“I mean,” Clutch was saying to Ragweed, “like, there’s no reason you have to go. Blinker and I would really like it if you hung around.”
Ragweed smiled gamely. “Hey, dude, it’s a big world out there. And I’m one small mouse. Like, there’s a lot to see. Know what I’m saying? Anyway, one of these days I’ll come back. Then I can visit with you guys. Teach your kids a trick or two.”
“Check it out,” Blinker said with a shy grin.
“Anyone see Silversides or Graybar yet?”
Clutch grinned. “Far as anyone can tell, they, like, left town. Someone said they took a train. All I know is they’re gone. Totally sunk.”
“Killer sweet,” Ragweed agreed as the sound of the train whistle grew quite loud. “Only now it’s my turn.”
“Dude,” Clutch said, becoming serious, “I just want to say you are one awesome mouse. I mean, like, you’ve done it all. You may be a country mouse, but you’re way world class out of here. In fact, everyone connected with the club agreed we should change the name. From now on it’s Club Ragweed.”
“Awesome, dude,” returned Ragweed, grinning broadly.
“But just to show you how Blinker and I feel,” Clutch said, “we’ve got a present for you.” She reached up and removed her purple plastic earring. She held it out so that the bead dangled from her paws. “We’d sort of like to give this to you, dude. I mean, if you want it, that is.”
Ragweed took the earring gently. He was deeply moved.
“When you wear it, Ragweed, think of us and dance,” Blinker suggested.
“Like, long as you wear it,” Clutch added, “you’ll never back down to any bully.”
“I hear you,” Ragweed said.
“Want me to put it on, dude?” Clutch asked.
“Be way cool.”
Clutch fixed the earring to Ragweed’s left ear. “Glad you came, dude.” She gave the same ear a nuzzle as she added, “Dude, you totally buttered the muffin.”
Blinker nuzzled his other ear.
The next moment all three mice embraced.
The train came slowly into view, headlight flashing, bells ringing, whistle sounding. Its arrival ended with a loud bang.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Blinker asked.
“Hey,” Ragweed said, “I’ve seen the city. Time to explore the forest.”
With that he scampered up the coupling hose, moved along a boxcar gutter, and slipped inside.
Once settled, he looked out. Side by side, Blinker and Clutch were looking up at him.
The train lurched forward. Fighting tears, Ragweed waved goodbye with one paw, touching his new earring with the other.
“Hey, dude,” Clutch cried, “don’t forget!”
“Forget what?” Ragweed shouted back.
“A mouse has to do what a mouse has to do!” Clutch called. “Know what I’m saying?”
“Yo, baby,” Ragweed shouted back, “like, I do!”
With a great shriek, the train gathered speed. Clutch and Blinker watched Ragweed go. Then, paw in paw, they headed for home.
Ragweed turned away at last and stared glumly at the passing world through the open door of the boxcar. Now and again he touched his new earring. But when the train whistle blew its mournful tune he found it impossible not to break into song:
“A mouse will a-roving go,
Along wooded paths and pebbled ways
To places high and places low,
Where birds do sing ’neath sunny rays,
For the world is full of mice, oh!
For the world is full of mice, oh!”
Then Ragweed cupped his paws around his mouth and with all his strength shouted, “Dimwood Forest, here I come!”
Excerpt from Poppy
CHAPTER 1
Mr. Ocax
A THIN CRESCENT MOON, high in the sky, shed faint white light over Dimwood Forest. Stars glowed. Breezes full of ripe summer fragrance floated over nearby meadow and hill. Dimwood itself, veiled in darkness, lay utterly still.
At the very edge of this forest stood an old charred oak on which sat a great horned owl. The owl’s name was Mr. Ocax, and he looked like death himself.
Mr. Ocax’s eyes—flat upon his face—were round and yellow with large ebony pupils that enabled him to see as few other creatures could. Moonlight—even faint moonlight—was as good as daylight for him.
With his piercing gaze, Mr. Ocax surveyed the lands he called his own, watching for the comings and goings of the creatures he considered his subjects—and his dinners. He looked at Glitter Creek, home to the fish he found so appetizing; the Tar Road, across which tasty rabbits were known to hop; Jayswood, where meaty chipmunks sometimes skittered before dawn. By swiveling his head he searched the Marsh for a savory frog, then New Field, where, usually, he could count on a delicious vole or two. He looked at Gray House, where Farmer Lamout used to live, then upon the Old Orchard. He even looked, nervously, toward New House. But nowhere did he see a thing to eat. Profoundly annoyed, Mr. Ocax was beginning to think he would have no dinner that night.
But finally, there—near the top of Bannock Hill, where the ponderosa pines had all been cut, where only a few struggling saplings and bushes grew—he saw movement. Just the glimmer of food was enough to cause his owl’s heart to pound, his curved black beak to clack, his feathered horns to stand up tall.
Mr. Ocax shifted his head from right to left, forward and back. When he did so, he beheld . . . two mice! Of all the creatures the owl hunted, he enjoyed mice the most. They were the best eating, to be sure, but better still, they were the most fearful, and Mr. Ocax found deep satisfaction in having others afraid of him. And here, after a wait of nearly the whole night, were two savory subjects to terrify before he ate them.
One of the two, a deer mouse, crouched cautiously beneath a length of rotten bark. The other, a golden mouse, stood in the open on his hind legs, his short tail sticking straight out behind for balance. From his left ear an earring dangled. In his paws he held a hazelnut.
“It’s not as if I haven’t warned these mice,” Mr. Ocax murmured to himself. “If they will move about without my permission, they have only themselves to blame for the consequences.” As he leaned forward to listen, his sharp-as-needles talons, four to each large claw and jet-black at their tips, cut deeply into the branch he was perched on. “Catching these two mice,” he mused, “is going to be fun.”
On Bannock Hill, the golden mouse turned to his timid companion and said, “Poppy, girl, this hazelnut is bad-tothe-bone. Bet you seed to sap there’s more where it came from. Come on out and dig.”
“Ragweed,” Poppy replied as she sniffed tensely in all directions, “you promised we’d dance when we got here. We can’t do it in the open. Besides, I want to answer your question. So will you please get under here with me.”
Ragweed laughed. “Dude, you must think I’m as dull as a dormouse. You just want to get some of this nut.”
“I don’t want any of your precious nut,” Poppy insisted. “I want to give you my answer. And I want to dance! Isn’t that the reason we came up the hill? Only it’s not safe out there.”
“Oh, tell me about it.”
“You heard my father’s warnings,” Poppy went on. “It’s Mr. Ocax. He might be watching and listening.”
“Get off,” Ragweed sneered. “Your pop talks about that Ocax dude just to scare you and keep you under control.”
“Ragweed,” Poppy cried, “that’s ridiculous. Mr. Ocax does rule Dimwood. So we have to ask his permission to be here. And you know perfectly well we never did.”
“Dude, I’m not going to spend my life asking an old owl’s okay every time I want to have fun. Know what I’m saying? This is our moment, girl, right? And now that I’ve dug this nut up, I’m going to enjoy it. Besides,” he said, “it’s too dark for an old owl to see me.”
“Poppy,” Mr. Ocax scoffed under his breath. “Ragweed. What stupid names mice have. Now, if only that deer mouse will mov
e just a little farther out from under cover, I’ll be able to snare both mice at once.”
The mere thought of such a double catch made Mr. Ocax hiss with pleasure. Then he clacked his beak, spread his wings, and rose into the night air. Up he circled, his fluted flight feathers beating the air silently.
High above Bannock Hill, he looked down. The golden mouse—the one eating the nut—was still in the open. So brazen. So foolish. Nevertheless, Mr. Ocax decided to hold back another moment to see if the deer mouse might budge.
“Ragweed,” Poppy pleaded, “please get under here.”
“Girl,” Ragweed said, “do you know what your problem is? You let your tail lead the way.”
Poppy, hurt and wanting to show she was not a coward, poked her nose and whiskers out from under the bark. “Ragweed,” she persisted even as she began to creep into the open, “being careless is stupid.”
Her friend took another scrape of the nut and sighed with pleasure. “Poppy,” he said, “you may be my best girl, but admit it, you don’t know how to live like I do.”
Poppy took two more steps beyond the bark.
Just then, Mr. Ocax pulled his wings close to his body and plunged. In an instant he was right above and behind the two mice. Once there, he threw out his wings—to brake his speed; pulled back his head—to protect his eyes; and thrust his claws forward and wide like grappling hooks—to pounce.
It was Poppy who saw him. “Ragweed!” she shrieked in terror as she hurled herself back undercover. “It’s Ocax!”
But the owl was already upon them. Down came his right claw. It scratched the tip of Poppy’s nose. Down came his left claw. It was more successful, clamping around Ragweed’s head and neck like a vise of needles, killing him instantly. The next moment the owl soared back into the air. A lifeless Ragweed—earring glittering in the moonlight—hung from a claw. As for the hazelnut, it fell to the earth like a cold stone.
Powerful but leisurely strokes brought Mr. Ocax back to his watching tree. Once there, he shifted the dead Ragweed from talon to beak in one gulp. The mouse disappeared down his throat, earring and all.
His hunger momentarily satisfied, Mr. Ocax tilted back his head and let forth a long, low cry of triumph. “Whooowhooo!”
Poppy did not hear the call. In her terror she had fainted. Now she lay unconscious beneath the length of rotten bark.
The owl did not mind. He had enjoyed the first mouse so much he decided to wait for the second. Indeed, Mr. Ocax was not entirely sorry that Poppy had escaped. She was terrified, and he enjoyed that. And for sure, he would get her soon. “Oh yes,” he murmured to himself, “mice are the most fun to catch.” Then Mr. Ocax did that rare thing for an owl: He smiled.
CHAPTER 2
Poppy Remembers
A STINGING SENSATION on her nose woke Poppy. She touched a paw to the sore spot and winced. Then she looked about in the dark and shook her head with confusion. Where was she? Under a piece of rotten bark. Where was the bark? On Bannock Hill. What was she doing there? She had come with her boyfriend, Ragweed. Where was Ragweed?
No sooner did Poppy ask herself that than the full horror of what had occurred rushed upon her. Ragweed dead! Eaten, probably. Poppy closed her eyes. The sheer ghastliness of the thought made it hard for her to breathe.
Then, recalling how close she had come to the same fate, she checked herself for other injuries.
Though her plump, round belly was white, the rest of her fur was orange-brown. She had large ears and dark, almost round eyes, full whiskers, tiny nose, pink toes and tail. Even for a deer mouse, Poppy was rather dainty. Upon examination, everything—except the nose—seemed to be intact.
She stole a look out from under the bark and considered her situation. She was on Bannock Hill alone and without permission. Oh, how she wished she were home.
From her earliest days—just a few full moons ago—her parents had been teaching their litter about Mr. Ocax. She recalled how they had lined up all twelve of them to take instruction.
“Mr. Ocax has been about for ages,” her father, Lungwort, lectured in his sternest voice. He was a rather stout fellow with elegantly curled whiskers and slightly protruding front teeth. His crowning glory was an ivory thimble he had found and which, ever since, he’d worn as a cap. “Mr. Ocax’s been here longer than any mouse’s living memory,” Lungwort continued. “The territory around Dimwood belongs to him. Mr. Ocax is king.”
“And he protects us,” said Sweet Cicely, Lungwort’s wife and Poppy’s mother. “That’s the most important thing.” Sweet Cicely was a small creature even for a deer mouse, with soft, pale eyes and a nervous habit of flicking at her ears with her paws as if they were dusty.
“Protects us from what?” Poppy remembered Ragweed asking. An outsider, he had taken to hanging around the family. He was always asking for answers: “Why do deer mice live here and not there?” “Why do you folks eat this and not that?” “Why is your fur dark on top and white on bottom when mine is golden? Why couldn’t it be the other way around?”
Though these constant questions could be irritating, Poppy had to admit that she’d often wondered about the answers. Curiosity, however, was not something her parents encouraged. Poppy admired Ragweed’s persistence.
“Mr. Ocax protects us from creatures that eat us,” Lungwort answered gravely. “Raccoons, foxes, skunks, weasels, stoats . . .” One by one he displayed pictures of these animals. “Most important, he protects us from porcupines. Like this one.” He held up a lurid portrait of a huge black-nosed beast covered with gruesome spikes. Blood seemed to drip from his snarling mouth.
The young mice gasped in dread.
“Porcupines are our particular enemies,” Lungwort insisted. “There is nothing porcupines won’t do to catch mice.”
“What would they do with us then?” Acorn, one of Poppy’s sisters, asked in a trembling voice.
“First they shoot their barbed quills into you,” Lungwort said.
“Then they trample you,” Sweet Cicely added.
“Finally,” Lungwort concluded, “they break you into little bits and gobble you up.”
Now it was terror the young mice felt. All except Ragweed.
“Lungwort,” he demanded, “other than that picture, you ever seen a porcupine? A real one?”
“Not precisely,” Lungwort snapped. “But let me tell you something, Ragweed. I’d be more than thrilled to get through my whole life without ever seeing one. After all, Mr. Ocax has seen porcupines. Often. In private conversations with me—mind, these are actual personal experiences I can verify—he informed me that porcupines are not only extremely dangerous but also devilishly sly.
“Take note that this judgment comes from a powerful, meat-eating bird. The point is, Mr. Ocax protects us from porcupines. It was he, in fact, who was kind enough to educate us about them as well as supply these pictures.”
“Then how come you have to worry about this dude Ocax, too?” Ragweed pressed.
Struggling to control his temper, Lungwort tapped his thimble cap down over his forehead. Fuming, he replied, “Mr. Ocax protects us from vicious porcupines only when we accept him as our ruler, that’s why. All he requires is that we ask his permission whenever we move beyond the immediate area of Gray House.
“We have freedom to go about the Old Orchard up to Glitter Creek. We can do the same for Farmer Lamout’s fields. At our own risk, of course. Life is full of danger. Go beyond, however, and we need to get Mr. Ocax’s permission.”
“What’s his reason?” Ragweed persevered.
Sweet Cicely, brushing her ears, sighed with exasperation. How Poppy, her own daughter, could take up with such an ill-mannered ruffian was beyond her understanding. All the same, she said, “Ragweed, as Mr. Ocax has patiently explained to my husband, he needs to know if we’re moving about so he won’t mistake us for porcupines. Asking permission is a small sacrifice to pay for our safety.”
Lungwort nodded his agreement. “That owl,” he pointed out
, “has incredible vision. And hearing. He can hear or see anything, even in the dark. And a good thing, too. Porcupines prowl at night. Move like lightning, Mr. Ocax says. Shoot quills without asking questions. Kill without mercy.
“No, my boy, we don’t argue with Mr. Ocax. He’s our protector. If we disobey him, break his rules—and I can’t say I blame him either—he gets upset.”
“What’ll he do then?” asked Leaf, one of Poppy’s brothers.
“He’ll eat you,” Lungwort replied briskly as he put away the picture of the porcupine. “And,” he continued, “it happens. During the past year we have lost some fifteen family members. It may be presumed that all failed to ask Mr. Ocax for permission to go somewhere.”
The children were shocked into silence.
Ragweed, however, spoke out again. “Hey, Pops, didn’t I hear you say porcupines are huge?”
“You saw the picture,” Lungwort responded. “And don’t call me Pops. It’s common.”
“So them porcupines are bigger than us, right?”
“A lot bigger,” Sweet Cicely said, emphasizing the lot.
“Well, old lady,” Ragweed kept on, “if them there porcupines are so huge, and we’re so small, and if this dude owl has such amazing sight, how come he might confuse us mice with them there dude porcupines? Know what I’m saying?”
An indignant Sweet Cicely looked to her husband.
Lungwort sputtered, “Ragweed, for your information, proper grammatical usage is ‘those porcupines,’ not ‘them there porcupines.’ And while I’m thinking about it, if you intend to court my daughter I’ll thank you to groom your hair properly when you get up in the morning. As for that earring you’ve taken to wearing, I don’t like it. Not one bit. This family is committed to keeping up mice values and is opposed to stupid questions.” With that, Lungwort stalked away, tail whipping about in agitation.