Read Mouse Noses on Toast Online
Authors: Daren King
Mouse Noses on Toast
NOSES
ON
TOAST
To Kevin Conroy Scott
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.
Published by The Penguin Group.
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England. Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.). Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India. Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.). Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.
Text copyright © 2006 by Daren King. Illustrations copyright © 2006 by David Roberts.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. Published in Great Britain in 2006 by Faber and Faber Limited, London. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Printed in the United States of America. Text set in Goudy Oldstyle.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
King, Daren, 1972– Mouse noses on toast / Daren King; illustrated by David Roberts. p. cm. Summary: Paul Mouse gathers a group of mouse activists to uncover the mystery behind the delicacy known as “Mouse noses on toast,” which is served in a fancy human restaurant. [1. Food habits—Fiction. 2. Mice—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Roberts, David, 1970– ill. II. Title. PZ7.K5764Mou 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2007016579
ISBN: 978-1-101-65233-6
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NOSES
ON
TOAST
DAREN KING
Illustrated by
DAVID ROBERTS
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
The Most Patient Dog in the World
I
N A BUSY TOURIST TOWN LIVED A MOUSE NAMED
P
AUL
.
Most mouses are friends with other mouses. Paul was an unusual mouse, not just because he was in a story, but because his friends were a variety of animals, creatures and objects.
One of his friends was a Tinby, which is a sort of monster, though smaller than a monster and a lot more fun to be around. Like all Tinbys, it was curved at the top and flat at the bottom, with little square legs, tiny black eyes and nothing else. It was yellow and patterned with lime-green checks.
If you are wondering why a Tinby is called a Tinby, you will find out later in the story, when the Tinby falls out of a window and makes a funny sound.
Another of Paul’s friends was a Christmas-tree decoration, a plastic angel named Sandra who had been brought to life by a magician in another story.
Paul, Sandra and the Tinby lived in a cardboard shoe box at the bottom of an overgrown garden. They didn’t know who owned the garden, but whoever it was had a dog named Rowley Barker Hobbs, who would run out into the garden every day and say hello.
Rowley Barker Hobbs was a shaggy sheepdog, with a hairy head at one end and a busy tail at the other. If the head was happy the tail was happier, and wagged all day long to prove it.
P
AUL DID HAVE SOME MOUSE FRIENDS, BUT HE DIDN’T SEE
them often because he was allergic to cheese, and the mouses ate cheese all day long.
Whenever Paul wanted to visit his mouse friends he had to wear a special suit called an anti-cheese suit. If he stood too close to some cheese without the suit, his bottom would turn blue, the fur would fall out and his tail would curl up like a question mark.
Paul had made the suit himself out of plastic wrap. You and I know that plastic wrap is a type of clear plastic for wrapping sandwiches. Paul knew this too, but the other mouses didn’t. Whenever they saw him in the suit, they thought he was wearing the height of mouse fashion.
“Nice suit, Paul,” the mouses would say when he arrived.
“Thanks,” he would reply, brushing himself down. The mouses lived under the floorboards in the storeroom of a restaurant, and the storeroom was always dusty.
Paul Mouse would look around at all the happy mouses, sitting in cheesy chairs, eating cheese and watching Cheddar Television, and wish that he was not allergic to cheese.
On Paul’s most recent visit, one morning in high summer, Graham Mouse asked Paul Mouse why he always sat on the floor.
“There aren’t enough chairs,” Paul said. He didn’t want to tell the mouses about his allergy. They might laugh. Who ever heard of a mouse allergic to cheese?
“You can have my chair,” Graham Mouse said, standing up. “I’m off to the mouse café for a pint of Old Stilton.”
Paul frowned. If he sat in the cheesy chair, even with his anti-cheese suit on, his bottom would turn blue, the fur would fall out and his tail would curl up like a question mark.
“You’d better sit in the chair,” one of the mouses said, “or Graham will be offended.”
Paul had always been afraid of Graham Mouse. He was a big, burly mouse with the words LIKE and HATE tattooed across his paws.
Graham Mouse put on his denim jacket, the one he wore when he felt like punching someone on the whiskers, and said, “Paul, do you want my chair or not?”
Paul looked at the cheesy chair, then up at Graham’s mean face, then back at the cheesy chair. How bad could it be?
So Paul Mouse sat on the cheesy chair.
Later, when none of the other mouses were looking, Paul stood up and peered at his bottom in a mirror. It was blue, and completely bald. The anti-cheese suit hadn’t made the slightest difference.
