Bless this Mouse (8 page)

"Oh, we're coming back?" Harvey asked.

"Of course. When the danger is past. Now GO!"

So Harvey scampered off to find his mother, chattering away, telling everyone what he had learned—"It means 'departure'! We're going away in a large group! To Outdoors! We're escaping danger! We'll be coming back! It's Greek! Greek's an ancient language!"—until finally someone swatted him on his rear and told him to shut up.

They all slept on Tuesday, all day, preparing themselves for what lay ahead.

Then it was Tuesday night and time to go. They left under cover of darkness, led by Hildegarde, with Frederick and Jeremiah dashing along the side of the procession, back and forth, keeping everyone in order and silent. No singing allowed. Mothers helped their children. Even Harvey was quiet and wide-eyed. Then, silently, they flattened themselves and more than two hundred mice squeezed under the heavy wooden front door of Saint Bartholemew's, out into the night, into Outdoors.

When he realized why the church mice were all jumping about and giggling, Roderick explained. "It's grass," he told them. "It's called grass."

Almost none of them had ever seen, or felt, grass before. It tickled as they made their way through it in the night.

"Is this Outdoors?" Harvey squealed. "Is this what Outdoors is like?" He dashed about in the grass.

"Yes. Shhh. Come this way!" Hildegarde called. "To the churchyard cemetery!"

***

"This is quite an ordinary grass," Ignatious muttered, as he strode along, talking to anyone who was listening. "The correct name is
monocotyledonous graminoids,
by the way. That's Latin. I spent quite a bit of time in the botany section of the university library. Nibbled quite a few books about grasses. There are many varieties. There are some amazing ornamental grasses, for example. And on a golf green, the quality of the grass is very important. A golfer..."

No one was paying any attention to Ignatious. He talked on and on, but they had reached the little cemetery now and all of the church mice had spread out. They rushed around, looking for the best places to create their nests. Here and there they stopped to nibble on a flower or two. But Hildegarde was reminding them that they had to find a nicely hidden place.

"When you've found your spot, settle in and get comfy. Then before it turns light, I'll call a meeting and make a few announcements," she said.

"I'm going over there, to the base of that statue," she confided quietly to Roderick, and pointed. "Join me if you wish. I see some nice mossy crevices."

Roderick was flattered. Normally Hildegarde remained aloof. But of course this was not an ordinary time. Each of the mice felt a little insecure in such unknown territory. But at least they felt safer here than in the church. They would hide in the cemetery during the visit tomorrow of the Great X—and perhaps they would have to stay out here one more day, because a Great X sometimes sprayed poisonous fumes and they would have to wait for those to subside—but then probably Friday night, again under cover of darkness, they would make their way back into Saint Bartholemew's, just in time to prepare for the next dangerous time: the Blessing of the Animals.

Hildegarde and Roderick, working together, patted the moss at the base of the stone statue into a soft bed, concealed by a flowering bush of some kind. All around them, throughout the cemetery, they could hear small squeaks and chitters as the other church mice prepared their own spots.

"Hi!" The talkative little one, Harvey, suddenly appeared, parting the leaves of the bushes with his paws. "You got a good bed? We do! My mom found some old dead leaves! What's your statue? Can you read it? I can't read. But see there? It's got words on it!" He pointed upward. "What's it say?"

"Shhh." Hildegarde squinted up through the darkness. "It says 'Samuel Carstairs, Patriot. R.I.P.' That means 'rest in peace.'"

"And you should do that, Harvey," Roderick added. "Your mother will be wondering where you are. Go get some rest. Every young mouse should—"

"Oh, hush, Roderick," Hildegarde said. "Let him run around a bit when it's dark. He'll have to sleep all day. Harvey?"

"What?" the young mouse asked.

"Would you make the rounds and tell everyone to gather in the center of the cemetery, by the fountain? I'm going to give instructions and make some announcements."

"Do I have to?" Harvey whined. "I wanted to play with—"

"Yes. You have to. Stop that whining."

Harvey's tail, which had been twitching, sank and dragged on the ground as he trotted away. But she could hear him delivering the message, and after a few moments she could hear the rustling in the grass as all of her large tribe began to gather by the fountain.

Drat.
Hildegarde could see, as she approached the fountain, that Lucretia had already scampered up its concrete side and assumed an authoritative pose, as if
she
were the one in charge.
Well.
She'd put a quick end to
that.

"Thank you for holding my place, Lucretia," she said. "You may get down now."

Lucretia, sulking, moved off the fountain rim.

"And clean your tail when you get a chance, please," Hildegarde called after her. "There are bits of dried grass clinging to it."

That was mean,
Hildegarde thought guiltily. But she did loathe Lucretia.

She turned and looked down at the crowd of mice. "We're fortunate that the water in the fountain has been turned off for the winter," she said. "Otherwise you'd never hear me."

Ignatious, in the front row, cleared his throat loudly. "It's quite an ordinary fountain," he said in his loudest voice. "Nothing like what you might find in Italy. When I lived at the—"

"That's enough, Ignatious," Hildegarde said sternly.

He harrumphed and became quiet, though he muttered something about the thirteenth-century fountain in Perugia.

Hildegarde ignored him and continued. "I know most of you have never been Outdoors before. We are not, after all, field mice!"

The audience tittered.
Field mice! Of course they weren't field mice!

"And we will not be here long. Probably two days. But I myself have traveled a bit from time to time, and have learned to appreciate some of the dangers of the Outdoors. So I want to alert you.

"There are things to enjoy, of course. The grass is fun. And there are still some tasty flowers, in the fall.

"Do not nibble rhododendron leaves! Mothers, warn your mouselets! Rhododendron leaves are poisonous!"

Ignatious looked up. "From the Greek," he said. "
Rhodos—rose;
and
dendron—tree.
"

"Thank you, Ignatious."

"When I—"

"We know, Ignatious. You nibbled a lot of Greek at the university library."

He nodded with satisfaction. Hildegarde resumed her speech.

"Stay hidden in daytime. You're accustomed to that. And we're fortunate that they are no longer mowing the lawn. They stop mowing in mid-September, so our timing is perfect. A mowing machine is deadly! Many, many field mice are lost to mower blades every summer."

There was a low murmur of sympathy for field mice.

"You may come out of your nests and find food after dark. Or, yes, Harvey—you young ones may play after dark. But beware of
owls!
"

"Owls?"

"What are owls?"

Hildegarde looked down. "Ignatious? Are you spry enough to jump up here? And did you nibble your way through ... what section of the library would
owls
be?"

"Ornithology. Yes. I know a great deal about owls. Can you give me a paw?"

Hildegarde reached down and helped him, while Jeremiah gave a boost to the old mouse's rear.

Ignatious stood, finally, on the fountain rim. He whispered to Hildegarde, "Do you want the Latin?"

"No, no. Just warn them."

"Owls are nocturnal!" Ignatious said in his biggest voice. "They operate at night!"

"Oooh," said the mice.

"There are many kinds!"

"Oooh."

"They are birds of prey!"

"Oooh."

"What's
prey?
" asked a little one.

"Prey is
us!
" Ignatious said loudly.

"Ooooooh!"

Hildegarde could see the mice looking around nervously.

"They swoop down out of trees! Almost without sound! And they snatch unsuspecting mice!"

"I want to go back to Saint Bartolemew's!" wailed Harvey. "I don't like Outdoors!"

"Thanks, Ignatious," Hildegarde said. "That's warning enough. We'll all be alert, and on the lookout, now, won't we?"

She could see that many, many pairs of wide mouse eyes were looking toward the trees nervously.

"There are two hundred species of Strigiformes—that's Latin—" Ignatious began.

"Enough!" Hildegarde said, and grudgingly he hopped down from the fountain.

"The sun is starting to rise," she pointed out, and they could see that there, in the east, behind the church steeple, the sky was lightening. Somewhere nearby, a bird twittered. "Time to get to your nests, cuddle in, get some sleep. Today the Great X will come. His truck will come right up the driveway. Do
not
jump up to look at it! Stay hidden!

"That's all for now," she said, and the mice applauded with their soft little paws, then scampered away in every direction.