by Eliza Teoh
“Yes! Yup!” came a chorus of mousey voices.
She slid the drawer till it was half-closed, then left the wardrobe door ajar. Now all she had to do was to make something that the mice in school could use to crawl out of the hole. She rummaged through her art bag. She threw out the poster paint. That wasn’t going to be useful. She threw out the box of crayons. She flung some coloured paper onto the floor. There didn’t seem to be anything useful in there.
Wait! What was that at the bottom of her art bag? It was an ice cream stick. Ellie fished it out and rooted around the bottom of the bag looking for more. She found three more sticks. She remembered how she had made a little house out of ice cream sticks during one of the art lessons in school. Could she maybe build a little ladder using them? She felt excited at the idea.
She placed two ice cream sticks side by side on the floor. She needed something to join them together and form a step. She took another stick and, using all her strength, broke it into two halves. She placed the two half-sticks across the two ice cream sticks.
“There! That looks like a ladder!” Ellie said to herself. She was pleased at how clever she was. “I’m an inventor!”
She reached out for some scotch tape. She stuck the pieces together. She held up her handiwork and admired it. The pieces stayed stuck together. It looked like a ladder! This was going to work! She reached out for the last ice cream stick. She frowned. Only one left? She was going to need more. She ran to the kitchen.
“Auntie Gina, can I have an ice cream?” Ellie asked the family’s domestic helper.
“No, no! After lunch, okay?” Auntie Gina said. “Lunch will be ready soon.”
“Just one? Pleeeeease!” Ellie cajoled.
“Cannot, cannot. Your mother says no sugar before meals,” Auntie Gina said.
“Hmph,” Ellie grunted. “Then how about I just take the ice cream stick?”
“What? You want to eat the ice cream stick?” Auntie Gina looked horrified.
“Not to eat. I just want the stick for a project. Can I? Please?” Ellie asked.
Auntie Gina thought for a minute, then shrugged. Why not? She walked to the freezer and pulled out a bag of rainbow ice lollies. She tore one of them open and pulled out the stick. She handed it to Ellie. “Here you go. I will let you eat this ice cream in a bowl after lunch, okay?”
“Thank you!” Ellie said. She grabbed the stick and ran to her room.
She sat on the floor and started working on her ladder again. Now, she had two more sticks to work with. She stared at them. It still wasn’t enough! She needed more. She crept to the kitchen and peeked in. Auntie Gina had her back to her, frying something that smelt yummy. She crept silently to the freezer and opened it. She grabbed three more rainbow ice lollies and ran to her room.
She tore the wrappers off and tugged at the ice cream sticks. Her hands were freezing. And yummy! She licked the melted ice cream off her fingers. She managed to pull the ice cream sticks out. Yay! Now she could work on sticking them together.
She yanked off a long piece of scotch tape and wrapped it around the sticks.
“Why isn’t it sticking?” Ellie wondered aloud.
She yanked off an even longer strip of tape. The end of the tape caught in her unruly hair. “Oops!” she said. She let the end of the tape go and reached to pull out a new piece of tape.
And that was how Gabby found Ellie when she came to call her for lunch – sitting on the floor surrounded by wet and gooey ice cream sticks, little plastic toys, crayons, tubes of paint, coloured paper, ice cream wrappers and three blobs of melting ice cream. Her hands were sticky with melted ice cream and there were bits of scotch tape in her hair.
“ELLIEEEEEEEE!” Gabby screamed. “What. Are. You. Doing?”
Chapter 9
Ellie held up her handiwork. “Look! I made a ladder!” She was totally oblivious to the mess around her.
“Are you crazy? Look at the mess you made!” Gabby said. “Mama is going to kill you when she gets back.”
“What mess?” Ellie said. She looked around her. “Oh. I didn’t know.”
“How can you not know? Do you have eyes or not? How can you not see the mess around you?”
“I don’t know,” Ellie said. And she really didn’t. How did her room get so messy anyway? Where did all this stuff come from?
“You’d better clean all this up. Now!” Gabby commanded. She marched over and started picking things off the floor. She put all the art things back into the art bag and threw the ice cream wrappers into the bin. She grabbed all the ice cream sticks lying on the floor and chucked them into the bin too.
“Hey! I need them,” Ellie said.
Gabby ignored her. She snatched the little ice-cream-stick ladder out of Ellie’s hands. “I’m keeping this until Mama comes home. Go get a rag and clean up that mess now,” she said, pointing to the colourful puddles of melted ice cream spreading on the floor.
“Okay, okay,” Ellie said, sighing.
Gabby stood watch over her the whole time she was cleaning up the floor, barking orders. “You missed a spot! It’s still sticky! Wipe it again!” she said.
“Stop nagging! You sound like an old woman,” Ellie said as she wiped up the last sticky bit.
“If you weren’t such a dumbhead, I wouldn’t have to nag so much,” Gabby said.
“You are a big fat Naggersaurus Rex!” Ellie said, imagining Gabby as a grumpy naggy dinosaur. “There. All clean now. Happy?”
“Yes. You’d better behave yourself. If not, I’m going to tell Mama what you did,” Gabby said as she walked out.
Ellie flung herself on her bed and sulked. Trust big sisters to spoil her fun. Also, now she had nothing for the mice to climb out of. What was she going to do? Her eyes fell on the mess of toys still lying in a corner of her room. She spotted a little toy basket. It was no bigger than her palm and it had a cute little handle that ran over the top.
“Hey, Henry!” she called. “Can you come out for a minute?”
“Yes! What?” Henry peeked out from the drawer.
“Yes, what?” Hetty said.
“Yes, what?” Hoppy said also.
“Stop copying me,” Henry said to Hetty.
“Stop copying me, Hetty said to Hoppy.
Ellie giggled. It seemed that they argued as much as she did with Gabby! “Can you see if you can fit into this basket?”
The three mice hopped out of the drawer and scampered across the floor to Ellie’s bed. Ellie placed the toy basket on the floor. Henry hopped in. Hetty hopped in. The basket looked quite full, but Hoppy refused to be left out. He jumped in head first and wiggled his chubby bottom into the basket.
“Hey!” Henry said. “Stop squashing me!”
“Hey,” Hetty said. “You stepped on my paw!”
Finally the three mice looked up at her triumphantly. “We did it!”
“Wait right there!” Ellie said.
She ran to her wardrobe and pulled out a thin belt. She looped the belt around the handle of the toy basket. The three mice looked at her, wondering what she was doing. Their whiskers twitched as they watched.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Yes!” they said.
Ellie gently lifted the basket off the floor by lifting the belt. The basket swayed back and forth.
“Yeeee-eeee!” Hetty screeched in fear.
“Whee!” Henry said.
Hoppy didn’t say anything because he was in shock.
The basket, hanging from the end of Ellie’s belt, swung back and forth, back and forth, as Ellie lifted it higher and higher. The three little mice still in the drawer looked on nervously. Hipster nibbled on one of Ellie’s underpants in anxiety.
“They are going to fall out and die. Eeeee!” Higgie squealed.
“That looks fun,” Harry said.
“Hang on, you guys!” Hipster said, taking a break from chewing Ellie’s underpants.
Ellie bit her lip, concentrating as she lifted the bask
et and the three mice higher and higher. It was now level with her study desk. She placed it on the desk. The mice jumped out of the basket.
“I did it!” she yelled. She high-fived each mouse.
The mice high-fived each other.
“That’s how we are going to get your family out! I am going to lower this basket into the hole and pull them up!” Ellie said.
“Yay!” cheered all the mice.
Chapter 10
The next morning, Ellie couldn’t wait to get out of bed for two reasons: One, she couldn’t wait to go to school to rescue the other mice. Two, she had not been able to sleep very much because the baby mice had kept her up all night.
Ellie had gone to bed as usual, but barely half an hour after she had fallen asleep, she was awakened by some strange sounds. Scree scree scree. Thunk thunk thunk.
“What was that?” she said. She sat up in fright. She peered into the darkness and listened. She heard the sounds again. Scree. Thunk. Scree. Thunk. She curled up in her bed and gathered her blanket around her, hoping it would protect her from whatever was out there.
Then she heard whispering sounds coming from the foot of her bed!
“Sssh! Sssh! Keep quiet!”
“You keep quiet!”
“Ow! You stepped on my whiskers!”
It was the mice! In her sleepy state, she had forgotten all about the mice sleeping in her underwear drawer. What were they doing? Why had they come out of their hiding place?
Plop! The first mouse hopped up onto her bed and crept towards her. Ellie could see its eyeballs reflecting the faint moonlight that streamed in from her windows. She stifled the urge to laugh. She wanted to see what they were up to.
Plop. Plop. Plop. The next few mice hopped up onto her bed too. It seemed like the mice had constructed a staircase to get onto her bed by pushing all her toys into a tall heap. Ellie waited for all of them to climb up. She grinned to herself. She was going to give them a scare. She watched as six sets of eyeballs crept nearer.
“Boo!” she said, bouncing up.
“Aiyeeee!” went the mice. They scattered in all directions.
Ellie burst out laughing.
“Hey, that was scary,” Henry said, scampering up to sit on Ellie’s knee.
“Sorry! I couldn’t help it!” Ellie asked. “Why are you all awake anyway?”
“We are bored!” Hetty said.
“I am hungry,” Hipster said.
“We are awake because we are nocturnal,” Harry said.
“Knock-to what?” Ellie said.
“Harry is just trying to impress you with his big words,” Henry said. “Nocturnal means we are active at night.”
“What do you do at night?” Ellie asked.
“We hunt for food!” Hipster and Hoppy said. They both really liked to eat.
“We mostly sleep in the day and come out to play at night!” Hetty said.
Sleep in the day and play all night? That sounded like fun! “What kind of games do you play?”
“Sometimes, we chase each other,” Higgie said. “Sometimes, we chase our own tails.”
“But, first, can we eat?” Hipster said, looking pleadingly at Ellie.
“I’m soooooo hungry,” Hoppy added, pretending to fall over in hunger.
Ellie sighed. “Okay. I will go get you food. But you must stay here and be quiet, okay?”
She opened her room door as quietly as she could and peeked out. It was all dark. Gulp! She didn’t really like the dark. She turned on a small lamp. She tiptoed quietly to the kitchen and looked around. What would the mice like? She saw a box of crackers. She grabbed it and ran back to her room.
“Here. I hope you like crackers ’cos I’m not going out there again,” Ellie said, handing the mice a round cracker. “Don’t make a mess, okay? Mama will kill me for eating on the bed!”
“Don’t worry. Hoppy will eat up all the crumbs,” Henry said.
As they munched on the cracker, Ellie settled back into bed and drifted off to sleep. A few hours later, she was awakened again – this time, by the little mice scuttling all over her. There were some mice burrowing in her hair. There were some mice climbing onto her knee and leaping off. There were mice running in circles on her tummy. It was pure, MAYHEM mousey-style.
“Can you all stop it?” Ellie snapped at the mice. She was a little grumpy and irritated. “I’m so sleepy! Please!”
“Oops, sorry, Ellie!” Harry said. “We got carried away!”
“It’s okay,” Ellie said. She realised that she was usually the one who got carried away. So this was what it feels like to get irritated by someone else, she thought. This must be how Gabby feels about me all the time. She resolved to be a little bit nicer to her sister.
The mice did try to be a little quieter, but they still kept Ellie awake with their giggling and scurrying around the room. In the end, Ellie gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed.
When Mama came to wake Ellie up in the morning, she found Ellie all dressed and ready for school. Even her hair was already brushed and tied up into an almost-neat ponytail.
“Wow, good job, Ellie!” Mama said, surprised. “I’ve never seen you so excited about going to school before! You even tied your hair yourself! Good girl!”
Mama walked out of Ellie’s room, smiling to herself. She was so pleased with Ellie. All that nagging at Ellie to be neater and more responsible must be paying off. She even tied her own hair! I should get her a treat after school, Mama thought.
What she didn’t know was that Ellie had not tied her own hair because she wanted to be neat. She had tied her own hair because she had hidden six mice in it.
Chapter 11
“Over here! Psst! Over here!” Cammy called when she saw Ellie coming towards the indoor sports hall. Cammy had been waiting there for five minutes already. It was just before 7 am. They had half an hour before the bell rang.
Ellie ran towards where Cammy was waiting, just inside the entrance of the school hall.
“We are so going to get into trouble,” Ellie said, glancing about nervously. It was dark and shadowy in the hall. Hopefully, the darkness would keep them hidden.
As they neared the other end of the hall, the baby mice got excited.
“Mama! Papa! We are coming!” they cried.
From the hole, Ellie heard excited squeals. “We are ready, Ellie!”
Cammy reached the hole first. From her pocket, she pulled out a bundle of ropes. She had managed to make a rope ladder yesterday by knotting bits of string and rope together. She stuffed it down the hole. “Do you see the ladder?” Cammy asked.
“It’s too short! We can’t reach it!” said Papa.
“They can’t reach it,” Ellie told Cammy.
Cammy stretched her hand into the hole. “What about now?”
“We can see it, but it’s still too high up!” Papa said.
“Oh no! Now what?” Cammy said, worried.
“Let’s try this!” Ellie said. She pulled the little toy basket out of her pocket. It was still attached to her belt.
“Hey, that’s clever!” Cammy exclaimed, clapping. “Like a hot-air balloon. Without the balloon!”
“Hurry, hurry!” the mice below said.
Ellie’s hands shook in nervousness. What if this doesn’t work? she thought.
She hurriedly pushed the basket through the hole and lowered it slowly. “Tell me when the basket reaches you!”
“Got it! Got it!” came Papa’s voice. “Mama is going to come up first, together with her sister.”
Ellie waited impatiently. “Are you ready? Can I pull now?”
“Yes!”
Ellie and Cammy pulled in the rope gently. Slowly, slowly they pulled. They didn’t want Mama falling out of the basket. Almost there! The top of the basket came into view. Cammy carefully pulled it out of the hole.
“Mama! Mummy!” the baby mice called. They sprang out of Ellie’s hair and scampered down her arm and onto the floor. They raced towards their m
other.
Ellie and Cammy looked in delight as the mother mouse, together with her sister, hugged the little mice. They squealed with happiness.
Cammy, ever the practical one, snapped back into action. “Let’s get the others out before someone finds us here!”
“Good idea! How many more mice are down there?” Ellie asked the mother mouse.
“Let’s see. There were 15 of us down there. Two of us came up. How many are left?” Mama mouse pondered.
“Thirteen more!” Cammy replied quickly. “So if we can take two mice at a time, that means we need to do this… how many times?”
“I don’t know!” Ellie was quite good at math, but she hadn’t figured out how to divide yet. “Let’s just do it!”
They lowered the basket again. This time, when they pulled it out, two mice leapt out. They were not fully grown. “Hello, cousins!” the baby mice yelled.
“Two down, eleven to go!” Cammy said.
“You mean two up, eleven to go!” Ellie said. She was panting with excitement and anxiety. She looked at her watch. It was 7.15 am ready. “Yikes! We need to hurry!”
Cammy was already pulling the basket up for the third time. “Why does it feel so…”
“So what? It feels so what?” Ellie asked, wondering why Cammy had stopped pulling up the basket. She followed Cammy’s gaze and spotted a shadow near the entrance of the hall. She was filled with dread. Someone was coming!
Much to her dismay, the shadow split into two and moved closer to the hall. There were two figures approaching!
“I saw them go in there!” one of them said.
Wait a minute. Ellie recognised that voice. It was Megan!? That busybody was going to ruin everything! Was it Mrs Goh she was talking to?
“That’s Megan!” Cammy whispered. She had recognised the voice too.
“I know. Keep pulling. We need to get them out as fast as we can,” Ellie whispered back, keeping an eye on Megan.
