Mouse Noses on Toast (5 page)

When they rejoined Rowley Barker Hobbs on the sidewalk, the Tinby didn’t follow. It was a wild thing now, and would live alone in the brambles, guarding its medals and dancing its mad Tinby dance.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hobbs,” Larry said as the padded nose came down to say hello. “Not only did I not get you that bone, but we’ve lost your Tinby.” He turned to Paul and
said, “I promised Mr. Hobbs a bone if he would help find my friends. They live in the restaurant somewhere, but I don’t know where.”

“Mouses?”

“Cheese addicts,” Larry said. “Graham Mouse is always on the Old Stilton, if I remember, and Mazie and Suzie use cream cheese as fur conditioner.”

“You know Graham, and the twins?”

“We lived together in a cupboard in the old wooden house,” Larry said, “just before it was pulled down. They moved into the restaurant with lots of other mouses, but I stayed on in protest. I tied myself to the plumbing with a piece of string.”

Paul laughed.

“It may seem funny to you,” Larry said, “but some of us stand up for our beliefs.”

“But the building was pulled down,” Paul said.

Larry looked at the sidewalk, ashamed. “When I heard the bulldozers I got scared, and paid a rat to gnaw through the string. That was three years ago, and I haven’t seen the other mouses since.”

G
RAHAM AND THE TWINS HAD THOUGHT
L
ARRY
M
OUSE
had died in the wreckage. Imagine their surprise when his sunglasses dropped through a gap in the floorboards, followed by one of his sandals and then Larry himself, who landed on his head with a painful thud.

“Larry!”

The twins, Suzie and Mazie, hugged him warmly. Graham Mouse patted him on the back.

“How did you find us?” Suzie asked, handing Larry a thimble of freshly squeezed cheese juice.

“Paul brought me here,” Larry said, putting on his sunglasses. “He has a blue bottom!”

Larry’s other sandal hit Larry on the head. “Ouch!”

“That was a secret,” Paul said, poking his nose through the floorboards.

“Paul is allergic to cheese,” Larry explained. “It makes his bottom turn blue.”

“The fur falls out too,” Paul said, “and my tail curls up like a question mark.”

“Is that why you wear that fashionable suit?” Mazie asked.

Paul nodded. “It’s also why I’m not coming down.”

“You have to come down,” Larry told him. “I’m calling a meeting.”

Graham folded his tattooed arms. “Don’t tell me you’re organizing another protest.”

“Not a protest,” Larry said. “A campaign.”

Up in the dusty storeroom, Sandra was trying to persuade Paul to go down. “You can’t hide your blue bottom forever.”

“All right,” Paul said, “but before I go down, you have to hide all the cheese.”

Sandra agreed, and when Paul arrived five minutes later, there was not a crumb of cheese in sight.

T
WENTY-THREE MOUSES LIVED UNDER THOSE
floorboards, and even those Larry had never met knew of his brave attempt at stopping the bulldozers. The idea of a campaign caused quite a stir.

Larry Mouse stepped up onto a matchbox and raised his paw. The mouses and the Christmas-tree decoration gathered around, and the meeting began.

“We all know that humans have disgusting eating habits,” Larry said dramatically.

“Get on with it!” Graham shouted, and several other mouses laughed out loud.

Larry stepped down from the matchbox. He would not get on with it, not until each mouse was quiet.

“I think everyone had better listen,” Sandra whispered, “or we’ll be here all day.”

Graham nodded. “The next mouse to interrupt Larry gets a punch on the ear.”

Larry Mouse was back up on the matchbox. “Where was I? Yes, we all know that humans have disgusting eating habits, but there is one human meal that can only be described as sickening, and that meal is mouse noses on toast.”

“Myth!” one of the mouses shouted.

Graham looked around, and the mouse fell silent.

“Not only do humans eat mouse noses on toast,” Larry went on, “but they pay a lot of money for it. To humans, mouse noses are a delicacy.”

“Myth!” another of the mouses shouted.

Graham said nothing.

“Mouse noses on toast are a myth,” the first mouse said, stepping forward, “like caviar, and colorful parrot soup with extra beaky bits.”

“I swear on my blue bottom,” Paul said, taking Larry’s place on the matchbox, “mouse noses on toast are real.”

“We saw it with our own eyes,” Sandra said.

“I didn’t see it myself,” Larry said, “but when we left the restaurant, I went for a pee in the brambles.” He tried to tell them about the Tinby, how it wore the noses on its chest like medals, but the mouses were in hysterics.

“Larry went for a pee!” they shouted. “Paul has a blue bottom!”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking a pee,” Larry said. “I bet there isn’t a mouse in this room who hasn’t peed at least once today.”

“Mouse noses on toast!” the mouses shouted. “Caviar! Myth!”

Larry was about to give up when something small and brown plopped through a gap in the floorboards and landed on Graham’s head.

It was a mouse nose.

“Yuck,” Graham said, holding the little brown thing in his paw.

“That,” one of the twins said, “is the most disgusting thing ever.”

Larry stepped back onto the matchbox. This time when he spoke, the mouses listened.

A
FTER THE MEETING
, P
AUL AND
S
ANDRA CLIMBED UP
through the gap in the floorboards where the Tinby had thrown the nose. The Tinby was no longer there, but it had left some interesting clues.

“Footprints,” Sandra said, pointing to a trail of square markings in the dust. “And look. Another mouse nose.”

“The footprints lead over to the window,” Paul said. They climbed onto the window ledge and looked out.

They could see Rowley Barker Hobbs waiting patiently in the street. Paul tapped on the glass and the shaggy sheepdog came bounding up to the window, saying hello to the glass with his paws.

“If we can get this window open, Rowley Barker Hobbs can come in,” Sandra said.

“Locked,” Paul said, examining the latch. “The Tinby may still be in this room.”

“We should look for it,” Sandra said. “It may need our help.”

The walls of the storeroom were lined with shelves. The shelf nearest the window held a long cardboard box, and this was where they began their search.

Paul gnawed a tiny hole in the side of the box with his teeth. “Cabbage,” he sniffed, poking his nose through the hole.

“The Tinby hates cabbage,” Sandra said. “Let’s try another.”

The box beside that contained dried herbs, and the one beside that was empty. Up on the next shelf they found a box of candles and a large sack of flour. On the next shelf were two rows of cooking oil, and higher up still was a huge box of cheese, with a hole in the side where the mouses had helped themselves.

And high, high up on the top shelf they found the Tinby. Somehow it had become wedged in the neck of an empty wine bottle, upside down.

“It looks distressed,” Sandra said.

“I wonder why it climbed in there,” Paul said, scratching his ears. “Perhaps it thinks it’s a cork.”

Actually the Tinby thought it was a spaceship, but that was not why it was in the bottle. It had seen something horrible and had squeezed into the bottle to hide.

Paul climbed the rough brickwork, put one paw on the neck of the bottle and peered inside. “Can you hear me?” he called, and the Tinby wriggled its little square legs in reply.

“We’ll never get it out,” Sandra said. “The poor thing is stuck fast.”

“We need something slippery,” Paul said. “Dish soap should do it.”

But Sandra had a better idea. With one shove, she sent the bottle sailing over the edge of the shelf.

For a brief moment, the Tinby was moving faster than any Tinby had
moved in the entire history of the world. Then, SMASH, the bottle shattered into a million silver-green stars.

By the time Paul reached the floorboards, the Tinby had gone, leaving only a Tinby-shaped mark in the dust.

Paul called for Sandra to come down, but she refused. “I think you should come back up,” she said. “And bring Larry with you. I have found something he may find interesting.”