Ralph S. Mouse (4 page)

Ralph stopped wiping his paws over his whiskers to look with love at Ryan's teacher. Her long shiny hair fell over her shoulders. It looked so strong that Ralph was sure that just one of her hairs would be perfect for tying his exhaust pipes in place.

“Perhaps the custodian has a cage we could keep him in,” said Miss K.

Love turned to distrust. This wonderful woman with useful hair was turning out to be like any other grown-up.

Ryan spoke up. “I don't think Ralph would be happy in a cage,” he told his teacher. “I'll just keep him in my pocket if it's all right with you.” Good old Ryan.

Miss K gently handed Ralph back to Ryan, who stuffed him into his shirt pocket. “Thank you for sharing Ralph,” she said above the
lub-dub
of Ryan's heart, now steady as a well-oiled motor. “Class, how would you like to draw pictures and write stories and poems about mice? Friday afternoon we could have a mouse exhibit to show off our work. Ryan, you could bring Ralph to school again so he could be our guest of honor.” Miss K, who had no idea Ralph was planning to live at school, was a teacher who could turn anything into a project.

Most of the class was enthusiastic. Others thought mice were as good a subject as any for drawing and writing. A boy named Gordon said he didn't like to do any of those things. Miss K suggested he could go to the library, look up facts about mice, and write an essay about them. “And what do you want to do, Ryan?” she asked.

“I would like to tell how smart Ralph is.” Ryan's answer threw Ralph into a fright. What was Ryan going to tell his classmates about the motorcycle? Ralph would
not
ride his precious motorcycle in front of everyone.

“Splendid, Ryan,” said Miss K, “but why not show us how smart he is? Do you know what a maze is?”

“Sort of,” said Ryan. “I've seen them on the kid's page of the Sunday paper. You take a pencil and try to draw a line through the open spaces of a diagram from one side to the other. It isn't easy, because there are a lot of dead ends.”

“That's right,” said Miss K, who was drawing a maze on the blackboard as Ryan spoke. “Scientists use mazes with walls to test the speed with which mice learn. They start a mouse at one end and time him to see how fast he reaches food at the other end. Then they have him do it again. If he cuts down his time, they know he has learned from the experience. Do you think you could build a maze?”

“I'd like to try,” Ryan answered.

“Good,” said Miss K. “I'll bring a stop watch for timing Ralph's race through the maze.”

“I can bring my cap pistol for a starter's gun,” volunteered Brad, showing interest for the first time.

“Good idea,” said Miss K. “You like to build things, so perhaps you could help Ryan build his maze.”

The boys eyed one another as if they were not sure how a partnership would work out. “Uh—OK,” agreed Brad.

So it happened that Ralph was not only a learning experience for Room 5, he was to have a learning experience of his own. He was not sure he liked the idea, especially that part about the starter's gun. What if he couldn't run through the maze faster the second time? What if he couldn't find the food the first time? What if he turned out to be stupid?

Of course, I'm not stupid, thought Ralph, as he tried to make himself comfortable in Ryan's pocket once more. I can ride a motorcycle, can't I? He began to have doubts again, and doubt turned to anger. His intelligence or stupidity was nobody's business but his own.

When the last bell rang and Ryan went to the back of the room to collect his parka, Ralph poked his nose out of the shirt pocket. “I'm not going to do it,” he squeaked at Ryan. “I'm not going to run any maze just because you say so.”

“Sure you are,” said Ryan out of the corner of his mouth, so no one would notice he was talking to Ralph. “I'm new in this school, and nobody paid any attention to me until I pulled you out of my pocket. You have to run the maze.”

Ralph became stubborn. “No, I don't,” he contradicted, “and you can't make me.”

Ryan ignored this remark. “Do you want to change your mind about staying here? You can go back to the inn with me.”

“I'll stay here,” answered Ralph, thinking of that long smooth hall waiting for his motorcycle. “I can't let Matt lose his job.”

Ryan looked around to make sure no one was watching before lifting Ralph out of his pocket and placing him in an overturned boot. “So long. See you tomorrow,” he said.

“Who're you talking to?” a boy asked.

“Me?” Ryan was all innocence. “Nobody. I'm just practicing to be a ventriloquist. I'm working up an act—”

“Some act,” remarked the boy.

Ryan held up one hand and waggled his fingers as if he were working a puppet's mouth. “What did one dandelion say to the other dandelion?” he asked in a squeaky voice without moving his lips. “I don't know,” he said in a normal voice. Then he answered in his squeaky voice, “Take me to your weeder.”

All this nonsense made Ralph frantic. “Hey, gimme my motorcycle!” he ordered, as soon as the other boy had gone.

Ryan tried to speak without moving his lips. “And have you riding all over school? Not a chance. You'd get lost or get into trouble or someone would see you.”

“It's my motorcycle,” squeaked Ralph at the top of his lungs. “You give it to me.
Now
.”

Ryan was last to leave the room. “We'll see about that,” he said, as he bent over to speak to Ralph, “after you run the maze on Friday.” With that ultimatum, he snatched his backpack off the hook and hurried away to catch the bus that would take him back up the mountain to the hotel.

Ralph was so angry he sank his teeth into Melissa's boot. Ugh. It had a nasty taste—half rubber, half dust. And he had thought Ryan was his friend. Not anymore. He was mean, he wasn't fair….

Ralph felt terrible, but he was
not
going to run that maze in front of Room 5. Ryan couldn't make him. Maybe he would even hide and refuse to be guest of honor. Ryan would learn not to try to order him around then.

Ralph sat in Melissa's boot and sulked. Without his motorcycle, he felt mad at the whole world. Of course, he was a smart mouse. Why should he have to prove it? Ralph felt as if nothing was fair and nobody loved him.

D
usk began to fall in Room 5, making the inside of Melissa's boot even darker, when suddenly Ralph heard music, the lights were turned on, and a man with a transistor radio fastened to his belt came into the room and lifted chairs onto tables. He began to sweep with a wide broom while the radio poured forth sad songs about lonely highways, broken hearts, and jail.

The songs made Ralph feel gloomy as well as sulky. He began to feel sorry for himself—the long hall so perfect for motorcycle riding was dark and empty, his heart was broken over the loss of his motorcycle, and he might as well be in jail as in this old boot.

When the man swept his way to the back of the room, he unexpectedly set Melissa's boots upright side by side, tumbling Ralph down to the foot, where he sat trembling with nerves and self-pity until his ears told him the man had replaced the chairs on the floor, turned off the lights, and left.

Because he was a mouse, Ralph found sleeping at night almost impossible. Without the grandfather clock to mark the hours, the night seemed endless. Why should I sit here in this smelly old jail of a boot when everyone is so mean to me? Ralph asked himself. And with the cruelty of the world as an excuse for breaking his promise to Ryan, he used his sharp claws to climb the boot lining. Quickly he leaped out and squeezed under the door of Room 5. Nobody was going to stop him from exploring the Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School.

After a long and wistful look at the lonely highway of the hall, Ralph found exploration more interesting and profitable than he had expected. In Room 4, he discovered strange-looking pictures spread out on the floor beneath the blackboard. They were made by gluing different kinds of seeds to heavy paper and had been left on the floor to dry. Ralph made a nutritious meal of split peas, rice, and lentils before moving on to another room where he found an open jar of library paste—delicious! Another room, furnished with long tables and benches, was near a kitchen, where Ralph chewed into a bag of sugar and enjoyed a fine dessert.

After this gourmet meal, Ralph walked rather than scampered down the hall, that perfect place for riding his motorcycle if Ryan had not been so mean, to a room with a carpet and bookshelves about the walls.

A boring place for a mouse, Ralph decided, until he discovered something interesting on a bottom shelf behind a big desk. It turned out to be a book inside a bag made of two layers of brown paper. A tear in the outer layer revealed something unexpected in the lining.

Ralph could not believe the treasure he had found. Between the layers of paper was ready-chewed mouse nest! Ralph pulled out some of the nest to examine its delicate texture—first quality, grade-A mouse nest. He made the hole in the bag still larger, crawled inside, and curled up in the coziest bed he had ever known.

Ralph intended to rest there while he plotted to get his motorcycle away from Ryan, but his full meal made him drowsy, and instead he fell asleep. Awaking to the sound of school buses, he ran back to Room 5 just in time as his former friend was hanging up his parka.

Ralph ran up the leg of Ryan's jeans and onto his shirt. “You gimme my motorcycle,” he demanded, trying to sound fierce.

Ryan quickly faced the corner so no one could see Ralph. “Be quiet. You're not supposed to be here,” he whispered. “Like I said, I'll give it to you after you run the maze.”

“Who says I'm going to run it?” Ralph was sullen about this whole affair.

“I do.” Ryan tried to speak without moving his lips. “If you want your motorcycle back.”

“Where is it?” Ralph wanted to know.

“Right here.” Ryan removed the motorcycle from his parka and placed it in one of his shirt pockets. “Now go back to your boot.”

“Don't call it my boot,” said Ralph. “It's dusty and smelly.”

“Will you be quiet if I let you stay in my pocket?”

“Sure.” A shirt was warm and soft and had a good view of the classroom if a hole was nipped in the pocket.

As he dropped Ralph into his pocket, Ryan said, “And another thing. Don't chew any more holes in my pockets. Mom didn't like it when she saw holes in the new shirt I wore yesterday.”

We'll see about that, thought Ralph, determined not to let the
lub-dub
of Ryan's heart lull him to sleep again until he figured out how to get that motorcycle back. For a better view of Room 5, he bit a careful peephole—one thread down and one thread across—in Ryan's pocket.

Ralph watched with puzzled interest while the class worked with numbers and words. Late in the morning the children formed a double line, something Ralph had never before witnessed, and walked quietly to the library, where they selected books to read. Why can't mice behave like that? Ralph wondered.

When Ryan had found the book he wanted, he took the little red motorcycle out of his pocket and amused himself by running it back and forth across a table while softly going, “
Pb-b-b-
.” The sound was enough to break a mouse's heart.

The most interesting part of the day turned out to be late in the afternoon when the class worked on their projects for what the children called the Great Mouse Exhibit. Miss K read a poem that Ralph found difficult to understand, something about a “wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie” while the class worked with crayons and paper. Ralph saw strange pictures of himself beginning to emerge. They were making him look very
big
except for one boy who drew a cat that filled up the whole paper and then added a tiny mouse down in one corner.