What that mouse didn’t look was at all nervous. How could a mouse out on a shelf not be nervous?
“I’m Tarnu,” said the mouse, and cocked his ears forward.
“Fredle.”
“You need to catch your breath? Rest up? Crawl back in for a little more food?” Tarnu asked. “We’ve got time. Or would you rather have some carrot? Potato? Apple? That’s what we eat here, onion, potato, carrot, apple. Nothing fancy, but there’s always a lot in the baskets.”
Fredle tried to see where he was. There was a foundation wall on one side and open space on the other, with, ahead, another round container just like the one he’d just come out of.
“You’re a cellar mouse,” he said.
“Got it in one, friend. What about yourself?”
“Kitchen.”
“You’re used to a wider variety of eats, I bet. But what were you doing in our onion basket? No, don’t answer that yet. Everyone will want to hear. Have you decided that you’re going to trust me?” Tarnu asked.
“Yes,” Fredle said, and he had. He was also quite curious about how this mouse got so relaxed and calm, even when a stranger showed up in the middle of his private food supply.
“It’s not hard to get down to the floor from here,” Tarnu said to his uninvited guest. “Keep close. If you fall behind, I’ll wait.”
“What about predators?” asked Fredle.
“What kind of predator would there be in the cellar?”
“There’s the cat. Patches.”
“Nope.”
“There are traps.”
“Not here. They don’t have any idea we’re living down here. Either that or we don’t bother them, so they don’t bother with us. You almost never see Mister in the cellar, and Missus only comes to use her machines and that’s only in daytime. She’s no trouble. Shall we go?” And he turned and moved away.
Fredle followed, even more curious. No predators? He couldn’t imagine it.
They crossed in front of two more baskets and that was the end of the board. Tarnu waited for Fredle to catch up with him before explaining, “This wall is easy to climb up, or down. They used such big stones, see? There’s no trick to it. You can follow me or go your own way, whatever.” He stepped off onto a big stone that stuck out of the mortar like one of the steps, outside.
Fredle continued to follow Tarnu. Soon he stood on a cool, pleasantly moist dirt floor. Large, curved shapes stood in the distant shadows, motionless, and small things scurried along the floor close by.
“You’re in trouble with me now, mouselets,” Tarnu said, but he didn’t sound angry, or even impatient.
“Big trouble,” said the little voices, “big, big trouble,” and they didn’t sound frightened or even worried. “Who’s that, Tarnu?”
“It’s Fredle. He’s a kitchen mouse.”
“Did he escape to come live with us?”
“I thought kitchen mice were only in stories.”
“He’s not so big.”
“But he looks tough. Don’t you think?”
“I think he looks normal.”
“But skinny.”
“Yeah, skinny.”
“How’d he get here?”
“Yeah, how’d he get here, Tarnu?”
“Give him a minute and he’ll tell us. You will tell us, won’t you, Fredle? So, since I’m guessing that you mouselets aren’t about to go back to your nests, I’m going to give you a job. Go get everyone together. We’ll be waiting in front of the water heater. Call everyone.”
After the mouselets ran off, Tarnu said to Fredle, “I hope it’s an exciting story. We like an exciting story, and a long one, too. But I lied to you. I didn’t mean to, but I lied about predators. Sometimes—see up there?” He pointed with his nose to the wall far across from them, in front of which stood two square white shapes.
Fredle looked and saw the shapes, with pipes rising up behind one, and above them a window in the wall. Through the window, he could see air that shone a little brighter than the dark air of the cellar.
“I don’t know what that’s called, or what it’s for—” Tarnu began.
“It’s a window. You can see through it,” Fredle said helpfully.
“Really? Who’d have thought. But why would they want something like that in their walls?”
“To look outside.”
“What’s to see outside?” Fredle took a breath to tell him, but Tarnu was already going on. “About predators. There’s a time, usually the same time as the carrots and onions and potatoes are running out—the apples always run out first—although we never have to worry, because food hasn’t ever run entirely out … Anyway, during that time, Missus sometimes moves that thing, that window, and the air that comes in is warmer, and smells fresher.”
Fredle interrupted. “Summertime, I bet.”
“Whatever. And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with our air, it’s just something she likes to do, and when she does that, sometimes, there are a couple of cats that come in through it.”
“The barn cats,” Fredle guessed. “One’s white and the other’s black-and-white?”
“Is there anything you don’t know?” Tarnu asked, and Fredle assured him, “Lots. Lots and lots.”
“They take one or two of us away, every time, but it doesn’t happen often and usually the mice that went are too old or sick to escape with the rest of us. We don’t really count those cats as predators at all. It’s not as if they come foraging every night. Most of the time that—window, you said?—I like knowing the names of things, it always impresses the mouselets … Well, she keeps it this way most of the time, and no cat can come through. So let’s get ourselves over to the water heater. It’s where we go when we all want to get together, which I should tell you is at least twice a day, often more. You’ll stay in my nest, won’t you?”
Fredle was too surprised at the invitation to answer, but Tarnu assumed it was accepted and went on. “Ellnu would like that, and we’ve got space. We’re one of the nests behind the oil tank. None of the humans ever go behind the oil tank.”
By the time Fredle had been introduced all around and told his story, he was tired out. The cellar mice, gathered in the warmth of the tall water heater, had question after question, but after answering only a few, Fredle had to tell them that he couldn’t talk any more, not right then, he was too tired, too—
“Of course, we should have thought,” said Tarnu. “It’s getting late anyway, almost day. He’s sleeping in with us, you’ll see him tonight. Come along with me, Fredle.”
No mouse scurried close along the wall, no mouse took shelter behind any of the big objects, no mouse listened fearfully for the kind of silence a stalking cat creates. The mice just went off in several directions, across the open dirt floor, chattering away without even lowering their voices. Fredle accompanied Tarnu and his family to a wide, soft, cloth-and-paper nest behind a huge, curved oil tank that stood on four short legs in a back cellar corner. Tarnu told Fredle its name, although he couldn’t say what it was used for. There was an unpleasant odor, sharp and bitter and heavy, which had soaked into the dirt beneath the tank, but even that couldn’t keep Fredle awake. As soon as he had climbed over the edge of the nest, he was already falling asleep, and the last thing he remembered was wishing he could remember the names of all the mice he’d met. Gannu … Olnu … Ladnu …
* * *
That evening, Fredle opened his eyes to see an empty nest. Voices came from beyond the tank, so he went out to find Tarnu and the others, and maybe even something to drink and after that something to eat.
He was greeted by many voices.
“He’s awake!”
“It’s about time.”
“Fredle, I brought you some carrot—do you like carrot?”
“Fredle? Watch me!”
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
“You must have been really, really tired.”
“Are you going to live with Tarnu and Ellnu in their nest?”
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“Do you like onion? I brought you some onion.”
“Play with us, Fredle. What games do you know?”
Then everyone grew quiet as the entire group waited for his response. All the round, dark mouse eyes were fixed on him.
“Actually,” Fredle told them, “I’m pretty thirsty.”
“Come with me, then.” Tarnu stepped forward. “I’ll bring him straight back,” he promised, and led Fredle off across the broad dirt floor to two large white metal boxes. “That’s the washer, that’s the dryer. It’s the washer that has water. On that pipe.”
Fredle remembered pipes. They were under the kitchen sink, in the cupboard. He knew how to lick the drops of water off of pipes, so he climbed up the wall to where he could reach the pipe while Tarnu waited patiently below. Drinking, Fredle noticed that some pipes led up, along the stone wall and then across the ceiling above him, which he now saw was made of boards and had long, thin black lines crossing it, as well as the round metal pipes. “What are those?” he asked. “Not the pipes, the black lines. Where do the pipes go, does anyone know? I’m looking for a way to go up,” he explained.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“To get back to the kitchen.”
“Why would you want to do that?” They had started back to where the others waited. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about those pipes, or the black lines. We don’t go up to the ceiling,” Tarnu told him. “Our territory is down here, and besides, why would anyone want to leave a place where there is always food and water, and shelter, and almost never any predators?”
As soon as they were back by the water heater, Fredle was barraged with questions that gave him no time to think about anything other than what the mice wanted to know. The questions came in no order. There were just a lot of voices, asking him about outside, and what compost was, how a lattice could protect a nest. They didn’t believe him about raptors, he could tell, and he didn’t try to convince them. They had heard of snakes, but not raccoons. They wondered why the cat that he said lived in the kitchen was to be seen outside—
“His name is Patches,” Fredle told them.
“Cats have names? What do they need with names?”
“Everything has a name,” Fredle announced, adding, so as not to sound so bossy, “in my experience.”
Was the kitchen cat also a predator? they asked. Was it crowded on their wooden board behind the pantry wall? How did you ever relax, out in the wild, never knowing if you were going to be hot or cold, or even wet? “It’s always dry, here,” they explained. “It’s always this same temperature. That’s another reason the cellar’s the best place for a mouse.”
“Not always dry. Sometimes water leaks in through the walls and there are puddles.”
“Well, almost always.”
They couldn’t imagine birds flying through the air. They couldn’t imagine the sky or clouds or rain, compost or flowers or birds.
“Are birds like flies? We’ve seen flies. Only big, really big? Birds that big would be loud as Missus’s machines.”
“You have to let Fredle play with us now. We’ve waited for a long time,” the mouselets told their parents.
So Fredle played Follow-the-Leader (Fredle), after which there was a game of Hide-and-Seek (Fredle was It), then Tickle-and-Run-Fast, and finally Three Blind Mice (Fredle, Ellnu, and a high-spirited young mouse named Linu, who was particularly clever about nosing out the mouselets even with her eyes tightly closed). There was much squealing and laughing and excitement, all night long.
Afterward, when the mouselets were tired out, the families sat around in groups, talking. They reviewed what Fredle had told them, and decided, “It’s a terrible place, outside.”
“Actually,” Fredle said, “it isn’t, it’s—”
“Makes you appreciate your own home, doesn’t it?”
Then they talked much more about the question of whether carrots were sweeter than apples, and about the difference in taste between a new young potato and an older, riper one, and tried to describe to Fredle how to combine different foods in his mouth—apples and onions, potatoes and onions—the possibilities were endless, they said. If you chewed slowly, tasting with full attention, you would find that each food had a new, and wonderful, flavor.
It was a long, lazy night out on the cellar floor. The different families mingled in groups that occasionally changed, the young sometimes staying close to their parents or grandparents, sometimes going off to be with others their own age. If you were thirsty, you went over to the big machine to drink from the pipes. If you were hungry, you made the quick trip up to the baskets and chose what you wanted to eat. Eventually, the dark air grew lighter and the mice began to yawn and go their separate ways to their own nests, for a good day’s sleep. For the second time, Fredle went with Tarnu and Ellnu and their mouselets to the nest behind the big, ill-smelling oil tank.
Tarnu apologized. “There are some bad smells down here. Over by the machines it’s soap, which I personally think is much worse. Oil isn’t so bad, once you get used to it.”
Fredle could think of no reason to try to convince Tarnu that the fresh air outside was preferable, or the warm, food-flavored kitchen air. He had never seen mice like this, unworried, unafraid, contented. These mice were happy, he realized. They lived every night of their lives in this lazy, easy way and they played with their mouselets on the dirt floor of the cellar as if there were no danger at all. They seemed to understand something about how to be a mouse alive in the world that no other mouse—no other creature—Fredle had ever met had figured out.
Of course, it you didn’t have to worry about food, it might be easy to be happy, especially if you almost never had to worry about cats, and never about traps, raptors, or raccoons, either. Whatever the reason, it seemed to Fredle that these cellar mice knew how to enjoy just being awake, eating and talking and playing with their mouselets.
17
The Way Up
Fredle spent several nights in the cellar, answering questions about outside (Colors? Squirrels? Ramps? Stone walls? Trees!) and asking questions of his own (Baskets of food that never ran out? How many different games? How many kinds of spiders?). There was talking, and more talking, about the danger of chocolate and why Missus saved Fredle’s life, about ice cream and where outside turned into wild, about why humans liked cats but not mice, and whether another creature, like a dog, like Sadie, could be trusted. Anything that could be thought about or asked about got talked over, in the cellar. Even though he was always thinking about a way back to the upstairs, Fredle enjoyed those nights. He was always sorry when another night had slipped peacefully by and it came time to go to sleep. He was always pleased to wake up and begin another long, easy night. Until, one day, things changed.
They were all asleep in their nests after a busy night of good food, play, and conversation when, suddenly, the weak light from the high windows disappeared in a blast of silent and immediate brightness.
Fredle’s eyes snapped open. His heart raced. He looked across at Tarnu and Ellnu, who were sleeping peacefully. In fact, the whole family slept peacefully on, undisturbed. Fredle crawled out of the nest and saw Linu looking out over the rim of her own family’s nest, also behind the oil tank. Fredle whispered, “What is it?”
The light was not as bright as sunlight and didn’t infuse the air the way sunlight did, but it was uncomfortably bright, especially after the usual dimness of the cellar. Linu said, “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just Missus. You want to see her use the machines?”
Of course Fredle did and of course Linu was happy to show him. “It’s the only thing that happens here in the cellar, almost. Not like outside, with all your adventures. Not like the kitchen, with its traps and that cat you told us about, with Mister and Missus and the dogs.”
“There’s a baby, too,” Fredle said. He knew he was showing off but he said it anyway.
“Not like the wild, either.”
Fre
dle agreed. In fact, the cellar was just about the absolute opposite of wild.
“The only dangerous thing that happens here is when those two cats come in. Missus isn’t at all dangerous. She comes here a lot, sometimes to check the food in our baskets, sometimes like now for the machines. Look.”
They had come to the front leg of the oil tank and Fredle saw Missus, at the other end of the cellar, with a tall white container beside her. She was bending down and taking things out of the container to put them into one of the big square machines, which shone whiter than usual in the brightness that now filled the cellar.
A faint, sharp, unpleasant smell—definitely not food—floated briefly by his nose, and then it was gone. The machine started making noises and Missus went up some stairs. The light disappeared.
“She’ll come back, turn on the other machine, come back again and fill the basket back up, and take it away with her,” Linu explained. “Each time, there’s light, and then it’s gone. But that’s not very exciting, is it? Especially not for you.”
Fredle couldn’t argue about that. Instead, he said, “I’m looking for a way to get upstairs.”
“I know. We’re all trying to think of one. Could you sneak into Missus’s container?”
“That’s too dangerous. Is that the only idea you’ve had?”
“Why don’t you want to go back outside?”
“Upstairs is home. Besides, I already know how to get back outside, if I want to.”
“Are there flowers upstairs? I think I’d rather see flowers than stars. Which do you like better, Fredle?”
“Woo-Hah,” Fredle laughed. “Both.”
“Maybe I do, too,” Linu said. Then she said, looking around at the cellar with its shelves of food and unseen families of sleeping mice, “I’m sorry I don’t know a way for you to get home, Fredle. Do you want to look for one together? We could look tonight.”
“Why not now?”
“Now? It’s daytime. Mice sleep during the day.”