The Secret of the Ginger Mice

by Song of the Winns

  “Yes!” Alistair cried. “Now back to the paddle, Tib.”

  Tibby Rose nimbly pulled up the pole and slid back into her position with the second paddle. They had gained precious time, and they needed it as the river narrowed and started to wind, increasing the strain on their arms as they paddled hard, first on one side of the raft and then the other to avoid crashing into the bank when the river made another of its tortuous bends. A quick glance back told Alistair the lead boat was making up the time it had lost.

  “They’re gaining on us!” he yelled.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep going,” Tibby panted, her face etched with fatigue.

  Just as it occurred to Alistair that it was pointless to flee, really, that there was no way two young mice on a homemade raft could outrun the boats of the Queen’s Guards, they rounded another sharp bend and his eyes lit on a weeping willow at the river’s edge, its long green branches falling to the ground like a curtain. Could they possibly get away with the same trick twice?

  “Tibby, head for the bank,” he said urgently. “The willow tree.” He didn’t have the breath to explain any further, but fortunately Tibby seemed to understand the plan, because only a few strokes later the raft shot through the long ribbons of leaves. Tibby flung down her paddle and snatched up the pole, planting it in the sand to bring the raft to a stop. They sat in terrified silence, hardly daring to breathe, as the Queen’s Guards came around the bend.

  9

  Friend or Foe?

  Alice’s scream echoed down into the black abyss falling away beneath her feet, but just as she feared she would be swallowed by the gaping black chasm below, her scrabbling hands made contact with a hard surface and she closed her fingers around it. It was the edge of the path. For several long seconds she just hung there, panting, feeling the full weight of her body straining against her tenuous hold. Then she carefully craned her neck to see what was happening above.

  In the moonlight, she could make out the silhouettes of Horace and Sophia, standing atop a large boulder which reared up above the path. Alex was standing beneath it, his eyes frantically scanning the spot where his sister had stood only moments before. She wished she could cry out to tell him where she was, but that would only alert the suspicious mice above to their presence. So would any attempt to clamber back onto the path.

  “What was that?” Horace asked, his voice quavering.

  Alice saw her brother give a start as he realized the voice was coming from directly above him, and then shrink into the shadow of the boulder.

  “I don’t know,” said Sophia sharply. Considering that she had been woken abruptly from her sleep, she sounded very alert. “But something brushed my tail. It was hanging over the edge of the rock there and I distinctly felt something.” She peered over the edge of the boulder, but darkness concealed both Alex trembling in the shadows and Alice, hanging from the path’s edge.

  Her fingertips were aching, and her wrists, and it seemed to her that her grip was weakening. What should she do? She didn’t know how much longer she could cling on like this.

  “Do you think it might have been a b-b-bat?” Horace wanted to know.

  “Maybe,” said Sophia. She was squinting down the path now, but was apparently satisfied that there was nothing there, for she turned her gaze to the sky. “Or maybe a bird of prey. An eagle, perhaps.”

  “A-a-an eagle?” Horace shrieked.

  Clearly small matters like birds of prey, with their grasping claws and ferocious beaks that could tear a mouse in two, didn’t worry Sophia, because she dismissed the empty sky with a shake of her head and said, “Or perhaps it was a boogedy monster. Come on, Horace, we’ve hardly slept a wink. I know I don’t need my beauty sleep”—she stroked her long whiskers vainly—“but I’d like it all the same.” And she lay back down on the boulder.

  “A boogedy monster?” said Horace in alarm. “What’s a boogedy monster? Sophia, what’s a boogedy monster?”

  “There, there, Horace, dear. No boogedy monster can hurt you as long as I’m here.” Alice thought she heard the silvery mouse chuckling to herself as Horace sank to the ground and curled up beside her.

  Alice’s arm muscles were screaming with pain now, her fingers numb where they gripped the cold rock. She saw Alex take a tentative step forward, and she followed him with her eyes, willing him to meet her gaze. Wasn’t there supposed to be a special bond between triplets? Or maybe that was twins, and the bond was lessened when it was spread over three siblings. She had to admit that neither Alex nor Alistair had ever shown any ability to read her mind at all. Just her luck to have brothers; she was sure a sister would have sensed her despair, her tiring arms, her weakening hold. She would have to cry out. She couldn’t hang on any longer. . . .

  She had just opened her mouth to call to her brother when she felt strong hands grasp her wrists. It was Alex, silent but with a determined expression on his face, hauling her up to the safety of the path.

  Seconds later, Alice lay panting on the ground, concealed from the mice above by the cover of a rock shelf. Weak with relief, she lay motionless for a few minutes, watched by her anxious brother, then she sat up and flexed her wrists and fingers, which were stiff and sore, and attempted to rub feeling back into her arms.

  They sat quietly for a long time, listening to the deep breathing above and trying to recover from the shock of Alice’s narrow escape. Finally, as the first faint licks of dawn painted the sky, Alex mouthed, “Let’s go,” and they stood, stretched, and trudged off along the path.

  They walked for a couple of hours, long enough to see the dark mountain above turn purple and then a cool dazzling white as the sun eased into the sky. Although they didn’t discuss it, Alice felt sure that Alex’s thoughts must mirror her own. Whereas they had set off with the intention of following Horace and Sophia in the hope of overhearing something, now her only thought was to push on. By daylight it all seemed very clear. Alistair wasn’t with Horace and Sophia so he must be somewhere else—hopefully, that somewhere else wasn’t a boat headed for Souris. They needed to get to Shambles and deliver that letter to Beezer’s friends in FIG as quickly as possible.

  When at last it seemed they must surely have put enough distance between themselves and Horace and Sophia, they stopped for a meager breakfast. As they gnawed discontentedly at the hard crust of bread which was all that was left from the farmer’s “good supper,” Alice found that hunger was turning her gratitude—her brother had saved her after all—to irritation.

  “Thanks for almost killing me, by the way,” she snapped.

  “What are you talking about?” said Alex belligerently. His ability to withstand hunger cheerfully was virtually nonexistent.

  “You pushed me over the edge!”

  “I didn’t push you, I knocked you. There’s a difference, you know. Anyway, I thought her tail was a snake.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Since when do snakes hang from rock ledges?”

  “Since when do you know so much about the habits of snakes?”

  After this exchange they got to their feet and continued to walk in silence, except for Alice saying, “Brilliant idea, taking the shortcut,” as their feet sank into a muddy slush.

  “I seem to recall you agreeing that it was a good plan,” Alex fired back as the path climbed higher still and the air grew sharp with cold.

  Alice, who knew that this was true, decided she had better keep her thoughts to herself. Instead, she focused all her energy on the ridge below Mount Sharpnest; this must be the mountain pass. Once they reached that ridge, it would be all downhill.

  When the slush turned to snow some time later, her spirits rose. She had never seen snow before. Scooping up some of the icy white powder, she shaped it into a ball and threw it at her brother, striding along ahead of her. She laughed when it hit him right between the ears.

  “Do you mind?” said Alex, brushing the snow from his fur. But he was laughing, and Alice knew she had been forgiven her early f
it of temper.

  The chill air nipped at their ears and noses, but the sky was a deep blue, the sun surprisingly warm, and as they crested the ridge just below the peak Alice drew in a breath of delight at the white-covered world stretching before them. The path opened out to a wide plateau that fell away in gentle folds. In the far distance, she could see the road they had forsaken, a river, fields, and trees. The ridge itself, she noted, looking to the left away from Mount Sharpnest, was lined with stands of majestic pine trees, their sharp fresh scent filling the air. And beneath the nearest stand of trees was a house. It was no wonder she hadn’t seen it at first. A small neat wooden cottage, it was the same color as the tree trunks, and seemed almost to melt into them. By the steps leading up to the small front porch was a sled, and a woodpile stood beneath a window from which a yellow light flickered.

  “Look, Alex.” She nudged her brother. “I think a woodcutter must live there.”

  Alex, who had been gazing at the forbidding facets of Shetlock’s highest peak, rising to their right, turned and followed her pointing finger.

  “What do you think woodcutters eat?” he asked immediately. Without waiting for an answer, he set off toward the house, wading awkwardly through snow that came almost to his knees.

  “Hey,” Alice called. She scrambled after him.

  When she caught up, Alex was peering into a barrel beside the woodpile. “Empty,” he said crossly. Then he clambered onto the woodpile to peep in the window.

  “Fondue,” he said in wonder and envy. “Cheese fondue.”

  “Let me see.” Alice scrabbled onto the woodpile.

  Inside the cottage was a gray-white mouse with thick coarse fur. He was sitting in a deep, sagging green armchair before a blazing fire. Bubbling away over the fire was a pot of melted cheese. As Alice watched, the mouse tore a piece of bread from the loaf beside him, stuck it on the end of a long fork, swirled it through the thick cheesy goo then lifted it, long strings trailing, to his mouth. Occasionally he followed up with a pickled onion.

  They were so engrossed in this scene—with Alex speculating on what kind of cheese the grizzled mouse might be using—that the voices of Horace and Sophia came as a shock.

  “Quick, into the barrel,” Alice hissed, and the two young mice jumped straight from the woodpile into the barrel a split second before Horace and Sophia crested the ridge.

  Sophia’s musical voice rang loudly in the clear, cool air. “Horace, look!” she was saying. “A cottage. I wonder what kind of mountain delicacies we might find there?”

  “Looks like it belongs to a woodcutter,” came Horace’s doleful voice. “See the axes and saws?”

  “Even woodcutters have to eat, Horace. Let’s take a peek.”

  Peering over the lip of the barrel, Alice saw Sophia skip nimbly to the top of the woodpile right beside them. She quickly ducked her head.

  “Fondue!” the silvery mouse exclaimed. “Come on, Horace, time to make a new friend.”

  She leaped off the woodpile and Alice raised her head again in time to see the slender silver-gray mouse and her coal-black companion climb the stairs to the front door of the cottage.

  “So sorry to bother you,” Sophia was saying. “We’re weary travelers, journeying in search of . . .”

  The rest of the sentence was lost as the two weary travelers entered the cottage.

  “What’s happening now?” came Alex’s voice from the bottom of the barrel.

  “They’ve gone inside,” Alice said. “We should watch them. We might learn something.”

  They pulled themselves out of the barrel and climbed back to the top of the woodpile. Pressing their noses to the window they saw that inside the cozy cottage the woodcutter had pulled two stools close to the fire and fetched two additional forks. With a courteous gesture he gave up the armchair to Sophia, who sank into it gracefully. The silver-gray mouse then managed to keep up an animated conversation, complete with pickled-onion full stops, while deftly twirling her fork in the fondue pot and managing to tuck away a surprising amount of bread and melted cheese.

  Horace, on the other hand, seemed to speak very little, with the fondue requiring all his concentration. Despite his efforts, though, he proved to be less adept than his partner, and was soon festooned with strings of cheese stretching from ear to ear and tangled in his whiskers.

  At last it seemed they had eaten their fill, for Sophia placed her fork on the hearth and patted her stomach contentedly.

  Head cocked to one side, she listened to something the woodcutter was saying, then jumped to her feet, a look of rapture on her face.

  “I wonder what that’s about?” Alice mused. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know that we’ve learned anything after all. Why don’t we go and hide in the trees where the path picks up again over there, and then we can follow them like we’d planned.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned,” Alex griped as the cottage door swung open. “We should have just marched up to the door and demanded some fondue while we had the chance instead of skulking outside the window.”

  “—just on the other side of this woodpile,” the woodcutter was saying in a gruff voice.

  “They’re coming this way,” Alice gasped. “Quick—into the barrel again.”

  Back into the barrel they jumped, as Sophia said, “And how long do you age it for, Mr. Macduff?”

  “As long as it takes,” the woodcutter replied. “Two years. Five years. Ten. The longer you age it, the harder the cheese, of course.”

  “Cheese?” Alex whispered, his ears pricking up.

  “I don’t know that it’s all that interesting to look at, Miss Sophia, but if you really want to see you’re welcome.”

  “Your cellar sounds like a veritable treasure-trove,” Sophia declared. “Lay on, Macduff.”

  The two mice heard the sound of a door creaking open and Horace saying anxiously, “Your cellar looks very dark, Mr. Macduff.”

  “Cheese don’t have much use for light,” the woodcutter responded.

  Alex moaned softly beside Alice. “You mean we’ve been sitting in a barrel when there’s a whole cellar full of cheese just meters away?”

  “Oh, can you smell that?” Sophia said. “What a wonderful aroma.”

  “Ah, that’s my Parmesan you can smell there, Miss Sophia,” said Macduff. From the barrel, Alice could hear the clomping of his feet on the stairs leading down to the cellar, followed by Sophia’s quick light steps. “You do have a good nose. You might detect an undertone of mushroom?”

  Sophia’s voice floated up clearly. “I do, Macduff. I do indeed.” Then she called impatiently, “Come on, Horace.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Horace called, from somewhere very close to the barrel. “Cellars,” he said to himself. “Ugh. Nasty dark cold places. Like caves. Could be bats down there for all I know.” And on this gloomy thought he leaned on the barrel in which Alice and Alex were hiding.

  The barrel wobbled dangerously, flinging Alice and Alex from side to side, before tipping over and half spilling the two young mice from their hiding place. Alice looked up to meet Horace’s shocked gaze.

  Horace squeaked, “Sophia! Sophia, it’s them! They’re here!”

  But Alice didn’t hear Sophia’s reply because suddenly they were rolling.

  “Hang on, sis!” Alex cried. “We’re headed down the mountain!”

  And so they were, Alice noted dizzily, as through the barrel’s opening she saw a blur of sky, trees, snow, sky, trees, snow flashing by.

  Faster and faster they rolled, until the barrel was hurtling at such a speed that Alice closed her eyes and huddled as far down into the barrel as she could, too scared to watch.

  Alex, who seemed to think this was all a thrilling adventure, whooped, “We’re heading for a dip!”

  Suddenly they were flying through the air, still turning, before landing with a jarring crash that sent pain through every bone in Alice’s body.

  “Make it stop,” she whimpered.
/>
  “No can do, sis,” cried Alex. “Not at this speed! Whoops—black ice.”

  He had no sooner spoken than the barrel stopped rolling and began to slide. Opening her eyes, Alice saw that they were now careening headfirst down the mountain. To her dismay, there was no sign of an end to it—just snowy slopes as far as she could see.

  “Here comes a bumpy patch!” Alex announced, as their sliding was arrested by a thud. For a moment they were airborne before landing again with a thump. There followed several long minutes—hours it seemed to Alice—in which they bounced and thumped through a field of small hard mounds of snow. When they finally hit a clear stretch Alice was almost relieved as they began to roll once more.

  “Woohoo! This is the way to travel!” Alex shouted.

  Alice, curled up in the bottom of the barrel, closed her eyes again and waited in misery for the ordeal to end.

  After what seemed like a lifetime, the mountain’s slope became gentler, the rolling of the barrel slower.

  “Oh,” said Alex in disappointment. “We’re stopping.”

  Sure enough, the barrel gradually rolled to a halt.

  The two mice crawled out of the barrel and stood up on shaky legs. Alice tottered around in the snow, swaying slightly. It felt like the whole world was still turning and she couldn’t quite balance or focus.

  Then Alex said, “Um, sis . . .,” and the world slipped back into focus with a suddenness that made Alice gasp.

  There in front of them was the woodcutter’s sled—and on the sled, watching them, were Sophia and Horace.

  10

  Timmy the Winns

  Alistair peered through the curtain of willow, his heart in his mouth, as first one then a second boat of Queen’s Guards rowed swiftly past, oblivious to the presence of the fugitives mere meters away. When the last ripples from the boats had disappeared, he let out a huge sigh of relief, then leaped from the raft and pulled it onto the bank beneath the willow’s canopy. Looking around, still breathing hard, he saw that they were fully enclosed in a cool green room. As he had hoped, they could look out, while being completely hidden from view.