How to Save Your Tail (3 page)

“D
id that goose really lay golden eggs?” asked Muffin.

“Sure,” said Bob. “And her sister, Stephanie, laid colored eggs that actually hatched. Her goslings came in all the colors of the rainbow. In fact, one of her daughters, Blue Sue, lives down by the Royal Pond. She’s a good friend of mine.”

“Who cares? Story over,” said Brutus.

“Did Sherman find the spoon?” asked Muffin.

“Too many questions,” said Brutus. “Time to eat the rat.”

Bob squiggled backward off the plate. He bumped into Brutus’s waiting claws and squiggled back on.

“I want to know!” insisted Muffin.

Brutus pouted and looked at Bob. “Well?”

“He—he did find the spoon,” said Bob. “And—and the cow.”

“Then what happened, Mack?” asked Muffin. “Did he get fat and juicy and taste like chocolate chips?”

“Well, Grandpa Sherman was a t-tad portly, but I don’t know about the juicy part,” said Bob, a bit weak in the knees. “That’s beside the point. What happened next is that he went back to the beanstalk stump and found that the big
puss had turned to dust and blown away, leaving nothing but his boots—which Sherman moved into. Now, if I’d been in those boots, I would have put comfy chairs in the toes and spent my days reading and baking cookies. But nooooooo. Sherman got married! Then he had so many children he didn’t know what to do. And one day, at his youngest daughter’s birthday party, some of her naughty friends chewed up the spoon.”

“Oh no!”
cried Muffin.

“Oh yes,” said Bob. “After that, there was nothing to eat and all the children had to make their own way in the world—but that’s another story.”

“Tell us!” said Muffin.

Bob washed a paw and swallowed a little smile.

“Hey!” Brutus glowered at Muffin.

“Don’t you want to hear about Sherman’s children?” asked Muffin.

“Only if he tells us where they live,” said Brutus with a flash of his fangs, “so we can eat them after we eat him.”

“Sounds good,” said Muffin. She looked at Bob. “Let’s hear it, Mack.”

“Well,” said the rat, “there were so many kids. Which one do you want to hear about?”

“The biggest, fattest, juiciest one,” said Brutus, licking his chops.

“That would be my great-granduncle Mustard. He took care of his little sisters, Bubbles and Squeak, who were both on the small side.”

“You don’t say,” said Muffin.

“I do say,” said the rat. “And poor Squeak had a gimpy leg.”

“Just get on with it!” growled Brutus.

“Okay, okay,” said Bob, and he began at the beginning, with the problems the three rats had finding a nice place to live.

O
nce, in a rough neighborhood, my great-granduncle Mustard and my two great-grandaunties, Bubbles and Squeak, tried living in a house of straw. When a certain someone puffed and huffed it down, they tried living in a house of sticks. And when the same someone blew the sticks to smithereens, they built themselves a
lovely three-bedroom, two-bath brick house with a cellar.

No sooner did they build it than the very same neighbor, the Big Bad Wolf, to be exact, took a liking to the fancy brickwork and homey front stoop. And one fine day he showed up with his family.

“This is Mrs. Wolf and our daughter, Elsie,” said Big Bad. “We’re moving in.”

Elsie had foul breath and warts on her snout.

“You’re
not
moving in!” said Mustard.

“Not by the hair on our chinny-chin-chins,” said Bubbles.

“We don’t have chins,” whispered Mustard.

“Oh dear,” said Squeak.

“Unpack our bags,” ordered Elsie. “Then make dinner.” A drip of slobber slid down her lip and off her chin.

The rats gulped.

“And don’t even think about running away,” said Big Bad. “Or
you’ll
be dinner.”

“Yeah,” said Elsie. “I love rat salad and rat sandwiches and most of all I love rat pudding for dessert.” She stomped on Squeak’s tail just for fun.

So, from that day forward, Mustard, Bubbles, and Squeak worked for the wolves and lived in the cellar. Every morning, Elsie pinched their ears to wake them. If the rats were too slow scrubbing the floor or weeding the garden or ironing her clothes, she made them pluck and roast their bird friends for supper. Squeak never did get over the heartbreak of cooking her best friend, Robin. Then, at night, after they washed the dishes, Elsie made them tell bedtime stories while she gnawed on bird bones and picked at her snout-warts.

She was a lousy roommate.

“I can’t take it anymore!” cried Squeak one
morning after Elsie pinched their ears, their tails,
and
their toes.

“We have to get rid of her,” agreed Mustard.

“How?” asked Bubbles.

“I’ve got it,” said Mustard. “We’ll tell everyone that Elsie is the cleverest maiden in the land. Surely someone will marry her and they’ll both move far, far away and we’ll never get pinched again.”

So the rats went about the town, hiding behind fences, under tables, and in laundry baskets. They talked about Clever Elsie Wolf in their biggest voices, and the nosy townsfolk were only too happy to eavesdrop and pass along the gossip. Sure enough, before you could say “Hot cross buns,” word of Clever Elsie spread far and wide throughout the kingdom.

By and by, a rich and powerful warthog paid a visit to discuss marriage. Elsie’s parents wanted to celebrate the wedding at once, but the warthog had a few questions.

“What makes Elsie so clever?” he asked.

Elsie’s parents looked at each other, baffled. For though they had heard the rumor of Elsie’s newfound cleverness and though they hoped it was true, they had not yet seen a shred of evidence that it was. They thought and thought but could not come up with a single instance of Elsie’s doing anything that wasn’t disgusting or mean or just plain dull.

The three rats spoke up.

“Well,” said Mustard, “she can see the wind before the storm.”

“And she knew not to trust that little girl in the red hood,” added Bubbles and Squeak.

“Are you saying,” queried the warthog, “that she can see the future?”

“That’s
it
!” said Mustard.

“Just so! Just so!” cried Bubbles and Squeak.

“Ahhh,” said the warthog. “Well, I didn’t get rich and powerful by believing any old thing. I’ll need proof.” He turned to Elsie. “What do you see now, Miss Wolf?”

Elsie squinted hard but spoke not a word.

“Sometimes it takes a while,” said Mustard. “Have a seat.”

The warthog sat down and Big Bad sent Elsie to the cellar for cider.

The rats followed.

“We must do something,” whispered Mustard.

“But what?” asked Bubbles and Squeak.

“I’m thinking,” said Mustard.

Elsie ordered the rats to fill the pitcher and stepped on poor Squeak’s bad foot for good measure. Mustard scrambled up the side of a great wooden keg and opened the spout.

“You know, Elsie,” said Mustard as cider
poured into the pitcher, “if you marry the warthog, you might have a son.”

“Yes,” said Bubbles. “He would be a fearsome creature indeed.”

“Fangs, warts,
and
tusks!” squeaked Squeak.

“That would be marvelous!” said Elsie.

“But,” said Mustard, “what if … Oh, I cannot bear to think it!”

“What if
what
?” asked Elsie.

“No, no, I cannot say it!”

“You must!” cried Elsie.

“Yes, yes! You must!” said Bubbles and Squeak.

“Well, okay,” said Mustard. “What if your son fetches cider one day for you and the warthog?”

“He’s a dear boy,” said Elsie.

“Yes, of course,” said Mustard. “But perhaps, while he’s down here, that shelf up there, which
may
have termites, falls down and … well … you know.”

Elsie and Bubbles and Squeak all looked up. There on the shelf, smack-dab above them, were three big barrels, filled with apple cider. “Oh my,” said Elsie.

“Oh dear oh dear oh dear!” added Bubbles and Squeak.

“Yes,” said Mustard, “it would be terrible. Smashed warthog-wolf.” He began to sniff.

Bubbles whimpered.

Squeak moaned.

Elsie howled.

Upstairs, the wolves and the warthog got antsy. After a while Big Bad spoke up.

“Wife,” he said, “go down to the cellar and see what that clever thing Elsie is doing.”

Mrs. Wolf went down and found Elsie and the
rats weeping by the cider keg. “What’s wrong, dear?” she asked.

“I might marry the warthog,” said Elsie, “and have a fearsome son, and one day, the cider barrels will crush him to mush.” Then she sniveled herself into another fit of slobbery sobs.

“You
can
foresee the future! Then you truly
must
be clever!” exclaimed Mrs. Wolf, delighted that Elsie had
any
talent at all. “But oh! My poor fearsome grandson—I cannot bear to lose him in such a wretched way!” And the mother wailed and lamented the tragedy along with her daughter.

Upstairs, the warthog waxed impatient.

“I’ll go myself,” said Big Bad, “and see what keeps them.”

In the cellar, he found Mrs. Wolf and Elsie ankle deep in tears.

The three rats huddled together on a dry box in the corner.

When Big Bad asked what the problem was and Elsie started to explain, the rats saw their chance. They made a break for it.

Mustard, Bubbles, and Squeak were halfway across the cellar when Big Bad spotted them.

“Oh no you don’t!” he hollered.

Elsie grabbed a shovel with the clever idea of bonking their little heads. Instead, she hit the shelf, which really did have termites. It crumbled and the barrels crashed down and rolled over one, two, three wolves, leaving them flat as pattycakes.

“Oh well,” said the warthog, who saw the whole thing from the cellar door. “That’s that.” He grabbed his hat and set off to look for another clever maiden.

The three rats climbed the stairs, closed the cellar door behind them, and sealed it up with a new brick wall.

After that, they moved back into their own bedrooms, made a small fortune as bricklayers specializing in fancy chimneys, and lived happily ever after.