The Mouse Family Robinson (7 page)

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Authors: Dick King-Smith

BOOK: The Mouse Family Robinson

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“Just having a chat with a friend, Dad. I'll be out soon. How's Mom?”

“Having babies,” said John.

“Gosh!” said Beaumont.

When John returned later to the big box, Janet had had the babies.

“How many?” asked John.

“Eleven,” replied Janet.

As they spoke, Bill was letting his pet house mouse out of the fancy plum-colored doe's cage, and soon Beaumont appeared.

“How on earth,” his father said to him out of Janet's hearing, “am I going to think of names beginning with X or Z ?”

“Easy, Dad,” said Beaumont. “Just call it âEcks' or âZed,' boy or girl. By the way, Dad,” he went on, “I think you might like to know something, something that I guess Uncle Brown would have been pleased about.”

“What?” asked John.

“Before very long,” said Beaumont, “I am going to be a dad, Dad.”

“Gosh!” said John Robinson. “My whiskers! Fancy that! And you're right, BeaumontâUncle Brown would have been very pleased. Gosh!”

First published in Great Britain by Puffin Books, an imprint of the Penguin Group

Published in the United States by Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

Book design by Jaime Putorti

eISBN 9781429998260

First eBook Edition : May 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

King-Smith, Dick.

The mouse family Robinson / Dick King-Smith; illustrated by Nick Bruel.

â1st American ed.

p. cm.

Summary: After a close call with the cat who stalks the hallways, a family of wild mice, including adventurous, young Beaumont and elderly Uncle Brown, emigrates to a more mouse-friendly house down the block.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59643-326-7

ISBN-10: 1-59643-326-4

[1. Mice-Fiction. 2. Family life--Fiction.] I. Bruel, Nick, ill. II. Title.

PZ7.K5893Mq 2008

[Fic]--dc22

2008011139

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First Roaring Brook Press Edition August 2008