“Oh, don’t be so stupid, Martin!” hissed Drusilla.
“You sound just like my mother,” said Martin.
“I feel like your mother sometimes. You’re so wet behind the ears that you make me mad!”
Martin put a paw behind each of his ears. They felt dry enough.
“Why are you so sharp with me?” he said.
“Because it’s like having a ninth child,” snapped Drusilla. “It’s bad enough putting up with these eight big lumps.”
“But don’t you like your children?” asked Martin. “I think they’re lovely.”
By now the young mice were half as big as their mother. They had grown bold too and no longer called their keeper Uncle Martin. Two of them came rushing along the bottom of the tub, playing tag.
“Hi, Mart!” they cried as they dashed by.
“Of course I like them,” said Drusilla angrily. “It’s just that I’m fed up to the back teeth with the lot of them. If I were living a normal life instead of being cooped up in this lousy tub, I’d have kicked them out by now. ‘You’re on your own,’ I’d have said to them. ‘See you around.’ As it is, they’re driving me bananas. I never get a moment’s peace. Can you wonder that I’m bad tempered?”
“Oh,” said Martin.
He had grown very fond of Drusilla and did not like to see her upset.
“What do you want me to do?” he said.
“Let them go.”
“Let them go! But then I’d only have one pet mouse instead of nine.”
“You’d have one reasonably happy pet,” said Drusilla, “instead of nine miserable ones,” and she scurried into the old nest ball in a sulk.
“Drusilla!” said Martin. “Don’t be like that!” But she would not answer.
Martin sat on the chest, frowning, watching the young mice. They didn’t look miserable. They seemed to be having some sort of competition, each in turn taking a run and then jumping as high as it could up the steep sides of the bath. He was amazed how high they could jump for such little creatures, but each in turn fell short and slid down to the bottom again.
“What’s the game, kids?” he said.
“It isn’t a game, Mart,” said one, and then all the rest began to chatter at him.
“We want to get out!”
“Out of this lousy tub!”
“We want to leave home!”
“And see the world!”
“And seek our fortunes!”
“Mum’s fed up with us!”
“And we’re fed up with her!”
“But don’t you like it here?” said Martin. “Don’t you like being my pets?”
“No!” they all squealed. “It’s boring!”
“Oh,” said Martin. “But if I let you out,” he said, “you won’t be safe, you know. My mother, now, or my sister and brother—they’ll kill you.”
“Oh, we know all about that, Mart,” said one.
“Mum told us.”
“ ‘Other cats are not like nice, kind Uncle Martin.’ ”
“If she’s said that once, she’s said it a hundred times.”
“And we know all about mousetraps.”
“And poison baits.”
“And dogs.”
“And men.”
“Well, there you are,” said Martin. “If I let you out, you’re liable to die.”
“We’re liable to die of boredom if you keep us in,” they squeaked, and once again they began their frantic jumping.
—
For the rest of the day Martin worried about the problem. The mouse cubs wanted to go. Drusilla wanted them to go. But they were so young, so little, so vulnerable. What should he do? He needed advice. From someone very clever. But who? The pig, thought Martin suddenly. I’ll ask that pig. He made his way to the pigsties.
Underneath the wall of the first sty the great boar lay fast asleep and snoring, his mouth partly open, exactly as he had been when Martin first saw him. This time the kitten sat and waited patiently until at last the boar woke and looked up at him.
“Can I ask your advice?” said Martin.
The boar grunted. “It’s the little ignoramus, isn’t it?” he said.
“Actually,” said Martin, “I’m a kitten.”
The boar sighed. “Are you demented?” he said.
“No, I’m Martin.”
The boar shook his head. “A martin,” he said, “is a bird.”
“We’re all birds,” said Martin. “My brother and my sister and me, we’re all birds.”
Once more, the big bristly boar levered himself to his feet.
“You will forgive me,” he said, “if I seem anxious to terminate this fascinating conversation, but would you be good enough to come to the point? What is the subject upon which you need my counsel?”
“Well,” said Martin, “it’s like this. I’ve got eight young mice.”
“Live ones?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In a bathtub.”
“You have eight mice swimming in a bathtub of water?”
“No, it’s an empty tub. What do you think I should do with them?”
“Had you not considered the possibility of devouring them? They would surely constitute an excellent repast.”
“Sorry?” said Martin.
“Eat them,” said the boar.
“But I don’t eat mice,” said Martin.
For a little while the boar stood silent, his head bowed, and stared at the ground. He looked the picture of someone carrying a heavy burden.
“If I were a mouse,” he said at last slowly, “being kept in an empty tub by a cat who thinks he’s a bird and, presumably for this reason, does not eat mice, I imagine that I should wish most fervently to be released before I went stark-raving mad.”
“You mean you think I should let them out?” said Martin.
“Yes,” said the boar.
So that night Martin did.
7
A big sleek dark one
Eight times Martin jumped into the bathtub, gently picked up one of Drusilla’s children in his mouth, jumped out again, crept down the steps, and deposited the mouse cub on the floor of the cart-shed. To each in turn he made the same short speech.
“Listen carefully, kid,” he said. “Take my advice. Get out of here. There’s nothing to eat here. Go where the farmer keeps his animals—the cowsheds, the pigsties, the chicken house. That’s where you’ll find food. But whatever place you land up in, the first thing to do tonight is to find yourself a hole and get down it. Hens can peck you, cows can step on you, pigs will probably eat you if they get the chance. And so will the dog. And so, most certainly, will my mother or my brother or my sister. But none of them can get down a mousehole. So remember—first find a safe home and then you can go foraging. Off you go now, and the best of luck.”
Confident as they had seemed in the comparative safety of the bath with their mother and Martin to look after them, some of the mouse cubs were now not so cocky as they bade farewell to the kitten. The boldest ones, to be sure, ran merrily off with loud cries of “So long, Mart, old bean! See you!” but others were more subdued as they made their way out of the cart-shed into the night. Indeed, the last to go, the smallest cub, was so nervous that it addressed the mouse-keeper with the politeness of babyhood.
“G-Good-bye, Uncle Martin,” it said in a voice that trembled, and it paused in the doorway for a moment and looked back before it finally disappeared from sight.
Martin heaved a huge sigh. Dear little fellows! Would he ever see them again? Had he been right to send them out into the harsh world? How would they manage? What would become of them?
How I shall miss them, he thought as he climbed back up the steps into the loft, and how much more will Drusilla!
“All gone!” he said to her sadly. “Try not to worry.”
“Worry?” said Drusilla. “You must be joking. It’s lovely to have the place to myself and the chance to tidy it up a bit.
It’s a mess. High time the bedding was changed, for a start, so don’t just sit there, Martin, you can lend me a paw. Get rid of this musty old straw and then fetch me some fresh, and when you’ve done that, I’m dying for a drink and a square meal, so get a move on.”
“Yes, Drusilla,” said Martin.
—
The days that followed were relaxing ones for the kitten. Keeping one pet mouse was a great deal less trouble than providing for nine, and it was nice to have Drusilla to himself, without constant interruptions from the cubs, forever squabbling or demanding attention or asking silly questions.
“I can see now,” he said, “why you were glad to see the back of them.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Drusilla shortly.
“Well, you said they were driving you bananas. You said you never got a moment’s peace. You said you were fed up with them. Don’t you remember?”
Drusilla did not answer.
“I can understand that now,” said Martin. “It must be terribly tiring being a mother.”
“I trust I have always done my duty,” said Drusilla in a huffy voice.
“Oh, yes, you have—of course you have,” said Martin. “I just meant that children can be a bit of a nuisance. When they get bigger, I mean. Of course it’s different when they’re tiny babies, all pink and fat and blind and naked. They’re really rather adorable then, don’t you think?”
He half expected another sharp reply, but instead he noticed a dreamy look come over the face of his pet.
“Yes,” murmured Drusilla. “Yes, they are.”
“You can always have some more,” said Martin.
The dreamy look promptly disappeared.
“Exactly how,” said Drusilla acidly, “am I supposed to manage that? On my own?”
Martin looked puzzled. How her moods do change, he thought.
“You managed it before,” he said.
“Martin,” said Drusilla. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you the facts of life?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Martin.
“It’s high time you did,” said Drusilla. “Listen to me.”
—
Thus it came about that the very next morning, after the farmer had let his hens out into the orchard, Martin lay once more in ambush in the chicken house.
“Just get it firmly into your head,” Drusilla had said, “that, for the reasons that I have explained to you, it’s got to be a buck. And not just any old buck either—I shall not be best pleased if you bring home some toothless, doddering graybeard. But I shall be furious if you turn up with a doe. So make jolly sure you don’t.”
“But when I catch a mouse, Drusilla,” said Martin, “how shall I know which it is?”
Drusilla gave a small squeak of annoyance. “Oh, I can’t be bothered to go into all that now!” she said. “Just ask it. You’ve got a tongue in your head. Just say, ‘Are you a buck?’ ”
I mustn’t forget that, thought Martin now, and he practiced saying the words to himself. Then there was a scurrying sound overhead, and he looked up to see a mouse running along one of the perches, just above him. At sight of the kitten below it whisked around, twirling its long tail, and began to run back, but Martin was too quick for it. With one paw he cuffed it off the perch and with the other he pinned it down.
Bending his head, he spoke softly into its ear (for he had no wish to frighten it more than was necessary). “Are you a buck?” he said.
“No!” gasped the quivering mouse. “I’m a doe!”
“Oh, bother!” said Martin.
He lifted his paw.
“You’re no good to me,” he said. “I need a buck.”
The mouse did not move. As Drusilla had once done, it lay staring at him as though mesmerized.
Poor little soul, thought Martin. “Cheer up!” he said. “My mistake!” He put on a jolly voice. “ ‘Beg your pardon, grant your grace, mind the cat don’t scratch your face!’ ” he said heartily, and then he turned away and went back to his place of ambush.
—
Martin hunted all day, for he did not want to return to Drusilla empty-pawed, but strangely there seemed to be a great shortage of bucks. Little did he know that, once she had recovered, his first victim had been quick to spread the word through all the runways in the walls and the tunnels under the floor of the chicken house. “Pass it along,” she had said to the first mouse she met, and soon all the buck mice in the place knew.
“If that crazy kitten should catch you,” they said to one another, “just say you’re a doe, and he’ll let you go!”
“Sorry,” said Martin to Drusilla that evening when he brought her a mouthful of corn from the hens’ feeding trough, “I caught six altogether, but would you believe it, there wasn’t a buck among them.”
Drusilla stopped nibbling and looked up at him, her whiskers twitching.
“Strange,” she said.
“Yes,” said Martin. “Each one said, ‘I’m a doe.’ ”
“You didn’t let on that you were only after a buck, did you?”
“Well, yes. I did say that to the first one I caught.”
“Ah!” said Drusilla. “I think maybe they were playing mouse-and-cat with you, Martin.”
“How do you mean?”
“Pulling your leg.”
“They never touched my leg,” said Martin. “I don’t get you.”
“No,” said Drusilla, “and you don’t get me a husband either. I think we’ll have to play things differently. Next mouse you catch, don’t ask it anything. Simply bring it back here.”
And the following morning Martin did. He caught a mouse—a big sleek dark one, it was—under the rabbit hutches and carried it back to the cart-shed, taking great pains not to be seen by any of his family. He bounded up the steps to the loft with it held carefully in his jaws and leaped onto the chest and looked down into the bathtub. He could not see Drusilla, but he supposed she must be inside the new nest that she had made from the fresh straw.
“Here you are, Drusilla!” cried Martin (indistinctly, as happens when people talk with their mouths full). “Is it a buck or a doe?”
But there was no answer.
8
Enough to make a cat laugh
Dropping into the bath (and dropping his new capture in it too), Martin cautiously pulled apart the nest ball of new straw.
There was nothing in it.
“Stay there!” said Martin to the sleek dark mouse (as if it had any choice), and leaping out again, he called Drusilla’s name as loudly as he could.
From a far corner of the loft came two answers. One was the voice of his pet.
“Here, Martin, I’m here!” cried Drusilla faintly. “Oh, save me, save me!”
The other voice said no word. It just gave a low rumbling growl.
—
The semidarkness of the loft posed no problems for Martin, possessed, like all his race, with excellent night vision, and what he saw filled him with horror. A few yards away, crouching between the legs of an old broken kitchen chair, was a very large cat, a cat far bigger than Robin or Lark or even Dulcie Maude. It was a cat that had been in a fair few fights, Martin could see by its battered ears, and because of these and because of its big round face he knew that it was a tom. Held beneath one of its forepaws was his pet.
For a moment he hesitated, fearing to tackle such an opponent, but then Drusilla cried once more, “Save me!” and he threw caution to the wind.
With a cry of “Leave my mouse alone!” Martin ran forward, only to receive a blow across the head that knocked him flying.
“Your mouse?” rumbled the big tomcat, his tail swishing. “You’ve got a nerve, young feller-me-lad. This mouse is mine, so clear out and let me eat it in peace.”
“I’ll tell my mother on you!” screamed Martin in a mixture of fright and hurt and impotent rage. “I’ll tell my mother and she’ll sort you out, you big ugly bully!”
“You watch your tongue,
” said the tom, “or it’s you that’ll get sorted out. Tell your mother indeed! Who’s she anyway?”
“Her name’s Dulcie Maude,” yelled Martin, “and she could beat you with one paw tied behind her back!”
The look on the tom’s face changed suddenly, from contemptuous anger to interested amusement.
“Well, well, well!” he said. “So you’re Dulcie Maude’s boy? In that case, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll split this mouse, half each.” And he bent his head toward Drusilla, ready to bite off hers.
In a fraction of a second, an idea flashed into Martin’s mind. “Wait!” he screeched. “Don’t eat that one! I’ve got another one, a bigger one. Have that instead.”
The tom raised his head.
“Where is it then?” he said. “I don’t see it.”
“It’s in the bathtub,” Martin said.
“Just exactly what is going on, my lad?” said the tom. “I found this one in that tub.”
“Well, that’s where I keep my mice,” said Martin.
“Keep them? Why not eat them straight off?”
“Oh, no,” said Martin. “I keep them in the tub and I look after them and bring them lots of nice food.”
“To fatten them up, you mean?” said the tom. “To make better eating?”
“Oh, no,” said Martin. “I keep them as pets. I don’t eat mice.”
The tomcat was so astonished at this that he released his hold on Drusilla, who crawled dazedly to Martin and crept behind him for protection.
“This is my special pet, you see,” said Martin, “and I’ve only just caught the one that’s in the bath now, and he was going to be a husband for Drusilla if he’s a he, which I don’t know yet because Drusilla hasn’t met him, and now she never will if you eat him, which I wish you wouldn’t but I can’t stop you, but if you try to get my Drusilla back I’ll fight you until there isn’t a breath left in my body!”
“I’m surprised there’s one left now,” said the tom, “after a speech like that.”
He walked across the floor of the loft toward the bathtub and jumped up on the wooden chest and looked in. Martin, crouching protectively in front of Drusilla, could hear the scratch of little claws as the dark mouse skittered around the tub in helpless panic. Equally helplessly, Martin waited for the kill.
Martin's Mice Page 3
