she insisted, and he told her the story. The characters — a grandfather, a grandmother, their granddaughter, their dog, and their cat — all formed a long chain, all of them trying to uproot an enormous turnip from the garden. Only when a little mouse helped them pull did the turnip pop out of the ground.

  The story made Irina think of the dancing mouse. She wondered if the mouse had found the bundle of dresses that she had left under the cupboard, and she went to sleep wishing that she could go to the theater with Mama in the morning. That didn’t seem likely; these days, Mama felt that Irina should stay home and keep Papa company.

  Then, in the morning, Irina learned that the grocer who had sold Mama the turnips for last night’s stew had mentioned that he needed someone to help clean out his storeroom. And Mama had mentioned that Papa could help him. So, Irina didn’t have to stay home to keep Papa company, and she went to the theater after all, grateful for turnips and eager to find out what she could about the dancing mouse.

  As it happened, what Irina found out alarmed her. No sooner had she and Mama entered the costume department than Madame Federova told them that the custodian had finally caught a mouse in one of his traps.

  “Right here in the costume department,” said Madame Federova. “No doubt it was one of the mice you brought with you that day, Sonya Borisovna. Just think! They’ve been lurking here all this time.”

  Irina said, “Where is the mouse?”

  “The custodian has taken it away, thank goodness,” said Madame Federova.

  Taken it away! To drown it? To poison it? Irina’s heart pounded.

  She said, “I left Lyudmila in my coat pocket, Mama. May I go get her?”

  This wasn’t a lie; she had left her doll in the cloakroom, but Irina wanted to look for Gurkin on her way back to the costume department.

  “Go ahead. But don’t dawdle,” said Mama, already speaking through a mouthful of pins.

  “I won’t.” This was only a tiny lie. She would be as quick as she could.

  In no time at all, Lyudmila was in Irina’s pocket.

  As for Gurkin, Irina found him in a hallway, talking to the theater director. She ducked into an open doorway to listen to their conversation.

  “I assure you, Monsieur, that the rodent we caught last night was an aberration,” said Gurkin. “That is to say, these vermin tend to seek shelter indoors in winter, and no doubt that is the case here. Last night’s immediate capture of the invader demonstrates that the new traps will continue to be successful. My predecessor, unfortunately, made the error of relying on old-fashioned mousetraps, and —”

  Monsieur Vsevolozhsky interrupted Gurkin’s babbling. “Just so long as we don’t see a repeat of what happened earlier this month. Monsieur Tchaikovsky has been attending many of our rehearsals. I don’t want another upset.”

  “No, sir! I will be disposing of the rodent myself!”

  Disposing of . . . Could that mean the mouse was still alive? But where was it?

  “Good day, Monsieur,” said Gurkin.

  The two men parted, and the custodian walked past Irina, even as she pretended to check the lace of her boot. Gurkin was carrying a metal pail with a lid. With sudden, clear conviction, she knew that the mouse was inside the pail. Could it be the dancing mouse?

  The custodian began to whistle a tuneless rendition of the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” Irina stood up, ready to follow him, when someone called, “Is that you, Konstantin Grigorovich?”

  The custodian stopped whistling. He looked into a half-open door on the other side of the corridor. “What is it?”

  “I was hoping to find rags for cleaning. I thought there were some in this supply room.”

  Gurkin set the pail down and entered the room.

  This was her chance! Irina tiptoed over to the pail.

  She heard the sounds of boxes being moved around. Gurkin said, “Try the top shelf.”

  She knelt down and lifted the lid of the pail. A small gray mouse stared up at her. It was trembling. There wasn’t time to explain or soothe. She had only a few seconds. Irina scooped up the mouse with her hand. It was tiny and warm; it squirmed as she dropped it into the pocket of her pinafore.

  She stood up to find Gurkin looming over her. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. He looked into the pail. “Where is the rodent?”

  Irina opened her mouth. She was too scared to speak.

  Gurkin said, “You took it!”

  The other custodian came to the door. It was Yuri Petrovich, whose wife had made the spice cookies. He said, “Well, if it isn’t Irina!”

  Gurkin said, “This girl has stolen a mouse!”

  “Why should she do that, sir?”

  “She put it in her pocket!”

  “Is there a mouse in your pocket, Irina?” asked Yuri Petrovich.

  A tear rolled down Irina’s cheek. She bit her lip, fighting back more tears.

  “Come now, sir! You’ve made her cry.”

  “I tell you, I saw her take it! Turn out your pocket, girl!”

  Irina w
iped her eyes. She turned out her pocket. Lyudmila tumbled to the floor.

  “It’s just a doll, sir,” said Yuri Petrovich. He bent down, picked up Lyudmila, and handed her to Irina.

  “Th-thank you,” Irina stammered as she put Lyudmila back in her pocket.

  Yuri Petrovich said, “I’m sorry about all this. Tell your papa I said hello, yes?”

  “May I — may I go?” asked Irina.

  Yuri Petrovich nodded, and the last thing Irina heard as she hurried away was Gurkin’s voice. “The mouse was right here, I tell you! Right here in this pail!”

  Irina returned to the cloakroom, where she knew she would be alone. She had already felt inside her pocket — and found the tiny hole at the bottom of it. Now she closed the door behind her and whispered, “Are you there, mouse?”

  Carefully, she lifted her pinafore, revealing her gray woolen dress. The mouse clinging to a fold in the fabric was almost the same color. It jumped to the floor.

  Irina knelt down.

  The mouse turned and looked up with eyes that were dark and liquid, like drops of ink.

  Irina said, “It is you, isn’t it? You’re the dancing mouse!”

  DON’T BE SCARED! Please don’t run away!” said the girl.

  Esmeralda had never wanted to do anything more in all her life.

  At any moment, the girl might reach out with her enormous hand, which smelled so awfully of human. She might scoop her up again! She might grab her around the middle with her grasping fingers and swing her up into the air!

  “I’m sorry I had to pick you up like that. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it if a giant hand grabbed me. I couldn’t do anything else, though. Gurkin was going to —” The girl tilted her head. “Can you understand me?”