Bernard Pepperlin

by Cara Hoffman

  Bernard remembered Mittens telling him that the people who really ran the city lived underground. He also remembered Sophie the old rat talking about eating mice as a snack. Was this rat a friend or was he trying to trick them into staying so he could snack on them later?

  There is a code among small animals, the ones who know what it’s like to be at the mercy of larger animals, the ones who know what it’s like to be hunted, and it is this: pay attention and help one another.

  Bernard and Ivy knew what it was like to be picked up and handled, carried off, stepped on; to be put in pots or aquariums; to be pinched, poked, prodded, and in Bernard’s case to have hot tea poured on his nose. But if you paid attention to the details, if you stuck together, you had a chance.

  “I can see the confusion on your face, my friend,” the rat said to Bernard. “And I know one can’t be too careful now with the Pork Pie Gang roaming freely. But I assure you, there’s nothing to fear in the underground.”

  The rat opened a wooden chest in the center of the room and pulled out a feather bed and some blankets and pillows, setting them up on the rug in front of the fire.

  “You’ll sleep here tonight,” he said. “It’s been a long day, and we have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow will be too late,” Bernard said.

  “There’s time yet,” said the rat. “And we’re stronger together than apart.”

  The rat set out their bedding and blew out the candles and lanterns. Only the glow of the fire remained, casting their faces in light and shadow.

  “What’s your name?” Ivy called as the rat headed toward the arch, following the sounds in the distance.

  He stopped and turned. “I’m Leon,” he said, and smiled kindly. “Sleep well, small animals. We all need our strength.”

  Then he passed through the archway and slipped into the dark.

  12

  A Song from a Frog

  Bernard woke with a start. The fire had gone out, and Ivy was nowhere to be seen. His first thought was that the day before had all been a dream. He’d spent so much of his life dreaming, back in the garden, that sometimes it was hard to tell. But this was far too real to be a dream. He was in the great hall, surrounded by books. In the daylight he could clearly see the corridor into which Leon had disappeared the night before. It was lined with paintings and photographs.

  Bernard stood and stretched, then crept cautiously down the hall. Light streamed in from holes in the ceiling and shone upon the paintings that hung on either side. They were portraits of different animals. There was a painting of a crab and a tortoise, a wedding picture of two lovely young ducks hanging in a gold frame. A drawing of a dignified-looking frog wearing high rubber boots. The sounds of voices grew louder as he walked down the hallway, and the paintings seemed to stare back at him; they were pictures of squirrels and bugs and sparrows and ravens; a rabbit with a big smile on his face; a monkey wearing a party hat.

  When Bernard finally stepped out of the long hallway, he found himself in a meeting room that was filled with animals as varied as the paintings on the wall. They were all talking at once.

  He spotted Ivy, who was now wearing a black wool sweater and tiny wool hat. She waved to him and he hurried through the crowd to stand by her side.

  Leon stood in the center of the room, waiting for the noise to die down.

  “The Pork Pie Gang wants us to be their audience,” Leon said. “They want us to be captives—like pets. Look at us. None of us could be pets!”

  The animals all started shouting in agreement.

  Leon held his paw out toward a serious-looking amphibian wearing a tweed coat. “Glub here escaped from a display of South American frogs at the Museum of Natural History! If he can break out of there, he can break out of anywhere.”

  The crowd clapped.

  “Emma managed to get herself out of a bucket in Chinatown and walked sideways all the way from Mott Street!”

  “Go, Emma!” they yelled.

  “Bill left the pet store to live in the pond at Central Park FIFTY years ago.”

  “It took one whole year to just walk there,” said Bill the turtle, whose shell was nearly as big as the table. “Everyone’s in such a rush.”

  The crowd continued to cheer and stamp their feet.

  “Ivy broke out of a tropical aquarium and weathered a harsh life on the street!” Leon said. “Cordelia and Jim might be hanging cooked and glazed in a restaurant window right now if they hadn’t flown the coop. Kelly the pug? She might still be spending her days in a stupor of boredom doing tricks for biscuits.”

  Kelly pushed her glasses up on her face and nodded.

  “And Bernard,” he said. “Bernard left a . . . Bernard left a tea party.”

  There was murmuring from the crowd.

  “But it was a very bad tea party,” Bernard said. “Bad for more than a hundred years. But back where I lived, the person who stopped time did it by accident. He thought his song was good; he wasn’t trying to offend Time, or anyone else. The Pork Pie Gang is stopping time on purpose.”

  “How did you get time to start again?” asked a mouse wearing a grass skirt and sparkly red shoes.

  “I didn’t,” said Bernard. “I escaped. But back in the garden they’re stuck at a Sunday afternoon tea party that will never ever end.”

  “Could someone please explain what’s so bad about Sunday afternoon lasting forever?” said a hamster with cake crumbs on her face.

  “Do you want to go to the park later?” Leon asked.

  “Yes!” said the hamster.

  “I rest my case.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do you want to become an astronaut when you grow up?” he asked.

  “Or take hula lessons!” cried the mouse in the grass skirt.

  “Yes, of course,” said the hamster.

  “Well, these things take time,” said the mouse in the grass skirt.

  “Indeed they do,” said Leon. “And we should all remember the song.”

  “What are they talking about?” Bernard whispered to Ivy.

  “It’s a nursery rhyme,” she whispered back. “Didn’t you learn it when you were a young mouse?”

  Before Bernard could shake his head, Glub the frog leapt up onto the table, cleared his throat, and began to sing. He had a deep rolling baritone voice and all the creatures hushed to listen to his song.

  Time: It’s shaped like a coil

  It tastes like tinfoil

  You need it to boil an egg

  or uncoil a snake from your leg

  Or stand on your head

  Or ride a bobsled

  Or comfort a lonely chameleon named Fred

  All of these things take time!

  Time’s not running out

  It’s not on your side

  It shouldn’t be wasted or toasted or fried

  Or buttered or shuttered or pickled or dried

  You need it to catch all manner of flies

  All of these things take time!

  Time’s not in a race. It IS part of space

  You need it to scrub all the dirt off your face

  Or fall down the stairs or trip on a rake

  Or eat chocolate ice cream down by the lake

  All of these things take time!

  “Does that make things clearer?” Leon asked, when the song was over.

  There was a low murmuring of “I suppose,” or “No, not really,” or “Well . . . maybe.”

  “That song was ridiculous,” Ivy whispered into Bernard’s ear. “Time is actually part of the fundamental structure of the universe.”

  “It’s not,” said a squirrel who overheard her. “It’s something made up by people.”

  “In any case,” said Ivy, “it doesn’t seem like the underground has thought this through very carefully.”

  “Friends,” Leon said. “Before now, the Pork Pie Gang was just roaming the streets looking for animals to kidnap and turn into a captive audience. They were
just practicing. But yesterday some of our mice on the inside found something much worse.”

  Three mice wearing black turtleneck sweaters and black boots scurried into the center of the room carrying a rolled-up poster and handed it to Leon. Leon unrolled it, revealing an advertisement. There was a picture of Gary the Weasel smiling in his pork pie hat, and beneath the picture it read:

  PPGP Presents:

  The First, Last, and Only Endless Ukulele Concert!

  Seven o’clock on May 25 at Times Square

  All are welcome.

  Free pickles.

  A hush fell among the animals as one by one they understood what this meant.

  “They’re done practicing,” Leon said. “And we have to act fast. Because in just two days from today, the Pork Pie Gang will stop time for the entire city and make us all do what they do: nothing. They’re a band of roving slobs, trying to push us all around and make us stop thinking. They want us to be like them, talking about pickle juice or their vacation or ukulele strings, but worst of all, they want to make it so we have no future, so we can’t go anywhere to escape them.”

  “Got it,” said Ivy, who was growing tired of speeches. “What’s the plan?”

  13

  On the Banks of an Underground River

  “We need to get to the Empire Diner!” said Bernard. “My friend Mittens is there, and Sophie, and the queen. I think they can help us.”

  “Mittens the mouse hunter?” Leon asked.

  “What?” said Bernard. “No. It’s not like that. This cat is my friend.”

  Several of the small animals exchanged looks. Some of the mice were trembling.

  Bernard looked at Ivy and she raised an eyebrow. It was true that the last time they’d seen Mittens, he was complaining about the Midtown Mice.

  “Mittens told me if we got separated to meet him at the Empire Diner,” Bernard said. “He said the queen would know what to do, and I trust him.”

  “All right,” said Leon. “We don’t have much choice right now—we’re running out of time. We’ll have to split up. But be careful. Bernard, Ivy, and Glub, you take the crosstown ferry to Chelsea—see what you can find out. And remember if you get separated, go to the Empire Diner and wait. That goes for all of us.”

  Bernard and Ivy followed Glub, as he strode through the room in his high rubber boots, his nose in the air. They passed through the great hall and down a flight of steps into a dank passageway that smelled of mold. It was lit with a single lantern, and very dark.

  At the end of the passageway was another flight of steps, this one lit by candlelight. The smell of mud and earth and sewer gas was all around them. And soon they could hear the sound of water rushing past. They had reached an underground river. Black water glinted in candlelight and a misty fog hung in the air around them.

  On the banks of this river there was a little docking station. Some mice, dressed sharply in business suits and holding briefcases were waiting there. Several of them were reading the newspaper. One looked impatiently at his watch and then back out at the water. They didn’t seem worried at all about the Pork Pie Gang—on the contrary, they didn’t seem to know anything was wrong at all.

  Three large water bugs were also waiting for the ferry. They were holding scripts and practicing lines from a play, saying the same words over and over, trying to get them right. Beside the bugs stood a family of rats. The mothers were reading a map together and the children were throwing stones into the river. Partway down the pier Bernard could see the cockroaches practicing another song from their show—running and jumping and tapping along, then the bandleader would clap his hands for them to stop and they’d do it all over again.

  Soon they could see a large round light in the distance and then the ship appeared, speeding through the dark water and docking along the shore. The captain was a wizened toad with moles on his face. His eyes were golden like Ivy’s.

  The business mice boarded first, rushing on and settling themselves at tables on the upper deck. Then the mothers with children, then the cockroaches—stacking their instruments up just inside the ferry’s entryway.

  Glub spoke to the captain in a language Bernard didn’t understand, and the old toad ushered them aboard, clapping each of them on the back with his strong hand.

  The ferry set off along the river, and all along the shore, lights flickered from lanterns and small fires. Bernard could see creatures gathered there. Rats mostly, and dogs and cats who looked like they’d once been pets, along with a few thin and bedraggled racoons. Some were building shelters; others were collecting litter or cooking. A few frogs stood on the banks of the underground river in their rubber boots, fishing.

  “Who are they?” Bernard asked.

  “Homeless creatures mostly,” said Glub.

  Bernard didn’t understand. It looked to him like their home was along the river.

  “It’s hard living for some up in the light of the city,” the frog went on. “Not everyone can be a business mouse. Down here they can find shelter.”

  “Do they like it down here?”

  “Some do; some don’t,” said Glub. “They don’t have much choice.”

  Bernard thought it must be terrible to live so close to the crosstown ferry, with the dank moldy smells and the noise of the boat all day and all night. It was hard to believe this place was so close to the great hall with its crackling fire and feather beds and books, and the smell of chocolate pastry in the air.

  “It must be hard not to have a home,” Bernard said.

  He looked at Ivy sitting on the deck, reading a book she had brought from the library underground. Something had changed about her from when he first met her in the Pork Pie Gang Place. Even though the Pork Pie Gang threatened to wreck New York, even though they had no time to spare in stopping them, even though she had nearly frozen from cold and she was no closer to Louisiana and they might all be swept up in a timeless void, Ivy seemed happier. She looked warm and content dressed in her black cap and sweater. She looked up from her book and smiled.

  “Will you ever go back to your home?” Ivy asked Bernard.

  The question startled him. The ship cut through the fog as it zipped along the black water beneath the tall gray city and Bernard thought for a moment of the garden. The green grass, the lovely roses, thick and lush with life. The smells of sugar and honey and scones and tea. The March Hare’s quick wit. There was a time before time stopped that they were his friends. When they could visit each other freely and roam through the countryside, when they could tell each other stories or play croquet, or listen to the turtles singing by the sea. He tried to remember what home was like before that terrible song.

  There was a time before time stopped that he could be alone, lie in meadows or on the beach, listening to waves crashing in. New York City was beautiful. Full as a forest, teeming with life and light and motion. But he wondered if he would ever smell roses again. And even if he wanted to go back—if he could make amends with time and get the clocks moving in the garden—how would he do it? How could he leave New York City when it had answered all his wishes? He didn’t even understand the magic that had brought him there.

  “I don’t know if I could ever go back,” Bernard said. “I guess I’m homeless too.”

  14

  A Feast of Flowers

  The ferry docked beneath a sign that read West Twenty-Eighth Street, rocking in the choppy water.

  Bernard and Ivy hopped out onto solid ground and followed Glub up a long flight of stairs to street level, leaving the dark passageway behind. They came out from beneath a curb into the bright sunlight and stood stunned, staring up from the sidewalk at what looked like a jungle of flowers.

  The streets were lined with color. Everywhere they looked, in front of each building there were baskets of wisteria and bouquets of roses, blue irises and long stalks of hollyhocks; blooming magnolia trees and lilac bushes and crab apples, planted in plastic pots. Men unloaded bales of cherry blossoms and baskets of p
eonies and bundles of tulips in every color, carrying them from refrigerated trucks that idled in the street into the shops and warehouses.

  Bernard could not believe his eyes. Yellow daisies and bright red poppies, forsythia and sunflowers, dahlias and snapdragons, white lilies and frangipani and roses like he had never seen before in his life, blooming yellow and red and orange and white, pink and some so deep ruby-red they were almost black, their buds like tiny cabbages.

  A breeze moved through the air and Bernard breathed in the scent of lilac and hyacinth and rose, swooning from the cool beautiful perfume of the flowers. The street smelled like a majestic rose garden in full bloom, like a rolling meadow beneath the summer sun.

  Bees buzzed around from shop to shop, smelling flowers and gathering pollen. They danced with delight in front of each other—giving one another directions and sharing gossip.

  Ivy climbed into a grove of tropical plants and began to bask.

  “Are we still in New York?” Bernard asked.

  “Of course,” Glub said. He turned his head quickly and caught a fly with his tongue, then wiped his mouth with a linen handkerchief and tucked it into the sleeve of his tweed jacket. “This is the flower district.”

  Beneath the large stands where people shopped there were smaller stands full of the hustle and bustle of mice selling their own flowers; violets and bluebells and snowdrops and crocuses. The mice wore wool hats to keep themselves warm. The shops had to be refrigerated so the flowers would live longer. Bernard watched the strong mice carrying cases of buttercups and baby’s breath. They lived, day in day out, among this beautiful feast of flowers. Bernard thought about Mittens and his many jobs in the city and wondered what a mouse had to do to find work in the flower district.

  He was just imagining a life of hard work in the service of beautiful things when he heard a series of doors slam. One by one, the flower sellers on the lower level were scurrying about—pulling the flowers in from the street and shutting themselves in their shops.