Mouse Noses on Toast (8 page)

“This is hopeless,” Larry said. “Where is everybody?”

“Rowley Barker Hobbs has figured it out,” Sandra said. “Look!”

They all looked.

“He’s peeing up a lamppost,” Larry said.

Halfway up the lamppost, someone had fixed a wooden sign, with a picture of the Prime Minister and an arrow pointing up the street.

“Of course!” Paul said. “Today is the day the Prime Minister comes to town. The arrow points to the Town Hall, where the Prime Minister gives his Big Speech.”

Larry clapped his paws excitedly. “Let’s get some more signatures and take the petition to the Town Hall. If we hurry, we can present it to the Prime Minister in person.”

“How many do we need?” Sandra asked.

“One hundred,” Larry said. “You always need one hundred. It’s the law.”

“And how many do we have?”

Larry looked at the sheet of paper. “None.”

“We could sign it,” Paul said. “How many would that be, Sandra?”

Sandra counted. There were the twenty-three mouses who lived under the storeroom, and Larry and Paul, which made twenty-five. Then there was Sandra herself, and Rowley Barker Hobbs, and Rowley Barker Hobbs’s nose, and Rowley Barker Hobbs’s tail, and Rowley Barker Hobbs’s four paws, which added up to thirty-three.

“Close enough,” Larry said. “We can get a few more on the way.”

L
ARGE CROWDS ARE VERY FRIGHTENING FOR TWENTY-FIVE
mouses and a Christmas-tree decoration, especially when their taxi keeps jumping up at people.

“I wish Rowley Barker Hobbs would stop saying hello,” Paul said as they neared the Town Hall.

“Mr. Hobbs!” Larry yelled. “Keep your paws on the ground, or we will fall off!”

Rowley Barker Hobbs was a multilingual dog and could say hello in three different languages: jumping-up language, licking language and tail-wagging language.

“Stick with tail-wagging language for now,” Sandra said, perching on Rowley Barker Hobbs’s nose.

“How about licking language?” Rowley Barker Hobbs said, licking a woman’s hand.

“The sooner we reach the Town Hall,” Sandra whispered in the woolly ear, “the sooner we get you that bone.”

There is nothing like the thought of a bone to keep a dog on the right track, and soon enough they reached the Town Hall gates, where hundreds of tourists were taking photographs of the back of a policeman’s head.

Being tiny is hopeless most of the time, but it can come in handy. Sandra and the mouses were able to run under the gates and through the Town Hall door without getting arrested or squished.

The Prime Minister was in a posh office, rehearsing his speech. “Intonation, intonation, intonation,” he muttered to himself. “Must work on my intonation.”

When he looked down at the posh desk, he saw a mouse wearing sunglasses and sandals. “I like your suit,” the mouse said. “The purple tie matches your nose.”

The Prime Minister didn’t say anything. He wasn’t used to being squeaked at.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the mouse said, bowing low. “My name is Larry Mouse. I represent a group of pet-sized political extremists, the MADAMNOTs.
Mouses, Angels and Dogs Against Mouse Noses on Toast.”

The Prime Minister just stared. Had he been working too hard? Was he seeing things?

“We have traveled many miles by paw-power to bring you this petition,” the mouse said. He held out a sheet of paper, black with paw prints. “If you would consider—”

Before the mouse could squeak another squeak, the Prime Minister’s bodyguard whacked him across the room with a broom.

The Larry who returned to his friends in the corridor was an ashamed sort of Larry, with a red bottom.

“You’ve got a red bottom,” Paul said, pointing rudely.

“No I haven’t.”

Paul was in hysterics. “Your bottom is redder than mine is blue. Are you allergic to something?”

Larry nodded. “High-speed brooms.”

“So what happened?” asked Graham. “Did you give the Prime Minister the petition?”

Larry thought about this. If he told the truth, they would think he was a failure.

“Larry,” Sandra said firmly, “did you or did you not give the Prime Minister the petition?”

“Yes,” Larry said shiftily. “In fact, yes.”

“And what did he say?”

“He vowed to introduce a ban on nose-based food products,” Larry said. “He’s going to announce the new law tonight, in his Big Speech.”

“Then we’d better find a seat,” Sandra said. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Larry was less keen. “Can we go home? I fancy a big lump of cheese.”

“I smell a rat,” Paul said, giving Larry a sniff. “We should hear what the Prime Minister has to say. If Larry is telling the truth, this could be a historic mouse moment.”

T
HE ATMOSPHERE WAS ELECTRIC
. T
HE HALL WAS PACKED
with politicians, journalists, TV cameras and members of the Royal Family. One of the most powerful men in the world, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, was about to give his Big Speech.

Larry and Paul had the best seats in the house, on the Prime Minister’s shoes. Sandra and the other mouses watched from the side of the stage, hidden among the folds of the velvet curtain. Inch was so excited he wet himself.

At last, the Prime Minister gripped the podium with his hands and cleared his throat.

To Larry, the speech seemed to go on for hours. Every few minutes, Paul would ask him when the Prime
Minister would start talking about mouse noses on toast. “Any minute now,” Larry would say, his paws crossed behind his back.

Just as the Prime Minister was about to unveil his new food policy, something plopped onto the shoulder of his suit. It was brown, and had whiskers.

“The Tinby!” cried Sandra, clapping her silver hands.

If the viewers at home had watched closely, they would have seen a Christmas-tree decoration dash across the stage, where it ran behind the podium and hopped aboard the Prime Minister’s left shoe.

“Paul, Larry,” cried Sandra, “did you see what happened?”

“Not from down here,” Paul said.

“All I can see,” Larry said, “is the Prime Minister’s hairy nostrils.”

Together they climbed the Prime Minister’s suit and leaped onto the podium. From here, hidden among the microphones and wires, they could see
across the entire hall. And the first thing they saw was a mouse nose plopping onto the top of the Prime Minister’s head. When he looked up, another mouse nose hit him in the eye, splat!

“A direct hit!” said Paul. “Where are they coming from?”

“The Tinby must be up in the ceiling,” Sandra said.

The Prime Minister had barely uttered a word when a fourth mouse nose hit him in the other eye, splat! He stumbled blindly away from the podium, catching his suit on a nail. The nail pulled his trousers down, revealing a pair of red, white and blue boxer shorts.

Several posh people fainted, and one of the Prime Minister’s biggest supporters dropped his flag and began to cry. Most people just laughed, but notfor long.

Up in the ceiling, the Tinby was leaping from rafter to rafter, spraying the room with icky, sticky noses.

Tinbys can be lightning-fast, and this Tinby was the fastest in the business. Within minutes, every person in the hall was covered from head to shoe. Where the Tinby
had got so many noses, I do not know. Perhaps it had bought them mail order, and paid for them with a yellow and lime-green checked check.

The Prime Minister had to be led from the stage by bodyguards. The police were called but were too afraid to enter the building. The army were called, but they were afraid too, so the army sergeant called the marines, who stormed the building.

No one was hurt, but several people were treated for shock, and the Royal Family had to have their jewelry cleaned by experts.

U
P IN THE RAFTERS
, S
ANDRA AND THE MOUSES COULD
find no sign of the Tinby.

“I hope the marines didn’t shoot it,” Sandra said. “It could be hurt.”

“Tinbys are far too busy to waste time getting shot,” Paul said. “Even mad Tinbys.”

Larry shook his head. “I doubt the Tinby is mad at all. What could be more sensible than throwing noses at the Prime Minister?”

“But what about all those people?” Sandra said, gazing down at the terrible mess the Tinby had made of the hall. “They didn’t deserve to have noses thrown at them. I bet they don’t all eat mouse noses on toast. Some may even be vegetarian.”

“And besides,” Paul said, “whatever your politics, that was no way to treat a Prime Minister.”

“Indeed.”

Paul spun around. On the next rafter stood a mouse in a smart suit.

“I,” the mouse said grandly, “am the Prime Mouse Minister. I was here to give my annual Small Speech, but after what happened, I don’t think I’ll bother.”

“I don’t blame you,” Paul said. “I’m Paul, and this is Sandra and Larry, and this is Graham and the twins.”

“Never mind the introductions,” the Prime Mouse Minister said. “Who was that creature? I thought it was a bar of soap, till it started throwing noses.”