The Secret of the Ginger Mice (17 page)

“Alex,” said Alice, when they had returned to their room after dinner, leaving Horace and Sophia to finish their coffee on the terrace, “there's something not quite right about Sophia. Why did she ask us so many questions?”

Alex, stretched out on his bed beneath the window, snorted. “Give it a rest, sis. Horace is a bit strange, I'll grant you, but there's nothing wrong with Sophia. She finds us very interesting—and who can blame her? Anyway, isn't eating in restaurants and sleeping in hotels better than eating dry bread in a cave?”

Alice glared at him. “Would you stop thinking with your stomach for one minute and listen to me? What about the fact that Sophia said they'd set off shortly after we did, but Mr. Grudge told us he'd seen a gray mouse and a black one in his garden with a ladder? If they only
found out about us from Uncle Ebenezer after we'd left, what were they doing in the garden earlier that morning?”

“If you're trying to prove they're the kidnappers,” Alex argued, “answer this: Why are they helping us to look for Alistair? They should already have him. And who knows? Maybe Mr. Grudge saw different gray and black mice in his lettuce patch.”

“Oh, I see,” said Alice through gritted teeth. “You're suggesting there are two pairs of gray and black mice roaming around Shetlock looking for Alistair?”

Alex shrugged. “It's possible, isn't it?”

Alice thumped her pillow in frustration. She was sure there was something suspicious about Sophia. Why couldn't her brother see it? Well, he could do what he liked, but she would be keeping an eye on the silvery Sophia. . . .

“Could you close the shutters, Alex?” she complained. “I can't sleep with the light in my eyes.”

“All right, all right, keep your fur on.” Kneeling up on his bed, Alex leaned out the window toward the shutters. He began to laugh. “Hey, sis, check this out—Horace has a bald patch.”

Alice forgot she was cross with him and hopped out of bed to join him at the window.

“Ha! He does too. I never noticed that before. Maybe
he brushes his fur over to cover it?”

Almost as if he knew they were talking about him, Horace ran a hand over the fur on his head, then they heard him say: “First we're sent to Smiggins, then we're told, ‘Oh no, you have to go to Stubbins now.'” His voice sounded whiny. “We were told that all we had to do was follow his brother and sister and we'd find the ginger one. Now we've been walking for days and it turns out they have no idea where he is.”

“Horace, Horace,” said Sophia patiently. “You really must learn to relax—go with the flow. Alex and Alice seem set on going to Shambles, so we'll go to Shambles with them. If there's no sign of their brother there . . .
pffft
.” She flicked a finger as if dispatching an annoying insect. “We'll get rid of them. Permanently.”

12

A
listair woke from a dream in which two columns of red-coated mice were advancing on him as he lay in a blue-striped tent with his arms pinned to the ground by giant boulders. With an enormous sigh of relief he recognized the green fronds of the willow tree.

He turned his head to see Tibby Rose lying on her back a few meters away, fast asleep.

It was when he lifted his arm to lever himself up that Alistair realized why he had been dreaming about having enormous weights on his arms; they were so stiff he could barely move them.

He lay still, contemplating a life without the use of his
arms, until he heard a snuffling snore and then: “I'd get up,” Tibby Rose said, “but I can't actually lift my arms.”

“I know,” said Alistair ruefully. “That'll teach us to behave like Olympic paddlers.”

“Please tell me we don't have to go on the raft again today.”

“I wish I could,” said Alistair, “but . . .”

“Couldn't we walk?”

“Too slow.”

Tibby sighed. “At least tell me we don't have to eat blackberries for breakfast. Given the way we look I'd feel like a cannibal.”

“Ah, I've got some good news on that front.” With a groan Alistair put a hand to the ground and pushed himself upright, then reached for the cloth bag Mags had handed him the night before. “We've got bread, cheese, strawberries and—what's this? Mmm . . . two pieces of apple pie.”

“That sounds lovely . . . But could you feed me, please? I don't think I'll be able to lift my hand to my mouth.”

Alistair extended a hand and, moaning, Tibby let him pull her up. “You'll feel better once you're moving,” he promised. “Our muscles just need warming up. Now what do you want for breakfast?”

“Apple pie,” said Tibby Rose promptly. When Alistair
raised his eyebrows she shrugged. “I can't say that Great-Aunt Harriet would approve, but so what? Great-Aunt Harriet isn't here. She's stuck at home covered in purple spots.” Tibby chewed the piece of apple pie Alistair had handed her. “I wonder how she'll explain her miracle cure after so many years.”

As his friend ate, Alistair recalled the words of Timmy the Winns the night before:
Do you know why you're traveling . . . Have you thought of those you leave behind?
Alistair had immediately thought of his own family, but what about Tibby's? With a sudden pang he remembered kindly Grandpa Nelson and fierce Great-Aunt Harriet, so determined to protect Tibby Rose that they wouldn't let her leave the house, and were seemingly prepared to give up their own freedom. And now she was gone. How must they be feeling?

“Tibby,” he said, “Timmy the Winns asked me the strangest questions last night. He asked me if I knew why I was traveling, and if I had thought about those I left behind. At first I thought of Shetlock and my family—that I was traveling to them because I had left them behind. But . . . I think he might have been asking more than that. I mean, if I think about why I'm so anxious to get home, it's really to do with my parents. When they went away and never came back. . . .” He paused, trying to think of the words that would describe the pain he had
felt, but no words seemed adequate. “It was awful,” he said finally. “I decided that I never wanted to cause pain like that to people I love. I suppose it's made me a bit too cautious.”

Tibby shook her head. “With me it's the opposite,” she said. “I know that Grandpa Nelson and Great-Aunt Harriet were trying to protect me, but you can't hold people back because you're scared of them getting hurt, or you're scared of getting hurt yourself. Taking risks is part of life, and so is getting hurt. People have to live their own lives.” She was silent for a moment, and Alistair wondered if, despite her brave words, she was thinking of the two old mice she'd left behind. Then she said briskly, “We might as well get moving.” She stood and brushed the crumbs from her fur.

When they left the shelter of the willow tree, Alistair saw that the weather had changed. The sky was low with brooding clouds the same bruised, muddy color as their fur.

“Alistair,” Tibby said, as they launched the raft and maneuvered into the current, “why didn't you tell Timmy the Winns our real names? Didn't you trust him? I thought he and Griff and Mags and the rest were all really nice.”

“It wasn't that I didn't trust him,” Alistair said, settling into a slow, regular stroke as Tibby kept them
on course with the steering pole. “I did trust him, I think . . . I just had a sense that he didn't want to know our secrets. Or that maybe he already knew them. I mean, he knew straight away that our names were fake.”

“Telling him my name was Jim probably didn't help,” said Tibby Rose.

“I was put on the spot,” Alistair protested. “I couldn't think of anything else. But anyway, he just laughed, and he didn't ask for our real names. And then I wondered . . . Tibby, did you notice his arms? They were his real fur, not dyed like the rest of him, and it was hard to tell because there was such a swirl of colors, but I think I saw some ginger.”

“Ginger?” Tibby's eyes were wide. “But he can't be like us. I mean, remember how friendly the guard was?”

“Yeah, but he is dyed, isn't he? Like us . . .” Alistair started thinking again about Timmy the Winns's ironic smile; how he looked at Alistair as if the two of them shared a secret. Tibby, too, seemed lost in her own thoughts, and so they drifted down the river without speaking.

When his stomach told him it was lunchtime, Alistair tore some bread from the loaf and handed it to Tibby, who murmured her thanks, and early in the afternoon they pulled into a small pebbly beach to rest their arms and stretch their legs, before setting off again. As they
pushed off from the beach, they felt the first spatters of rain, and within a few minutes it was pouring, rain streaming down their whiskers and soaking their fur. Alistair scanned the river's banks for shelter, dashing raindrops from his eyes, but there was no shelter to be had. They had no choice but to continue on in the hope of finding a place to stop further downriver.

Shivering as a slight wind chilled his damp fur, Alistair tried to think of something other than his discomfort. His mind worried at the big, unsolved mystery which had led to him rafting down this river: How did he get to Templeton in the first place? He was pretty sure by now that he wasn't trapped in an exceptionally long-running and vivid dream. He supposed it was possible that he was mad and his whole adventure in Souris was one grand delusion (that would certainly explain the fact that he had seen yellow and green and orange and scarlet and blue mice), but he didn't
feel
mad. (Then again, if you were mad you probably didn't know it.) What about magic? Alistair wasn't inclined to believe in magic, but at the moment he was feeling hard pressed to come up with another explanation. Still, if he had been transported to Souris by an act of magic, what was its purpose? He didn't think it likely that magicians or wizards or witches just wandered around practicing random acts of magic, and his sudden appearance in Souris was nothing if not random.

Alistair sighed and shook the water from his face. Maybe he'd never know. . . .

“We must be getting near the lake,” Tibby remarked. The banks were so high they could see nothing of the countryside they were passing through, but the current was growing noticeably swifter. She gestured with her pole to a rocky outcrop on the left bank. “Perhaps we should stop over by those rocks. Maybe if we climb the bank, we'll be able to see how far away the lake is.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Alistair, and he rowed hard to the right with his paddle to steer them toward the left bank.

“Hey, Tib,” he said after a few minutes in which he didn't seem to be making any impact on the direction of the raft, “can you give us a push with the pole? I'm having a bit of trouble getting us to the side.”

“I
am
pushing,” Tibby said. “As hard as I can. The current's too strong. Anyway, we'll be close to the side soon enough—look at how the river's narrowing up ahead.”

The river was getting ever faster, the raft rocking on the current. Alistair felt a sudden thrill of fear between his shoulder blades as he heard what sounded like a distant roar.

“Tibby,” he called, as the roar became louder, “what's that sound?”

He didn't hear her reply. “What?” he shouted. “I can't hear you!”