Young Fredle (24 page)

The cupboard door
was
open and there was sunlight in the kitchen, some of which brightened the space under the sink, where Fredle hid himself between a tall green box and a round white container, both stinking of soap. Fredle heard Mister and Missus talking. He didn’t hear the dogs.

“I’m worried,” Missus said.

“I am, too,” Mister answered.

“But I’m
really
worried now. She’s sleeping but I gave her Tylenol, so that’s why.”

“If her temperature goes up again, or goes above a hundred and two, we’ll swing into action. What do you say to that? I’ll work in the barn today, or maybe in the garden. I’ll keep close by.”

“I’m way behind on the weeding.”

“You’re worried, it’s understandable; it keeps you busy, having a baby, the baby being sick,” Mister said. “Sadie? Angus? Let’s go down to the barn and give our ladies some peace and quiet.”

For some reason, overhearing this conversation and the sounds of the two dogs getting up, their nails clicking on the floor, their steps following Mister’s steps away, and the snap of the door, closing, made Fredle feel better. Less uneasy. He went back up to his nest and fell asleep.

20
In the End

That night, something happened in the kitchen that had never happened before, not in Father’s memory or Grandfather’s, either. As the mice foraged, scattered into the shadowy corners of the kitchen, light broke out, all around them, a light so bright that for a few seconds nobody could see anything.

Under the table and behind the stove or refrigerator, mice froze, and two unfortunate mice froze where they were in the wide, empty space between the stove and the table, between pantry and refrigerator.

The cat pounced.

Mister stood by the counter and paid no attention to cat or mouse. He started talking to someone, but not Angus, although Angus stood at his side and, at the sound of Mister’s
low, hurried words, looked up into his face. Then Missus rushed in, carrying the baby, who was fussing unhappily but rather quietly, as if she didn’t have the energy to really cry.

“The hospital’s expecting us,” Mister said. “Let’s go, Angus. Sadie? Where
is
that dog?”

“She’s gone to ground, I expect. It’s what she does when there’s trouble, or thunder. Under our bed or in the baby’s closet. Should I—”

“She’ll be all right. I just thought they’d be better off outside. We don’t know how long we’ll be.”

“No, we don’t. Do we.”

“It’ll be fine, I hope.”

“Babies run high temperatures all the time. I do know that.”

Then Mister and Missus, the baby, and Angus left the room and the door closed behind them. But the light stayed on.

After many long moments, the mice moved, scurrying to get safely back to their entryways—the pantry door, the hole behind the stove—foraging forgotten in their fear and their hope to be safe. The cat pounced again, and after that there was only silence.

When the light had burst out, Fredle had been at the far end of the kitchen, chasing a pea around one of the table legs. He froze, but not from fear or for safety. It was the sight of colors that stopped him in his tracks. He had already forgotten how many colors there were, when there was light, and he looked around at the brown of the table leg, the black and white of
the floor, and an orange chunk of carrot that had rolled up against the wall. He had already swallowed the pea, so he couldn’t enjoy its greenness. When the humans and the dog had left the room, he’d chosen not to join the run back to the pantry door. He listened for the cat, and watched for him, and hoped that Grandfather, who was so slow now, had as usual finished his foraging early and been at the pantry door when the lights went on. He hoped that the mouselets had been near Mother, who would have kept them safe. Although, he thought—because mice have to be practical about this—if the cat got them, got Doddle, for example, the nest would have one less mouth to feed.

Just where Patches was, Fredle didn’t know, and he wasn’t about to move until he did. How long that would be, he couldn’t guess. However, before he had located the cat, he heard Sadie clicking into the kitchen and saw her go to her water bowl to drink. “Sadie!” he called, in the loudest whisper he could manage. “Sadie!”

Dogs have fine hearing. Sadie lifted her head and looked around. “Fredle?”

“Over here, under here.”

She found him easily. “What are you doing?” she asked, not even lowering her voice. “Inside, I mean, and here, too, now. Why are you under our table? The baby is sick,” she told him. “The baby is very sick.”

“I saw them carry her out.” Fredle could understand why Sadie sounded so sad. Her job was to take care of the baby and now the baby was sick. With the baby gone, she didn’t have a job.

“Everyone had loud voices, so I went under the bed. They ran around. When I’m under the bed I’m not in the way,” Sadie explained. “But I think I should have come down. Angus came down.”

“He went outside through the door,” Fredle told her.

“Being under the bed doesn’t make the worry stop,” Sadie told him.

“I’m sorry, Sadie.” Fredle didn’t blame her for being upset. He didn’t know what the humans would do with a dog who didn’t have a job.

“It’s nicer to be worried
with
someone.”

“What will your new job be?”

She was surprised. “Am I having a new job? Will I be good at it?”

Fredle spoke in a gentle and sympathetic voice, reminding her, “They’ve taken the baby away.”

“Is somebody else going to take care of the baby? Is Patches? Angus has to be trained and win ribbons in shows and herd sheep, so he can’t do it. But I do a good job. Missus says.”

Fredle was about to explain about went, and being sick and being pushed out, but he heard Patches padding softly toward them and scurried to safety underneath Sadie’s stomach.

“Is that that mouse? That Fredle?”

“He’s talking to me,” Sadie said.

From his safe position, Fredle pointed out, “You’ve already eaten two mice. You can’t be hungry.”

“You should go away, Patches. You make Fredle worry.”

That was certainly true.

Patches said, “You can’t hide him there forever.”

“Oh,” said Sadie. “He’s right, Fredle, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Fredle wasn’t sure what might happen next if he didn’t speak up, so he spoke up. “We could walk together over to the stove, you and me, and when we get there I could get behind it, where Patches can’t reach me. Then I could wait with you, and worry with you, too, without being went.”

It was a good idea, so it was what they did.

Patches watched this operation, and yawned. “What good does worrying do?” he asked. “What good does worrying do either one of you?”

“I can’t help it,” Sadie answered.

“Cats know better than to worry,” Patches said.

When Fredle had settled himself safely behind the metal mass of stove, Sadie lay down close beside it and Patches went back to wherever cats go. From the narrow space behind the stove Fredle could see Sadie’s brown-and-white fur, and he could also see flowers in a glass on the table, tall yellow flowers among their green leaves. He knew he should go back to the nest, but he didn’t want to stop seeing colors, not yet. Soon enough he would be back in the dim gray light.

From outside, Angus barked. “Sadie? Sadie, can you hear me? They took the baby.”

“I’m in the kitchen!”

“They took the baby in the car.”

“I’m waiting inside!” barked Sadie.

Fredle tried to think of something to cheer Sadie up. “Maybe they’ll get another baby and you can have the job of taking care of that one.”

“But I already have this one. I can’t take care of two.”

“But they took this one away,” Fredle reminded her. Sadie really
was
forgetful.

“But they’re going to bring her back. After the vet fixes her.”

“The baby’s sick, Sadie. Sick things don’t come back. They get pushed out to went.”

“When my leg was broken, the vet fixed it. That’s the vet’s job, to make you better, and when that’s done you come home.”

This sounded unhappily like the moonbits story to Fredle, but Sadie seemed confident of her information. “Then why are you worried?” he asked.

“At night, we all go to sleep until morning,” Sadie explained. “But now it’s night and Angus is outside and I’m alone inside. You’re inside, too,” she added in case Fredle had forgotten that, reminding him, “You used to be outside.”

“I did,” he agreed. He tried one last time to get Sadie ready. “What makes you so sure they won’t push the baby out?”

“Why would they do that? That would scare her, and she’d cry. She doesn’t like to be alone,” Sadie told him.

Fredle gave up. Poor Sadie would find out the truth, soon enough. He just waited with her, the dog stretched out on the floor beside the stove behind which the mouse sat, waiting. Every now and then Sadie sighed, and shifted her nose from one paw to the other. They didn’t talk, they just waited.

Fredle did wonder why he cared about what happened to Sadie. Then he remembered that the bravest thing he had ever done had to do with Sadie and her baby. The good feeling
that memory gave him made him feel connected to Sadie and made him want to be there to comfort her when Mister and Missus came back home without the baby and she realized that Fredle had been right.

After a long, long time, Angus barked again, even more loudly. “Hello! Hello!”

Sadie jumped up and ran to the door, also barking, “Hello! I’m in the kitchen! I came downstairs, I’m sorry!”

Fredle crept as close as he dared to the stove’s edge.

Heavy footsteps sounded from outside and the door opened. Fredle didn’t dare stick his head out to see. He couldn’t be sure where Patches was and he knew that without Sadie next to him, he wasn’t safe from Patches, inside. So he listened as hard as he could, to find out.

“You should have obeyed. Mister called you and you didn’t obey. They wanted us to be outside and they were already worried. You have to obey better, Sadie.”

“I know. I was sorry right away. But Fredle was here.”

“Fredle? Never mind that, I’m telling you something important.”

“Good boy, Angus,” Mister said. “Hello, Sadie, you’re a good dog, too. You OK, honey?”

“Fine,” Missus said, in a tired voice.

Poor Sadie
, Fredle thought. Nobody was saying anything about any baby and he knew what that meant. Angus wasn’t being very sympathetic, either.

Missus said, “Turn off the lights, will you? We don’t want to wake the baby.” Suddenly the light disappeared and the colors disappeared with it. Once again the kitchen was in
shadowy darkness. This gray world, which had once been the only world he knew, now made Fredle sad, maybe because now he knew what he wasn’t seeing.

“I’m worn out, aren’t you?” Mister asked. “What a night.”

“Exhausted,” Missus agreed.

Behind his sadness, an idea was barking at Fredle, trying to get his attention. It barked and barked until at last he listened to what it wanted to tell him:
You can’t wake up a baby that has been pushed out and left to went. You can’t wake up something that isn’t alive and asleep
.

Fredle was shocked. He was shocked and surprised and then he was so excited he thought he might bark, himself. The baby had been fixed and brought back home. Sadie had been right. Everything was all right, after all.

Without waiting any longer, he ran back to the mousehole behind the stove, and from there he climbed back up to his nest, his mind awhirl with a jumble of new ideas. The baby had been sick and the humans had kept it with them. They would keep it until it got better, whenever it was sick. Sadie had had a broken leg, like his grandmother, and a vet—whatever that was, it must be a human who fixed broken things—had fixed it for her. That was the way humans did things. Fredle didn’t know
what
to think.

But when Fredle woke up the next evening, he knew just exactly what he thought. He thought:
Mice don’t know everything
. He thought:
Some of the rules are wrong. OK, maybe not wrong so much as unnecessary. Not all the rules, and maybe not wrong for
all
mice, but definitely wrong for some
. That cheered
him up. Another cheering thought was other creatures had some good ideas, and he already knew some of them.

Fredle needed cheering up because he was beginning to understand that with this living in light that was always gray and dim, with there being almost no color all around him all the time, and no stars, either, with rules that told you how you had to act even if you wanted to act differently, and with living among mice who were always so frightened and cautious that if you even
said
a mouse could act differently they would push you out—with all of these things … 
What about with all these things?
he asked himself, but without any curiosity. He didn’t want to know the answer to that question. These were uncomfortable and unhappy thoughts he was having. They made Fredle wish he didn’t have to be a kitchen mouse, and what could he do about that?

What could he do, anyway, about anything? he wondered, but again without curiosity, since he already knew the answer, which was:
Nothing. What could any mouse do?
he asked himself hopelessly.