“What are chickens?” asked Fredle.
“Chickens are nothing to do with you. Compost is to do with you. That’s if you’re still hungry?”
“Then what’s compost?” Fredle asked.
Bardo didn’t answer. He just turned to scurry along beside the fence, running from the cover of one post after the other, until the fence came to a wide hill that smelled of rotting things and turned off in another direction. Bardo stopped at that corner and announced, “This is compost.”
It was brown like dirt, but it wasn’t really dirt, and there were green and white and dark gray and orange things scattered around all through it. Compost smelled like food. A black animal—not a mouse, or a cat, or a dog, or a human—was hopping up the side of the compost on two thin legs, poking into it with a sharp snout and saying something in a loud, ugly voice.
“That’s a crow,” Bardo said. “Remember I told you I’d show you a crow? It’s a bird. See the feathers?”
Fredle had no idea if he was seeing feathers or not.
“Watch, I’ll show you fly.”
Bardo screeched, a high, sharp sound as if his back had just been pierced by a cat’s claws. The crow grew wider and wider as it spread out two fat flat arms, and then it jumped up into the air and stayed there, stayed up in the air with no ground under its feet. Moving its arms it went up into the air, higher and higher, and then it was out of sight.
“Flying is what birds do instead of running,” Bardo told Fredle.
“Oh,” said Fredle. “Oh.” He’d never even imagined anything like this.
“Pay attention to the compost, Fredle,” Bardo said now. “Compost is what’s important here.”
“Do we eat it?” asked Fredle, too amazed by the sight of that bird, that crow, to be irritated by Bardo’s bossiness.
“Not exactly,” Bardo laughed. “We forage in it. There’s always something here, like, an apple peel or core.” Bardo stuck his nose into the dirt and pulled out a dark gray, sweet-smelling thing. “Apple peel. Go ahead, take a bite. Just one, and not a big one.”
Fredle did. He’d never tasted this before, and it was a little chewy, but it was certainly food. It had a quiet sweetness, too, and he hoped Bardo would offer him another bite.
“Or banana peels or lettuce or—almost anything,” Bardo told him. “If you come foraging every day, you’ll find all kinds of different things to eat. And now that the weather’s getting warm, they’ll feed the dogs outside, right by your lattice, so you’ll get some kibbles, too, because those dogs are messy eaters.”
Fredle was tired of Bardo being the one who knew things, so he didn’t ask about kibbles. Besides, he thought he could guess now exactly what it was: the brown things the dogs ate, and the cat, too. He didn’t need to ask.
Bardo pointed with his nose to a place farther up the compost. “Look, over there? See it? There’s an orange peel. You should go get it.”
Fredle went off, and climbed up through the soft dirt to nose out a stiff piece of orange peel and pull it after him back to where he had left Bardo chewing on the apple.
But Bardo was no longer there.
6
Alone
It took a while for Fredle to figure it out—and then he knew: Bardo had run off. Run off where Fredle didn’t know, but run off why he was afraid he could guess. What if Bardo’s go-between job was really a keep-away job? Or even a push-out job? When he understood that Bardo had intended to abandon him there on the compost pile, Fredle could only feel the not-all-rightness of everything.
He hunched down just where he was, on the compost pile, in broad daylight, unable to move his feet. Where did he have to go to, anyway, if he could find his feet and make them run somewhere? He didn’t even want to eat, although he could smell how good that orange peel would taste. It was eating that had gotten him where he was, out here in the open, lost, alone, afraid. It was wanting to eat something because it smelled so good, and also following another mouse’s tail, that’s what had done it to him. He’d followed Axle and he’d followed Bardo, and look where that had got him. He wished … He wished he’d never gone looking for that good thing on the pantry shelf. He wished … He wished he could go back to before he smelled it, back to when everything was comfortable and familiar and safe, and he wasn’t alone and sick at heart.
How long he huddled unhappily there on the compost, Fredle didn’t know or care. He crouched on the moist, dark brown hill, the chunk of orange peel uneaten between his front paws. He kept his eyes tightly closed and his ears flat against his skull, then he let his ears perk up and opened his eyes, so that he first heard and then saw all the space around him, stretching out beside him over the garden, stretching out before him into that broad expanse of cut grass until the house ended it.
There was no place to hide in cut grass.
Fredle thought maybe he should dig himself a little hole in the compost, which was soft enough for a nest. If he had a nest here, the compost would be his territory and he would never have to go out alone into those empty spaces in search of food.
But Bardo said that the raccoons came foraging in the compost at night. Bardo said no mouse in his right mind went anywhere near a raccoon. On the other hand, if Fredle dug himself a little nest in the compost, and if he made it deep enough to hide himself in, and if some other mice came to forage, Fredle could sneak after them to discover where their nest was, and he might then be able to make himself another little nest near to them and at least be close to company. Even if he would still be absolutely alone.
Really, what he needed was to find a way back into the house. If he could just get back inside … As he imagined the journey across the kitchen floor and up through the wall, then the surprise of his father and mother, Grandfather, and especially Kidle when he crept over the rim of their nest, Fredle found himself chewing on the orange rind. With food in his stomach, he found his thoughts becoming quieter, more useful, and he decided that the compost pile would not be a good place to live. It was too far from the house and too exposed to predators. It was surrounded by open spaces.
As soon as he thought of those spaces, Fredle could feel fear begin to swell up inside of him again, starting in his belly and growing bigger and darker and—
So he made himself think about other things. About what he would ask Bardo, if he ever saw that mouse again. If Bardo ever came back, Fredle wouldn’t ask what that mouse had been thinking of, leaving Fredle on the compost pile like that. Instead, he’d ask if there was any way into the house. He’d ask if any other mice lived nearby, and where they were. He would ask Bardo about those lights in the night air, too.
And then, after he had answers to all those questions, he might give Bardo a good snap on the snoot, just to let that faithless field mouse know what he thought of him.
Fredle ate until he was full and then he began the journey back, back past the garden fence and across the strip of uneven dirt, with its ruts to slip down and high ridges to scramble over, back at a run across the cut grass to take shelter and catch his breath behind the garbage cans, back to the first lattice wall and then, this time at a slow creeping pace, all around the steps until—at last—he scrambled through his own lattice wall to the safety of his own little nest. The soft lining of grass that he had put into it welcomed him and he curled up in its comfort. Loneliness was all around him, like the air, but he ignored it as best he could and dropped off into an uneasy sleep.
Fredle was awake. His heart beating fast. It was dark and he didn’t know what had jerked him up out of sleep. Then he heard it. What was that?
He lay still and listened. It sounded almost as if hundreds of mice were running back and forth just beyond the lattice wall.
Because it didn’t sound exactly like mice, he lay for a long time, listening.
All the little noises, each separate but also all mixing together—were ants attacking the house? Did ants know a way inside? That question got Fredle out of his nest and over to one of the openings in the lattice.
He looked out into a black darkness through which silver things were falling, falling down through the air, maybe in long lines, maybe just little silver speckles—Fredle couldn’t see them clearly enough to know for sure. What had Bardo said? Looks like rain. Bardo had said that when he looked at the gray air, and Fredle thought that these falling things might be rain, falling out of the sky, making little sounds when they hit the ground. Bardo hadn’t said rain was dangerous, so Fredle stuck his head out through the lattice.
Wet! It was wet and—he stuck his tongue out and then drew it quickly back into his mouth, tasting—it was water, just like the water on the stalks of grass, just like the drops of water on the pipes under the sink.
Fredle was thirsty, so he spent a while with his head stuck out through an opening, using his tongue to catch the water. Then he pulled his wet head back inside. He was cold now; his ears, especially, felt wet and cold. Inside, at home in his own family nest, Fredle had never been cold. Sometimes, out in the kitchen in the dead of night, he had felt a little chilly, but as soon as he got back behind the pantry wall it was warm, and by the time he scrambled into the nest and curled up next to his brothers and sisters, he couldn’t even remember what chilly felt like. Here, outside, it was different. The cold started with his ears and then spread to his paws and his tail, even though they weren’t wet. Here, the dirt under his paws grew damp and chilly. Moreover, now that he had reminded himself of home, there was a coldness inside of him, too, growing larger, as if it planned to meet up with the coldness outside and turn Fredle into a total misery.
Just what had Bardo been up to, bringing him food but then leaving him out on the compost?
Fredle was alone outside, alone and cold, alone and frightened, alone and hungry. There was nothing he could do about it, he realized, and that realization was colder than even the night rain, more frightening even than went. So frightening—
Fredle ran away from it. He didn’t think, he couldn’t think, his feet just moved as fast as they could, as if he could run away from his own ideas. He ran across to the hard back wall and scraped his nose all along it, searching for an opening. There had to be an opening. He’d make one, with his claws. He scratched and scratched against the hard surface, but after a while his paws started to hurt and he hadn’t made any progress at all, and he knew he never would. So he ran, again. He ran until he hit a wooden wall and then he ran back along the lattice, hoping to find something, anything, some food, some way back into the house. His mind raced as fast as his feet but he couldn’t think, all he could do was feel the loneliness, all around him, filling the air and making it hard to breathe.
Fredle ran until he had to stop, the sound of his own breathing loud in his ears. He had thought he’d pushed the loneliness away, but now it was back, and stronger than before. He couldn’t outrun it and he couldn’t drive it away. He’d never escape it. He’d never find his way home and what would he eat?
Tears started to flow from his eyes.
Mice don’t cry. That was one of the rules Grandfather had taught him and Fredle repeated it to himself. Mice don’t cry.
Yeah, well, maybe, Fredle answered Grandfather silently. But mice don’t live alone, either, and house mice don’t go outside, so so much for those rules. Also, he couldn’t stand being alone like this for one more instant. It was more than he could bear. He wanted to go home. He knew he couldn’t and he wanted to and he had never been more miserable in his life.
But now he was also wondering: Was home still the nest behind the pantry wall? Or was home now the little place lined with soft grass where he had been sleeping since he’d arrived outside? How many sleeps did it take to make a home?
With all of these questions in his mind, the loneliness was being pushed back, away into some more distant place and that was—Fredle remarked to himself as he felt his breathing grow more steady—a good thing. A very good thing.
By this time, Fredle had dried off. His little nest was the nearest thing to home he had, for now, and he wasn’t really hungry—a lucky thing, since he didn’t want to have to go out in all that cold, wet water trying to find something to eat—and he had had plenty to drink. So he curled up to think, but not about himself. Instead, he thought about what Bardo had shown him, and what Bardo had told him, and especially what Bardo hadn’t wanted him to notice.
It didn’t take Fredle long to begin getting curious about those chickens, and after a while he drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke again, it was daylight and the rain had stopped falling. Looking out through the opening in the lattice, Fredle noted that the daylight now had a golden shine to it. He could see the grass lying flat on the ground and the brown rutted dirt beyond, and beyond that something very large, a big, dark gray, house-shaped building in the distance. Could that be the chicken pen? The woodshed? Bardo had talked about a snake in the woodshed. Keep away from that snake, Bardo had said; that snake lives on mice.
All that talk about how dangerous the snake was and no talk at all about chickens—whatever they were. That was making Fredle very curious indeed.
He was also hungry. And he realized, all this wondering about Bardo, and the chickens, and even the hunger, too—all of these things pushed the sad and solitary feeling farther away. As soon as he’d thought that, Fredle could see loneliness oozing back toward him, ready to make him miserable all over again, so he squeezed himself through an opening, tumbling out into the cool, clear air, and froze, right next to the lattice, to listen, to smell, to look.
He saw nothing that looked dangerous and heard only sounds from afar—a distant rumble, one dog barking two quick sharp barks, somewhere the crying baby. Hoping it was safe, Fredle ran quickly along the route that rounded the steps and went in front of the other lattice wall to the big green garbage cans. To get to the garden fence he was going to have to cross the cut grass and the rutted dirt. He was going to have to go fast, and alone. There was no Bardo to lead him, no Axle to tell him to follow close. He was going to have to do it all by himself.
Then Fredle realized: he was going to get to do it all by himself.
His heart grew lighter and he made the run, paws tangling a little in grass that lay flat and thick, bony toes stubbing on the rough dirt, until he came to rest again, close up to the foot of a garden fence post. Then he went on more slowly, to the compost pile nearby, where he found potato peels and a carrot top. When he had eaten enough, he lay on the soft pile and thought about where he wanted to go next.
After foraging, you went home to sleep: that was the way mice did things. But Fredle didn’t want to rest; he wanted to learn about the chickens.
Fredle trotted off toward the far corner of the garden fence. When he heard a dog barking—Sadie, by the sound of her—and Missus responding, Fredle froze behind a post. At first he just listened, then he took the chance of peeping around.
Missus was carrying a basket in one hand and a bucket in the other. She and Sadie were heading away from the garden to where another fence rose, behind which things moved and chittered. Fredle guessed that either the basket or the bucket had the baby in it.
“It’s such a nice day,” Missus said. “We can all use a little sunshine.”
“Sunshine, yes!” Sadie barked. “Look out, chickens, here we come! And sunshine, too!” She ran on ahead.
The gabble from behind that high fence grew louder, and Fredle, making a dash up to the next fence post for a better view, saw that there were birds in there, kept prisoners—or were they kept safe?—by the fence.
“Sadie? Down. Stay. I need you to watch the baby,” Missus said, and Sadie lay down beside the basket with her nose on her paws, while Missus opened a door in the high fence and went inside.
The birds—
But were they birds? Fredle could see wings flapping as they gathered around Missus’s legs, but they weren’t flying through the air, so could they be birds? Also, instead of making occasional loud comments like the crows, these birds chuckled and chittered consta
ntly. Then his attention was caught by Missus, who reached into her bucket and threw something out around her, scattering it by the handful. Seeing how the chickens reacted, Fredle guessed it was food she was giving them.
The food sprayed around, in all directions, and the chickens scrabbled around after it, pecking and gabbling. Missus stood and watched this for a few minutes; then she left the fenced area, through the same door.
“Good dog, Sadie,” she said. “You’re an excellent nanny. That’ll do.”
Sadie got up. “I smell that mouse,” she said, but Missus didn’t understand.
“Shall we take a little stroll down to the barn and see what’s new with the cows?” Missus asked. “You haven’t seen the cows for a few days, Sadie.”
“But I did,” said Sadie. “Yesterday and before that, too. Angus checks them with me.”
“And neither have I,” Missus said, and they walked off, Missus carrying both the bucket and the basket.
The baby hadn’t made a sound. Fredle guessed that it was asleep, and he wondered if babies slept whenever they felt like it, daytime or nighttime, unlike house mice but very like the way he himself was sleeping now.
The chickens were working busily to fill their stomachs—heads down, sharp yellow noses pecking at the ground. As Fredle watched, they wandered around, even putting a head through the fence every now and then.
Probably, the way Missus tossed the food all around her, some must fall out through the fence, and Fredle wondered what that food was, if it was something a mouse might like. He was, he realized, enjoying himself. It was interesting to see all these new sights, think all these new thoughts, learn about all these new places and the things in them. When you were alone, you didn’t have to talk to anybody else, or take care of them, or wonder if you were getting in their way or be cross if they were getting in your way. When you were alone, nothing interfered with you.
Fredle decided to go closer to the chicken pen and find out what that food was, if he could eat it. The chickens were trapped inside their fence, so they couldn’t harm him with either their pecking noses or their flapping wings. Chattering away quietly to themselves, the chickens didn’t pay attention to anything besides their food, so why shouldn’t he satisfy his curiosity? He was about to move out of the shelter of the post when he noticed movement in the grass beyond the chicken pen, little twitches of brown in all the green, so swift and silent that only the sharp eyes of a mouse could catch it, and recognize it.