Bless this Mouse (9 page)

Hildegarde jumped down and headed toward her own nest at the base of the statue. Lucretia passed her, waddling along with a kind of strut. "You're such an alarmist, Hildegarde," she said, looking down her pointed nose and twitching her whiskers. "There was no need for such fear tactics!"

At that moment, from deep in the foliage of a nearby spruce tree, came a throaty repeated hoot.
Hoo. Hoo. Hoo.

"Oh my lord!" squeaked Lucretia in terror, and she dashed away.

Hildegarde chuckled and made her way to the mossy bed she would share tonight with Roderick.

The mice slept soundly during the day, exhausted from the lengthy nighttime exodus, from the strangeness of the cemetery, and from the finding and building of nests. Outdoors was silent, except for birdsong and a breeze that rustled the leaves.

Once, in the afternoon, they were all startled awake by a sound that was new to them and sounded dangerous. Young mouselets whimpered and clutched their mothers. Ears, whiskers, and tails stiffened, and mouse noses twitched in anxiety. But it was only a human child, whistling as he rode his bicycle through the cemetery, using the gravestones as a slalom course. After a moment they all relaxed and resumed their sleep.

Hildegarde remained wakeful. She found that it was not at all pleasant, sharing a sleeping place with Roderick. He snored, and hogged the moss. Finally, restless, she crept out of the hidden nest and looked around a bit. The gravestones were old and weathered, covered with lichens; she tried nibbling one but it was slimy and tasteless. Maybe if she were
starving!
But there were yummy berries nearby, and wilted chrysanthemums on several graves. No shortage of food.

As Hildegarde crouched there at the foot of the statue, blinking her unaccustomed eyes in the daylight of Outdoors, she became aware of the sound of a vehicle approaching the church. She peeked out between some tall ferns and saw the silver van with the ominous message on its side:
PEST-B-GONE.
She shuddered. It was terrible, being referred to as "pest"! But she knew that's what it meant: mice. Oh, all right, probably cockroaches and car penter ants—it meant those other things as well. They
were
pests. As were—ugh—
rats.

But mice? Especially dear church mice, who knew the words to all the hymns and prayers? Who sang in their trusting, pious, squeaky little voices, with their eyes gazing heavenward and their tails reverently bowed? If Father Murphy only knew what treasures dwelt in his walls!

The Great X stopped its van there, at the side door of the church, and she watched as Father Murphy welcomed a man in a blue jumpsuit and invited him inside.

A rustle in the ferns startled Hildegarde, and she jumped slightly.

"Just me," said Ignatious. "Couldn't sleep. Affliction of old age: insomnia." He stretched and yawned. "Of course, in humans it can be treated with benzodiazepines such as temazepam, flunitrazepam, triazolam, flurazepam, midazolam, nitrazepam, and quazepam—"

"Oh, will you please
shut up!
" Hildegarde hissed at him.

"Sorry to offend." Ignatious did look apologetic. "It's just that I spent a lot of time in the psychopharmacology section of the univers—"

She glared at him and he fell silent.

"Look!" she said, and pointed.

Ignatious followed her pointing paw with his eyes and saw the van. "Uh-oh," he said. He squinted his aging eyes and read the title on its side. "
Pests,
" he said contemptuously. "Don't you hate that?"

"Did they ever have a Great X at the university library?" Hildegarde asked.

"Oh my, yes. Often. We lost huge numbers. Once, in the cafeteria, well..." He stopped talking and took a deep, mournful breath.

Hildegarde patted his back. "It's all right. Don't talk about it. I've been through it. I know what it's like."

They sat silently for a moment. Then she said to him, "I don't sup - pose they celebrated the Feast of Saint Francis at the university."

Ignatious shook his head. "No. I've studied the saints, though. Actually, I know quite a bit about saints. Saint Ambrose, Saint Andrew, Saint Anthony—as you can see, I'm going alphabetically here—" Then he fell silent, seeing her face.

"I'm a saint," he couldn't resist adding. "I mean, my name is. Saint Ignatious. If I'd gotten to the
Is
you would have—"

"
Too much information,
" Hildegarde said curtly.

He stopped talking and they stared at each other.

"What do you know about cats? Have you studied cats?" Hildegarde asked him suddenly.

Ignatious shuddered. "Oh, no. I've always avoided anything in that category. Makes me squeamish. Actually, I had a good friend once, at the university library. Leonard. Sweet guy. He lived in the audio section. Nibbled at the edges of opera albums, mostly. But then one day he wandered out for a breath of fresh air, innocent as you please, and there, lying right there in the sun, was a large yellow cat, and faster than you can imagine, well..." He gulped. "Oh, sorry!" he said, and began to cry, wiping his eyes with a wrinkled paw.

Hildegarde patted him gently. "I know, I know. We've all experienced it," she said. They sat together silently for a moment.

There was a noise from the church. They peered again through the ferns and saw the uniformed man come out to his van. He entered it and then emerged, carrying equipment, and reentered the side door of Saint Bartholemew's.

"Traps," Ignatious said, knowingly.

"We can deal with those. I sprang two traps in the kitchen just last Sunday," Hildegarde said.

"Was that you? I overheard Lucretia say that she was the one who disarmed those traps."

"
Lucretia!
" Hildegarde drew herself up. Her whiskers quivered in outrage. "What a liar!"

Ignatious rolled his eyes. "She's campaigning, you know, to oust you and be Mouse Mistress."

Hildegarde was so angry that she couldn't speak.

"Calm down. I want to tell you something about the special traps he just carried in there. And it's something that Lucretia won't have any knowledge of. I've made quite a study of traps, you know. Back when I was at the univers—"

Hildegarde shot him her silencing glare.

"Sorry," Ignatious said. "But pull yourself together and listen."

"I'm listening. You said 'special traps'?"

Ignatious nodded. "Yes. This is horrible. Heinous, actually."

"Describe it."

"There is no spring. No nasty little piece of metal to bop you on the head. And no bait."

"No cheese?"

"
Nada.
That's Spanish, incidentally. Means 'nothing.'"

She ignored that. "How do they work, then?"

"Nice scent to them. A little rectangle of cardboard with a very enticing smell. The Great X simply sets them about in all the obvious places. Closets. Kitchen sink. Trash cans. You know: all of our usual foraging spots."

"But no cheese. You said no cheese."

"No, but the smell lures mice. I know. I've smelled it.
Terribly
tempting. So the unsuspecting mouse goes close. It doesn't look like a trap. Simply a piece of cardboard, after all."

Hildegarde shuddered. She could tell something awful was going to be described. "What happens?" she asked.

"It's covered with glue."

"
Glue?
"

Ignatious nodded solemnly. "So the mouse leans forward to sniff or nibble—you know how we do. Or reaches out with a paw."

Hildegarde cringed.
How utterly cruel!
"And gets stuck," she said.

He nodded. "Dies there. Starves."

Hildegarde couldn't speak. She was horrified.

"I saw something funny once," Ignatious said, trying to cheer her. "The janitor at the university library? He reached for his vacuum cleaner, and one of those traps was stuck under it."

Hildegarde frowned. "Nothing funny about that."

"So the janitor tried to pry it off with his foot. And his foot got stuck. So there he was, attached to his own vacuum cleaner! He had to clump down the hall, dragging all the equipment, to find someone to help him."

She smiled slightly at the thought. But
still.
It was very cruel.

"Look! There he goes!" Ignatious pointed. The exterminator came out and tossed his bag into the back of the van. Then he got in. After a moment they watched him drive away from the church.

"So that's it? Gluey traps?" Hildegarde asked.

"No. He will have put poison around as well. There are many kinds of rodent poison—sorry to use the word
rodent—brodifacoum, zinc phosphide, difethia-lone—
"

"Oh, stop!" Hildegarde put her little paws over her ears. "I'd almost rather live Outdoors," she said with a sigh.

Ignatious shook his head. "It's worse out here," he said. "Much more dangerous. We didn't even tell them about
hawks.
And of course, winter's coming soon. You know what that means."

"I know. We need to be near the furnace." Hildegarde turned and parted the ferns to reveal her sleeping nest. Oh, lord—Roderick was still snoring! "Well, I'm going to lie down for a while. I'll try to figure out some survival methods to put into place for our return."