by Avi
As they went along Ragweed was able to gain a better sense of Amperville—or at least the section known as Mouse Town. It was too dark to see much, he reminded himself, and the lights on long poles were not very effective, but most of what he saw appeared to be very run-down. Human nests seemed abandoned. Windows were broken. Doors were shattered. The wide, dusty streets were littered with bits of paper, metal, wood. Abandoned cars were everywhere. The only thing living was straggly weeds growing through cracks in the pavement. Clearly, it had once been a busy place for humans, but no more.
After two more blocks, Clutch announced, “Here we are.”
They had reached a small, broken-down building. A dilapidated sign reading “Sam’s Shoe Shine” hung over a door frame without a door.
Clutch flipped her skateboard up and carried it over the threshold. Ragweed followed.
Whatever structure there was on the outside of the building, inside all had collapsed. Broken beams and cracked wallboard created a ceiling barely ten inches above the heads of the mice. Leading the way, Clutch moved right then left, then right again. “We keep it tight,” she explained. “Like, to keep the cats out if they ever find it, which I seriously doubt.”
At the end of the corridor the two mice scrambled through a hole in the wall, entering an open area with a ceiling made of rusty screening. At the other side of the area was a counter. Behind it stood an enormously fat mouse with large ears, brown fur, and a scaly tail. He was offering up cracker crumbs and cheese to those who asked.
“Mayor of Mouse Town,” Clutch said, with a nod to the mouse. “Goes by the name of Radiator.”
The area was alive with mice of many colors, shapes, and sizes. Ragweed noticed a few golden mice, some deer mice, a few short-tailed grasshopper mice, lots of house mice—like Clutch—even an occasional meadow-jumping mouse. Ragweed had never seen so many different kinds of mice in one place.
A few were alone. Most, however, were in groups about small piles of crumbs and cheese. Talk—loud, constant squeaking—made it hard to hear.
“Hey, mouse, over here,” Clutch shouted over the din to Ragweed. “Meet my band buds.”
Clutch threaded her way through the crowd. “Hey, dude,” mice called to her. “What’s happening?” “What’s up?” “Hey, sweetheart!”
In contrast, Ragweed bumped his way through the mice. “Excuse me. Sorry. Pardon. I do beg your pardon. Thanks.” Under the stares of the mice, he felt very much the outsider.
“Hey, dudes, what’s up?” Clutch cried. She had reached the far corner of the room. Two very different mice were sitting about a small pile of crumbs. “This is my new bud, Ragweed,” she announced. “Just trickled into town.”
The two mice looked up casually. Their faces showed no emotion.
“This is Dipstick,” Clutch went on. “One big bad drummer. He’s a grasshopper mouse.”
“Whatever,” Dipstick murmured with a nod of his head. He had cinnamon-colored fur on his back, a white belly, and a white-tipped tail.
“And this dude is Lugnut,” Clutch continued. “Pygmy mouse.”
Gray-brown in color, Lugnut was half the size of Ragweed, with tiny, delicate paws. His lidded eyes made him appear very sleepy. “He’s on the bass,” Clutch explained. “Awesome noise.”
“What’s up, dude?” Lugnut said to Ragweed in a soft drawl.
“I’m very pleased to meet you both,” Ragweed said.
“Yo, mouse, whatever,” Dipstick said. “Hunker down and toss a crumb.” He gestured to the pile.
“Thank you.” Ragweed sat down and out of politeness took a bit.
“When’s our set?” Clutch asked.
“Soon.”
After a moment, Ragweed said, “What’s a set?”
Dipstick rolled his eyes. Lugnut darted an unbelieving glance at Ragweed, then at Clutch.
“Hey, like,” she said, “he just blew into town.”
“Yeah, right,” Lugnut murmured. “A set is our performance,” he explained to Ragweed. “Ten, twelve tunes. We do three sets a night.”
Dipstick hopped up. “Anyone want something to drink?”
Clutch looked at Ragweed. “What do they have?” Ragweed asked.
“Nectar. Honey. Water.”
“Water, thank you.”
“Anyone else?”
The other mice shook their heads. Dipstick went off.
Ragweed watched the crowd. Most of the mice seemed to be arguing, yet without anger. He wondered that there was so much to talk about. Then it dawned on him: these mice enjoyed squeaking at one another. He found it fascinating.
Clutch leaned over to Lugnut. “This dude here,” she indicated Ragweed, “gets off the train and, like, who do you think is waiting to say hello?”
Lugnut gazed at Ragweed. “Graybar? Silversides?”
Clutch nodded.
“Busted,” Lugnut muttered.
Dipstick came back with a bottle cap filled with water in one paw. He gave it to Ragweed. “Radiator says we’re on,” he announced.
Clutch and Lugnut heaved themselves up. “Enjoy the sound,” Clutch said. “Keep an eye on my deck, will you?”
“Deck?” Ragweed asked.
“Skateboard.”
“Oh, sure.”
Lugnut shook his head in disbelief as the trio eased their way through the crowd. Ragweed heard him say, “Your dude’s an airhead.”
“Hey, like, he’s funky,” Clutch returned.
“Yeah, right,” Dipstick said.
Ragweed sighed, drew in the skateboard, took a sip of water, then settled in to watch. For a moment he lost sight of his new friends, only to see them reappear on the far side of the room on what looked like a small platform.
Dipstick seated himself amid a number of small tuna-fish cans. Lugnut carried a large guitar made from a red plastic spoon and string. His guitar was bigger than the one Clutch had and made the tiny mouse seem even smaller than he was. As for Clutch, she was in front of the other two, tuning her own guitar.
Radiator, who had been behind the counter, waddled to the platform. “Okay, guys,” he called out to the crowd. “Glad you could make it down here tonight to the Cheese Squeeze Club. Our house band, the Be-Flat Tires, is going to do a set. How about giving these cool dudes some Cheese Squeeze Club paw!”
Some ragged applause and a few squeaks were heard.
Clutch stepped forward. “How you dudes doing?”
“Want some funk!” came a reply.
“Okay!” Clutch continued. “We’re one short tonight. Sorry to tell you, but Silversides gaffled Muffler.”
Moans and groans rose from the crowd.
Clutch continued. “Hey, no one said being a mouse is easy. Nothing we can do about it but keep on trucking. That’s the way Muffler would have wanted it. Right? Right! So, like, let’s get into some sweet Be-Flat Tires grooves. Anyway, we’re dedicating tonight’s show to Muffler. Okay.” She turned to her band and nodded her green head. “One, two, three . . .”
The music began.
Ragweed was astonished. He had never heard such sounds before. There was a heavy, repetitious beat from Dipstick, who was flailing away on the tin cans with some twigs, making an awful racket. Every now and again, on a particularly strong beat, he leaped straight up in the air, high above his drums. Tiny Lugnut, all but hidden behind his red guitar, nodded to the beat, closed his eyes, and plucked the strings with great intensity as his tail lashed about wildly. As for Clutch, she bobbed her green-tinted head and bounced up and down as she played. Her earring swung as her tail kept to the rhythm. Then in a hoarse voice she broke into song:
“Mouse in a box
Thinks he’s a fox,
But he’s just full of rage
living on life’s lousy wage.
’Cause the world ain’t cheese
And can’t say please!
Hey, nothing is a snap.
Look out, here comes the trap!
’Cause the world ain’t cheese
’Cause the world ain’t cheese
And can’t say please!
Look out, dudes, here comes the trap!”
The last line was repeated over and over again, with Dipstick and Lugnut joining in from time to time with their own close harmony.
Meanwhile, out on the floor, a fair number of mice had gotten up and started to dance. They were gyrating, some holding their paws up while they were turning, twisting, dipping, shaking, and hopping, with tails lashing about. Some mice even leaped straight up into the air above the crowd, squeaking and squealing as they came down.
And yet, as Ragweed looked on, there was hardly a smile in the crowd. The dancers didn’t look at one another, but appeared to be more deeply involved in the music than aware of their partners. Some had their eyes closed. Others stared fixedly up at the screen above or at their feet.
As Clutch sang on, Ragweed found himself timidly tapping out the beat with his toes.
Suddenly there was an enormous crash. The startled musicians stopped playing. The dancing ceased. Every mouse in the club turned in the direction of the noise. For a moment all was still. Then one of the club walls collapsed. Into the room burst Silversides’s face.
“Good evening, mice,” she said, grinning so that all her teeth were visible. “F.E.A.R. is here.”
CHAPTER 9
What Happened at the Cheese Squeeze Club
THE MICE STARED IN HORROR at Silversides’s face. The next moment, when the opposite wall fell in and Graybar’s eyes and whiskers appeared, chaos erupted.
The club was filled with squeaking, screaming, running, hopping, leaping mice, rushing as one toward the single available exit. But the opening was far too narrow to accommodate the crush. Mice were pushed, shoved, and trampled. Only a few managed to escape.
When the remaining mice tried to find another way out, they were confronted by the two cats calling out, “Cats rule! Mice out! Rodents retreat! Felines first!”
At first Ragweed was too bewildered to do anything but gape at the wild confusion before him. But when Graybar leaped into the middle of the milling mice and began pouncing and biting, a terrified Ragweed shrank back into a corner.
From there he looked toward the platform where the Be-Flat Tires had been playing. Dipstick was leaping straight up and down, squeaking raucous insults at the cats. Lugnut crouched behind his bass guitar as if it were a shield against possible attack. As for Clutch, she was holding her guitar by its neck, clearly willing to use it as a weapon. The look upon her face was nothing less than ferocious.
Two cats. Forty-five mice. Despite their numbers, the mice, overwhelmed by both the suddenness and ruthlessness of the cats’ attack, put up very little resistance. Instead they tried desperately to get away. The two cats, grinning and howling with glee, were catching and tossing mice about at will. One blow of a cat’s paw, and another poor mouse was either laid low or tossed across the room like a bean bag.
Not all the mice were so passive. When Clutch saw Silversides step on a young mouse’s tail and gradually draw her victim in, as if reeling in a fish, she leaped from the performance platform and, bent on rescue, dashed forward. Coming close to the cat, she hauled back her guitar and swung with all her might, smacking Silversides right on her nose. There was a loud plunk. The guitar strings snapped. The guitar shattered.
Taken by surprise, Silversides removed her paw from her victim’s tail and touched her nose to see if anything had broken. The freed mouse leaped away and was lost in the crowd.
Surprised as well as smarting, the white cat searched for her attacker. She did not have to look far. An irate Clutch stood before her, holding the fragmented instrument in her paws.
“Hey, you thick dude, why don’t you trash someone your own size!” she screamed with no apparent thought for her own safety. “Like, we’ve got just as much right to be here as you do! Know what I’m saying?”
“No, I don’t know what you’re saying, you vulgar-mouthed vermin,” Silversides retorted. Shooting out a paw she smacked Clutch broadside, hurling the green-headed mouse back up against a wall. Clutch hit hard, slid to the floor, and lay motionless, eyes closed. Only her earring was moving, swinging back and forth like a pendulum.
Ragweed—who had seen it all—gasped. He was sure Clutch had been killed.
Silversides seemed to think otherwise. Gathering herself up, she prepared to leap upon the mouse and deliver a finishing blow.
Clutch shook her head groggily and opened her eyes. She made an effort to rise but was apparently incapable of getting up. Silversides was grinning at her, ready to spring.
One moment Ragweed was relieved to see that Clutch was alive. The next moment he saw what was about to happen and was appalled. Barely thinking, he snatched up Clutch’s skateboard and ran to his new friend’s side.
Silversides, mouth open so wide her gullet was fully exposed, took a flying leap at Clutch. Ragweed lifted the skateboard over his head to protect himself and his friend. Down came Silversides, mouth wide. Feeling her hot breath on his ears, Ragweed shoved the skateboard into the cat’s mouth. The cat tried to close her jaws, but could not. Her mouth was wedged open by the skateboard.
Taken by surprise, the cat uttered a throaty shriek and rolled over on her back. Kicking desperately, she tried to get the board out of her mouth. It stayed stuck.
Across the room, Graybar looked around and saw Silversides writhing about on the floor. Momentarily forgetting the brawl, he limped over to his companion. “Hey, babe, what’s the matter?” he asked her. “What are you saying?”
“I . . . outh . . . uck,” was all Silversides could manage.
Not understanding what had happened, Graybar just laughed.
“I . . . outh . . . uck!” Silversides shrieked.
Finally Graybar understood. He knelt and tried to pry the skateboard from his friend’s mouth.
Seeing that the cats were occupied, Ragweed snatched one of Clutch’s paws and gave a yank. “Come on,” he cried, “run for it!”
Clutch staggered to her feet. Led by Ragweed, the two pushed their way through the mob of mice who were trying frantically to get out of the room. Fortunately, the walls smashed by the cats provided new avenues for escape. Mice were streaming away to safety.
Dragging the dazed Clutch after him, Ragweed plunged through one of the holes in the walls.
CHAPTER 10
Blinker, Continued
IN ANOTHER PART OF AMPERVILLE the full moon was high, the night air soft, the fragrances of spring rich and varied. Blinker’s pink nose, framed by his fine, fair whiskers, trembled and his pink eyes kept blinking as he tried to take in a world so very much bigger than the room he knew.
“Oh, my,” he prattled in a daze of happy wonderment. “So many sounds . . . So many smells . . . So much to see!” Like an unsure compass needle, he turned round and round on shaky legs until he grew dizzy.
Stopping and starting, he made his way across the lawn in front of his house. The grass tickled his feet so, he had to pause more than once because of uncontrollable giggling. Here and there he plunged his nose into the ground and inhaled the sweet and musky smell—only to get a snootful of dirt and dust, which caused him to sneeze repeatedly. “It’s all so—ah-choo!—amazing,” he wheezed. “So delight—ah-choo!—ful!”
In a moment of abandon, he rolled over in the grass and kicked his pink feet in the air, which gave him the sensation that he was walking on the moon. Another kick righted him and he began to run about wildly.
When he reached the sidewalk in front of his house, he put a paw on the concrete. “Goodness, this is hard,” he murmured, almost as if he were learning a new language. “Yet very cool. Delightfully so. It is. It really is.”
He continued along the sidewalk, poking his nose this way and that. Every few inches he reared up on his hind legs and gazed about. “Oh!” he cried in rapture. “My shadow by moonlight. How velvety, how . . . mysterious.”
When Blinker reached the curb, he gazed down into the gutter where puddles had gathered. “Why, I believe that’s water! But not in a bottle or a glass. It’s just free!” He studied the water so intently, he leaned over too far and tumbled head over heels, landing with a splat in the middle of a puddle.
Thoroughly soaked, Blinker sat up, grimaced, looked around, then began to laugh uncontrollably. “Ridiculous. I mean, I am . . . so helpless. Like an infant. That’s what I am. A perfect baby! I might as well be blind and naked. It’s all so silly, but wonder—” He could not finish his sentence. He was laughing too hard. Dripping wet, he eased himself out of the water and began to move across the road.
Unexpectedly, there was an explosion of light so bright he was blinded. Then Blinker heard a roar louder than anything he had ever before heard in his life. Unable to see, to move, much less to think, he went numb with terror. The next moment the machine that made the roar hurtled over him, missing him with just inches to spare, creating a wind that left him frightened and coughing.
“What was that?” Blinker asked himself as he looked in the direction the thing had gone. All he saw were receding red lights. “A car,” he said to himself in a shaky voice. “I forgot about cars.” He pressed both front paws over his wildly beating heart. “I could get . . . killed.”
In haste, Blinker retreated to the gutter and attempted to climb the curb, which proved too high and smooth to manage. Given no choice, Blinker scampered the length of the gutter. When he reached the end of the block he halted. He knew he wanted to go home. An inner voice scolded him for being weak while urging him to be bold, to continue on, to explore the world.
In the end, Blinker compromised between urges: He would go on and see as much as he could by night. But as soon as daylight came, he would return to the house and the safety of his room.
Having calmed himself with this self-imposed limit, Blinker ventured upon the street again. This time he carefully checked both ways for any sign of danger before proceeding. Only when he was certain there was none did he dart across the street and into a park.
