Emily Eyefinger and the Secret from the Sea (5 page)

‘Hey, how about me?' Terry said. ‘I'm a hero too! I tripped the man and I caught the horsey!'

And so it was that everyone gave Emily – and Terry – a big clap.

‘Mice are the smartest animals in the world,' Malcolm Mousefinder's father, Professor Mousefinder, said.

‘Even smarter than people?' Emily asked.

‘Absolutely!'

‘Then why haven't they invented things? Why aren't they driving around in tiny little mouse cars and flying in mouse aeroplanes?'

‘Because they haven't learned how,' Professor Mousefinder said, looking down from the top of a pile of wire cages. ‘What mice need is education and that's why I'm making my
eschoolensis musiensis
. That's the mouseology name for a mouse school.'

‘A school for mice?' Emily said.

‘Yes. We often see if they can get through a maze or ring a bell but no one has ever made a whole mouse school.'

Emily was at Malcolm Mousefinder's house. She and Malcolm were sitting on the lounge playing a computer game called Mouse Rage on Malcolm's laptop. At Malcolm's house there were always mice running around everywhere and one of them kept jumping onto the computer keys.

‘Magnus!' Malcolm said, putting the little mouse back on the floor. ‘Go and play somewhere else!'

‘When my Mouse Academy is finished,' the professor said. ‘Mice won't just be the cuddly little critters that we all love.'

‘What do you mean?' Emily asked, as her computer game mouse raced ahead of Malcolm's.

‘They will be
very well-educated
cuddly little critters that we all love.'

‘So what are you going to put in the cages?'

‘Cages? These are
classrooms
, Emily,' Professor Mousefinder said. He pointed to a cage with a sign over its door that said:

 

Welcome to The Mousefinder
Mouse Academy

 

‘Where will you find mouse teachers?' Emily asked.

‘That is the beauty of my Academy. There are no teachers. The mice teach themselves. Mice are very curious. That first classroom is Mousergarten. It's a maze that each mouse has to find its way through to get to the next classroom. And in that one there's an exercise wheel. The mouse will work out that when it spins the wheel really fast the door to another classroom will open.'

‘Is that a swimming pool?' Emily asked, pointing to one of the cages.

‘Yes. Mice can all swim but at the Academy they'll learn to be great swimmers. There will be gyms and art lessons and tiny little mouse musical instruments to play. Once they get through all the Mouse Grades they'll go to Mousiversity.'

‘But they can't read and write, can they?' Emily asked.

‘They'll learn,' the professor said. ‘They'll learn to talk just like us and read books and use the internet. I'm working on making a mouse computer.'

‘So when will your Mouse Academy start?'

‘Any day now. But first I have to find some really smart mice. All mice love to learn but I want to start with some extra special really smart mice.'

As he said this, the mouse jumped onto Malcolm and Emily's keyboard again.

‘Bad Magnus!' Malcolm said, putting him down on the floor once more. ‘I wish this one would
learn not to do that. By the way, Dad, I forgot to tell you but someone rang a while ago. They were looking for a mouseologist.'

‘A mouseologist? Why I'm a mouseologist! What did they want?'

‘They said they have a mouse problem,' Malcolm said, handing his father a piece of paper with a telephone number on it.

‘A mouse problem?' the professor said. ‘Mice are never a problem. Where's the telephone?'

Minutes later the professor and Emily and Malcolm were speeding across town.

‘Where are we going, Dad?' Malcolm asked.

‘I can't tell you,' the professor said. ‘It's a secret agent centre that's deep underground. Nobody's allowed to know what they do there. No one's even allowed to know that it exists.'

‘Then why do you know?'

‘Because I'm a mouseologist and they have mice.'

The professor stopped the car at a huge gate. There were soldiers all around. Over the gate a sign said:

 

Deep Underground
Top Secret Intelligence Centre.
Keep Out!

 

The soldiers sent Professor Mousefinder and Emily and Malcolm down in a lift to a room where General Slimantrim was waiting.

‘I asked you to come alone, Professor,' the general said. ‘Who are these people?'

‘This is my son, Malcolm. I never go on a mouse-finding expedition without him.'

‘And the girl?' he asked, curling his lip as he said the words.

‘I'm Emily,' Emily said. ‘Emily Eyefinger.'

‘I thought she might come in handy,' the professor said.

The general looked Emily up and down and then his curled lip turned into a smile.

‘Emily Eyefinger? Did you say
Eye
finger?' he laughed. ‘Does she have an
eye
on her
finger
? Ho ho ho ho ho! That's funny. An eye on her finger! Can you imagine that?'

The general laughed another big general's laugh.

Without saying a word, Emily held up her eyefinger and stared the general straight in his face. Then she blinked her eyefinger eye.

‘Great bombs and bullets!' the general cried. ‘It's a real eye! On your finger! I thought your name was a joke. I'm terribly sorry. I'm so embarrassed. And generals aren't ever supposed to be sorry or embarrassed.'

‘Don't worry,' Emily said, ‘and I promise not to say anything about your name.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Slimantrim?' Emily said. ‘Your name is Slimantrim and you're slim and you're trim.'

The general look down at himself.

‘So I am. I've never noticed that before,' he said. ‘What a hoot!'

Suddenly the general turned serious, the way generals do.

‘Follow me,' he ordered.

He opened a door to a huge room. The room was filled with metal boxes with flashing lights and switches on them. Wires ran around the floor like spaghetti. At the front of the room was a row of desks with keyboards and screens.

‘This is one big computer,' the general explained. ‘We've added so many bits and bobs that it now almost fills the whole room. I can't tell you what it does because it's top secret but let me just say that the whole world depends on it. And now mice have
got into it and it's doing funny things. Yesterday it almost started a wa – ooops, I almost gave away a secret. Anyway, the mice are chewing the wires.'

‘Are you sure of that?' asked Professor Mousefinder.

‘They must be because things are going wonky. We've put out poison and tried to squish them in mousetraps. We've done everything to try to kill them.'

‘K-k-k-kill them!' the professor cried. ‘You tried to kill mice!'

‘Yes, of course. You are a mouse exterminator, aren't you?'

‘No, I'm not a mouse
exterminator
! I'm a
mouseologist
! I'm a scientist who studies mice. I love mice! And so should you! So should everybody! Mice are man's – and woman's – best friends. How do you even know there are mice in there? Have you seen them?'

‘We've seen mouse droppings. If there are mouse droppings there must be mice dropping them. If they were rabbits there would be rabbit droppings.
And if they were horses there would be horse droppings. These are mouse droppings.'

‘What kind of mouse droppings?' Professor Mousefinder asked.

‘I don't know. Mouse mouse droppings.'

‘Mouse mouse droppings? There is no such thing as a mouse mouse. There are lots of different kinds of mice. May I see the droppings?'

‘I threw them away.'

‘You what?! You could never be a mouseologist. Turn off the computer and I'll have a look inside.'

‘We can't turn off the computer because if we do the whole world might … Oh, goodness, I almost told you another top secret secret. Anyway, we can't turn this computer off till the new one is built and that won't be for months.'

‘Okay,' the professor said, ‘open a panel and I'll go in to see if they're doing any damage.'

‘Go in?' the general said, opening a panel. ‘No person could fit between the cables and gizmos. Besides, it's much too dangerous. You'd be
electrocuted if you touched anything. I thought you would have a way of getting the mice out. Okay, guys, get the poison gas. Everybody out!'

‘Poison gas?! What are you thinking?! That would kill them all! That's murder! That's mousicide!'

‘Excuse me,' Emily interrupted, ‘maybe I could go into the computer and have a look.'

The professor, the general, Malcolm and all the soldiers stared at Emily.

‘I can't let you do that,' the general said. ‘You would be killed and then I'd have to write a report and send it to your parents. And I hate writing reports.'

‘You said that it is very important.'

‘Yes, more important than you can ever know. If we don't kill – I mean, get rid of – those mice then lots and lots of people might d – ooops, there I go again.'

‘I'm quite small,' Emily explained, ‘and I'll be very careful. I'll use my eyefinger to see places that I can't get my head into. I won't touch anything.'

‘Oh, very well then,' the general said. ‘In you go.'

Emily stepped into the computer, moving as slowly as a cold snail. Everywhere around her she could hear the hum of electricity and she could feel her hair stand up straight. She crept forward, squeezing between wires and panels without touching them. One minute she was stepping over clusters of cables and the next she was flat against the floor, wriggling along like a snake. It was like climbing through bushes without touching a single leaf. She poked her finger here and there to see where no other person could. And everywhere there was the
snap
! and a
zap
! that could mean sudden death.

‘Can you see the mouse damage, Emily?' the general called out.

‘Not yet,' Emily said.

‘Can you see any mice?' the professor asked.

Emily bent her finger around a corner. There in the distance she caught a glimpse of a tiny nose. In a flash it was gone.

‘I think I just saw one,' she said.

‘Did it have long whiskers or short ones?'

‘Sort of medium. And there was a bit of white on the tip of its nose.'

Slowly Emily made her way through every part of the huge computer. Finally she was out again.

‘I didn't see any damage to wires or anything,' she said.

‘But there must be,' said the general.

Professor Mousefinder picked a tiny mouse dropping off Emily's shirt. He looked at it with a magnifying glass and then sniffed it.

‘Ah-hah!' he cried. ‘Medium whiskers. White on its nose. And this dropping proves that we have our culprit.
Mus smartipensis!
That's the mouseology name for what are commonly known as Smart Mice. That's why you can't catch them, these are the smartest mice in the world. They're too smart to eat poison or get caught in mousetraps and they're too smart to chew on wires.'

‘Then what are they doing to the computer?' the general asked.

‘They're using it.'

‘They're what? Are you saying that they know how to use a computer?'

‘Not exactly. I think you'll find they come out at night and push the keys on the keyboards.'

‘Why would they do that?'

‘To see lights flash and things change on the screen. They're only playing but they're learning too. They're very smart but they don't know how to use computers yet. When they do you could have real problems.'

‘What?!' screamed the general. ‘Poison gas! Now!'

‘No!' cried Professor Mousefinder.

‘Yes!' cried General Slimantrim.

‘Wait!' cried Emily. ‘I have an idea. Malcolm, did you bring your laptop?'

‘Yes.'

‘We don't have time to waste, Emily,' the general said.