Mousemobile Read online

“Wow,” said Megan, marveling at the power of mice. It was indeed a perfect solution, a three-cat solution if ever there was one. “When do you start?”

  “They want me there in two days,” said her mom. “That’s way too soon. I’ll ask if I can put it off for a bit.”

  “Put it off?” Megan asked, her voice squeaky with surprise. Because why? When mice had come up with the dream job for her mom? The best job ever?

  Her mom gave her a hug. “I just hate to leave in rush, without saying good-bye to everyone properly.”

  Which was odd because Susie Miller had gone off to work in Australia for months and months last year on a moment’s notice, without a peep.

  Uncle Fred had arrived home for dinner with Joey, who was staying with them while Jake was away in Chicago showing off his solar blobs at a trade show.

  “Tell Uncle Fred about that e-mail, Mom,” said Megan. “And tell him you want to put it off.”

  “Put it off?” exclaimed Uncle Fred, skimming through the e-mail. “Are you nuts?”

  Then he gave Susie a bear hug, the sort of hug that’s an excuse for whispering something.

  Megan glanced at Joey, who shrugged. No clue. She was about to come right out and ask what the whispering had been about when Jake called, and her mom took the phone outside.

  “I asked him to keep an eye on Megan until she goes to Oregon,” she said when she came back in. “Make sure she eats properly and does her homework for summer school. No offense, Fred, but he’s better at that sort of thing than you are.”

  “No offense,” said Uncle Fred, and grinned to show he meant it.

  Jake must have persuaded Susie to grab that job NOW, because she left for Camp Green Stars the next day.

  When Megan had asked Trey how the mice had set up her mom’s job, he’d said, “It really wasn’t that hard. Same old same old, really. The billionaire who runs that foundation? We had guys feeding him visions of Green Stars in so many ways that he couldn’t resist. We even used his grandkids. Of course he thought it was all his own idea. They always do, don’t they? Then it was easy to send him a copy of your mom’s resume.”

  Megan had smiled. She never ceased to marvel at the way mice could manipulate humans once they put their minds to it—whether it was something as simple as persuading people to turn off the lights, or as complicated as setting up camps for movie stars in the Rocky Mountains.

  egan missed her mom. Who wouldn’t, when without her, Uncle Fred’s house felt as if it were about to self-destruct under the weight of unwashed dishes? But in other ways it was a relief to have her gone. So good to live among mice and humans who had no secrets from each other.

  And for a couple of weeks everything seemed to be going as well as could be expected on all fronts, as Joey won some more Little League games. And the business of Planet Mouse thrived. These successes even wrung a quote out of Trey:

  “‘All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.’ A French dude said that. Voltaire. Though I’m not sure he really meant it. Might have been sarcastic.”

  “Well, you mean it, don’t you?” asked Megan.

  “I guess,” said Trey.

  Because what could possibly go wrong?

  Well, when exactly did things start to go wrong? What was the first ripple of trouble on the smooth surface of that summer? Could it have been the memo that whizzed through the mouse world one Wednesday afternoon?

  It looked so harmless at the time, barely worth a giggle from Trey (who’d taken giggling for extra credit at the Talking Academy).

  The Humans Who Knew were eating dinner at the house Jake had rented, a block from Uncle Fred’s. As usual, their four main mice had been cruising the table for leftovers, when Trey slapped his head with a paw as if he’d suddenly noticed something.

  “Julia!” he ordered, with his best giggle. “Put down that pie crust. It’s human food. Didn’t you get the memo?”

  Julia made the “Laughing out loud” sign (paw to mouth, three quick pats) and went on eating.

  “What memo?” asked Jake.

  “Came in from the Big Cheese this afternoon,” said Trey. “Hook up a Thumbtop and I’ll show you.”

  Uncle Fred linked a Thumbtop to Jake’s big computer so they could all read the e-mail that Trey showed them:

  From: [email protected]

  To: All mice

  Subject: Our Mouseness

  Memo

  Certain mice appear to have been led by our proximity to the larger species to crave human luxuries. Please be aware that any tendency to follow human customs or adopt human comforts will NOT BE TOLERATED. Any mouse found in violation of this order will be exiled.

  As I have frequently stated, we are MICE, and must remain so in our habitats, our diets, and our social structure. Any progress must be made within the boundaries of an orderly evolution as decreed by your leaders.

  “Wow,” said Uncle Fred. “What brought that on?”

  “I don’t know,” said Trey. “But I have my suspicions. There’s a new mouse in town.”

  Still connected to the big monitor, he clicked his way to MouseTube, the site where mice park their videos, and wrote “Savannah” in the search box. Up came a clip showing a mouse with a pink bow pasted to her head, the sort that humans stick on gift packages. The mouse rose to her hind feet and walked slowly toward the camera, her tail swishing gracefully from side to side.

  When she got so close that her nose looked huge, she purred, “Hey there, world, anyone got a job out there for little Savannah? See, I’m stuck here at Headquarters, and it’s not the greatest fit for a mouse who appreciates the finer things in life.”

  “Yikes!” said Joey. “I thought all you talking mice came out so serious.…”

  “Not one of our greatest successes,” said Trey. “That’s what the head of the Talking Academy told me. Now he thinks it was a mistake letting her watch nothing but chick flicks, like Beach Blondes and Hollywood Blondes. She came out wanting slinky gowns and fast cars. Not a recipe for happiness if you’re a mouse.”

  “Especially a mouse at Headquarters, I’d imagine,” said Uncle Fred. “Pretty bleak there, isn’t it? So this memo…?”

  “Whatever brought it on,” Trey said, “it could well be something she did. I hope it doesn’t get her into trouble, because she’s not a bad mouse, deep down. I’ll e-mail some friends. See what’s going on.”

  But (as he told Megan much later) he found himself putting it off. No rush. And besides, he had a hunch he wouldn’t like what he found—especially if it was something that made one talking mouse look ridiculous, and by extension all of them.

  The Friday after the memo seemed as smooth as any, except that the Cleveland temperature soared, with humidity to match. Megan and Joey went early to their jobs in the factory at Planet Mouse because it was blessedly cool: even if humans could get by without much air-conditioning, the humming machinery and its workers could not.

  Here, hundreds of mice toiled at assembly lines to make Thumbtops for the Mouse Nation, and solar blobs in the form of jewelry, or belt buckles, or eyeglass frames. Whatever would sell best to humans, and pay the expenses for the whole enterprise.

  The assembly lines took up most of the floor space in what had once been a three-car garage, but there was still room for a workbench, where Uncle Fred was standing, looking huge compared to the hundreds of mice working on the factory floor. But then, he was huge, even bigger—around the middle, anyway—than when he’d been an All-American football player at Ohio State.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said as Megan and Joey came in. “That I’m only in here for the cool. But I’ve actually been inventing something. Meet Thumbtop Two. Ta-da!”

  He held out a tiny computer in his massive paw.

  “It looks just like the others,” said Megan.

  “Ah-ha!” said her uncle. “That’s the joy of it. Lots of new features in the same sleek package. It can shoot great video. And wait, there’s more!”

&nb
sp; He did the slow pirouette that mice use to show they’re happy about something; though when Uncle Fred did pirouettes, he looked more like a cheerful elephant than a mouse. “I’ve tucked a telephone inside! I already e-mailed the Big Cheese about it, and he’s all excited.”

  “A phone?” said Joey, with the half smile that often came to him when Megan’s uncle was being particularly goofy.

  “I know, I know,” said Uncle Fred. “Not much use to mice when there’s still only seven or eight who can talk. But maybe Trey here will have a sudden urge to chat with his friend Sir Quentin.”

  Trey chuckled. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Good old Sir Q, with a—what?—a telephonic apparatus for transcontinental communication? I’d never get a word in.”

  “Or Savannah? Bet she’d like you to call her!” said Uncle Fred.

  “Er…” Trey began.

  “Then, when you guys aren’t hogging the phone,” Uncle Fred went on, “the Big Cheese can use it to text. Maybe he’s up for that. And who knows, we might even sell them to humans!”

  “For the person who has everything?” said Joey, not sounding very convinced. “For only—how much—a hundred bucks?”

  “Whoa,” said Uncle Fred. “I wouldn’t charge a penny more than ninety-nine ninety-nine. Such a deal.”

  As Megan knew, her uncle was still a bit disappointed that not many humans wanted to buy the first generation of Thumbtops. Of course, as mice often said, it worked better for mice than for humans. Paws yes, fingers no. But as a cool gift? A full-fledged computer dangling from a key ring, even if you did need a magnifying glass to read the screen and a toothpick to pick out the right keys?

  When Uncle Fred had taken a last breath of cool factory air and headed back to the house, Megan set down the cage that Curly, Larry, and Julia rode in whenever they visited the factory. As everyone knew, the bars on the old birdcage were too far apart to actually imprison mice, so the three could come and go as they pleased. But the cage gave them a feeling of security, as if they were afraid that some foreman, or foremouse, might put them on the assembly line if they set a paw outside.

  Megan couldn’t blame them for wanting to avoid the assembly line. Who wouldn’t? Mice spent four hours at a time on the line, for two shifts a day, going through the same motion again and again and again, whether it was pushing or pulling or yanking or lifting, their paws wrapped in tiny plastic mouse-gloves that the humans had made for them, while the rest of their bodies were encased in plastic sandwich bags to keep all vestiges of mouse dust out of the product.

  The amazing thing was that the mice on the line didn’t seem to mind. Whenever Uncle Fred and Jake needed a new batch of volunteers, they were overwhelmed by applications from mice all over northern Ohio. Sometimes as many as ten mice tried out for each job, and the guys who didn’t make the cut—who didn’t have the paw-eye coordination needed—were devastated.

  Megan loved her time in the factory. Light from the high windows glinted off the plastic coverings of the workers, who looked like the chorus of a mouse ballet moving to the rhythm of the assembly line as it took in all the tiny parts at one end, and spat out shiny new Thumbtops at the other.

  She and Joey took turns doing what was needed to keep the labor force clean, healthy, and happy. On this particular Friday, it was Joey’s turn for mousekeeping—cleaning up the workers’ living quarters and refilling bowls with food and water. He would also empty and refill the trays of kitty litter—making sure that the picture of a cat on the front of the bag was turned away from any watching mice, because the sight of a cat can constipate a mouse, big time.

  Megan’s job today was her favorite: caring for the inner mouse. Making sure the workers were happy in their time off. She picked her way to the back of the garage, where a row of Thumbtops had been set up for the mice to surf on, including one with a sign reading:

  SUGGESTIONS PLEASE

  When suggestions had first started coming in, Megan had expected that some mice, at least, would be critical of the factory, or Headquarters, or the Big Cheese. That someone would rebel and tell the humans what they could do with their blankety-blank assembly line.

  But today, as usual, the suggestions were bland in the extreme. Like this one:

  Please, could we have a Sudoku tournament?

  And:

  Our chorus has been rehearsing. Could you help us arrange a concert?

  Then came a suggestion that was truly a surprise, even from a mouse:

  How about speeding up the assembly lines? Might be fun to see if we can go faster.

  “Wow!” whispered Megan. “Is this guy for real? Or is he being sarcastic?”

  “You ever meet a sarcastic mouse?” asked Trey, holding tightly to Megan’s braid, as if he, too, might be hustled into a sandwich bag if he let go.

  “Well, would you write something like that?” she asked. “Begging to work harder?”

  “Me? Before I met you, sure. It’s the way we’re raised. One for all and all for mice. Like they tell us in our civics class—everything for the good of the nation, yada yada yada, not the individual mouse. That sort of thing.”

  “And now?”

  Trey was thoughtful. “I wouldn’t exactly beg to work harder. I guess some of the way humans think has rubbed off on me. Like not being crazy about the idea of living in a sandwich bag and working my tail off.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” said Megan, reaching up to give him a little rub behind the ears.

  Next she clicked on the folder for movie suggestions. Three mice wanted An American Tail. Again. Ten opted for G-Force. But the clear winner was Ratatouille, with twenty-five requests, because mice adore that movie and can sit through it a hundred times, even if the hero is a rat rather than a mouse. Megan loaded Ratatouille into the DVD player, leaving the remote where a mouse could easily jump on the PLAY button.

  Her last job was to collect the output figures for the day from the production manager. She could understand most of his signs, thanks to the lessons in MSL that Julia gave her every day. But now Trey translated, just to make sure. Fifty thousand Thumbtops finished, to be sent out to mice. Two hundred boxes of assorted solar blobs to be shipped to humans. In other words, just a normal day at the factory.

  Normal, that is, until they heard the sound of heavy feet pounding on the path outside, followed by Uncle Fred.

  “Quick, back to the house,” he said. He was breathing heavily, as he always did when he had to move his great bulk at speed. “We just got an e-mail. Videoconference with Himself in five minutes.”

  “But it’s Friday!” said Joey—puzzled because videoconferences with the Big Cheese only happened on Tuesdays (rain or shine).

  “I know,” said Uncle Fred. “Something must have happened.” He paused, gathering enough breath to carry on. “His e-mail had that phrase—the secret ‘danger’ phrase: ‘Hotter than a cat’s breath.’ This could be serious.”

  The videoconference that Friday felt nothing like those that happened every Tuesday, rain or shine. For one thing, the humans weren’t dressed for it. Normally they made an effort to look clean and pressed, with the men in shirts and ties, because that’s the way the Big Cheese liked it.

  But now, here they were, in their normal steamy clothes, with Uncle Fred’s T-shirt decorated by a large ketchup stain from lunch, and the hint of a ketchup-colored tangle in his long beard.

  On Tuesdays, the whole Mouse Council would be arrayed in a semicircle around their leader, but this time the Big Cheese was alone except for Sir Quentin, who was bowing to the webcam in his usual courtly fashion.

  “If it’s something secret, why is Sir Quentin there?” Megan whispered to Trey. “You could have interpreted.”

  “Must be trying to make the situation look normal,” Trey whispered back. “In case there are eavesdroppers.”

  And indeed the meeting started off normally enough, with a speech of welcome.

  “Sirs and madam,” began Sir Quentin, “we are aware that you have accomplish
ed yet another triumphant feat of engineering in the form of a second version of the Thumbtop, which could prove eminently useful in our combined efforts to combat climate change.”

  Megan glanced at the other humans and wondered if there was something she’d missed, because what possible connection could there be between Thumbtop Two and “hotter than a cat’s breath”? The secret plea for help?

  Uncle Fred seemed puzzled too.

  “Hold on, sir. I’m not quite sure how—that is, I had really intended it for…”

  The Big Cheese spoke again as Sir Quentin translated.

  “Following our previous conversations on the subject,” he said, while the humans looked at each other, baffled. Conversations? What conversations?

  “Following those conversations, I have arranged that your visit to demonstrate the new device will take place this coming Monday at ten o’clock sharp. It will be a privilege to welcome at least two of you to our humble abode.”

  Jake started to say, “Now wait just a minute sir, we’re not—”

  Trey jumped onto his shoulder and gave him a sharp jab in the neck.

  “Watch the boss,” he whispered. “Look at him now.”

  As usual, when Sir Quentin reached the highest peaks of his rhetoric, he became so entranced by the river of sound flowing from his mouth that he closed his eyes. And as he launched into a speech about interspecies collaboration, the humans could see the Big Cheese saying again and again: “Please come.” (It’s both paws stretched out in front for the “please” part followed by the beckoning that means “come.”)

  Sir Quentin had stopped speaking, and the Big Cheese gazed straight into the webcam, waiting for an answer.

  Uncle Fred tried another approach. “So, sir,” he said, “can you give us an idea of the agenda for this meeting?”

  “The agenda is not yet complete,” said the Big Cheese, which was unusual because normally his agendas were ready to go well in advance.

  Megan seized her chance. If the agenda wasn’t fixed yet, then perhaps…