Mousemobile Page 8

  Which was probably true. What you saw with Uncle Fred was what you got: he could never fool anyone, even if he tried.

  Megan just hoped that he wouldn’t explode into a thousand pieces before they got to Reno. And Jake.

  fter being so happy a few minutes ago that a song burst out of her, Megan now felt things were about as bad as they could be. She turned to see what was happening in the back of the RV, and that didn’t help, because mice were glaring at her as if she were indeed the problem.

  She glanced in her side mirror, and the truck was still there. Just behind them in the slow lane, then hanging back a bit to let a truck overtake it, as if it wanted to hide.

  She remembered a scene in one of Uncle Fred’s old movies. Wolves were chasing a horse-drawn sled across the snows of Russia. When the wolves seemed to be catching up, the people on the sled threw somebody off for the wolves to eat, so they stopped chasing. But no way mice would do that, would they? No way they’d throw her off for wolves to devour, wolves in a green truck? No, surely the Big Cheese wouldn’t allow that, because he was secretly on her side. Wasn’t he?

  They’d been on Highway 5 for about six miles. Uncle Fred hadn’t even finished his doughnut. Sick with worry, Megan hadn’t even started hers, but maybe Julia would want some? She reached for the cup holder where Julia had been riding, but it was empty. Was Julia mad at her too? Could she possibly believe that humans were bringing danger on them all?

  It was at this point that the Big Cheese came to the front of his cage and gave a series of commands that Megan didn’t understand, except for the sign that meant “Thumbtop” (it’s a pat on the left paw, where a thumb would be, followed by a tap on the head).

  Turning to look for Julia, Megan saw that squads of muscle mice with toothpicks at the ready were swarming all over the Mousemobile, marching straight toward the Thumbtops at the heart of each department. No one put up any resistance, and in a couple of minutes, every Thumbtop in the Mousemobile had been pushed and pulled into a plastic container that the muscle mice had dragged from the kitchen into the middle of the floor.

  Well, almost every Thumbtop.

  Megan clutched her own tightly—until she felt a slight prick on her ankle from a toothpick, then feet climbing up her jeans. Three muscle mice appeared on her knee, with toothpicks in their mouths.

  “Not mine!” she exclaimed. “You can’t have mine.”

  “Not your what?” asked Uncle Fred, who’d seen nothing of the activity behind his seat. “EEEK! EEEEK!”

  The EEEKs came when he felt something tugging at the pocket of his jeans and reached his hand down to check, only to feel mouse.

  “They’re confiscating all the Thumbtops,” said Megan. “Ours too!”

  “No way!” said Uncle Fred, driving with one hand while he kept the other clamped over his pocket. A muscle mouse on his shoulder gave a squeak, and as Megan craned her neck around to watch, she saw that he’d called for help. Five more mice with toothpicks came marching up the side of Uncle Fred’s seat, while five started the climb up his jeans.

  “Don’t make us hurt you!” said the Big Cheese, as translated by Trey, who’d gone back to his post in the cage. “Just hand over your computer.”

  “The hell I will,” said Uncle Fred.

  Trey pretended not to hear. “And my leader wants your cell phones too, please. Up here in the cage so I can answer if one of them rings.”

  “Uncle Fred, we have to,” said Megan, because she could see that six muscle mice were in position to make serious holes in his neck. “Please!”

  The “please” seemed to work, and Uncle Fred reluctantly fished his Thumbtop out of one pocket and his phone out of another and handed them to Megan, who lifted them up to the cage. She caught Trey’s eye, and he gave her an apologetic little smile before reverting to his role as interpreter. The Big Cheese was giving a new set of instructions.

  “Now no one can communicate our plans to the vehicle that I will henceforth refer to as Object X,” he said. “And in a few minutes, Mr. Fred, you will take evasive action, similar to your maneuvers of yesterday.”

  “Oh?” said Uncle Fred. “Back roads all the way to Reno?”

  “You do not need to know how we will reach our destination,” said the Big Cheese. “Yesterday you invited me to make those decisions, remember? For the sake of efficiency, I suggest that you simply follow my directions. You will maintain your current speed for one mile and then you will slow down.…”

  At this point Megan stopped listening, because she felt a mouse climbing onto her knee. A mouse with two dots on one ear. Julia. And Julia seemed frantic. She ran up to Megan’s shoulder and leaned into her ear as if the sheer urgency of the situation might give her the power of speech—but all that came out was an anguished squeak, unlike any that Megan had heard from her before.

  She lifted Julia down to her knee, where they could see each other, because with no Thumbtop for Julia to write on, they were reduced to MSL. But Julia was looking around nervously, as if she couldn’t talk in public. Then she seemed to come to a decision, and made a sign Megan could understand. A beckoning. Come with me.

  Julia took off, and Megan followed her into the tiny bathroom, where she closed the toilet lid and sat down, lifting Julia to the edge of the sink. But just being where they could talk without eavesdroppers didn’t really help, because Megan still couldn’t understand Julia’s signs—until she made one that was unmistakable. She balanced on her hind legs and took a couple of wobbly steps—a sashay, almost—while at the same time she reached up a paw to tweak an imaginary something on her head.

  “Savannah,” said Megan.

  Julia came back to all fours, nodding vigorously.

  “What about Savannah?” asked Megan.

  Julia quickly mimed tapping at a keyboard.

  “She was using a Thumbtop,” Megan translated, “before the guys took them away. Right?”

  Nod.

  “Could you see what she was writing?”

  Julia drooped for a moment. Then a solution came to her, and she turned around to blow on the mirror, making a mouse-size cloud of mist.

  “Got it,” said Megan, and blew to make a larger patch of mist—one big enough for a mouse to write on with her paw. The letter G.

  Megan blew a fresh cloud of mist for the next letter: O.

  “Go?”

  Julia nodded and made sweeping gestures with her front paws.

  “Go away?” guessed Megan.

  Vigorous nods.

  “But who was she…?” began Megan, but didn’t need to finish, as Julia pointed to a green bottle of hand soap, then mimed holding on to a steering wheel.

  “Oh, no!” said Megan, her creep alarm starting up big-time. “Savannah! So last night when she was using my Thumbtop…? We must tell Trey!”

  She tried to stand up, but at that moment Uncle Fred spun the Mousemobile off the freeway in such a sharp turn that Julia went flying and Megan was pressed against the wall hard enough to make it impossible to move.

  When all four wheels were safely back on land, she lifted the bathroom blind just enough to see the freeway heading off without them, and with it Object X, the little green truck that hadn’t been able to make the turn.

  There was no way Megan could get back to her seat; no way she could tell Trey what Julia had seen, because the floor of the Mousemobile was solid with mice, their ears and tails and feet tangled every which way so you couldn’t tell where one body ended and another began. But surely Trey could come to her? Tiptoe over the top of the mouse morass?

  “Hey, Trey!” she called. “There’s something I have to tell you! Something important!”

  Trey was standing on the back of the driver’s seat. He did glance over at her briefly and gave her a wave, but he was busy translating directions from a geography mouse who was squatting beside him with a Thumbtop. Up one suburban street. Down another. Doubling back again and again, just in case. There was nothing Megan could do but wait until the m
ice on the floor had sorted themselves out.

  “You okay?” asked Uncle Fred, when she finally got back to her seat.

  “I’m fine,” she said. Should she try to whisper in his ear? That she knew who might have betrayed them? That Julia had seen Savannah e-mailing, and guessed it must be to the green truck? But Uncle Fred was concentrating hard on following a route through the outskirts of Stockton, California, that no little green truck could have guessed at, even if it had managed to get off the freeway in time.

  Megan decided to tell Trey instead, and leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Something’s come up. Something I want you to tell the Big Cheese.”

  “Not now!” he said. “Okay, Mr. Fred, left at the gas station.”

  Megan took matters into her own hands. She reached into the cup holder where Sir Quentin was riding, fished him out, and plonked him onto the back of the driver’s seat.

  “You take over,” she said, then scooped up Trey and held him near her face.

  “It’s important,” she whispered. “Julia saw Savannah e-mailing, and she’s pretty sure it was to the guy in the green truck. And she was using my Thumbtop last night.”

  “No way!” said Trey. “Savannah? Why the… No way she’d…”

  He looked stunned, and Megan remembered one day back in Cleveland when she and Joey were doing their best Sir Quentin imitation and Trey had gone very quiet.

  “Don’t take it personally, dude,” Joey had said. “Just because you and Sir Quentin are such good friends!”

  He’d meant it as a sort of joke, because no one poked more fun at Sir Quentin than Trey himself. But to their surprise, Trey had said, “Know what? We’re not exactly friends, but when you’re at the Talking Academy with someone for so long…”

  “Sort of like your clan?” Megan had suggested.

  “Sort of,” said Trey, which meant that she and Joey could never make Sir Quentin jokes in his presence again. And with Savannah, it must have been the same deal, that tug of kinship that happens when mice grow up together. But this was much too important to let clan loyalties get in the way.

  “Please, you have to tell the Big Cheese,” she said. “You have to tell him what Julia saw.”

  At that moment, Sir Quentin had just instructed Uncle Fred to “Incorporate in your peregrinations a diversion in the direction of old Sol, that great orb that gives us warmth and light.”

  And Uncle Fred called out, “Trey! I need you. Please!”

  Megan reached out to pluck Sir Quentin off the back of Uncle Fred’s seat, and put Trey in his place, just in time to say, “Sir Q. means go east—take the next right.”

  Now what? Megan clasped her hands around Julia for comfort, and tried to think positive. At least Savannah couldn’t do any more damage, could she, now that the Thumbtops had all been gathered up? And at least they’d meet up with Jake and Joey, quite soon. And Jake would fix everything—he’d make sure that humans and mice trusted each other again, wouldn’t he? Because he was so good at that sort of thing? Much better than Uncle Fred, who was gripping the wheel as if he were trying to kill it, his anger almost sparking out of his beard.

  ould someone please tell me,” Uncle Fred asked plaintively, “how we’re getting to Reno? We just passed a sign. It’s thataway!” He jerked his thumb to the right.

  They’d rejoined Highway 5, now blessedly free of green trucks, and were heading due north.

  “It should be obvious by now,” said the Big Cheese, as Trey translated, “that Reno is no longer in our plans.”

  Of course. If Savannah had told the green truck where they’d spent the night, she probably told it about Reno too.

  “Are you kidding?” exclaimed Uncle Fred, and for a dangerous moment took his hands off the wheel as he glared up at the cage. “What about Jake and Joey?” he asked, his voice rising quite high. “Do we just let them fend for themselves? Tell them to go home?”

  “Absolutely not,” said the Big Cheese. “When Mr. Jake lands, he will find a voice mail message that you will send when we reach the next rest area. Those directions will take him to the place where we will meet.”

  “And that place is…?”

  “To be on the safe side,” said the Big Cheese, “I prefer to withhold that information from all but myself and my Director of Transportation.”

  “In other words,” said Uncle Fred, “shut up and drive.”

  Megan gazed up at the cage, hoping to catch Trey’s eye. Because when was he going to tell his boss? When was he going to let him know that all of this was Savannah’s fault? She’d been watching Trey ever since they’d rejoined the freeway, and the Big Cheese had summoned him back to the cage. She’d expected Trey to immediately tap out a message about Savannah on his boss’s Thumbtop. Or maybe just whisper the news into the Big Cheese’s ear.

  But nothing.

  Was his loyalty to another talking mouse so strong that he’d never betray her? Even if it meant that the Big Cheese kept treating Megan and Uncle Fred as the guilty ones?

  There was a stirring on her lap, and Julia gave her the quick jab that meant she had something to say. As Megan looked down, Julia pointed to her own eyes, then to Megan’s, then shook her head, meaning “No.” No what?

  Megan became aware of the prickling behind her eyes and realized that she was close to crying, and that one tear had already leaked out. Julia was right. That would never do. You don’t cry in the presence of mice unless you know those mice very, very well, because it’s something they can’t do, and it amazes them. The only thing that crying would get for Megan would be the undivided attention of 2,243 mice, fighting for positions where they could see her, staring at her in awe.

  And the only way she could keep from crying, right now, was if Trey…

  Julia took matters into her own paws and signaled that she’d like a lift up to the cage, where Megan watched her do something that mice simply don’t, if they know what’s good for them. She tapped the Big Cheese on the back. Then she pointed at his Thumbtop, where she quickly wrote something out. When she’d finished, the Big Cheese ordered Trey to read what she’d written, and Megan saw him slump.

  The three mice clustered over the Thumbtop for a few minutes, writing messages to each other, then the Big Cheese came to the front of the cage and gazed at Megan before gesturing to Trey and Julia that they should both jump down.

  They landed in her lap together, then each ran up one arm and climbed a braid so that they could dab at her eyes with their paws, because that’s what they had done before when Megan cried, and it usually made her laugh, which, as they knew, was by far the best cure for leaky eyes.

  But not this time. This situation was beyond laughter.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” whispered Trey. “I really was going to tell the boss. It’s just that…I guess I was in denial. Savannah was a great mouse when she was younger. She wasn’t very smart, but she was so funny—until she started watching all those chick flicks. And then that’s all she’d talk about. How she’d be a movie star herself one day, and wear amazing clothes. We told her there was no way, but she’d just say ‘A mouse can dream.’”

  Not for the first time, Megan felt glad that Trey had practiced talking with the sort of movies kids like—nothing to warp his brain, like the old historical dramas that made Sir Quentin yearn for past centuries, or the chick flicks that seemed to have addled Savannah’s mind.

  “So what did he say, the Big Cheese? When Julia told him what she saw?” Megan prompted.

  Trey sighed. “He was really shocked. Then he said he didn’t think she was in it alone. Doesn’t think she’s smart enough to have set it up herself, because she’s, well, she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

  Megan had had a competition with Joey once, in which they’d tried to think up the worst insults about each other’s brain, so she had several dumb jokes at her fingertips.

  “Missing a few buttons on her remote control?” she suggested. “A few peas short of a casserole?”


  Trey didn’t laugh. In fact he glared at her. Of course. He could say those things, but if you weren’t a talking mouse, a member of his clan, he’d rather you didn’t, at least in his presence.

  “So who does the Big Cheese think is working with her?” she asked.

  “He doesn’t know,” said Trey. “That’s the thing. That’s why he wants everyone to keep suspecting you—you and Mr. Fred. Just for now.”

  “But I’m worried about him,” Megan said. She glanced at her uncle and didn’t like what she saw. His face was way redder than usual, and a vein was throbbing on his temple. “He looks like he’s going to explode, maybe have a stroke or something! I have to tell him!”

  “Not yet,” said Trey. “He might drive us into a tree. But we’ll be stopping soon to send Jake that voice mail about where to meet us. You can tell him then.”

  It wasn’t far to a rest area, where the Big Cheese instructed Uncle Fred to pull off the road.

  “Now what?” he snarled as he cut the engine. “EEEEK!”

  Trey must have reported Megan’s concerns about her uncle’s health, because a squad of five mice had started on a journey up to his head, and Megan recognized them at once as EMTs—Emergency Mouse Technicians. Each wore a strip of white tape with a red cross on it, crosses she’d made herself with a marker months ago, at the request of the Big Cheese.

  As she’d read on the Mouse Nation’s Web site, most of the EMT mice had specialized in mouse health, but a few had hung out in human hospitals and doctors’ offices, learning everything they could about the larger species.

  “What the…” said Uncle Fred, as a mouse glued his ear to the big artery in the neck that runs up to the brain.

  “It’s my fault, Uncle Fred,” Megan confessed. “I told Trey I was worried about you. But I didn’t expect…”

  She didn’t expect, for instance, that mice would wriggle inside her uncle’s T-shirt to listen to his heart and lungs. It tickled, so Uncle Fred was actually laughing when a mouse stuck his head out at the neck of the shirt and said something that Trey translated as: “Three deep breaths, please, with your mouth open,” and the mouse ducked back in to listen.