Mousemobile Page 4

  Tell Jake I wore it, and it was a big hit. Talk to you next Sunday. Right? That’s an order!

  “Tell Jake she wore what?” asked Megan.

  “I guess he gave her some blob jewelry,” said Uncle Fred. “Smart move. Hey, if the movie stars see those blobs, and want some themselves, every woman in America will buy them too.”

  Of course. Blobs going Hollywood—that would be great for business. But Megan was having trouble imagining her mom wearing any jewelry, even Jake’s solar earrings and bracelets and necklaces that glowed deep into the night. Because, as far back as she could remember, she’d never seen her mom with any sort of jewelry. Ever.

  They’d almost reached the turnoff for their hotel when Trey yelled, “There it is!” and Julia ran up Uncle Fred’s beard and perched on his head to see where Trey was pointing.

  And Uncle Fred almost lurched the Prius off the road.

  “What the…?” he said.

  “It’s Great America!” said Megan, craning her neck to see the towering Ferris wheel and the tops of some of the scariest roller-coaster rides in the world.

  “And?” said Uncle Fred.

  “And we have unfinished business here,” said Trey. “Me and Megan. We only had time for that one ride—on the Demon. Remember, Megan?”

  Remember? When that roller coaster had given her the worst ride in her life—in anyone’s life—because Joey had just accidentally heard Trey talk? And she’d had no clue what he might do about it, but was terrified that he might lead some cops to Headquarters? That ride?

  Oh yes. Great America owed her and Trey a ride or two that they could enjoy in peace, or even hate in peace, without the worries of that eventful day last year.

  “Can we go there, Uncle Fred?” she asked now. “We have time.”

  “I guess,” he said. “Just don’t expect me to leave the ground. We’ve had a long and happy relationship, me and gravity, and I want to keep it that way.”

  Right after they checked into their hotel, they set off for Great America.

  Megan was wearing her mouse-transportation jacket, with tiny pieces of mesh sewn over holes in her pockets so mice could breathe and see out. The pockets were calm at first as Megan took them on a water ride, then a bumper car, then a sudden fall from the Drop Tower. But on the Demon, both pockets lost it, with wild wriggles and anguished squeaks from one side, and shouts of “Yikes!” from the other. Luckily, these sounds were covered up by the cacophony of human screams, including several from Megan herself. Because the ride was every bit as nasty as she remembered it.

  While Megan and the mice were splashing and dropping and bumping, then spinning upside down above Uncle Fred’s head, he took advantage of the crowds to do some market research. When Megan staggered off the Demon, her knees weak, she found him sitting on a bench with a crowd around him as he showed off Thumbtop Two.

  “They all want one,” he told her proudly. “I’m telling them to check out the Planet Mouse Web site so they can be the first on their block to have a phone on a key ring. And not just a phone, right?” he reminded his audience, raising a finger for attention. “A full computer to boot. Literally. Get it? To boot. That’s a joke. You boot it up.”

  He gave his deep beard-shaking laugh, and the humans smiled indulgently because he fit their idea of a crazy inventor so perfectly.

  “You have to go on at least one ride, Uncle Fred,” said Megan when the crowd had drifted away. “It’s the rules. Let’s go on the Ferris wheel. It won’t turn you upside down, I promise.”

  He agreed, reluctantly, and found that if he kept his eyes shut, he didn’t even have to know how high up he was.

  Until Julia climbed up his beard and held on to his hair with her back feet while she gently tried to pry one of his eyes open, because they had reached the top of the arc.

  “Look, Uncle Fred!” said Megan. “Down there. You have to look.”

  He let Julia half open the eye, and indeed it was quite a sight in the dusk. To their west they could look down on the bright lights and noise and bustle of the park. But to their east lay the dark and silent building that housed the headquarters of the Mouse Nation.

  “Saw it,” said Uncle Fred, and closed the eye again. “It’s headquarters.”

  Megan, Trey, and Julia gazed down at the empty building. Well, to humans it may have looked empty, but with their sharp eyes, the mice could make out the dim blue light that came from a few hundred Thumbtops, all at work.

  “Wow,” said Julia. (It’s the right paw to the forehead.)

  “Yes, wow,” said Megan, who had learned that sign. “Bet they’re all ready for us.”

  Well, yes and no…

  Yes and no.

  At Headquarters, everything that could have been done to prepare for the human visitors had been done. The agenda for the meeting was ready to be posted on the big computer in the conference room, the table had been polished to a deep shine by the scooting of a dozen mouse butts, the interpreter had been chosen, and the young mice who had messed up in the song were rehearsing overtime to get it right.

  But nothing could allay the anxiety that was building up in the Big Cheese’s mind; anxiety that went way beyond agendas and table polish and the words of songs. Something was deeply wrong, maybe too far gone for even humans to fix.

  Could it be that after evolving as a society in which everyone worked for the common good—one for all and all for mice—the species Mus domesticus had evolved again? Making it possible for mice to turn on their own nation?

  As he made his way to his bed—torn-up bits of newspaper on the bottom shelf of a bookcase—the Big Cheese remembered something that had been said by another ruler, hundreds of years ago.

  He checked the quotation on his Thumbtop to make sure he had it right. Ah yes, here it was, from the Shakespeare play Henry IV, Part II:

  Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

  True, that line was written for a king, and not the leader of a rodent nation. And true, as a mouse, the Big Cheese didn’t have a crown—just a piece of fine chain around his neck, which he took off at bedtime. But his head was certainly uneasy. Very uneasy indeed.

  fter the long day of flying, followed by the long evening at Great America (not to mention the fact that it was way past her bedtime in Cleveland, where her body clock still thought it belonged), Megan just wanted to go to bed. But there was a holdup at the entrance to the hotel parking lot, because someone towing a trailer was having trouble turning around.

  “Won’t be long,” said Uncle Fred, reading her mind.

  A little green pickup truck with one fender painted a lighter green was stuck in the stream of traffic trying to leave the parking lot, its driver looking straight into their car. Megan glanced back at him in the way you do if you are waiting in traffic—just long enough to notice that he had a squashed-looking nose in a pinkish face, and not much hair. Megan would normally have looked away after that one glance, but something was happening to the face. Something big.

  The man’s small blue eyes went round as they lit up with recognition. He turned and said something to the woman beside him, and now both were staring.

  Did she know them? But where from? In her sleepy state, Megan tried to think back over her recent life. Could they have been at one of Joey’s baseball games in Cleveland? Or maybe at her dad’s restaurant in Oregon last year? Or even on the Atlantic island where she’d lived while her mom was doing research on wild sheep?

  The logjam of traffic sorted itself out, and Uncle Fred drove to a parking spot, but when Megan looked back toward the street, her creep alarm went off big time, because the green truck had done a quick U-turn and was coming back into the parking lot.

  “Quick, Uncle Fred,” said Megan, grabbing his spare hand as he locked the car, “there’s a weird man.”

  “Hey, it’s California,” said Uncle Fred. “Lot of weird people here.”

  Then he saw that Megan was genuinely spooked, and hustled her into the hotel, then into the
elevator. Just as the doors closed, they got a glimpse of a man with a pink face and a squashed-looking nose running into the lobby.

  Uncle Fred pushed the buttons for every floor so that no one in the lobby could tell where they were getting off.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Maybe he was just overawed by your beauty.”

  She scowled at him because she this was no time for jokes. Even though people said she looked nice, nobody had ever accused her of being beautiful.

  “Maybe he knows someone who looks like me?” she suggested.

  “That must be it,” said her uncle, grinning. “A dime a dozen, those Megans.”

  Meaning, of course, that you hardly ever saw eleven-year-old girls with braids, let alone red braids with bits of wiry hair always escaping. But then, not many girls Megan’s age had mice to consider, with their need for handles when they’re riding on a shoulder.

  Uncle Fred saw that her creep alarm was still going strong.

  “Hey, what makes you think you’re so special?” he asked, giving her a hug. “He saw me too, didn’t he? Probably recognized both of us, from that TV show?”

  Yes, that must be it. Of course. The Mouse Uses Computer show that the Big Cheese had set up last year as part of the nice soft trap to catch Uncle Fred. No big deal.

  Megan put on her best clothes the next morning because Trey had told her that’s what the Big Cheese expected at formal meetings.

  True, last year she’d been wearing jeans. That day, the only way she could get to Headquarters was to tag along with Joey and his friends on their visit to Great America, slipping away through a secret gate in the fence. The boys would have thought her even weirder than they already did if she’d gone to Great America wearing anything like this—a dress with its own jacket, and shiny shoes.

  “You guys going to a wedding?” asked the waitress at breakfast.

  “Just a meeting,” said Uncle Fred, who’d squeezed himself into his only suit.

  “You don’t see a lot of suits around here,” said the waitress with a laugh. “Not in Silicon Valley. Not even for meetings.”

  Except for meetings with mice.

  When they reached the cluster of office buildings behind Great America, Megan got out of the car to punch a combination of numbers into the gate that guarded Headquarters. They parked near a side door and found the key that had been left beside it, under a piece of tile. Megan unlocked the door and pulled it wide.

  “This is it?” asked Uncle Fred.

  Megan had tried to prepare him. Headquarters was, after all, an old office building, and when you are only a few inches tall, there’s no way you can paint walls, or clear out abandoned bits of junky furniture.

  “What did you expect, the Magic Kingdom?” she whispered, because that’s what Trey had whispered to her in this same spot last year.

  They followed a guide mouse down the corridor to a strange sound—a fanfare of trumpets coming from synchronized Thumbtops stationed at intervals along the walls. True, the sound was pretty bad because the speakers on a Thumbtop are tiny, but the humans got the point. This visit had been officially declared to be a big deal.

  The mouse led them to the conference room, which was familiar to Megan from last year, with its long table that was polished to a high gloss that reflected the waiting mice. At the far end was the Big Cheese himself, with the members of the Mouse Council arranged on either side, each with a red thread around his neck.

  There was just one wrong note in this dignified scene: the mouse with a pink bow taped to her head. Savannah. As soon as Uncle Fred and Megan sat on the two chairs that had been put out for them, she sprinted across the tabletop.

  “Oh, you big old humans, am I ever glad to see you!” she said in a breathy voice as she skidded to a stop in front of them. Megan smiled at her and was about to say “Hi” when Trey whispered a warning “Hush!” in her ear, while Julia, on her other shoulder, actually dug in her claws a little bit, because, as Megan knew, she would have killed to be the first female talking mouse ever.

  “Silence!” roared the Big Cheese, translated by Sir Quentin. (You roar by stamping with your right back paw as you make your signs.) “Our greeting ceremony is not the time for individual manifestations. Talking Mouse Seven will return to her post immediately.”

  “I want to be your friend!” whispered Savannah. “Can you get me out of here?”

  Then she scooted back to her place while Megan watched the Big Cheese, wondering what effect this disruption of the proceedings would have on him. None, apparently. He simply raised a paw and held it for a full twenty seconds as the quiet dignity that usually reigned at Headquarters reestablished itself.

  “Now,” he said finally, “let us begin.”

  He waved his paw, and the Youth Chorus lurched into its welcoming song, as Trey whispered the translation:

  Welcome, dear humans

  We greet you with mirth.

  Your factory for Thumbtops

  Is cooling the earth.

  We can talk all we like

  When we get Thumbtop Two.

  It works both for paws

  And for mouths, if you’re you.

  “Thank you, thank you,” said Uncle Fred, and fished the prototype of Thumbtop Two out of his pocket. He was about to slide it across the table to the Big Cheese, when Trey hissed, “Not till Item Four.”

  That prompted Megan to check the agenda that was posted on the big computer in the corner:

  1. Welcoming Song

  2. Opening Remarks

  3. Possible Enlightenment of Fifth Human

  4. Demonstration of Thumbtop Two

  5. Progress of Operation Cool It

  6. Other Business

  The opening remarks, as translated by Sir Quentin, droned on. And on. And on. “Your long journey…our humble abode…interspecies collaboration…”

  Megan wasn’t really listening, because who could? She glanced at Uncle Fred and wondered if he was having the same thought as she was. Where on that agenda was the real reason for their journey to Silicon Valley? The threat to the whole nation? Something hotter than a cat’s breath?

  All she got from her uncle was the slightest of shrugs. No clue.

  And soon that thought was driven out of Megan’s head by a more urgent one. Item Three was coming up fast, and she’d have to speak, making the case for telling her mom the truth. And not just to the Big Cheese this time, but to his whole silent council, which she found quite intimidating. Megan had rehearsed the argument over and over in her head. How valuable her mom would be to the nation and to Operation Cool It because of her great knowledge about climate change. How hard it was for the human young to keep important secrets from their parents. But she’d tried these arguments before. Would they be enough today?

  “…business success…recent innovation…” Sir Quentin droned on.

  And if she did get permission to tell her mom, how should she actually do it? Like on the phone, next Sunday? Or what if Joey’s team lost and Jake was free to drive them to Oregon by way of Camp Green Stars, could she do it then? Take her mom for a walk in the woods, with Trey, far enough from camp so the movie stars wouldn’t hear any EEEEKs.…

  “…technical infrastructure…climate modification…”

  Of course she’d have to make sure her mom was sitting down before she said, “Mom, Trey has something to tell you.” And she could finally stop lying to her mom, stop dodging the truth.

  “In conclusion,” Sir Quentin was saying.

  Even from him, those words usually meant an end was in sight, and it would be her turn. Would she go red? That sometimes happened when she had to read a report in class. It was bad enough to blush in front of fifth graders—but just try it with mice. When a mammal changes color—not just some dumb chameleon or something, but a real mammal—mice are so astonished by the sight that they forget to be polite. And all these mice would stare. Maybe there’d even be some “Laughing out loud” or “Holy cow” signs from th
e Youth Chorus, which would make her go redder than ever.

  Sir Quentin had indeed concluded.

  In the silence, Megan could feel her heart beating as she waited for the Big Cheese to give a signal. And yes, now he tapped the side of his head with the left paw three times. The third item on the agenda. Her turn.

  “You’re on!” whispered Uncle Fred. “Go for it!”

  “It’s like this,” she began, hearing her voice far too loud in this silent place, feeling the beginning of warmth in her cheeks, which could mean that the worst was happening. “Sir, I know that you think my mother…”

  Her voice trailed off. The assembled mice were not gazing in awe at her reddening face after all. Instead, they had swiveled their heads in the direction of the door, where a messenger mouse had appeared—a mouse with a Thumbtop strapped to his back. Megan watched as the mouse took a leap up onto a chair, and from there to the table.

  “Keep going,” said the Big Cheese (it’s a sort of winding motion of the tip of the tail), but he didn’t seem at all interested in anything she had to say. Instead, he was concentrating on the mouse who had now reached him and was turning around so his leader could read the message on his Thumbtop.

  Uncle Fred whispered, “What the…?” as he leaned forward, waiting.

  The Big Cheese finished reading, then gazed straight at the humans as if they could, and should, read his thoughts. But what he said seemed like a total anticlimax.

  “Forgive me, Miss Megan, if we briefly postpone the discussion of your parent. I have rearranged the agenda, so we will turn now to Item Four. Mr. Barnes, please show us the new Thumbtop.”

  “Okay,” said Uncle Fred, sliding the Thumbtop across the table, making the “Okay” long and drawn out and rising up at the end, sort of “O…kaaay?” Meaning, This may all sound normal on the surface, sir, but we both understand something very weird is going on.

  But when the new computer arrived in front of the Big Cheese, he patted it with his paws as if nothing strange were happening.