Reepicheep’s Revenge
Nurse Magill spoke loudly to wake old Evers up. She woke Norman, too.
“Time to get up, Mr. Evers,” she said firmly. “Sleep too late and you’ll miss breakfast. We can’t have that.”
Evers was cranky. “Love it, don’t you, you old dragon, waking a man out of a sound sleep,” he said. "Why don’t you start with Norman for once?”
“Procedures, Mr. Evers, procedures. You are senior, and therefore you are wakened first. These are the rules we all must follow. No lolling about into the morning. Wake up, now.” Norman gritted his teeth and pretended to be asleep. Behind his closed lids he pictured Nurse Magill laid out in a cheap coffin with black lilies at her head and feet. The picture gave him some small solace. He felt Reepicheep stir under the covers.
Nurse Magill got Evers’ scrawny body into his wheelchair. Then she briskly turned to Norman. She bent toward him. She was nearly six feet tall, and all iron.
“I’ll be back for you, Mr. Holliwell,” she said to him. “Don’t go back to sleep.” He smelled her perfume when she leaned over him. It was like vanilla and cinnamon gone sour. He held his breath until she straightened and went away to push Evers’ chair through the door.
When Nurse Magill and Evers went out, Reepicheep crept out and sat on Norman’s pillow. He regarded Norman with a beady black eye. Norman regarded Reepicheep with a blurry blue eye. Norman smiled, and winked. The mouse touched his wrinkled nose with its tiny paw, and sat back on its haunches. They greeted each other with this ritual every morning.
Reepicheep was old Evers’ pet. He had named him Reepicheep after a mouse in a book. Evers claimed Reepicheep had moved in with him. Norman doubted that. He knew mice had short lives. Evers had been in the home a long time, a lot longer than Norman had. Reepicheep was already a resident when Norman had moved in with Evers three years ago.
After watching Norman’s ongoing irritation of Nurse Magill, Evers had trusted him enough to introduce him to Reepicheep. Norman had taken an interest in the “little guy,” as he called him, and begun bringing food from the dining room for him. It was another way of rebelling against Nurse Magill. Nurse Magill abhorred dirt, and everyone knew she detested mice as the dirtiest of all creatures.
Evers claimed Reepicheep had human intelligence. He exchanged squeaks with the mouse, and called the squeaking language. Norman couldn’t make any sense of Reepicheep’s squeaks, but he didn’t argue with Evers about it. The old man had been a scientist before his kids stuck him in the home. He’d worked in some experimental lab somewhere. Norman had shoveled his way through life, coal, manure, salt, dirt, whatever a man could move on a scoop. Maybe the old man knew something Norman didn’t.
The mouse was clever enough to hide from Nurse Magill. It also changed the television channel. The mouse preferred news commentaries and educational channels. It particularly disliked soap operas and talk shows.
Norman spent more time concocting schemes to upset Nurse Magill than he did watching television. He was the one who suggested to Evers that they train Reepicheep to ride in a robe pocket, so they could release him in the dining hall when Nurse Magill was present. Evers had refused. He told Norman that the mouse was too nice a pet to sacrifice, even in the worthy cause of outraging Nurse Magill. Norman had agreed to be content with knowing they were breaking a lot of rules just keeping Reepicheep in their room.
Norman heard a noise in the hall. “Reepicheep,” he whispered, “you know better than that, to sit on my pillow when Nurse Magill could come back any time. Here,” he lifted the covers with his thin fingers, veins standing out on the back of his hand from the effort, “get under the covers, you rascal. She’ll find you, otherwise.”
The mouse glanced sharply left, then right, before it scurried into the proffered haven. Norman let the covers fall back. He rested his thin fingers on the worn blanket. They trembled slightly from his effort. He was just in time. Nurse Magill’s heels clicked on the corridor floor. The sound echoed off the walls. Norman thought it sounded like gunshots in the background on the evening news.
Nurse Magill came through doors strutting like a Nazi General. Her erect posture commanded obedience. Her auburn hair somehow managed to be cold as a winter’s sunset. Her breasts were large and firm; they entered the room well before the rest of her. Her waist made a man’s arms ache to wrap around it and dance away. She was material for a man’s lurid fantasies, until he looked in her eyes. They were green sea ice and glittered with cold fury.
Creamy skin covered her bat-skull face. Her chin was tiny and pointed, and her teeth, when she smiled, were needles. Norman had wondered, once, if that was why she had never married. Poor thing, she couldn’t help her skull structure, he had thought. When he got to know her better, he understood her need for absolute command had driven away any mate she might have had.
“Time to get up, Mr. Holliwell,” Nurse Magill said to him as she approached his bed. “We didn’t wet our bed, now, did we?” She reached her hand under the covers to feel the bottom sheet. Norman was tempted to let go, just to catch her hand in the stream. He grinned instead.
“No, Nursie,” he said (he knew she loathed being called Nursie), “you weren’t in my bed last night. That’s why I’m so cold and lonesome.” He felt Reepicheep’s whiskers on his shin as the mouse crept toward his feet. Norman reached under the covers as though he was about to grab her hand. Nurse Magill withdrew her hand as he leered up at her.
“You want to play Doctor, Nursie?”
“That’s enough, Mr. Holliwell.” Her voice was menacing. “I know, and Doctor knows, that you are not senile, you are simply vulgar. I’ll have no more of this nonsense or we will have a cold bath. Do you understand me, Mr. Holliwell?” Cold baths were Nurse Magill’s preferred punishment for misdeeds. Norman had had one soon after he came because he had pushed her too far. He did not want another one. It took weeks to get the chill out of his bones.
“Think you’re up for it, Nursie?”
“Mr. Holliwell!” It was warning enough; the ice in her voice was colder than the ice in her eyes. It chilled Norman to the spine.
“Sorry. I was just trying to bring a little humor into your day.” He forced his voice to be properly apologetic. He coughed twice as she started to pull the blankets down to the foot of the bed. The coughs were Reepicheep’s signal. He had learned quickly to hide in the lump of covers at the foot of the bed when Norman warned him. Norman felt him run past his heels and smiled at Nurse Magill. It was a mistake. Nurse Magill smiled back. Norman thought of piranhas and shuddered.
“Are we cold, Mr. Holliwell?” Her voice was professionally compassionate. Norman found it more chilling than her icy angry voice. He snapped back at her.
“We are not cold; we are amused and shaking with laughter. Give us our robe, and we will condescend to join the common people for breakfast.”
“Temper, temper, Mr. Holliwell. There’s always the bath.”
Nurse Magill had her back to him as she got his robe from the closet. He stuck out his tongue at her while she had her back turned. He felt better, and his day brightened a little. Norman could stand, with support, and hoist himself from the bed to his chair. Nurse Magill helped him on with his robe and steadied him while he got into his wheelchair. Then she summoned John, the orderly, to take him to breakfast.
“Been rubbing Nurse Magill up the wrong side again?” John said as he wheeled Norman down the hall. “Why complicate your life like that?”
“It’s something to do,” Norman said. “I hate that woman, and irritating her is all I’ve got to keep me alive.”
“Life’s like that,” John said. “Some folks is hard to like. Hold on, Mr. Holliwell,” he said, “I’ve got to talk to Nurse Carruthers a minute.” He stopped Norman’s chair at the stairs that led to the nursing station. The nursing station served two floors, and had been built halfway betwee
n them. “I’ll be just a minute,” he said to Norman, and went up the stairs.
John talked a moment with Nurse Carruthers, too low for Norman to make out what they said. John was shaking his head and Nurse Carruthers was being sympathetic, as always. Norman knew the exalted affairs of the staff were not his concern. He had asked, in a friendly way, about various things. Even John had warned him not to pry. Norman suspected Nurse Carruthers and John had a joint life somewhere outside the home. Contrary to all rules, of course. He sent good thoughts toward them.
He heard the gunshot sound of Nurse Magill’s heels. Nurse Carruthers pointed at Norman and said something to John. John came down and wheeled him in to breakfast. He parked Norman’s chair at the small table next to Evers and set the brakes. Then he left to get Norman’s breakfast. Evers was snoring, his oatmeal half eaten.
Norman had no trouble spooning the oatmeal into his mouth. If he didn’t think about it he could even swallow some of it. The watery orange juice helped thin it out enough for that. Norman’s problem was Reepicheep. Reepicheep needed