Mouse Noses on Toast (7 page)

W
ITH NO STRING TO SECURE THE BOX, THE TWENTY-FIVE
mouses had to ride on Rowley Barker Hobbs’s back and hold it steady with their paws. Sandra perched on his padded nose, to shout directions. The stairs were steep and rickety, which made the ride bumpy, especially for Inch. He had forgotten to take his travel-sickness pills and turned a queasy shade of green.

Not even Larry knew what they would find when they reached the top. Perhaps the home of Bertrand Violin and his elderly wife, Bertranda. Or the chef, who sharpened his knife in the dark, and cut off the nose of anyone who dared to visit.

But the upstairs rooms were empty.

The room above the dining area had no windows, and
was lit only by the light that shined up through gaps in the floorboards.

There was only one customer in the restaurant now, a huge man with a bald head. If the man had looked up, he would have seen Larry’s eye peering through a mouse-sized hole in the ceiling.

The waiter flipped open his notebook, took a pencil from behind his ear and walked up to the man’s table.

“Six slices of mouse noses on toast,” the man said, licking his lips. “Three with whiskers, three without.”

Larry stood up. “Right,” he said, clapping his paws. “I need a volunteer.”

Silence.

“A volunteer, brave as a lion, to sacrifice his or her nose to save the noses of mouses for generations to come.”

Paul raised his paw, but not to volunteer. He had a question. “What does the volunteer have to do?”

“Plug the hole,” Larry said, pointing to the hole in the floorboards. “We pour the noses over the plugged hole. When I give the signal, we yank the plug by the tail. Up comes the plug, down go the noses.”

“You’ve got a fat head,” Paul said, “why don’t you plug the hole?”

“I have to give the signal.”

“I could give the signal,” Paul said helpfully.

“My sandals would fall off,” Larry said.

Paul laughed. Larry, he decided, was a coward.

“What did you mean,” one of the twins asked, “when you said the volunteer would sacrifice his or her nose?”

“Figure of speech,” Larry said.

The twins were not convinced, and did not volunteer. Neither did Graham or any of the other adult mouses. The only mouse to volunteer was Inch, the smallest, squeakiest mouse of all.

“You’re too small,” Larry said. “You would slip right through.”

“I could wear my jumper,” Inch squeaked. “My nan knitted it for my birthday.”

The jumper was red, and as thick as a thick slice of cheese.
The mouse who fetched it from the storeroom had trouble carrying it up the stairs.

“This is a thick jumper,” Larry said, feeling the wool.

“Nan doesn’t want me to catch cold,” Inch squeaked, pulling the jumper over his ears. “Which way do I go? Downside up or upside down?”

“Upside up,” Sandra said.

Inch squeaked a startled squeak. “I don’t want noses on my head.”

“Then plug the hole upside down,” Larry said.

Climbing into that hole was the hardest thing Inch had ever had to do, apart from addition. It would be scary enough for a human, but Inch was a tiny mouse. To Inch, the room below looked as big as outer space.

When the noses were piled on, Inch almost squeaked his last squeak. If you have ever had your rude parts sniffed by two thousand tiny nostrils, you will know how he felt.

Hurry up and pull my tail, Inch thought.

But Larry had a problem. To give the signal, he had to look through the hole. How could he look through the
hole when it was plugged by a mouse?

“You should have thought of that,” Paul said, “before you sent poor Inch into that hole.”

“I hope he’s all right,” Sandra said.

“Are you all right in there, Inch?” Larry called.

“No!” came the tiny, squeaky reply. “The noses have gone down my jumper. The whiskers are tickling my tum!”

“Inch, can you see a huge man with a bald head eating six plates of mouse noses on toast?”

“Yes!” came the tiny reply. “Unplug me quick, I need a wee!”

“We’d better get him out of there,” Sandra said.

“There’s too many noses,” Larry said. “I can’t see his tail.”

“Then get in there and find it!”

Larry was horrified. “Me?”

Graham gave him a mean look, and he knew the game was up. He had to prove he was brave, or the mouses would never squeak to him again.

G
RAHAM STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE NOSE PILE,
calling Larry’s name.

“You’d better go in and get him,” Sandra said, chewing her halo nervously. “You’re his best friend.”

“Best friend my foot,” Graham said, and in he went.

Any second now, Sandra thought, Graham will come leaping out, dragging Larry by the ear. But another minute passed with no sign of Graham or Larry.

“You two go in there,” Sandra said to the twins. “He’s your friend too.”

Suzie and Mazie kissed each other good-bye and in they went.

The twins won’t get lost, Sandra thought. Mazie will look after Suzie and Suzie will look after Mazie. But two minutes later there was no sign of either one.

Sandra turned to Paul. “I know you two don’t get along,” she said, “but you would miss him if he wasn’t around.”

Paul took a deep breath and dived in.

A minute later another mouse disappeared into the nose pile, followed by another and another until there were no mouses left, just a silver Christmas-tree decoration and a dog with a happy, happy tail.

“Perhaps you could help,” Sandra said.

Rowley Barker Hobbs gave the noses a sniff to check they weren’t a new type of bone, and shook his shaggy head.

“Well, I can’t go in there,” Sandra said. “I’m an angel, and drowning in noses is not very angelic. We’d better call the police.”

But when they reached the bottom of the stairs, something soggy happened.

Mouse noses are wet, like dog noses. If you want to pile them up on old wooden floorboards, you had better dry
them out first, or the floorboards will rot and the noses will fall through.

This is bad enough, but if your nose pile contains twenty-five mouses without parachutes, you have a disaster on your paws.

As the huge bald man bit into his sixth slice of mouse noses on toast, he heard an awful sound. The sound of soggy wood splintering. The sound of a thousand noses slipping through a soggy, splintery hole. The sound of twenty-five mouses screaming in terror.

SPLEAURAAAAAAAGH!

From the bottom of the stairs, all Sandra and Rowley Barker Hobbs heard were the painful cries of the huge bald man. They raced in to find him flat on his back on the tiles, covered from head to shoe in soggy, sniffy noses.

The mouses had a soft landing. This was a man who had eaten six slices of mouse noses on toast every day for ten years, and that was just for starters.

He would follow the mouse noses on toast with a piping hot bowl of colorful parrot soup with extra beaky bits, a platter of deep-fried ostrich feet and a broad blue
elephant-ear omelet, with a giraffe’s neck on a spit for the main course and a bowl of stripy-bee sweets for dessert.

The chef heard the noise too. He was on the toilet reading a cookbook, and by the time he had pulled up his trousers and dashed through to the restaurant, the mouses had scampered away.

“I’
VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS
,” P
AUL
M
OUSE SAID, POURING
a thimble of water over his head. “I’m going home.”

“Me too,” Graham said.

“Graham, you are home,” Larry said, drying his sunglasses on a mouse towel. “You can’t go home if you’re home already.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Graham said angrily. “I’ll box your big ears!”

The mouses were in the mouse bathroom, washing off the icky, sticky noses. The bathroom had been made by gnawing a hole in a pipe. Water dripped into an old tin bathtub with the words REFORMED HAM printed on the side.

“My jumper smells of boogers,” Inch squeaked.

“Jumpers can be washed, Inch,” Sandra said, patting the tiny mouse on the nose. “No one was seriously hurt, that’s the main thing.”

“Stop complaining,” Larry said. “The Direct Action went perfectly to plan.”

Paul shook his head. “But at what cost? Look at poor Inch. He’s terrified.”

“I’m ferry tied,” said Inch, who had trouble with any word longer than his tail.

But Larry wouldn’t listen. “Right,” he said, clapping his paws. “Where do we strike next?”

“We’ve had enough Direct Action for one day,” Sandra said. “How about we try something sensible? We could stand in the street and ask people to sign a petition.”

Everyone agreed that this was a good idea, and ten minutes later they were all standing out on the sidewalk.

The streets were deserted. The only human to pass by was an old lady.

“Excuse me!” squeaked the mouses, “will you sign our petition?”

The old lady didn’t even look down.