Mouse Noses on Toast (4 page)

N
OTHING COULD PREPARE
P
AUL AND
S
ANDRA FOR THE
terrifying experience that was to come. The world was torn from beneath them, and their brains were sent hurtling to heaven.

What actually happened was this. Rowley Barker Hobbs had grown tired of waiting for his bone and had scampered around to the rear of the restaurant, where he had entered the backyard through a gap in the fence.

He had expected the backyard to be like his overgrown garden at home, but filled with hundreds of bones. It would be raining bones, and bones would grow on trees. Imagine his disappointment when he found himself in a narrow concrete passage, with several trash cans at one end and not a bone in sight.

He was pleased to see Paul Mouse standing on the lid of one of the cans, wearing sandals and a pair of sunglasses. When he looked more closely, he saw that it wasn’t Paul at all. He said hello anyway, as he was Rowley Barker Hobbs.

The mouse lifted his sunglasses. “Who are you?”

“Rowley Barker Hobbs,” said Rowley Barker Hobbs.

“Larry,” the mouse said, holding out a paw.

The paw was too small for Rowley Barker Hobbs to shake, so he lay on his back instead, to show Larry Mouse his tummy.

“That’s a nice tummy,” Larry said. “Tell me, Mr. Hobbs. Do you live in this building, by any chance?”

Rowley Barker Hobbs shook his head.

“I was hoping you could show me around. I’m looking for some friends of mine. Mouses. Do you know where they might hang out?”

Rowley Barker Hobbs did not know, but he knew how to chase his tail, so he did.

“If you help me find them,” Larry said, hopping onto the dog’s back, “I will buy you a bone.”

A bone? The very word made his tail wag.

Perhaps the bone would be magic. Yes, it was a magic bone that grew bigger with each lick, bigger and bigger and bigger, until the whole world was one giant bone with Rowley Barker Hobbs sitting on top.

The thought of a magic bone sent Rowley Barker Hobbs racing around the yard, knocking over the trash cans and saying hello. Larry Mouse had to grip the fur tight or he would have fallen off.

The chef opened the back door to see what all the noise was. Rowley Barker Hobbs knocked him flying, and raced through the kitchen to the dining area, where he said so many hellos that several customers spilled their food and several more fell off their seats.

Just as Paul and Sandra were quivering under the approaching fork, Rowley Barker Hobbs ran into the rich man, who stood up too quickly and flipped the table over with his knee. The silver bowl soared across the room and hit the far wall with a clang.

Paul and Sandra tumbled out, and landed on the
dessert trolley, where they bounced on a strawberry jelly and sploshed into a tasty peach-and-cherry trifle.

“We’re alive!” Paul said as they climbed out.

“Just about,” Sandra said, wiping trifle from her eyes. “What happened?”

“Rowley Barker Hobbs happened,” Paul said.

The restaurant was in chaos. None of the customers were eating now. Several had walked out. The dog was still circling the tables, the chef chasing him with a rolling pin.

Rowley Barker Hobbs only calmed down when he saw his two friends. He skipped up to the dessert trolley and gave them each a hello lick, swallowing the trifle in one gulp.

P
AUL AND
S
ANDRA WERE HELPED ONTO THE DOG’S BACK
by a mouse they had never seen before, a hippy mouse in sunglasses and sandals. They might have lost their Tinby, but Rowley Barker Hobbs had found them a new mouse friend.

Out on the sidewalk, Paul bent over so Sandra could examine his bottom. It had turned the brightest shade of electric blue.

“Is it bad?” Paul asked anxiously. He was already upset after losing his cape and hat in the trifle.

“No,” Sandra said, rubbing her bruised wings.

“It looks awful from where I’m standing,” Larry said.

This made Paul cross. “Who asked you anyway?”

“Take no notice of Paul,” Sandra said. She introduced herself, and asked Larry his name.

“Larry,” the hippy mouse said, shaking her tinfoil hand. He held out a paw for Paul, but Paul refused to shake it.

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

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

“I know a cure for cheese allergies,” Larry said. “I will tell you later. First, you have to shake my paw.”

Paul apologized for being rude and shook Larry’s paw. There was something about this mouse he hated, but if Larry knew a cure for cheese allergies, Paul Mouse was all ears.

“You two wait here with Mr. Hobbs,” Larry said. “I have to answer a call of nature.”

On one side of the restaurant was an area of wasteland where an old wooden house had once stood, and this was where Larry went for a pee. He had just found a suitable place when a strange creature leaped out of the brambles and began dancing around him in a circle.

Larry ran.

“That was quick,” Sandra said when he reached his friends.

“You’ve peed all down your leg,” Paul chuckled.

But something was wrong. Larry was so out of breath he could only stand and point.

Sandra put her arm around him, and led him to a shaggy armchair paw.

“I was attacked by a savage,” Larry said at last. “I’m lucky to be alive.”

“What did it look like?” Paul asked, suddenly concerned.

“Like a pack of playing cards on legs,” Larry explained. “Its chest was covered in medals. I thought it was going to eat me.”

“I think we should investigate,” Sandra said, “don’t you, Paul?”

Paul nodded. As long as the savage didn’t throw cheese at them, he was ready for anything.

P
AUL,
L
ARRY AND
S
ANDRA LEFT
R
OWLEY
B
ARKER
H
OBBS
on the sidewalk and ducked through a gap in the brambles. The plan was to approach from the opposite direction and take the savage by surprise.

“I don’t like this place,” Sandra said. “It gives me the creeps.”

“It gets worse,” said Paul, who had explored the area before. “Where the old wooden house used to be, that is where the rats live.”

Mouses hate rats. Christmas-tree decorations don’t like them much either.

“It happened just over there,” Larry said, pointing nervously.

“Then we need to head left,” Paul whispered. “This
path curves around to the right, straight into rat territory.”

So they took a path off to the left.

This was a mistake. It wasn’t long before the brambles met overhead, then closed in all around them until they found themselves in a dead end.

When they turned around, they saw the savage. It had been following them, its little square legs picking their way silently through the undergrowth.

Larry’s fur stood on end.

Paul and Sandra recognized it immediately as the Tinby, their Tinby, who lived with them in the shoe box at the bottom of Rowley Barker Hobbs’s garden. But there was a coldness in its eyes.

As for the medals, this was stranger still. After they had left the restaurant, the Tinby had returned to the rich couple’s table, grabbed the mouse noses from the toast and stuck them across its front.

Paul stepped forward to say hi, but the Tinby jumped back, startled.

“That’s not like the Tinby,” Sandra said. “Tinbys aren’t afraid of anything, and we’re its friends.”

This was news to Larry. “You know this creature?”

“We did,” Sandra said.

Larry was confused, so Paul and Sandra explained what had happened.

They told him about the trip to the Mouse Restaurant, by the far wall of the human restaurant, under the charming antique dresser.

They explained how the mouse waiter had offered them food that the humans had dropped on the floor, and how the Tinby had gone in search of something posh.

Then they told Larry how one of the humans had ordered mouse noses on toast, a meal so horrific that the Tinby had gone insane.

“I have heard of mouse noses on toast,” Larry said. “A delicacy, like caviar. I thought it was a myth.”