The Halloween Mouse (4 page)

He leaped up and ran to the banister post and scampered up the post as fast as he could go.

The cat leaped onto the post.

It was hot on Timothy's tail when he reached the top. From the top, he had only one place to go . . . up the railing. So he scampered up the railing with the cat still hot on his tail.

Up and up he went, the cat rushing after him.

The cat so close behind him!

Oh, so close!

So close that he could feel the hot breath of the cat on his tail.

"I only wanted an adventure!" thought Timothy. "An adventure, not a catastrophe!"

From its post at the top of the railing, the Jack-o'-lantern smiled down at Timothy as if having itself a merry time.

"Perhaps
you're
having a fine Halloween," Timothy thought, "but
I'm
doomed."

Timothy's doom didn't seem to displease the Jack-o'-lantern.

It kept on smiling and . . .

. . . the cat pounced and . . .

. . . Timothy leaped into the Jack-o'-lantern's smiling mouth.

Tumbling head-over-paws, he crashed against something that felt like a tree trunk. He blinked and stared up at it. It wasn't a tree, of course. Who ever heard of a Jack-o'-lantern with a tree inside?

It was a large red candle with a flame at the top---a flame so bright that it filled the whole pumpkin with light.

Light and warmth.

In library books, Timothy had read about Jack-o'-lanterns.

He'd seen pictures of them, too. He'd thought some of them might be scary. Some might be cheerful. But he'd never known how bright and cozy they were on the inside.

Bright and cozy and safe. And they smelled good, too.

"Inside a Jack-o'-lantern's a
wonderful
place to be on Halloween," he thought.

But a large gob of wax came rolling down the side of the candle . . . rolling straight down at Timothy's face. As it rolled closer and closer he tried to roll out of its way but he couldn't move. He'd fallen into a thick, sticky puddle of melted wax.

It held him down like paste.

He kicked and wiggled and twisted and turned.

Just before the gob got to his head, the wax let go. He rolled clear and stood up with a smile . . .

. . . until a white paw with sharp claws darted in through the Jack-o'-lantern's smiling mouth.

Timothy jumped back.

The claws missed him, but not by much.

The paw didn't go away. It stayed inside and tried again.

Timothy rushed behind the candle.

The paw jumped sideways. It knocked the candle over, but the fire didn't go out.

As the paw leaped this way and that, Timothy tried to stay away from it. But it kept trying to find him.

"You asked for it," he finally said. With that, he wrapped his arms around the candle and swung it toward the cat's paw.

The paw trying to find Timothy found the flame instead.

"
YEEEEOWWW!!!"
yelled the cat.

In the blink of an eye, its smoking paw vanished from the Jack-o'-lantern's mouth.

Timothy went to the mouth and looked out.

He saw the front yard of the house. He saw the sidewalk the curb and the street. On the street, a car went by. On the other side of the street, a few trick-or-treaters were walking by. Beyond them and down a gentle slope, he saw the river. The moon made a shiny path on its water.

He saw all that, but not the cat.

"I believe it must be gone," he thought.

But all of a sudden the pumpkin shook so hard that Timothy fell off his feet. High above his face, the top of the Jack-o'-lantern flew off.

The huge, green eyes of the cat stared down at him.

"No!" Timothy cried. The cat growled. Then its face went away. A long white cat-arm suddenly came down at Timothy with its claws out.

"Time to scram!" thought Timothy.

But he didn't dare move.

Suddenly, the pumpkin moved
for
him.

As it rolled, the cat cried
"REEOWW!
" and jerked its arm out of the hole and was gone.

The pumpkin fell, but not very far. It hit the porch railing,
Bump!
Then it rolled down the railing. Inside, the candle went out. Timothy tumbled, bouncing off the pumpkin's soft round gucky walls.

At the bottom of the railing, it dropped to the walkway.

"Ooomph!" went Timothy.

But he didn't break apart, and neither did the pumpkin---though the pumpkin cracked in a place or two.

Cracked but still in one piece, it rolled down the walkway and across the sidewalk and off the curb. As it rolled across the street, a ghost speeding by on a bike made a quick turn and missed it by an inch.

On the other side of the street, it rolled its way up a wheelchair ramp. It rolled across the sidewalk and into the grass and down the grassy slope and . . .

PLOP!

Into the river it splashed.

Timothy, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, hugged the candle and thought, "I'm doomed. I'm truly doomed now."

A great gob of water came down on his head.

But only one gob.

He waited for more, but more didn't come.

Still, he hugged the candle for dear life. "If the pumpkin goes down," he thought, "I'll hang on to the candle."

He had never read very much about candles.

"I do hope they float. If they don't, I'm sunk."

But the Jack-o'-lantern, though cracked, didn't seem to have any leaks. Time went by and it didn't go down.

At last, Timothy let go of the candle. He rolled onto his back. Up where the cat's face had been, he saw the night sky.

A few pale shreds of clouds were drifting past the moon. There seemed to be a million bright stars.

"It must've been like this for Tom Sawyer," he decided, thinking about one of his favorite books. "This isn't the Mississippi River and this isn't a raft . . . but it sure is nice."

Timothy smiled and sighed and soon he fell asleep.

When he woke up, the Jack-o'-lantern was all golden inside.

He yawned, then stretched, then stepped over to its mouth. Paws on the bottom teeth, he leaned forward and looked out.