Mousemobile Page 9

  The whole examination only took a couple of minutes before the lead mouse, with a larger cross than the others, emerged to give his report. Without instruments, they could not be one hundred percent sure, but it seemed to them that the large human was in reasonable shape. He could continue to drive.

  But first, of course, the little matter of the voice mail, the one that would give Jake a new flight number and destination. Uncle Fred reached up toward the cage for his phone, then started to go red again, because the Big Cheese kept a paw on it until a full squad of muscle mice had stationed themselves on Uncle Fred’s shoulders, where they would monitor every word.

  Uncle Fred climbed down and stormed over to a bench, as Megan ran after him and reached for his hand, which felt as hard and tense as a rock. How much could she say to calm him down, in front of the muscle mice, who had to keep thinking the humans were guilty? She couldn’t use normal speech, of course, and whispering would probably bring on a major attack of toothpicks, which the mice looked very eager to use. And if she borrowed her uncle’s phone and wrote a text on that, they’d be right there reading every word.

  Then it came to her.

  “Igpay Atinlay?” she asked.

  “Esyay,” said Uncle Fred, and Megan was glad to see the beginnings of a smile. “Though I’m not sure I can still do it. Been a while since fifth grade.”

  So she told him slowly and carefully in Pig Latin how Julia had seen Savannah writing to the little green pickup truck. And how Trey hadn’t wanted to tell the Big Cheese at first because of his clan thing.

  “The rat!” said Uncle Fred. “Ethay atray!”

  “Otnay eallyray!” She spelled it out for him—how the Big Cheese was only pretending to suspect his humans, hoping to lull Avannahsay and any mice who were helping her into doing something really dumb. Umday. She thought of telling him some of the “she’s so dumb” jokes she and Trey had come up with, but Uncle Fred looked as if he’d absorbed just about as much Pig Latin as he could, for now.

  “Voice mail?” she reminded him.

  Uncle Fred left his message for Jake and Joey, making it sound relaxed and cheerful and matter-of-fact, as if sending two humans on mysterious zigzags all over the western states was something that happened all the time. Yes, he said, he knew they would hate his news. Yes, he knew they’d both feel pretty beaten up after that heartbreaking loss and the early start this morning and the plane ride. Yes, he knew they’d be longing for a nice motel with a coffee shop and a pool. But there was just one more little leg to their journey. They should proceed to the counter of Southwest Airlines, where they would find a reservation in Jake’s name. Here was the number. And when they got off that plane, there’d be further instructions. And no, Uncle Fred couldn’t tell them where the plane would take them, because he didn’t know himself. Wasn’t that a hoot? They should think of it as a magical mystery tour, okay? A moustery tour. The sort of thing that happens when you hang out with mice.

  “Oorpay uysgay,” he said as he clicked off the phone and led Megan back to the Mousemobile.

  Yes, poor Jake and Joey. But poor muscle mice too, when three of them climbed into the old birdcage to make their report to the Big Cheese. One of them started tapping on the Thumbtop with confidence at first, then looked at the others, who shrugged. A second mouse came forward and tapped out a few letters—maybe a Pig Latin word—but all it did was provoke the Big Cheese into making a short, sharp speech that must have been quite frosty, because the muscle mice looked as if they’d been whipped.

  Now the Big Cheese had a word with Trey, and sent him down for a private chat with Megan.

  “You really got them going with that secret language,” he said. “They thought it might have been French. Or maybe Spanish. But Google Translate came up blank.”

  “Iay ontday alktay Renchfay oray Panishsay,” said Megan.

  She’d told him about Pig Latin one afternoon at the factory, when they’d finished their work and were waiting for the thunder of a fierce summer storm to stop crashing before they ran to the main house.

  “Emay eithernay,” he whispered, and turned around to shrug in the direction of the Big Cheese. If his boss interpreted the shrug as meaning, “It’s no language known to man or mouse,” that was fine.

  The Big Cheese glared down in Megan’s direction, but he did it with a wink.

  hat a difference a little Pig Latin makes! Now that Uncle Fred knew the plan, he calmed down completely, just remembering to glare up at the Big Cheese occasionally, as if the two of them were still mad at each other.

  And the Big Cheese remembered to glare right back, for the benefit of his followers. Not that many of them noticed, because Megan had put Ratatouille into the Mousemobile’s DVD, and the whole of Headquarters was watching, entranced.

  Except for Talking Mouse Seven. Except for Savannah. Normally, the Big Cheese would have expected her to be right up front, maybe trying to steal some attention—maybe telling everyone she’d have been much better in the main part than Remy the Rat. But now she was quiet, not even looking at the screen but searching the faces of the mice around her.

  Searching for what? For her posse? For the gang that had helped her make contact with Object X? For someone to tell her what would happen now, with no Thumbtop to write treacherous e-mails on?

  But the truth about mice is this: they can’t actually recognize each other until they get very, very close. That’s why the Big Cheese always wore the fine chain that singled him out as the leader. That’s why his directors wore a red thread around their necks. And plainly, the mice who’d been helping Talking Mouse Seven were determined to stay hidden, at least for now.

  Which meant, of course, that the Big Cheese had to keep pretending to blame the humans. Had to keep remembering to glare.

  The first showing of Ratatouille took the Mousemobile to the top of California’s huge Central Valley. But one Ratatouille is never enough. Megan started it again for the long climb up through the mountains in the far north of California, and out the other side.

  They were just half an hour into that second showing when Uncle Fred’s phone rang in the Big Cheese’s cage.

  “Probably Jake—they must have just landed in Reno,” said Uncle Fred, looking at his watch. “You going to take it, Trey?”

  “We’re letting voice mail handle it,” said Trey. “More secret that way.”

  Of course. Secret from the humans, who both remembered to glare up at the cage.

  Fifteen minutes into the third showing of the movie, not far into Oregon, the cell phone rang again.

  “Jake must have arrived,” said Uncle Fred. “Wherever you sent him after Reno.”

  “This time I’ll answer it,” said Trey, and the humans strained their ears to hear his end of the conversation. Plainly, Jake was puzzled that he couldn’t reach a human, because they heard Trey explain, “He’s driving” and “She’s sort of busy.”

  Then they heard Trey’s instructions, which weren’t yet the real instructions, because Jake would get those in a text within the next five minutes. Trey’s voice went a little high and squeaky at this point, as if he were taking a lot of flak from the other end. Uncle Fred must have noticed, because he sang out, “Yo, Jake! It’s complicated, man. Best do what Trey tells you, and we’ll see you soon.”

  Where would that be, Megan wondered. At some point they’d have to turn right if they ever wanted to hit Cleveland. She strained to remember the Oregon geography that had been hammered into her head at school last year, when she was living with her dad in his little town of Greenfield. Were they heading for Portland? Because that was where the main Oregon mountains ended, wasn’t it? A good place to turn east, toward Cleveland?

  It was evening now, and they were still a long way from Portland—more than a hundred miles, according to the last road sign Megan had seen. So why had Trey reappeared on her uncle’s shoulders to give directions? Why were they turning right?

  And why did that old barn look familiar?
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br />   “It’s Greenfield!” she shouted. She’d never approached the town from the south before, but once they were off the freeway, she knew this road inside out as the valley unfolded ahead of them, the hills behind it richly colored in the evening light.

  “Are we staying here? Can we see my dad? Can we all go eat at his restaurant?” she found herself asking, then made herself look crushed by the Big Cheese’s answer.

  “Don’t you understand?” Trey translated as loudly as he could, plainly intending that his words would carry to every mouse in the vehicle. “We’re here principally to pick up Mr. Joey and Mr. Jake, and we are not, I repeat, NOT visiting friends and family. All contact with them is strictly forbidden, for obvious reasons.”

  As the Mousemobile approached Greenfield, Megan sat sideways and leaned her face as far into the window as it would go, hoping to glimpse some friends or relatives, and ready to duck out of sight if she did. But the mice had chosen this route well, turning off the main road to skirt the southern edge of town. All Megan could see—and all that saw Megan—were trees and meadows and distant farms.

  When Trey directed Uncle Fred to turn off the road, it was not toward the center of Greenfield, but away from it, heading deeper into the countryside to a barn big enough to hide a Mousemobile—big enough to swallow an entire nation.

  It wasn’t just the size of the barn that made it a perfect place to hide. It was the inhabitants. For some reason, the barn had become a gathering place for feral cats. Dozens of cats. So there was no way anyone on the Mousemobile could creep out at night to find a clan with a Thumbtop.

  The cats weren’t alone. In the middle of the barn stood Jake and Joey beside the Prius they’d rented at the Eugene airport, swatting at summer bugs above a carpet of cats rubbing against their legs. As the Mousemobile pulled slowly in, the cats must have detected the scent of massed mouse in the air, because they galloped toward it like kids seeing an ice-cream truck turn onto their street.

  Megan unbuckled her seat belt and managed to slide out of her door without letting any cats slide in. She ran toward Joey and Jake, holding Julia high while cats leaped for her with soft yowls.

  “Quick, in the car,” said Jake, as Uncle Fred came lumbering after Megan.

  When Megan climbed into the back seat, Julia wriggled from her grasp and jumped to the dashboard, where Curly and Larry had been sheltering from the cats. The three mice went into a joyous greeting huddle.

  Megan felt the urge to go into a joyous greeting huddle with Jake and Joey too, but she wasn’t sure how they would take it, so she made do with a huge grin at Joey in the back seat.

  “Are we ever glad to see you!” she said. “We’ve had a hard day.”

  “You think you’ve had a hard day?” Joey said. “How about flying for about fifty hours without any real food?”

  “Sorry about that,” said Uncle Fred. “We can explain. Most of it, that is.”

  The comfort huddle on the dashboard ended, and Julia ran up Jake’s arm to nuzzle him, while Curly did the same to Uncle Fred, then to Megan. Only Larry stayed on the dashboard, radiating sadness or sickness or something, looking almost like a mouse skin that was only half filled, floppy and heartbroken.

  “Larry took it real hard,” said Jake, reaching out to tickle him behind an ear. “That game. Much harder than we did. Hey, cheer up, big guy. It’s not like it was your fault.”

  That was absolutely the wrong thing to say, apparently, because Larry sat upright just long enough to make the unmistakable signs for “Me bad” (you point the left paw at yourself and shake your head).

  “Nice, Dad,” said Joey. “Curly sent me an e-mail about it. Larry thinks it was his fault. He’d scouted the other team and he knew they’d get some hits off Sean unless he kept his pitches real low and inside. He thinks he should have gotten word to our bench somehow.”

  “Oh, come on, Larry!” said Jake. “Look, if Darren hadn’t been caught stealing, and if Frankie’d made that tag… Maybe Trey can cheer you up. Help you get things in perspective. Hey, where is Trey?”

  “He’s still in the…in that gas-guzzler,” said Uncle Fred.

  “Why on earth are you driving that thing, anyway?” asked Jake. “What, probably seven miles to the gallon? And why’s Trey in there all alone?”

  “Alone?” replied Uncle Fred with a short, barking sort of laugh. He swiveled to look at Megan.

  “Shall we tell them?” he asked. “How lonely Trey is?”

  Megan grinned. “Let’s just show them.”

  Joey collected Curly and Larry, and Megan held Julia high as she led the way back through the leaping cats to the Mousemobile. Uncle Fred blocked off the door while Megan opened it and stood back so Joey and Jake could go in ahead of her.

  And stifle EEEKs at the sight of more mice than they’d ever seen or imagined—more than the world had ever seen or imagined—in one vehicle.

  “I told you!” said Uncle Fred. “Not my fault if you didn’t believe me.”

  Actually the scene blew Megan’s mind a bit too, because while the humans were in the Prius, the Big Cheese had set up a replica of the conference room at Headquarters—or as close as he could get, under the circumstances.

  He was waiting on the Mousemobile’s little dining table, with Sir Quentin at his side and the Mouse Council arranged in a semicircle around him. To their left was the Youth Chorus, which must have been busy with secret rehearsals on the long drive north.

  Now, at a signal from the Big Cheese, the chorus lurched into song while Trey translated from his position on the back of the driver’s seat:

  Jake and Joey, Joey and Jake

  Two whole planes you had to take.

  We’re so glad to meet again.

  Baseball’s loss is mousedom’s gain.

  It’s great that two is now made four

  And we cannot ask for more.

  “You are indeed welcome,” said the Big Cheese, as Sir Quentin translated. “Owing to the outcome of a certain human pastime, lamentable though that outcome may be, we can now benefit from the full measure of human assistance for our transcontinental peregrination.”

  At this point in a typical Sir Quentin paragraph, Megan would have expected Trey to give a translation of the translation, but someone beat him to it. With a flash of pink ribbon, Savannah landed on Joey’s shoulder and pushed her face against his neck in a mouse kiss.

  “EEEEK!” said Joey.

  “Sir Q. is saying like, you know, you lost a game?” she said. “Big deal, because it means you’re here and we can be friends!”

  But that was all she had time for before the inevitable roar from the Big Cheese, jumping high with each word as Sir Quentin translated: “Talking Mouse Seven will please descend from the human on whom she landed, immediately. Let us welcome our newcomers with whatever dignity we can muster in these unusual circumstances.”

  “Unusual circumstances indeed,” said Jake. “Maybe you can tell us what’s happening, sir? Like, to what do we owe this honor? And why Greenfield? Why not Reno?”

  “After we were forced to evacuate Headquarters, we were being pursued,” said the Big Cheese gravely. “For reasons that are unclear, and by humans about whom we know nothing. We have been betrayed. Whether by man or by mouse, we don’t yet know, though I have my suspicions.”

  He glared at Uncle Fred.

  “You can’t mean…” said Jake, but Megan signaled “Hush,” and he settled into a puzzled silence as the Big Cheese went on.

  “Reno could no longer be in our plans, and Greenfield was chosen as an alternative meeting place because it is located at the base of a pass across the Cascade Range, which we will cross tomorrow. Furthermore, three of you are familiar with the environs, and can recommend an establishment where we might break bread together.”

  “Somewhere to eat here?” said Jake, putting his arm around Megan and giving her a hug. “There’s only one place! Megan’s dad runs the best restaurant in Oregon.”

  “We are, of co
urse, familiar with that fact,” said the Big Cheese.

  Well, duh, thought Megan. Her dad’s restaurant hadn’t exactly become successful by accident: it had taken a ton of mouse-magic to change it from a failing French place called Chez Red, with very few customers, to Red Goes Green, where you had to book a table weeks ahead.

  “However,” the Big Cheese continued, “under the circumstances, it would be unwise to reveal your presence in this region. Any eating establishment must be selected with the assurance of concealment as the main priority.”

  “Sounds like it’ll have to be takeout,” said Jake. “How about that, Fred? You could go pick up a pizza or two, because no one around here knows you.”

  Joey had a better idea. “Hey, Dad, remember that barbecue restaurant in the forest? With tables way back in the trees?”

  Jake ruffled Joey’s hair. “Good thinking,” he said. And to the Big Cheese: “It’s a place where we can sit concealed in the deep woods, so there’s no danger of being seen by anyone who knows me or the kids.”

  He unhooked the old birdcage and carefully made his way to the table where the Big Cheese and Sir Quentin were standing, flanked by the Mouse Council. “Here’s your ride, sir—transportation to the restaurant.”

  The Big Cheese climbed into the cage. Sir Quentin was about to follow until Jake put his hand over the cage door, saying, “Sorry, Sir Q.”

  “Am I to understand,” said Sir Quentin, “that you are specifically indicating that your humble servant is not invited to this repast? Even though I may assure you that my table manners are modeled on those practiced in some of the greatest houses of England?”

  “’Fraid so,” said Jake. “Another time. We’ll bring you something good. But right now we only want your leader…and this guy.”

  He was almost out of the Mousemobile when he reached over to the back of the driver’s seat and scooped up Trey.

  t was Uncle Fred who drove the Prius, because he’d never been to Greenfield and no one would recognize him.