Mystery for Megan (3 page)

Megan couldn’t contain it any longer and started to laugh, and once she had started, she couldn’t stop. Freya found herself laughing too, and before they knew it, the two of them
were holding their tummies and complaining that their cheeks ached because they had laughed so much.

‘You have got the craziest imagination ever,’ Megan said. ‘My mum’s always telling me to use my imagination, but yours is unreal.’

‘But it’s true,’ said Freya. ‘And there are other mysteries too. I’ll tell you about those later, but keep looking for the mice and you’ll see
them.’

So Megan did just that, and she started to see things she had never seen before.

The next day was Monday – Megan’s first day at her new school and she woke with a jump. There was something on her arm. She was about to scream when she remembered
what Freya had said about the mice. Megan sat up and looked around her. She was sure she’d seen something scuttle away.

She rubbed at her arm. It still tickled. Then she saw it. Sitting on the far side of her bedroom was a little brown mouse. It was the sweetest thing Megan had ever seen. It had round brown ears
and long whiskers, shiny dark eyes and a little nose. It stood on its back legs, with its little front legs lifted up as if it was dancing.

‘So it was you that woke me, little mouse,’ said Megan, remembering what Freya had told her.
The mouse must have been reminding me that it’s school today,
thought Megan.
Perhaps Freya wasn’t so bonkers after all!

Megan got out of bed carefully and slowly. She really didn’t want to frighten her new little friend away.

‘OK, little mouse,’ she said. ‘I’m up.’

And no sooner had she said it than the little mouse scuttled away. Megan felt a bit silly talking to a mouse . . . and yet somehow she had a feeling that the mouse understood. But how could a
mouse understand her? It didn’t make any sense.

Going down to breakfast, Megan noticed something. The little brown blobs she had seen in the hallway had gone.

‘Mum,’ she said, as she was pouring milk on to her cereal. ‘You know those little brown blobs in the hallway?’

‘You mean the mouse droppings?’ Megan’s mum said.

Oh, that’s what they were
, thought Megan. ‘Yes. Have you seen any mice?’ she asked casually.

‘Not yet,’ her mum said. ‘They’re quite shy creatures. They don’t tend to let themselves be seen.’

‘Oh,’ said Megan, thinking that the mouse she had seen didn’t seem shy at all.

‘I wonder if Dorothy has seen them,’ Megan said to her mum.

Megan’s mum looked at her daughter quizzically, smiling slightly, and Megan had the strangest feeling that her mum didn’t believe there was a Dorothy!

There were lots of things Megan was pleased about on her first day at her new school:

1) Freya was in her class

2) Her teacher was nice

3) She got to wear a new zip-up red cardi

4) She had cheese and cucumber sandwiches for lunch – her favourite!

‘I’m so pleased you’re in my class,’ Megan said to Freya during first break.

‘I know, isn’t it great?’ Freya said.

‘And I think I believe you about the mice,’ said Megan.

‘Oh, have you seen them?’ Freya asked.

‘Just one,’ admitted Megan. ‘But I think it woke me up this morning.’

‘One woke me too!’ said Freya. ‘I wonder why they’ve come back now, though.’

Megan was puzzled. What did she mean?

‘Which one woke you up?’ asked Freya.

‘I don’t know,’ Megan replied, wondering how on earth you could tell which one was which.

‘Well, what did it look like?’ asked Freya.

‘Little and cute and brown, with round ears, small beady eyes, long whiskers.’

‘That’ll be Whiskers,’ said Freya, knowingly.

Megan looked puzzled. ‘But don’t they all look like that?’ she asked.

‘Probably,’ said Freya. ‘But I’ve decided they’re all called Whiskers.’

The girls both burst out laughing, and when Alex, a boy in their class, ran up and asked them what they were laughing about, Freya gave Megan a look and held her finger to her mouth, just
briefly, just long enough for Megan to see.

When Alex had gone, Freya whispered to Megan, ‘Don’t tell anyone about the mice.’

‘Is it a secret?’ asked Megan.

‘Sort of,’ said Freya. ‘No one would believe us. Granny says it’s best to keep these things to ourselves. She has this saying:
Keep the secret in the
box
.’

So Megan and Freya made a plan. They would use the treehouse as their secret place and talk about their secrets there.

‘We’ll meet there later,’ Freya said. ‘I can tell you more about the mice and Dorothy, and there’s something else I must tell you too.’

Megan couldn’t wait for later to arrive!

When Megan walked through the front door, the first thing she noticed was a small brown mouse at the bottom of the stairs. And then the funniest thing happened . . . her mum
walked straight past it and into the kitchen and didn’t see a thing!
How can she not see it?
thought Megan. Then the mouse raced across the kitchen floor and disappeared out through
the open back door.

‘I’m going to be in the workshop for a few minutes, Megan,’ said her mum. ‘I just have something to finish off.’

Megan hung up her school bag and went into the kitchen. She was hungry. She made herself a piece of toast, spread on some strawberry jam, put it on her favourite daisy plate and went upstairs to
her room. Megan gazed out of the window at the treehouse, smiling to herself. She couldn’t wait to meet Freya there later and hear all about Dorothy and the mice and the something else. Then,
just as she thought
mice
, something happened. Megan turned to look at the bedside cupboard beside her, and on top of it sat a little brown mouse. Then the mouse did a very funny thing. It
spun around in a circle three times and darted on to the floor. Megan blinked. Was this mouse for real? The mouse spun around three more times before darting to the door, then stopped and looked at
Megan.

Megan didn’t know what to make of it.

‘What is it?’ she asked the little mouse, and the mouse spun around three times again.

It’s as if it wants me to follow,
Megan thought. She remembered what Freya had said about the mice letting you know when something’s happened.

‘Has something happened?’ Megan asked the mouse.

The mouse spun round three times again and Megan ran after it, down the stairs and through the kitchen. Then the mouse ran through the open back door and headed towards her mum’s
workshop.

As Megan entered the workshop, she saw what the mouse had been trying to tell her. Her mum was sitting on the floor, her hands around her ankle with a broken jug beside her.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ she said, wincing slightly as she moved her ankle. ‘What a clumsy thing I am.’

Megan picked up the jug and the handle, which had come right off.

‘I think that needs mending,’ said Megan’s mum.

‘I think
you
need mending too,’ Megan said to her mum.

Megan put the jug on her mum’s workbench and held her mum’s hand as she hobbled into the house. As they went, Megan was sure that she saw a little brown mouse with very long
whiskers, peeping from behind the kitchen door.