

Pool Of Tears

A Murine Memoir

(Book one of the Mustt adventures)

SMASHWORDS EDITION

***

Published By

Angus Brownfield on Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 by Angus Brownfield

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Pool Of Tears

'Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, 'to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying.' So she began: 'O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!'

Alice in Wonderland, Chapter II: The Pool of Tears

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men  
Gang aft agley.

Robert Burns

Table of Contents

chapter 1: Introducing Dorothy

chapter 2: A few words on where we come from

Dorothy Mustt's Diary, Part 1: Bigs

chapter 3: Jason

chapter 4: Ramback house

chapter 5: On being a mouse

chapter 6: Jason on the brink

chapter 7: Mending Jason

chapter 8: Is it to be or not to be?

chapter 9: You ain't talkin' Christ

Dorothy Mustt's Diary, Part 2: The Journey Back

chapter 10: Upside-down rain

chapter 11: One question too many

chapter 12: Heading for the beach

Chapter 13: June-June

chapter 14: Dream weed

chapter 15: Back in Subdivision

chapter 16: Decisions

chapter 17: War council

Dorothy Mustt's Diary, Part 3: The Matrix's Sanctuary

chapter 18: Keeping Subdivision free

chapter 19: We don't assassinate

chapter 20: Stormy weather

chapter 21: Gilda and Joaquín

chapter 22: Jason meets Dorothy

chapter 23: Gilda on talking

chapter 24: An awful truth

chapter 25: The Matrix's notebooks

Further Adventures Of A Talker

chapter 26: Calamity comes to Ramback House

chapter 27: Love note

chapter 28: The truth about Jason

chapter 29: Sadder than a teevee drama

chapter 30: Why

### chapter 1: Introducing Dorothy

"It might be hard to give up a cash mouse."

My name's Gavin MacDonald. The words in quotes were spoken to me by one Dorothy Mustt, in a room within the Domestic Animal Control Center at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, down in sunny San Diego County.

Before you puzzle too much about the meaning of the sentence, think on this: the cash mouse was Dorothy herself; she spoke the words. Though she looked like an ordinary mouse in other respects, she displayed one odd feature: she possessed opposable thumbs. You probably wouldn't notice them until she sat on her haunches and clasped her little hands together, like a sage deep in thought, or a penitent praying for mercy.

While you ponder that, think on this: to go with the opposable thumbs, she had the gift of speech.

A gift, indeed, it was. What took hominids evolving through perhaps four thousand generations to acquire, she inherited from a generation of "transgenic" mice engineered within the last ten years. That her speech and intelligence is the product of genetic tinkering—the addition of human genes to the mouse genome—does not in any way alter the fact that Dorothy, her family, and a whole tribe of Talkers, as they call themselves, are intelligent, feeling beings.

##

I was privileged to make Dorothy's acquaintance through a series of accidents. I am a writer; my agent, David Minsch, was formerly an officer in US Army Counterintelligence, with residual connections within the intelligence community. The CIA was looking for contact with a writer who knew a house mouse from a ferret. I was, while attending college, an animal caretaker in a biomedical research lab. QED.

Why a writer? I was invited to edit (or more perfectly, "transliterate") a diary Dorothy kept secreted on a computer in the humans' house where she and the Mustt family resided. Thus, Dorothy Mustt was my cash mouse, and her reason for reminding me of it was a suspicion that I might be capable of betraying her to keep the cash flowing.

If you think a mouse keeping a diary is preposterous, think on this: she meant "cash mouse" as a joke, and a sarcastic one at that. It takes intelligence well beyond an African gray parrot's to do more than mimic human speech. To crack a joke requires real intelligence. To be sarcastic implies feelings.

" _Cash mouse" is, of course, an allusion to "cash cow," which in itself is a fairly sophisticated concept. I looked it up online to make sure I fully understood it. Dorothy learned it from watching television._

Dorothy was, when I met her, incarcerated on the Marine base. She was being taken quite seriously by her jailers, the CIA, so seriously my decision to help her escape her bounds has me in a foreign country, looking over my shoulder for agents who, at the least, would incarcerate me. In my nightmares I imagine much worse. The CIA's interest in Dorothy is to find out where the rest of the Talkers are, so that they can exploit them as spies, microbot bombers and assassins.

I made the decision, as soon as I grasped that I was dealing with a languaged creature, and so far as I know the only one on the planet besides Man, to help Dorothy escape and rejoin her kind in terra incognita. All this intrigue is the subject of another book, should I live so long. What you will read here is how Dorothy Mustt came to the attention of the CIA, or at least the attention of the man who betrayed her to them.

That's as much as you need to know to begin to make sense of what you read in the ensuing chapters, except to point out that Dorothy's speech was heavily influenced by a couple of Scots, so that she uses contractions I've chosen to leave in the text, and a few words you may stumble over, such as ken (ken, kenning, kent) which means, roughly, to understand or grasp. I'll let Dorothy, through her memoir, take it from there.

chapter 2: A few words on where we come from

One of my littermates, Brack, ca'ed me Crump not long after he could talk, and, when we got older, added Fat Broad. My proper name is Dorothy, but the ill-names he added hit home, fer I am a fat mouse with a lame hind leg.

I am of the Talkers, a tribe of mice created in the lab of The Matrix, a scientist named Eden Godwyn, and of the clan of Subdivisioners, crosst Wide Boulevard a generation after the Great Escape and found a living in the hidey-holes a Bigs' homes. My family is the Mustts, and our Big family are the Rambacks, the lot a whom I will name as they come into my story, but here I mention especially my dear, sweet Jason, ca'ed Pony Boy by his littermates, fer reasons you shall see.

I ha' sneaked peeks at the diary a young Miss Artemis Ramback, a creature both comely and nasty, the equal to her twin, Apollo. I know from this peek you aim the words in a diary at a body outside yourself. She says 'Dear Diary,' as if she writes to a person. 'Cept fer this part in the front—case Jason is run over by a garbage truck—I'm writing mine to him, fer it's on his own computer keys I dance from letter to letter, pushing 'em down like in the cartoons the women wi' washboards scrub the didees.

But my reason fer writing is no to please myself, but to make a record a what we Talkers ha' come to. If Bigs be anything they be so taken up wi' themselves they canna ken the notion of another talking creature, much less a mouse can read and write. It is the great fear of all Talkers they will discover us and ca up The Worst Case Scenario, which is our name fer their doing to us what they do to each other, wi' rockets or gas or germs.

##

How we came about is known to a few and passed on as what Grandpa Scootch names 'oral history,' words he learnt from a show on the history channel he managed to stay awake through.

Seems The Matrix, what's ca'ed a geneticist, wanted us to have thumbs, so's she could discover how animals learn new tricks wi' new powers. So she took some of her own DNA and lashed it onto some mouse DNA and made a critter like ordinary mice but with a thumb where ordinary mice have just a wee nub. She set up all sorts of spearmints and watched us, took pictures, had her graduate students watch us, expecting us to start swinging like monkeys and grabbin' food through the cage bars and otherwise using these new body parts.

We didna oblige. We went on acting like mice. And so one a her mates, a feller she got The Notion wi' now and again, told her to give us a gene fer smartness. And she did. She added some more of her DNA to a batch of mouse DNA and the mice who were born were not only smart enough to use our thumbs, they were smart enough not to.

See, wi' the second batch of genes we started learning the gabble of Bigs in The Lab. Some was gobbledygook, words like recombination and genome, but from the ones fed us and cleaned our cages, like Jock Campbell and Charlie Ruiz, we learned ordinary words, like pellets and water and wood shavings.

And right from the start some wise mouse—many will say 'twas Gilda herself—spoke out the Prime Directive: never never _ever_ talk to a Big. No one knows why, just seemed risky, letting Bigs know we talked. And it seemed natural not to let 'em know we understood talk either, so to all the games and mazes and special treats fer doing tricks we stayed as dumb as the Mutes who lived down the hall and out in the wilds outside Subdivision.

But in the end what we thought would save us was nearly our doom, fer The Matrix decided we were a flop and ended her spearmints. We were to be killt, so's we'd not make pinkies with any mice dinna have thumbs. Was our luck Charlie Ruiz was on night shift when that order came down, fer he couldna kill us, being kind and also afraid a chemicals and such, so he put us out, thrown willy-nilly into a garbage can, and left a note on the can lid to take it, no opent, to the dump.

The night a the Great Escape a fearsome wind rose and blew Charlie Ruiz's note away, and the garbage men, leery of anythin' outside The Lab they couldna explain, left the can with all the Talkers in it. A raccoon was not so leery, she smellt a meal there, and pusht the can over, worked off the lid, and caught three of my ancestors whilst the rest scattered. Some made it into The Lab, where Gilda had discovered Secret Chambers. She is said to ha' stood on a window ledge and hollered "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free. I've found safety. Come in from the night. Ollie Ollie Oxen Free!" Fourteen mice climbed up the downspout and leapt to the window ledge, to follow Gilda to Secret Chambers. No one knows what become a the mice who didn't follow her, but they were never seen again.

DOROTHY MUSTT'S DIARY, PART 1: Bigs

chapter 3: Jason

I must write of Jason first, fer twixt me and him there lies a sad tale of unrequited love cross species.

"Time out of mind," all stories begin. Time out of mind those a Jason's species were simply big, so big that's what we called 'em: Bigs. Cat-big you could ken, rat-big, too, would snatch a wee one from the nest and feed its young on ours. But they were big like houses, big as wind blowing trees, lightening big—beyond kenning.

Yet just there, like the sky, the street outside, the cupboard where the traps were, just there.

Our kind came to Ramback House, says Grandpa Scootch, from The Lab. Was in the days of his grandpa, after the Great Escape, the night a heroine named Gilda led a band a mouse kin to the Secret Chambers in the hamsters' house. Was another group, the Hardy Band, struck out from The Lab that night and came direct to Subdivision. After a time they sent back one scout after another to tell those in Secret Chambers of the good life in houses of Bigs. 'Twas a fearless few—Grandpa Scootch, Grandma Blenda, and my aunt, Baney Sue, among 'em—finally got the urge and struck out fer Subdivision, crossing Wide Boulevard in the wee hours, steering clear a deadly autos and slipping by raccoons, guard dogs and house cats to find, under the floors and in the basements and even walls a the Bigs' houses, The Good Life.

Was fierce debate among those in Secret Chambers says Grandpa, bout leaving or staying, some moutht excuses to stay, like preferring hamster chow to the White Coats' bologna sandwiches and oreos when the real reason is, change was scary.

So the ones not so scared did it, and my kin chose the Ramback's house—willy-nilly, cause it be right on Wide Boulevard, vacant a mice (not kenning 'twas vacant on account a traps and pizon) and only one cat lived there, named Pony Boy, fer to spite Jason, too well fed to be much of a hunter, and one old feeble dog, called Fart, couldna hunt neither, and the pantry so messy there were always macaroni, quick oats, or raisins lying aboot, victuals the Bigs never missed. They threw pretty good veggies in the trash basket, too, and meat bones that wouldn't go down the garbage grinder, and, luck of luck, one Ramback was a night owl, Master Jason, and he was plumb messy, wi' peanuts and chips a corn and potato.

We had no idee there were different kinds a Bigs, fer though we had speech our thoughts were as innocent as our kin caged in the Cognitive Science Lab, down the hall from Secret Chambers. When we came here a thing was a thing: you ate it, you lived in it, you shunned it like a trap.

But though we learned important facts aboot the world from them, we also learned the Rambacks wirna the prize catch in Subdivision. While some Bigs be kind and generous, treating all persons like persons, some be terrible rascals, wi' guns or swords or airplanes tha' rained down death on innocent folks or blew 'em up in far off places. Grandpa Scootch said was television made us Musts so smart, what wi' the Rambacks' way of leaving it on when gone, the blue light fuzzing up the window glass to thwart the stealy boys.

Grandpa Scootch was first to ken the value of teevee chatter. Said Grandpa Scootch, "Twas the pictures on the screen. We kenned they showed folks like the Rambacks. We kenned the scurrying aboot and heard 'em talking, we began to realize something of Bigs, their world so vast Subdivision be tiny, like we wee mice seem tiny to Bigs. We used our powers a speech to learn the world."

Grandpa Scootch would tell it a hundred times in his old talk. "We judged those mighty feet, their iron-hard soles, connected to a brain and a heart not meek and dainty like ours, Bigs thought they was by God gods."

We picked up teevee words: "Holy molars, Batman!" or, "Now hang on, Pardner." Useful, silly but useful. We learned a the pizon grain from teevee ads, and Mumsy learned to say "no" when Poptart got his whiskers atwitch and sang her songs in mouse talk, looking to make another batch of wee ones. Grandpa Scootch is enormous old and says he's lived twice what his pa did who lived twice his pa's time, even if he didna ken the teevee gabble.

Which put in my mind early on the view we are living longer and changing faster—all Talkers are. Whether 'tis speech or thumbs or something else we have that mice out in the fields beyond Subdivision donna, we be here long enough these days to have a life (another expression from the teevee).

And though we ha' grown to three generations a Musts, there was only one a Rambacks, Peter called Popsy and wife Wanda, known as Mum, and their four children. My brother, Brack, says times come we outlive Bigs, cause Bigs be destroying themselves, and mice will inherit the world. To which my other brothers, Zack (R.I.P.), Mack, Shaq and Frac would always add, "Amen."

'Mustt' is the family name we mice descended from Grandpa Scootch and Grandma Blenda adopted, in the style of Bigs, a last name fer all the young'uns, whom I'll introduce as they come into my tale. I am officially Dorothy Mustt, but my family never calls me that, I'm Microchip to Popsy, and Crump to Brack, who in privy talk wi' those of our generation has declared himself Chancellor of Subdivision.

##

Jason, the auldest Ramback lad, was ca'ed Pony Boy cause of a patch a hair on his cheek his littermates decided lookt like the hair on a pony's back. I believed no such thing, and I'll tell why anon. But fer now you need know that, from the time I could tell one Ramback from t'other, Jason spent nights sleeping in the recliner, in front a teevee, in the family room. When he was asleep we Musts had already done most of our evening gathering, so I would sit under the edge a his chair, eating Tostito crumbs and watching late night oldies, till the screen went blank or they started to sell Ginsu knives.

Sometimes Jason woke during commercials, rubbed his eyes, picked up his notebook and wrote in it. Or he would punch the remote to change channels, to find one wi' no commercials. I watched it all, commercials and shows, which was how I learnt most a the things I know aboot humans—the beauty of idealism, the heartbreak of psoriasis.

I loved Jason—far as a mouse can love a human—in part because to me he was handsome—dark wavy hair and eyes like Elvis Presley—but more cause he wept with Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet, and cheered Gunga Din, and swaggered after he seen John Wayne walk like John Wayne walks in movies.

Once I saw him pick up a baby robin hoppt out a the nest too early, and stuck it back on a branch where mither and faither scolded Jason something terrible and he just grinned at 'em and said, "You wouldn't like it if the cat ate him, would you."

In his opent notebook I read lines (once I learned to read the flowing squiggles a Big writing) like, "If I were handsome, nothing would stop me from going to Hollywood and wooing Jennifer Jones." Jason was handsome—in this mouse's eyes—'specially fer the thing made his family regret him.

The patch a fur on his face was in colors suited a mouse. It started on the right temple and dipped down, narrowing twixt his sad brown eye and pink ear, widening again on the jaw and just under it. The fur was aboot the length 'twould be if Jason were a mouse; it looked very sleek and healthy.

'Twas cause a this fur, which no other Big I seen has, save only the Wolf Man a films (and his is stiff and raggedy as a rat's) his nest mates ca'ed him "Pony Boy." As I've never been close to a pony, and cause ponies on teevee are too far away from camera to see how the hair might feel, I've no idee how tight the name fits. All I know is, Jason weeps, atimes, from his family's naming. His mother and father never ca him Pony Boy to his face, but I've heard his mother softly singing a tune by that name, off in the kitchen lost in a cookie recipe, having no idee how cruel she is. That kind a cruelty I know, what wi' Crump fer my crumpled hind leg and Fat Broad, and no one chides Brack when they don't know I can hear him. I call him some things I've learned on teevee, like slime ball or ogre, but 'tis not the same, cause he don't know what the names mean less I tell 'em, and there isn't a glimmer of truth in 'em. I called Shaq a rat once, and he bit my tail.

##

The most pitiful sound ever I heard was my late brother, Zack, squealing in a pantry snap trap. He'd been caught square cross the middle, one front leg pinned under him, and he lived an eternity, I reckon, till he breathed his last. He had such a fine nose and chatty eyes, but those are just words now, fer I remember his eyes bulging as he died a the breath, and the pink froth covering his muzzle.

Course was nothing I could do, even if I weren't a damaged mouse. I yelled at him, just afore he tried his famous 'running grab' at the cheese, but it mattered naught. He was a risk-taker, Zack, a tease and risk-taker, the one who dubbed me 'Broad,' who tickled me wi' his whiskers when I got too serious, a fine, rather sandy-grey mouse.

##

The Rambacks, I guess, are not cruel people by intent, they are just folk—homo sapiens, the thinking, feeling species, so they tell the world on their science shows—and you know what that means. Walk softly and carry a big label. They call us mus musculus, which means smelly mouse or muscle mouse—I never found the dictionary open to that page, so I'm no sure.

##

My main job in the Mustt family is look-out, which has its irony. Lame and over-weight, due to lack of exercise, come a big-time urgency, I must raise the alarm and then likely be eaten, smashed, or vacuumed up—one a the great mouse dreads—whilst sprightlier Musts escape. My other job is thinking, though I don't call it that, since that's what Bigs do, I call it puttin' two and two together, which is what I'm good at, though no one listens. They think cause I can string words together like a Big I'm smart—they call me Microchip all the time—but 'tis just the teevee. A smart mouse would be one who lived in the forest, collected lots a seeds and dug lots a tasty bulbs and roots, and wouldn't give a second thought to Bigs.

—I think 'tis enough background to ken my sad tale of unrequited love cross species, which, alas, is a tale a betrayal as well.

chapter 4: Ramback house

Before I tell you how I fell in love with the Jason Ramback ca'ed Pony Boy, I must tell you something a his life as he lived it fore he learned a me and mine.

When first I sat under the recliner, munching snacks wi' him as he watched teevee, Jason was sixteen, a boy in the Big world, an ancient in ours. Younger were the twins, I ha' said were named Artemis and Apollo, though they liked to ca' each other Sissy and Spike, still a wee plump yet, as befits a pup. Sister Mariah was two years older than Jason, a fine specimen of Big, tall and shapely in their eyes, wi' glossy chestnut hair and smooth skin the color of a biscuit, but nasty a temper, so that her Mum and Popsy betimes ca'ed her Hellion. She acted more than two years older, dating and chasing Jason out a the family room when she brought home a feller and they squirmed together in the recliner chair, lit only by the teevee, the sound of an old movie hiding their squirming sounds.

Mariah didn't even pretend to be nice when she threw Jason out. She'd say, "Out of here, you freak, or I'll beat the shit out of you!" in a voice so shrill it hurt mouse ears. And he went, so shamed he sidled away, face turned away from the squirmy feller, the teevee images reflecting off his glasses.

Once, when I saw those eyes behind the images, as I sat on the mantel behind a fancy clock, they were nearly as black as a mouse's, so sorrowful it started my heart to hurt. Any feller with such soulful eyes and a patch of fur on his face canna be all bad.

And when Jason was gone, Mariah would say to the young man she'd brought home, "Come and watch with me," scootching over and patting the recliner beside her, and always adding, "but only if you promise to be good."

I reckon _good_ in Mariah's eyes was kissing good and feeling her good, hands atimes in the top of her dress and neath the hem at once—that kind of good. And there were rumbly grunts from the young man and mousy yips and sighs from Mariah, till she would say, "That's enough," and there was always, after her "That's enough," which e'er brought a sickly groan or angry words. You'd think she was starving him or twisting his tail. One or two got up calling her names I canna repeat, to slam out the front door in a huff.

Mariah may ha' thought no one was eyeing her recliner get-togethers, but Jason often went up to his room only to tiptoe back to the top of the stairs and lie on the carpet beside the railing wi' binoculars and look down on his sister and her sweetheart and breathe hard, sometimes moan like he couldn't believe what he saw.

Artemis and Apollo would do this, too, nights Jason was at his friend's house and Mariah happened to bring a feller home. They sneakt into Jason's room and took his binoculars wioot asking and lay there, where he would lie, take turns watching, and they—young enough the bumps on Artemis's front were little knobs not half the size of her sister's—would sometimes pretend they were doing what their sister did, and would giggle till you could be sure those down below heard them, only Mariah would like as not be doing her own "oh, oh, oh," and not hear them a tall.

—Except once, I do recall. Apollo got too frisky, cause Artemis said "Ouch!" so loud Mariah did hear it, and the slap that followed. She jumped up, already heading fer the stairs, never minding rumples in her dress front, to hiss at the twins, "You little beasts! You ruin this for me and I'll make your life such a hell you'll wish you'd never been born."

And when Apollo tried to answer back she grabbed a handful a his curly blond hair in one hand and wi' t'other smacked him James Cagney style—forehand and back—and said, "Go diddle your twin someplace else, you little pervert."

I'm not sure exactly what ruining it fer her meant. One night, sitting under the recliner till they got busy squirming, I heard Bob say, "What if your folks come down here?"

"They never," says Mariah. "They drink themselves silly every night and then they take sleeping pills," though she said it in a whisper, keeping her voice lower than the teevee sound, so that only a feller in the recliner wi' her, or a mouse beneath, might hear her talking.

But Popsy didn't always take sleeping pills. One night I watched him watching his young'un kissing and carrying on in the dark a the family room, wi' only the blue glow of the teevee lighting them.

(Not like Poptart when Frac or Shaq get The Notion when me or my sisters are in season. Poptart bites the boys' tails and scolds something fierce if they look to act on The Notion. "Behave civilized!" he shouts, "you were no born in a bern." And I guess maybe Popsy would do the same if he knew a his fair and shapely twins wrestling round on the carpet at the top of the stairs, like she was in season and he was a mousy with whiskers atwitch and keening a love song.)

##

Jason quit school soon after I was old enough to unnerstand words. At first he would complain of a headache or bellyache, and, he could make his face look like something awful was going on inside. Mumsy would say, "Jason, I know the kids tease you, but you also know what Dr. Harvey said, that the hair is in all likelihood going to be there the rest of your life. And you know what Reverend Davis said, too, how someday a woman's going to look at that patch of hair and decide it's the most beautiful hair in the world."

Not knowing that fore any Jenny or Sue thought it beautiful a mouse named Dorothy found it so.

Mumsy tried sending him to school despite his aches, only to get a call from the school to pick Jason up cause he'd got sick and heaved up Jonah. I knew Jason had got his way bout school when he started growing a beard. The beard wasn't so nice as the patch of pony hair, but it covered a lot of his face, and the two sort a blended in. Only the school had a rule agin beards cause the higher-ups said 'twas a gang sign. I know this cause a lady called herself a Family Outreach Specialist came to the house to chat up Mum and Popsy and she told them this. To be fair to Mrs. Ramback, she told the lady no one in his right mind would mistake Jason fer a gangster, but it did no good. The Specialist warned of what she called precedents.

After that Mum said her little boy didn't have to go to school, he could take an exam and get a GED when he thought he'd studied enough. I already knew Jason was smarter than all get-out and probably didn't need teachers to tell him what to read or learn, but he was lazy and dreamy in those days, slept till all hours, stayed up most the night watching Romances and Action Films, those the sort he liked, not Suspense or Horror.

Because he wasna in school Jason was alone much a the day. His father goes to an office downtown, where he's said to watch his money grow and make sure no one infringes on his patents. He invented some kind a self-locking bolt used in every car made in America. He claims he doesn't get enough money cause the Japanese are so clever at sneaking around American patents.

Mrs. Ramback tells it different on the phone to friends. She says, all snippety, the most important piece a furniture in Popsy's office is the couch and the most used device his secretary. When Mrs. Ramback isn't on the phone saying wicked things bout her husband and a lot of others, she's whisker deep in social things, from golf to the garden club to drinks, the evenings Popsy's away, with The Girls at the country club.

(I had no idea at first what Mum was talking bout when she made mention of the couch, and I thought a secretary be a piece a furniture not a Big, till finally I put it together: Mr. Ramback was up to squirmy business wi' this secretary person, like Mariah Hellion on the recliner wi' the boys she brings home.

(Brack told me to grow up. Brack says Popsy gets "his jollies" wi' the secretary, meaning, I ken, he gets The Notion, and she, like all female Bigs, is always in season, though not so's you'd know it, given the few times Mariah has let Bob have his way, and, according to Brack, the almost no times Mrs. Ramback gives in to Mister. Brack researches these Big ways.)

The twins play soccer after school. A neighbor with young'uns on the same teams drives 'em most days, and they come home loud and smelly and covered wi' dirt and must go up and take showers in the bathroom twixt their bedrooms, and when they do there's lots a yelling and singing and a lot of laughing, too. They are altogether wrapped up in themselves, and when one looks at t'other, they see themselves, just turned into t'other sex.

##

Love gives you energy, like leftovers from a granola bar. Sometimes, after I fell fer him, I had the energy to stay up after daybreak to be wi' Jason. 'Tis then he is at the computer most, surfing the Net or else writing his Life Story and has been ever since I learned to read. He is very clever, fer he has two sections to his tale, the day-by-day, like a diary, and the part where it comes together, which has sections wi' headlines like, "Incestuous Twins," "The Horrors of Hirsutism," or "Hirsutism or Hypertrichosis?"

Jason also looks at his face in the mirror a lot during the day. One time he tried cutting the pony hair real close with scissors (the doctor forbids him to shave it, cause the birthmark underneath may turn into a cancer), and then wept, cause it made things worse. Another time he bought a dye for men's beards, but his pony hair amna the same as a beard, it willna take the color.

##

The twins claim the family cat as theirs, calling it Pony Boy even though it's female. She is an evil beast, as all her kind are, not content wi' the food the Rambacks give her, she must hunt us, and then, when she catches one of us, as she did my sister, Maya, she plays wi' us till we die.

—Only the one that died wasn't Maya, it was a Field Cousin. When she was caught Maya didn't die, she yelled at the top of her lungs, "STOP THAT!" at the cat and then ran, fast as Road Runner, under the side board in the dining room and through the broken electrical outlet whilst the cat, thinking a Big yelled at her, slunk away. My family talked aboot this days at a time, fer 'twas the surest proof ever we were superior, not just to Field Cousins but to every beastie in the world—except Bigs, which Brack disputes—he thinks we're smarter.

##

I wrote of Jason's friend. He is Dudley Holywell and he has a curse makes Jason's almost no curse at all. You see, his face is near burned off. He has no eyebrows. Has a bit a cartilage wi' scar tissue over it fer ears, a nose been grafted, likewise lips, and somehow his eyes were saved by his eyelids, which may or may not be grafted, I canna tell. The parts a his face that count all work. He can blink. He can eat and talk (though certaint sounds be funny). I donna know if he smells things. If Jason is beautiful, wi' his fine patch of fur, Dudley is ugly, wi' his face like the Mummy with its wrapper off.

The first time I saw Dudley I wanted to cry, fer I knew at once why we only saw him in the daytime that once, and why the Artemis called Sissy screamed and ran out when she come home from soccer and why Jason got so angry at her was crying and yelling fer her to come back and apologize. And why, finally, Dudley said, "It's no use, Pal, they're all that way. I frighten people. It's my job."

I was also frightened. I had nightmares and had ta go ta Grandpa Scootch to get calmed down. I told him I'd seen a living image of evil, a Big not just gigantic but wi' eyes that flamed and lips couldn't smile, like he might grab a mousy and gobble her down whole.

"There, there. If Jason likes him, he's no doubt guid. Fer Jason is guid, is he not? And guid canna like evil. I reckon Dudley proves Ugliness ain't Evil even up. Fer my part, I think all Bigs ugly, just as I think all mice beautiful, and you most of all, my fine young granddochter." He stroked my fur a long time and licked my ears, washing them in the Old Way.

"But how can Jason stand to look at him?" I asked, wondering what Grandpa would think if he'd seen Dudley in person.

"Reckon this Dudley be important to Jason. Reckon he's one human Jason can pity. So when he sees this Dudley he says inside, 'I'm not so bad off, maybe.' That's why."

##

Artemis and Apollo started calling Dudley 'Crisp' and 'No Face,' and Jason got so mad he chased them once, running after 'em with a fireplace poker but didna catch 'em, cause he's a couch tattie and they play soccer, and besides, they were scared whilst he was too angry and tripped on the hall runner and dang near fell on the prong a the poker.

Because of the teasing, Dudley didn't come around again in the daytime fer a long time. Later he started coming at night, just walking in through the French doors a the patio, and they would go, "Hey, Pony Boy," and "Hey, Crisp," and laugh. They didna sit on the recliner together, Dudley would move a chair beside Jason and they would watch teevee, and sneak beers, and many a time talk till 'twas almost time fer Mumsy to come down and start the coffee.

Knowing the Rambacks has made me glad I'm a Mustt.

chapter 5: On being a mouse

While our family seems always to be tripping over each other, wanting to work and play together, the Rambacks go their own ways most of the time. So 'twas uncommon when they all happened to be home fer dinner. But they did one night, and I must describe the scene, fer it shows how things stood twixt Jason and his family.

But first, I must tell you something of my own little family and how our days go, e'en in a house as fraught as the Ramback's.

First off, t'ain't easy to be a Talker. I'm not crying the blues, cause there's a good side: as a mouse you can slip around real good and hide good, too. Then again, kenning what Bigs have makes fer wanting 'em, but nothing's made fer mice—no mouse stoves nor mouse beds. If you ever saw _Pinocchio_ you know the lie a Jiminy Cricket having a suit, a tall hat and a wee umbrella. Where's this cricket tailor? Well, there's no mouse tailor, neither. Stuff they make fer dolls willna work. A mouse like me can take her two wee hands and push down a computer key, she canna run a sewing machine nor cut cloth. She canna order a skirt over the Net, even if they made one, cause she's got no money. And forget mice working together, like those made Cinderella's ball gown, that's all hooey. Life's made up a too many things to have the time. So we're blest wi' fur, and we eat stuff raw (I count a corn chip as raw) except what we gnaw off steak and fish bones and what.

And the real reality, as Grandpa Scootch likes to put it: no one's our friend—not even poor, cuddly Jason, who seemed to be fer a while—as you shall see when I catch up wi' that part a my story. Every Big likes Mickey Mouse; no Big likes Grandpa Scootch. Sure, Bigs keep fancy mice in cages—"Ain't they cute?"—but Bigs put out traps and pizon for mouse-colored mice and keep cats, believing mice won't come around when they smell cat smells.

Most cats in Subdivision donna catch mice, but they sure make us nervous, like our bodies know what our brains willna admit. Cats are quicker than an Eddie Izzard punch line. They focus well, too, which is otherwise their undoing, fer mice—at least mice from The Lab—set up Diversions all the time, keep a cat staring at a hole till it falls asleep, which they do lots. They sleep twice as much as us.

But pizon and pussies no be the problem. It's not even Bigs who keep snakes in glass cages and feed our kind to 'em (a rumor going around Subdivision). The problem of our life is us.

We say we're a hundred times better off than Mutes. We think and talk. Otherwise, would take the help a Bigs—and clever Bigs at that—if we were to do the things that feller, Stuart Little, did in that wunnerfu fairy tale. A little car? How fanciful. Teaching kids? Their parents can't teach 'em, how should we?

Even wi' thumbs we can't do much more than the greenest Field Cousin. But what our Field Cousins do don't satisfy. Grandpa Scootch says his brother, Butkis, who came over in The First Migration, went back out into Wide Boulevard one night and ran under the wheels of a car, cause of The Sadness.

The Sadness comes on us all one time or t'other, all Talkers I know but Brack, and I believe he dodges it cause he's half way round the bend, seeking to take over Subdivision when Bigs finally destroy themselves with wars, waste and over-eating. The Sadness comes on us cause we have abilities but no manner nor way to turn them to use. Grandpa Scootch, I believe, makes life harder on purpose, to use up more time. Field Cousins don't worry bout weddings and having to find a proper mate outside the family. Despite the risk a traveling outside our own house, Grandpa Scootch has Conferences beyond number with the Wise Old Mice, as he calls 'em, from the three houses closest ours, and they make The Arrangements, which is our way a wedding, wherein a male of another family comes over here, or a female, and some a that generation, like all my sisters, go t'other direction and after that only one buck either place gets to hump this certaint female. Otherwise, Grandpa Scootch explains, 'twould be the biggest, toughest buck gathered all the does to himself and did all the humping until a tougher buck come along. 'Tis not only uncultured, 'tis perilous confusing, even to a simple mind like mine, but that's the way of it with Mutes. Time out of mind, generation by generation, power to the powerful.

Grandpa Scootch says, "We be Talkers, so we can reason. We make rules and thrash 'em out till everone agrees. Then we live civilized, like Bigs, only more so, cause we ne'er will drop bombs on each other nor murder our families as they show on teevee."

It takes a large chunk of a mouse's life to be properly mated, and in the meantime, my unmated brothers play jump'n'hump wi' female Field Cousins wander into the Ramback house (Airheads, they call 'em, after the teevee gabble), and attack any male Field Cousin (Dunderhead) who tries to come in fer the easy pickings.

And then there's eating and sleeping and studying Rambacks, partly to stay alive, partly cause they're interesting. Otherwise there's days a nothing but grooming each other or watching teevee movies, so that time to time various ones will say, "What's the use?" or "Why am I here?" and Shazam!, The Sadness comes on them.

The Sadness is even catching. One Mustt will sigh and pretty soon the whole nest is sighing, and I, fer one, am glad I fell in love wi' Jason Pony Boy and ha' learned to write, fer I'm only sad aboot my crumpled leg and my fatness but glad aboot my love and my tale on the hidden file in Jason's computer.

##

Now this part isn't bout mice in general or even Talkers (though 'twill give you an idea of what Talkers are capable of) it's aboot me, Dorothy Mustt, alias Microchip, alias Fat Broad. I am the first and only Mustt to write, and we've met none from Secret Chambers nor neighboring houses in Subdivision who can. I tell mice it's easy, the idee of it, but it doesn't attract many, fer the doing of it is fiendish hard, pushing down a letter at a time and bouncing aboot the keyboard like a kangaroo rat; and, as Grandpa Scootch says, it don't put macaroni on the table.

I learned to write watching Jason. Fer a long time I only saw flying fingers and blips a darkness following each other in lines crosst the white screen, and then, kenning one day the keys that clacked as his fingers were flying, I saw a letter 'A' at the beginning of a sentence after I saw him strike 'A' on the keyboard, and as Jason had gone to dinner, I climbed up on his desk and pushed A on the keyboard and got aaaaa on the screen till I stopped pushing. I pushed S and got sssss and so forth, till I kenned the link a key to picture on the screen.

##

I learned to work the computer when Jason went out. Those days I'd get up on his desk and read what was on the screen, mostly stuff aboot himself, or the last instant message swapped wi' Dudley, though at first I thought they were reading other Bigs' mail, fer they called each other 'Mauser' and 'Luger' (Jason was Mauser). I would read and try to figure out what they were saying, some of it so strange I canna even recall it today: bout baggies and grooving and raging, words must have more than one meaning.

One day I chanced to bump the hunchback tool sitting next the keyboard and the screen went from screen saver to the file I'd first been reading. After that I'd push the wee tool to get the screen I wanted, which is when I decided I could learn to run a computer watching Jason.

The trick was finding a place to watch from, and this I found with the help of Mack, the best Mustt fer hiding. He said, if you stay totally still, no wiggling whiskers nor twitching tail, you need no be invisible, you just have to blend in.

I blended in atop a book, the _New York Public Library Desk Reference_ , which sat, unused, in the topmost corner of a book case. From there I could see Jason's hands and what happened on the screen, though I couldn't read everthing. Lucky fer me, he did his journal in big type.

A lot of what he wrote had to do wi' getting away. "If I worked unloading vegetables at the produce market I could wear a hoody all the time," he wrote once, "and no one would see my fur." And: "I could be an executioner and wear a black hood with eye holes."

Another time he wrote: "I know too much to think it a matter of fair or unfair, but I can't help asking 'why?' My bad luck was totally beyond my control, and in a way Dudley's was totally within his control, yet a matter of being too green to take the one precaution, working on his car engine, which would have prevented his being burned, but maybe the engine could have misfired, or developed a vapor lock or the points could have fried, and he'd have been spared.

"It's more to the point to ask why such a small thing as a patch of hair on my face, my 'pony hair,' should cause people to reject me. If I traveled to a faraway planet the aliens might think I was the only handsome crew member, while those with no pony hair looked unfinished. If I went to a leper colony the lepers would envy me. (Except those who'd grown up more than I have and could accept themselves as real persons and not objects of curiosity or disgust.)"

All this I learned aboot Jason watching the fingers on the keys, and I studying the keys and matching them to the words on the screen. I even learned to cut and paste, a thing most useful if you mean to copy what another writes.

I didn't know how to get rid a the writing I did the first time. Chittering, I watched Jason come back and swear at my gabble. But he yelled, "Sissy, you been messing with my computer again?" It came to me: I wouldna ever be blamed fer using the computer. Bigs don't see us, and even if they did they wouldn't believe in our abilities.

##

To carry my load in the family I stand guard when we go a-foraging. The pantry door stays closed, so we can get in and the feline Pony Boy (whom I shall ca _cat_ from now on) canna. Though she can get a leg under the door, and knows a couple a places we come out when we're carrying grub home, where she crouches, waiting to ambush. I put my nose as close as I dare to the space under the door and watch Cat plodding by or sneaking up, depending on whether she hears us in the pantry, and I create Diversions when 'tis time to scurry back to our nest behind the freezer out in the garage.

With Rambacks away we Musts will scurry over counters and tables, and under stove and table, picking up many a curious thing—a peanut, a fallen corner of a Pop-tart, a Coco Puff. 'Tis amazing the things Bigs don't see on the floor, but, as Grandpa Scootch says, when your eyeballs are so far from the linoleum, a peanut or corn flake is perilous small.

We follow two rules when we go a-foraging: no poopin' nor peein', and no taking bites out a things Bigs might want to eat themselves. The first rule is easy; the second hard. Take strawberries: leave a bowl a them out a the fridge long enough, Mum could walk right up and put salt on my tail while I sat drooling. One day one a Poptart's brothers, Uncle Filch, went crazy and started biting a cherry in a bowl, and Grandpa Scootch made him eat as much of it as he could, and then we had to help him finish it off and take away the seed and stem and lick little juicy spots off the other cherries. Uncle Filch had to run fast to the basement where he pooped over the floor drain cause cherries go right through him and Grandpa Scootch stood there, scolding: "See? See? Did I no tell you, you young lout?"

##

Mice from The Lab drop in atimes, Visiting Fellows (a name they learned from White Coat gabble). Visiting Fellows have tricky names like Genotype and Strain A4 and talk weird, of hybrids, fancy mice and population dynamics, stuff we Subdivision mice canna ken. They've scouted the upper floors of The Lab, seeking other Talkers, and they tell us a white mice and black, mice can't walk a straight line and ones wi' plastic spikes atop their heads. They also tell us a seeing dead mice in garbage cans, not a time or two, but dozens at a time. (Which only bears out the story a the Great Escape, how Charlie Ruiz saved us by putting us outside in a separate trash can the raccoon knocked over.)

We feed Visiting Fellows tattie chips, corn nuts (a favorite) and other stuff they donna get in The Lab, and they sigh and say were it not fer the intellectual stimulation they'd migrate in an instant, taking care, acourse, not to disrupt the population dynamics of Subdivision mice. (What a lot of big words!)

They feed us, too, when we send scouts over there (I don't go; wi' my crumpled leg I'd never make it cross Wide Boulevard.) They have hamster muffins, like always, but they've learned to filch dog chow and monkey victuals, stuff drops out of cages, or what monkeys throw about when The Anger comes on them.

Monkeys are more like Bigs than we are, but canna talk. Genotype says it's cause they're from India, but I don't think so, having watched the Discovery Channel wi' Jason, and seen shows aboot evolution and how thumbs and vocal cords got Bigs started, but 'twas planning and cooperation really made difference.

I must perform when Visiting Fellows drop in. I am envied by near ever mouse in The Lab above the age of six months who has watched while I go to the keyboard and compose words.

Course they can't read them, but they see the words pop on the screen and twitch their whiskers and say I must come over and teach 'em, fer there be computers aplenty in The Lab, some a which stay blinking days on end, and they would dearly love to "record their observations," and keep "field notebooks," whatever they are.

##

Our numbers are growing, which pleases Brack ("more troops") and alarms Grandpa Scootch ("more poop"). He sends young bucks out to scout other houses in Subdivision, wi' the idee to colonize. He is fearful he will die fore colonists be sent out, a real enough fear, he approaching seven, which no mouse has ever lived past. Course Poptart would take over as Wise Old Mouse at Ramback house, although there may be challenges.

I don't want to think a that. There's enough strife in Ramback house. Which brings me round again to the first dinner after the boyfriend row I wrote of, when Jason stalked out a the house and roamed the streets half the night.

chapter 6: Jason on the brink

After Mariah ran off her little brother and his scarred friend, her feller had no wish to squirm in the recliner, saying the image of Dudley No Face stuck in his head and he couldn't get interested in "anything physical" after that.

"Then go home, you limp wimp, see if I care," Mariah hissed, and he did, out the front door, good-bye. The set-to had Mariah in a state, fer after the feller left, she sat fuming and thrumming her fingers on the arm of the recliner, the toe of her shoe making circles in the air, and her muttering hells and damns and "That little twerp, that ugly excuse for a brother." Finally she pushed herself upright, turned off the teevee, and marched up the stairs.

I followed, the house being near dark and she not dreaming a mouse could follow, much less a lame one. At the top a the stairs, she stopped in front a Jason's door and listened. Next she tried the doorknob but the door was locked. Something hard hit the door a mighty thwack and she jumped back, but then put her mouth close to the crack in the door and said, "You little freak. Why don't you make everyone happy and run away from home?"

Was another loud bang on the door, hollow-like, a metal wastebasket or old cookie tin, fer Jason gathered things in those, from pencils and pens to stamps and postcards.

Mariah kicked the door before turning towards her room. From the dark of Mum and Popsy's room came a sleepy, "What's going on out there?" Mariah ignored the question but slammed her bedroom door as the evening's last rude act.

I hadna time to ponder Mariah's ways, 'twas Jason I worried aboot, treated so mean. The upstairs carpeting is so thick you canna slip neath bedroom doors, so all I could do was sit wi' my ear near the crack and listen. We mice hear pretty well, but that night I only heard Jason crying and muttering to himself, most of it too low to make out, and then I heard him hop off his bed, springs a-skreeing, and knew he'd be heading out the door again, so I bolted. He went into the bathroom and stayed a long time, me waiting in the dark nook at the bottom of the linen closet, and then, when too much time passed fer the best a cries, I put my nose through the space where the hall carpet stops and the bathroom tile begins, and I could squeeze my head in, much afraid Jason would take that moment to leave his place of pain. I saw his face in the mirror, where he held a razor blade (as Grandpa Scootch dubbed that little wafer of metal) against his neck and I let out a squeak too high fer him to hear, though he may have sensed someone watching, fer he looked round as if he knew I were there, and dropped the blade in the sink fore he dropped his face into his hands and wept.

I went downstairs after that, so sad myself I nearly tripped over Brack coming out the basement door.

Brack, my own nemesis, said, in a Mariah tone, "Watch where you're going, fatty."

I didna bother answering. Poptart was coming up the stairs close behind and he said, "Time fer foraging, wee one," but I asked to be excused. He took a look at me and said, "You look peaked, daughter; are you?" I lied and said I was, a trifle.

##

Comparing notes wi' t'other Wise Old Mice of Subdivision, 'tis plain in many ways Rambacks no be like other Bigs. Some Bigs, 'tis said, sit down near ever evening to dinner, to talk over the day's doings. Others talk at breakfast. Where young'uns ha' left home, older couples will even take a third meal midday, though like as not 'tis food microwaved or cold from the fridge.

Rambacks eat all hours, usually no more than two sitting down together. Mum and Popsy have coffee and toast together mornings, after the twins eat their cereal and orange juice and go off to meet the school bus. Days gone by Mum got up and made 'em a lunch packed in a paper bag, but they abused her over it till she stopped and gave 'em lunch money. To hear 'em talk the food at school tastes awful, but there's something more to eating bought food. Only airheads and dorks bring brown bags, says Artemis, while popular kids, the jocks and with-its, buy cafeteria food.

So 'twas rare, the night after Jason scared me near to death, wagging the razor blade, that Mum Ramback cooked up meat and tatties and peas. She set table with a table cloth and candles and all the Rambacks sat down at once to eat. I don't know if she asked them to be there, and it seemed not to be an Occasion, was just by chance they were all there fer once.

At first Jason said his stomach hurt, but when Mum threatened to take him to doctor next day he came to table, too. He had to sit next to Mariah, cause Mrs. Ramback must sit closest the kitchen, Mr. Ramback at head of table, and the twins will not be separated. So Jason sat there making sure not to look at Mariah, and she sat there staring into his ear, as if by staring she could make him go away.

Mr. Ramback carved the roast and Mrs. Ramback passed potatoes, creamy billows heaped up in a bowl with orange flowers painted on it, saying as she did, "Isn't it lovely we can all come together once in a while from our busy schedules? Please pass the gravy to your brother, Mariah. There's a dear."

Mariah shoved the gravy boat in Jason's direction. The gravy ladle clattered to the table, leaving a brown streak. The twins eyed their mother—would she scold? But she was busy sipping her wine and no seemed to notice.

So Artemis said, "Here, Pony Boy," pushing a bowl a peas at him. The peas fared no better than the gravy. Several bounced out a the bowl, one making its way off the edge of the table. I made a mental note to tell the other Musts, fer foraging later.

In a moment, after she blotted her lips wi' the napkin on her lap, Mrs. Ramback said, "Artemis, you mustn't use that name when referring to your brother. You must apologize."

"Why?" A whine in her voice. "He calls me Sissy, and I'm not a sissy. I'm less of a sissy than he's a Pony Boy."

Mr. Ramback cleared his throat. "Hey, everyone: I came in second in the country club senior golf tournament. Check out the trophy on the mantel in the den."

Was he trying to switch talk away from name calling? He couldna be unmindful of the bad feelings flowing towards his older son. Mrs. Ramback smiled over the rim of her wine glass. "Isn't that lovely, everyone? You must be proud of your father."

Mariah groaned. The twins were whispering to each other and seemed not to hear either parent. Jason, after staring into his mashed potatoes ever so long, jabbed a fork in his meat and cut it, making a scratchy sound on the plate. He jammed a mouse-sized hunk a critter in his mouth and chewed whilst his jaws bulged. He gulped milk. He shoveled potatoes and gravy, a forkful of peas, drank more milk. Everyone watched him. I watched.

When he could talk he said, "I wish to be excused," speaking to no one in particular.

Mrs. Ramback said, "I bought us a lovely dessert, Jason, a tiramisu. I think you ought to stay for it."

"I am tired of all this abuse, Mother. Please excuse me."

Apollo said something across the table I couldna hear, but Mr. Ramback could, and he cuffed his son's ear wi' the back a his hand. Jason must have heard it, too, because he jumped up and marched out a the room, not waiting fer permission.

"Now see what you've done, you twerp?" Mr. Ramback said to Apollo.

"You call him Pony Boy, too. I've heard you. You're supposed to set an example."

I myself ha' heard him use the name, Pony Boy, though not to Jason's face. But instead of admitting it, Mr. Ramback shouted, "It's not your place to correct me, mister. You go to your room."

"God!" Mariah said, an edge to her voice so shrill it hurt my ears.

Apollo left the table, beet red, brows furrowed, and Artemis, only slightly pink but no less furrowed of brow, put down her napkin and started to leave, too.

"I didn't excuse you, missy."

"You must know, my brother and I are inseparable."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Mrs. Ramback said, "Please sit down, Artemis. Have another glass of this excellent Napa Valley cabernet, Peter, it must have been a hard day at the office."

Artemis sat down but ate no more. Mariah mumbled to herself, shaking her head and scowling, making her pretty face ugly. I heard enough for one evening, but was stuck behind the platter on the buffet till they left the table or something caused a Diversion.

I wanted to check on Jason, but he saved me the trouble. He came back to the dining room, no longer looking like he were aboot to cry, he looked angry as Apollo. His cheeks were pink and the tops of his ears red. He stood behind his chair and said, "There isn't a kind-hearted person in this room. There isn't a person who reads a news magazine, watches C-SPAN, who saw the President's last news conference or gave a nickel to the poor victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I may have had a mutation or whatever and I may look like the Wolf Man. I'm sorry; I can't change that. I'm going to see if I can arrange to live at Dudley's house and I hope you'll have the decency, Father, to reimburse the Holywells for my room and board."

Mr. Ramback looked at Jason the way he'd looked at Apollo. Mrs. Ramback drank more wine and tried to smile. Artemis had her head turned away so I couldn't see her expression, but I could guess it. Mariah looked up and said to Jason, cool as you please, "You could join the circus, Pony Boy, and become totally independent of your family. Ever thought of that?"

"You see, Father? You see, Mother? If you spent half the time parenting that you do... whatever you do when you're gone all the time, besides staying away from me, you might find a civil tongue at this table."

He lifted his hands off the back of his chair, that he had gripped till his knuckles went white, and said, "I hate you all."

He marched off. Popsy yelled after him, "Come back here," to no effect. Everone's head swiveled round to watch him go, making a Diversion. I caught the lamp cord and slid down behind the buffet.

"That's twice in one evening," Mr. Ramback said. "Maybe sit-down dinners aren't such a good idea, Wanda."

"I'm meeting some friends at the Varsity for the seven o'clock show," Mariah said as she stood up. "Save me a piece of that dessert thing you bought, Mum."

Neither parent protested. It was a signal fer Artemis to slip out a her chair and mutter an "excuse me," as she went off to join Apollo.

Only Mum and Popsy were left. Mr. Ramback shared out the last of the wine, his glass and hers. They both sipped. He lit a cigarette, she asked if he wanted dessert, to which he shook his head, exhaling a cloud of smoke. Finally she said, "What shall we do?"

No answer. She said, "Do you think it would do any good to send him to military school?"

Mr. Ramback harrumphed and said, "You recall how much good the military academy did me? I learned to smoke, drink, and fornicate."

"Peter!"

"It's true. When I was a freshman I was the screwee and when I got to be a senior I was the screwer. That's the way those places work. And believe me, the meeker you are the more you get screwed. Pony Boy would get it all the time."

"Peter, don't call him that."

"Okay, Jason. Jason would be the object of everyone's affections. Probably an instructor or two as well."

Mrs. Ramback ignored his comeback. "He didn't mean that just now, did he? About going off to live with his friend?"

I'd scuttled along the baseboard to the hall doorway but paused fer his answer. He said, "Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea, my dear. He's ruining the lives of everyone here, isn't he? We don't have guests over; neither do the kids. Maybe that would be best."

"Oh Peter, what an idea."

chapter 7: Mending Jason

But Jason didna go away—not then, anyway. I reckon, in trying on the idee a moving in wi' Dudley, he found 'twould no be so easy fer the Holywells to add another to their nest—or if they'd even allow it. What if Dudley had littermates? (no sure thing, since some Big does, report the Wise Old Mice, bear only one pup while others bear noon.) But even if Dudley had noon, would his parents want another strange face at the dinner table? Brack, wi' his usual sneer, says Bigs preach charity begins at home, but donna often put the words to action. And in its way, taking in another shunned child would be like charity beginning at home.

Fer though I'd miss him, I wondered if it wouldna be better fer him there: friend to someone who'd no ridicule, someone in the same boat, as they say on teevee.

Whatever went on while he was out, the night he told off his kin, Jason came slipping back, lights out everwhere, even under Mariah's door. He sat himself down afore the teevee and watched a movie aboot rowdy fighter pilots of a bygone war, and 'twas like his John Wayne swagger: I could feel him, from under the recliner, leaning as the heroes' airplanes turned and dove and shot their way through enemy airplanes also climbing and diving and gyrating through the sky. Looked like a bunch of rowdy boys to me, fighting and drinking and chasing the lassies, but Jason would now and then yip a "Yes!" or "Watch your tail!"

During a commercial he went to the liquor cabinet and took out a whiskey bottle and sipped whilst he watched, and near (I could see in his reflection on the glass afore the teevee screen) spilled it when he nodded off. A single drop sloshed out a the bottle as he righted it, and the smell, even at several mouse-lengths, was enough to tell me 'twas pure pizon.

A few days later Dudley was coming over daytime again, remembering to leave fore the twins come home, and the two would sit at the kitchen table betimes, in front of the teevee others, plotting and planning. Some was wild talk, how they'd steal a parent's car—one or t'other—and leave for someplace where misfits fit in better. They spoke of Berkeley and San Francisco and even the wilds of Alaska, living off moose and caribou and miner's lettuce. They would consult road atlases and Jason ventured out one day and got books from the library on hunting and skinning critters. Mostly, though, they went upstairs and used the computer to look up old newspapers and medical articles. At which point I would go to the Mustt Nest and turn in.

Both talked a being cured a their afflictions, which is the exact word they used, afflictions same as Job, one said, same as plagues visited on the Egyptians said t'other, fer keeping the Israelites enslaved. To hear 'em talk all they need do was go to medical school and in no time they'd invent artificial skin and become such skilled plastic surgeons each would operate on t'other and restore him to normal.

"I'll operate on you first," Jason said in one of these chitchats. "You have the bigger problem."

"Naw," said Dudley, "I'll do you first—you'd be easier."

"You'll _do_ me? Get it— _do_ me?"

"Oh you rat," Dudley said, "you absolute rat. Sure, I'll do you, I'll do you a favor, I'll do you in, you twerp, I'll give you your dues," and they were off into word games my mouse brain couldna follow, there being so many dos and don'ts and don't-dos. But it made 'em laugh which was good ta see, even though Dudley's face didna break into a smile when he laughed, he said it hurt whenever he tried.

And then they'd gab real serious, though they still talked a dreams, how it wasna just their faces that mattered, how too much was made a looks, like the twins being popular fer their blond hair, blue eyes and tanned skin. And then one of 'em would blurt out something that told me they, too, wanted to be handsome, one wanting to look like Gary Cooper ("Who's he?" asked the other) and t'other wanting to look like Cary Grant ("With the greasy hair?" asked the first).

"What if," Jason said in all seriousness, "your face was repaired only you ended up being an African-American when it was done?"

"Which one?" Dudley responded. "Some pretty ugly black guys play pro basketball."

"Allie McBeal's boyfriend."

"I'd rather be Wesley Snipes."

"You were Wesley Snipes," Jason said, "you could get any woman in the world."

"Not Sister Teresa."

"Aw, com'on, you know what I mean."

Dudley said, "It's not about scoring, dopehead. It's about living with yourself. I'd be black in a flash, I'd be you in half a flash."

"And get called Pony Boy and sneered at all the time by your good-looking brother and sisters? I know, people are afraid of staring at you. I see it when we go out. And I'm sorry, I'd give my left nut if people would just accept you as the person you truly are. But my problem is just a joke to everyone around me. It's so degrading I want to die."

And so it would go. Was much more a worry fer them than my crumpled hind leg, which, were I a Field Cousin, would have been my death already. From what the scouts from The Lab say, 'twould be death over there, too: chloroform and the autoclave. They breed us mice fer certaint qualities and if you don't fit 'em to a tee, you're dead.

Jason and Dudley, at least, were live, though both talked now and again of ending theirs.

Yes, it's true. Mice, having what Grandpa Scootch calls instinct, strive to live at any cost. When we do something reckless 'tis only hunger and The Notion are felt more than safety; otherways, we run. True, we canna outrun The Sadness, but most times we hide, we leap, we jump off counters. The other day Frac jumped in the swimming pool out back else Cat would have caught him betwixt houses and Frac knew felines, especially fat, indoor felines, hate water above loving ta murder mice. That jump likely saved him, but in other waters—a lake or a river—a big fish might have et him. As it was, he come home wet and shaky after shinnying up the pool's thermometer cord when Cat lost interest. And no one wanted to lick off his fur, he reeked so a chemicals.

##

Came a day Jason was quite away, I never even saw him at night, and wondered was he living at Dudley's, but then I overheard Mariah telling one of her fellers aboot it, Mum ha' taken him to a doctor in San Francisco she thought could take care of the fur patch on his face.

I heard that and my heart sank. I knew we Talkers were more like Bigs than other mice, and Wise Old Mice in the Secret Chambers said there be no other mice in all The Lab but us wi' the power of speech. But Bigs didn't know Talkers even exist, and if they found out, they wouldn't want to be like us—except maybe Pony Boy. If I had fur on my body like his face patch, no one would think me even very fancy, just a mouse. And that made him a sort of cousin, it could be a bond, if he'd learn to think of it that way. Maybe, I thought, I could teach him 'at. I might talk to him, despite Talkers' Prime Directive.

Yet it might be something we mice could do, being a thousand eyes and two thousand little feet and half a thousand brains to help Jason plot a course through life and prosper when now all he thought of was being just like other Bigs.

I wanted to say to him, "Think of it. You could be Mouse Man, to go aboot solving crimes and righting wrongs all over Peopledom. If the Bad and Ugly tied you up, we'd chew the ropes. If they tried to trap you, we'd scout ahead and warn you. You could give us some rolled oats once in a while, a few carrot tops, we'd be happy as clams."

In short, I didn't want him to come back fixed. I wanted him to accept his fur and glory in it.

And then he did come back not fixed, he was same as ever, and my heart went at twice normal, though I muttered to Brack and Frac, "Oh, too bad."

Turned out the tradeoff was noon to his liking. I heard Mrs. Ramback telling Popsy aboot it. If the graft were a winner and Jason chose to shave, the skin would look like skin taken from his back or leg. If he chose to keep his beard, he'd still have a patch of unlike hair, though it would not be as unlike as now, not mouse cuddly and multicolored. In short, the doctor told mother and son, the affliction would still be upon him, though not so noticeable.

"So he doesn't want to go through with it, that it?" asked Mr. Ramback, vexation seeping into his tone.

"In a word, no," replied his wife.

"Then goddamit, he needs to buck up and quit acting like Sarah Bernhardt."

"Peter, I'd like to agree with you, but he said something when we were flying home that's made me stop and ponder."

"And what might that be?"

Mrs. Ramback smiled, not looking her husband in the eye, and rubbed her hands together, like washing them. "He said he couldn't accept less than a completely successful fix because that would be betraying his friend, Dudley."

"What?" The look on Mr. Ramback's face was what you'd expect had he been stuck in the rump with a dinner fork. "What in hell has that no-face ghoul got to do with it?"

Mrs. Ramback sighed. "Dudley is his only real friend."

"Bah. Horse hockey. Prima donna for a son. Back to school he goes, I mean it."

"It's summer, Peter."

"Then in the fall."

Mrs. Ramback said, "We could encourage him to get the skin graft. We could even send him to a therapist."

"You mean admit he's crazy as well as deformed."

"Peter. It's not his fault he was born that way."

"You're saying it's yours? Mine? The cold medicine I took before you got pregnant? The coke I snorted in the locker room at the country club? Am I supposed to beat my breast and mea culpa the rest of my life?"

She said, "It was an act of God."

He said, "Don't give me that God crap."

I said to myself, "If only there were a way to converse wi' Jason wioot going agin The Prime Directive."

chapter 8: Is it to be or not to be?

After he came back from San Francisco, Jason altogether gave up on his family. He knew all along they wouldna see the world his way, cause that takes accepting someone as an equal, and you can't treat someone as an equal who makes you ashamed.

He took to sleeping till noon and later. Took to staying up almost till dawn. Spent some nights at Dudley's but had Dudley over more and more. Drank more from the whiskey bottle, the single malt, brandy. Got sick on the pizon.

One night Dudley come over in his long, black coat, e'en though it were too hot fer such. When he sat down next to Jason he pulled a paper sack from the pocket and in it was a tall, square bottle a whisky. He'd bought Irish whiskey, it seems, to fool the clerk, since teenagers donna usually drink Irish. The clerk, he added, was in too much a hurry to check his eye-dee, wanting, as did all sales clerks Dudley dealt wi', to put that horrid face away from him.

After several nips on the bottle each, Jason said, "Dudley. Do you believe in reincarnation?"

Dudley reckoned he'd not thought much on reincarnation.

Jason said, "I believe in it."

"So?"

"So, I think the sooner we check out of this round of the wheel, the sooner we start on the next. And the next one is bound to be better than this one—don't you think?"

"Yeah?" said Dudley. "Might be worse. You might come back as a pony, I might come back as the man in the iron mask."

"Naw. God isn't that mean."

"Hey, buddy, ya can't have it both ways. If there's a God planning everything, then there's no reincarnation. They don't go together."

"How do ya know?" asked Jason. The whiskey was making his words slow down.

"You think some Old Man in the Sky recycles people? You go up there and He says, "Oh. I see Mrs. Wong on Elm Street is about to have a baby. I'm assigning you to be her son, Jason. Rots a ruck."

"I don't know what the means are. If there were a God He wouldn't have screwed us so badly. Not two wild and crazy guys like us."

"Well, hell, doesn't make much difference either way, so I'm game. How about next Wednesday, when my dad's on the golf course, I bust into his gun locker and cop the old forty-four magnum? Then we could just put our heads together and use one bullet."

I couldn't tell from his tone, much less from the look on his face, if he was being serious.

Jason took it serious, fer he said a forty-four would leave a vast mess, his tone saying he wondered why Dudley suggested such a thing. Dudley said, "What do you care? You won't have to clean it up."

"I don't want to leave a mess," Jason said. "I mean, my mom may be stupid for marrying Dad, but she doesn't deserve to find my brains all over the walls."

Dudley said, "Chicken. We could go down to the beach and wade out a bit. We could go to the canyons."

"I'm not chicken. What we need are a couple of twenty-two pistols; pull the triggers at exactly the same time. Two neat little holes. Bullets stay inside."

"Or," Dudley said, taking a sip of whiskey, "we could go out on the desert somewhere. Take a little trip in my mom's Range Rover, find some wilderness. Flies and worms would gobble down the splattered brains before anyone finds us, so the caliber wouldn't matter."

"I like that. But I think we need two guns. I don't want to shoot you, and I bet you don't want to shoot me, either."

"Shit, I don't care, dude. Let's flip a coin. All be over so fast we wouldn't have time to think."

"Or we could drink ourselves to death. Drink about three fifths of whiskey each."

Jason said, "I'm feeling a little queasy on what I've drunk sitting here. I don't think I could get even one fifth down. How much does it take to kill you?"

"Haven't the foggiest. And this is a case where liquor isn't quicker—ya get it? Candy dandy and all that?"

Jason didn't answer. He sat slumped in the chair with the whiskey bottle resting on his belly.

Dudley reached a hand towards him and took the bottle when it was passed. He took a swallow and said, "Here's to a better life the second time around. I just hope you aren't wrong, Pony Boy. I don't want to come back an armadillo."

"Or a mouse. Man, what a fate. Get chomped by some ferret or rat terrier."

At which point I went off to the Mustt Nest, creeping along walls, downcast by talk of death, going slow down the basement stairs, stopping at the floor drain to do my duty, and curled up in the farthest corner a the nest, Jason's words bouncing round in my wee head like bullets. I told myself was no different from scheming to live off moose and caribou in Alaska, same as becoming the world's greatest plastic surgeons and mending each other. The only problem was, if Dudley could break into his father's gun safe, was worlds easier to kill themselves than to kill an Alaskan moose or get a medical degree.

##

Wasn't a day after Jason and Dudley began talking suicide, a Friday it was, a scout came over from The Lab, out a breath and chattering so fast we couldn't make out her words. Well, it developed, when we calmed her down a bit, a patrol from Secret Chambers, scouting on upper floors, discovered the very room, they kenned, us Talkers came from, The Lab a Dr. Godwyn, whom they called The Matrix. And while they were there, in walked herself, white coat and all, and she with another Big, a man wanted ta borrow her notes from the spearmints led to us talking. He had the idee a splicing human genes into mouse eggs same as she done, but was to use mice to make human enzymes in mouse bodies, that would block some human disease.

The point a this, we learned in time, the scout yammering till Grandpa Scootch put his hands over his ears, was Dr. Godwyn couldna find the notebooks just then, or said she couldn't, maybe to give herself time to decide if she'd let the man have 'em (you don't get to be a White Coat, I reckon, being dumb). So after she looks after her current spearmints, she roots through a file cabinet, sits down and starts to scan what must be her notebooks, the ones bearing on our coming to talk, and she's left 'em all on her desk, so they want me to come over and read 'em, as I've read the funny curly letters all strung together in Jason's journal and word of it's got around.

Seems no mouse over there has got yet the knack.

Grandpa Scootch said, "I'm no saying she canna go over ta The Lab, but it be a dangerous mission, what wi' her creukit leg and how she don't get the exercise you scouts do. What if car come? What if you meet a cat, or worse?"

Grandpa Scootch stroked his whiskers fer a moment. "Could you get The Matrix's notebooks over here fer a night?"

The scout, a small and very peppy mouse, dark gray, as befits someone going aboot at night, shook her head. "They're this big"—she ran what would be the outside edge of a notebook—"And there's three of them."

I said, "Even if all us littermates were attentive and turning pages as I directed, I could never finish even one notebook in a night." I asked the scout, whose name was Mo, short for Moiety, if The Matrix took words from the notebook and wrote them in her computer.

Mo had a blank look on her face fer a few seconds, then her whiskers began to twitch in the rhythm signifying deep thought. At last she said, "Damnation. Nobody thought of that. It's done all the time these days. Maybe it was done in the Days Of Origins. Maybe she wrote a paper about us, even if we didn't turn out the way she hoped."

"Shame we can't pick up a telephone and call over to Secret Chambers," Grandpa Scootch said.

Frac was sitting there taking this in, and said, "I vote for her going over anyway."

Mumsy said, "If we be voting, which I donna say we are, I vote for sending the scout back, find out if any's on computer."

"Problem is," Mo said, "might be a day or two fore The Matrix leaves her computer on of a night and we can find out. Meantime, she might just loan out her notebooks, and we don't know where they'll end up. White Coats got satchels called attachés they carry about, take home papers in 'em. Might go to the gent's home for weeks."

A week is a long time in a mouse's life.

I spoke up, wanting in my heart to have this adventure, fer I was a bit like Jason, feeling my littermates looked down on me. "I know a way, but it depends on getting me over there safely. I could go over, check on The Matrix's computer some time she's away, and see if there's info on Talker spearmints. If not, I start reading notebooks and folks over there do the page turning."

"What in the name a God is so important aboot words on paper?" said Grandpa Scootch. "Be they worth crossing Wide Boulevard? E'en sprightly mice get caught unawares by whizzing machines. Recall ye the merry wee scout named Pipette? Splat. And who was that light gray one, with the very long tail?"

"I know how we can do it," Brac broke in.

All eyes turned to him. He stepped into the middle of the meeting and sat tall.

"We send lookouts up the telephone pole. Two. One looks up Wide Boulevard, t'other looks down. They signal each other, and when they're sure 'tis clear, one shouts out the words of intrepid Gilda, as she called in the mice to Secret Chambers, 'Golly Golly All In Free!'" Brac looked around, taking in the effect his words had.

"Problem wi' that," said Grandpa Scootch, "owls hunt from those very telephone poles. Ane of 'em catches mice looking up and down Wide Boulevard, it's chomp, chomp and cheery-bye."

Brac said, "Wait," and ran on all fours out a the meeting room and into the shadows. He came back with a long, sharp object in his mouth, grasping it in the middle. The ends, one a gleaming point, one a loop about a hole, stuck out almost as far as his whiskers.

He said, "Owl dives at me, I stick 'em wi' my trusty needle. Ought to stop him."

"Owl dives feet first," said Grandpa Scootch.

"Bet owl's feet got feeling, too," said Brac.

I said, "It means a great deal to all Talkers everwhere to know the facts of our origins. Where is our Garden of Eden? Why is it we talk and Mutes don't? Why do we have thumbs and Mutes don't? Will thumbs and talking disappear over time? Or is there a way other mice can get thumbs and speech? We ought to know."

"But will you understand the words she's written—The Matrix, I mean?" asked Mumsy.

"I propose," I said, "to look first in the computer. I've watched Jason and I know how to send e-mail. And I fer sure learned how to hide files from him. If The Matrix has files aboot us and our origins, I can copy 'em and mail 'em. If not, I can write down the most important words from the notebooks and mail those. Or I can just keep the words in my head and talk them out to the Wise Old Mice."

"I knew you'd know what to do," Mo said.

Brac said, his whiskers standing up their straightest, "It's not just the Wise Old Mice you should be telling." His tone wasn't sarcastic.

Grandpa Scootch said, "First the Wise Old Mice, then the households the Wise Old Mice stand for."

chapter 9: You ain't talkin' Christ

With all the attention to my skills, I felt my life changing, as if I were becoming a different mouse. I was getting on in years, almost too old to bear pinkies, and I donna think Grandpa Scootch, wise mentor of all such activities, saw me in the role a mother, what wi' my leg and my literary duties to the Mustt horde. From being rather resigned, I now saw two important jobs ahead a me, maybe the most important since the night of the Great Escape. Perhaps my destiny was bearing down on me, as they say on teevee.

The first task might be why I been put in this place at this time, me, the first mouse could both read and write, a mouse could ken not just printed word but word written in the hand a Bigs, the soft and curvy letters all strung together into words. I might, through kenning The Matrix's words, save my kind from disappearing through some quirk we couldna ken wioot knowing the science of our origins.

The second was even more important. It was, perhaps, why there were Talkers at all, our place in the Grand Design, as is discussed by men on teevee who speak the religion gabble. I was going to save one Big, I was going to save Jason. And then Jason, through eternal gratitude, would save his kind from the awful arrogance that made 'em kill animals wee and grand fer their skins, and put others through terrible ordeals to get their eggs, and others, like pigs, those terrible smart critters, shot in the head and stabbed in the throat and bled dry, hanging from their hocks like Mussolini and his criminal lackies. Meanwhile, Bigs be doubling in number ever few years, faster and faster. They will have to eat more and more animals and tear up more and more earth. Then they'll have to go do it on some other planet like Mars, make oxygen there and colonize, as they showed in that movie.

'Tis all there to see on teevee, I watch it when Jason leaves the recliner to go write and there's troubling shows on acid rain and global warming. I can live on granola droppings and turnip tops, but what of the critters been so domesticated they can't forage or gather?

Jason, when he learns of Talkers, will realize Bigs share the earth with a feeling animal just like them, and there could be others, who's to say? And he'd become Savior of animalkind, the person smashes that terrible arrogance and makes Bigs act sensible as we mice do, keeping our numbers to those can live in a certaint space.

My trouble was, pondering this heroic task, big as Moses's, big as Bruce Willis's task in _Armageddon_ : I didna know if I were to save Jason from himself or from his family. Would I complete the first task, the reading a the notebooks, in time to save him from himself? And if I did, could I save him from his family, who would have no compassion fer wee mice nor intelligent pigs, not e'en fer their brother and son?

The meat a the task is, I must help Jason to do something so important 'twill boost his sense a worth.

But how? Could I climb up on his lap one night, sit on his knee and say, "Dear, good Jason, though I'm just a wee mouse, I come to save you." Thereby violating the Prime Directive. Thereby risking all Musts and maybe all Talkers. But Jason wouldna do anything to the Talkers, he's simply too sweet and kind.

##

Mo the scout, tireless wee critter, went back that night to The Lab, and we sent Frac after her to climb up a telephone pole just far enough to make sure she made it cross Wide Boulevard, which truly she did. Then Brack began talking worse than some a the dolts you see on teevee, the pols, as Jason calls 'em when he and Dudley watch their speeches, the one the boys laugh at and call Hitler and other nasties. Brack said the time be coming, we would have the secrets of The Matrix and through that, smaller, simpler, taking up less space and eating less food, we'd take over the world when the Bigs destroy themselves.

I would have given him a good bite on the tail, pointing out how we depend on Bigs fer food and shelter, but I was too busy upstairs, looking fer samples a the curvy words in Jason's room, so when I looked at the notebooks on The Matrix's desk, I would better ken what I was reading. The mice Brack was haranguing were ones should be shutting him up, his kin, but only Grandpa Scootch had the Big Picture, and he couldn't be everwhere at once, being of an age and having such duties.

No word came back from The Lab next night, and before morning Brack and Mack went out on a dry run, to scamper up the telephone pole, carrying Brack's needle, and calling down to Frac on what they saw. Frac counted from the time they went up the pole to the time they first saw a vehicle coming, but he couldna count past one hundred, he was always falling asleep at ninety-nine, so he made up a number, said five thousand, and was decided I could get across wioot being run over.

"Exactly five thousand?" I echoed, just to make sure.

"Give or take a hundred," he said. He wasn't looking me in the eye.

"So, it could be five thousand, one hundred, or it could be four thousand, nine hundred? No tensies, no onesies?"

Frac was getting real fidgety, stopping to lick places must have felt itchy, he said, "I rounded."

Grandpa Scootch overheard this. He came up and said, "Pup, you are no good liar. I reckon you fell asleep counting, you always do. That key-rect?"

Frac hung his head.

I said, "Let me go out myself, I've never been past the patio in my life. Frac can show me the way and watch out fer cats and raccoons. I'll go as far as our side a Wide Boulevard and come right back. Then I won't be surprised by anything."

"See?" said Grandpa Scootch, "that's the way of it. We lose you to some mangy polecat or some skulking varmint like that, we'd no gain a thing and we'd be wioot our smartest wee mouse. I'm agin this whole idea. Risking my grandochter—fer what? Words on paper. Silly notion of understanding the Time of Origins. We should be content wi' what we got."

I insisted on talking to Grandpa Scootch alone. We went out by the heat pump, a two-mouse hidey hole. We sat with our hands o'er our ears till the machine shut down, when I said, "This is how I see it, Grandpa. E'en if we breed true, e'en if we're the most careful mice in all History, some day there will be some mouse feisty as Brack but less smart"—

—"No mouse is less smart than Brack," Grandpa Scootch put in.

"Not so," I said. "He saves his smarts fer when you're not around. He's afeart a you."

"Good thing," Grandpa said. "He'd try to bite a twin or two on the ankle to steal their buttered toast."

"We can talk aboot Brack later, Grandpa. Right now you must hear what I think."

I told him aboot Jason and his notion a killing himself. I told him my idee a saving Jason from himself so's he might learn to love himself enough to be grateful to me, and through me to us Talkers, and he might become Savior of the World

Grandpa Scootch sat a long time with eyes closed and thumbs pressed together, which is how he thinks his deepest thoughts.

"You're talking Rambacks now. You ain't talking Christ the Lord, or Mr. Gandhi or even Albert Sweitzer, but a Ramback. Sits up all hours watching teevee. Feels sorry fer himself. Drinks pizon. I think you're in love wi' that patch a mouse fur on his face. Ye are fooling yourself, wee mouse."

"I saw him rescue a baby bird once—don't that prove something?"

"No," said Grandpa Scootch, "to speak fair oot."

"Then how do you see the future, Grandpa? The Matrix gives up her notebooks to t'other scientist, he brews up another batch a Talkers. These ones ha' no one as smart as Gilda thinking up the Prime Directive, some Talker talks to a Big, they think we're Strange and Different and all the Buzzwords sets off Bigs wi' their killing and capturing, we're all kapow and kafluie."

I discovered I was hopping up and down as I said this last. I was fair off-put and couldna help it. "I must save Jason. I must."

"No rile yourself, granddochter. You come near wisdom here. Brack's idee a taking over the world is pure nonsense compared to yours of easing Bigs into it by preparing one Big who's got nothing to lose cause he's thinking on destroying himself anyways.

"The problem I see is, what if your Jason ain't as good as you think? What if he, say, takes us to a reality teevee show and sells us ta one of those asses wi' the wavy hair and big mustaches? What if he just wants to get rich on us?"

I said, all in a rush, "Then we find out the sooner how Bigs would treat Talkers if they knew aboot 'em. We warn all we can all over Subdivision and The Lab to head fer other parts right quick, Pilgrim."

"If you're right, Little Missy, we gots lots a planning to do, fer emergencies and that, while you're over there getting The Lowdown from The Matrix's notebooks."

##

Before I turned in that night, I went up to the family room and sat neath the recliner nibbling a raisin. Jason weren't there, was Mariah and a feller, not Bob, another. He was doing something real good fer her, I kenned from the noises she made, and then she did something real good for him, who made the male version of happy noises.

After a few sighs he said, "You know where I'd like to be right now?"

"In the swimming pool, cooling off?"

"Naw, in a chalet way up in the Alps, with a big fire in the fireplace and a featherbed and you; snow falling outside, wind whistling, just the two of us drinking mulled wine and cuddling."

"Why, Joel, I think that's the nicest thing a man's ever said to me. Usually a guy is hot to get in my pants, and if I haul his ashes, he's ready to jet."

"Don't you get tired of the fast life, Mariah? Wouldn't you like to settle down?"

"Ma and Pa Kettle, or like my Mum with Popsy? They get juiced every chance they get. I bet they haven't made it—with each other, that is—in a year, maybe two. So what's there to look forward to in this world except getting as much as you can while you're young and pretty? We all lose our charm in the end, you know."

This Joel said, "You make it sound so bleak. There's got to be something more."

"You sound like my brother, Pony Boy."

"Pony Boy?"

"Yeah. He's got a patch of pony hair on one cheek, it's a form of hirsutism, like the Wolf Man, only just a patch."

"And he talks about hope for the future?"

Mariah said, "He wishes for people to be something they aren't. He wants people to be goodie-goodie: kind, thoughtful, forgiving. What a crock; what a fool he is."

There was a pause wherein I heard some kisses. "You up for another go-around, lover?" Mariah asked.

"You can tell I'm up, you hotty. But tell me one thing before you go down for the count: what do you suppose your brother would be like if his so-called pony fur suddenly fell out?"

She said, coming right back with it, "He'd be just like you and all the other guys, trolling for as much nookie as he could get."

Joel said, "You know, it's hard to keep it up when you hear such cheerful views of the world."

"And you know, I'm running into more and more wimps the older I get. You can't keep it up, there's lots of other guys out there can."

"Well, I guess I won't call you sugar anymore, Scarlett."

DOROTHY MUSTT'S DIARY, PART 2: The Journey Back

chapter 10: Upside-down rain

At last Mo came back wi' best news: yes, her brother, Gene, a mouse could read but no write, seen wi' his own eyes, hiding out in The Matrix's lab, a paper, "A Failed attempt at genetic modification in _Mus musculus_ ," the manuscript being on her computer and may be aboot Talkers, though in the page showing, Gene ne'er saw the word and nothing is written aboot wanting mice to talk, just to learn to use thumbs. They of The Lab could send it over, if they knew how to work a computer, but, alas, none does, so I am to cross Wide Boulevard and e-mail myself and scamper back to hide the attachment so Jason doesn't see it first.

Given Jason doesn't attend school na more, I worry he might be on the computer when I mail, but I will have to pick the most likely time and trust he isn't. I have little worry Jason will unhide the file, once hidden. Aside from Dudley he gets mail from places he buys things, the Hair Cair People dot com, the Rugged Outdoorsman dot com, folks ask for money _,_ like the Democratic Party and ACLU. I'm counting on seeing my message fore he does and sending the attached file to the hidden folder stashed away under Program Data, where my own writings are, including this one.

According to Mo, The Matrix leaves her computer on Monday nights, when she tells it to clean up its act. Monday being only two days away, I had to spend as much time as I could all over the house, practicing reading Bigs' squiggly writing. I was counting on the paper on the computer having all the information anyone would need, but if not?

Well, what's the hurry? I certainly had an itch to know where we come from, but we wirna going to die out tomorrow, and The Matrix wasn't likely to move away from The Lab, and the White Coat who wanted to borrow her notes wasna going to mix up a new batch of Talkers (if that's what happened in the Time of Origins, as the Wise Old Mice in both Secret Chambers and Subdivision believe).

Next night, Sunday, no moon rose and the weather did what Poptart calls "that summer thing:" fog moving in at sunset from the ocean, sifting twixt Institute's buildings, making everthing eerie, turning the sinking sun into a giant, shiny new penny. Not only fog, but no moon, neither, so as night came on he could see 'twas both thick and dark.

Cause of the weather, Grandpa Scootch called a meeting of Musts. When we all assembled in the space behind the folded Ping-Pong table in the garage I said (waiting fer Grandpa to call us to order), "Let's hope tomorrow's like tonight."

Grandpa Scootch said, "Ahem; on that will ye come to order, please. I worry aboot the morn's night being like this night, but I ain't hoping fer it, which is why I called us together. Maybe, in this weather, we ought to think again bout the chances a this venture, fer in the fog Brack and Mack won't be able to see cars coming on Wide Boulevard."

Brack said, "Not see from as far, but the owls won't be flying, neither."

"Ah; sorry, Brack," said Grandpa Scootch, "but owls ain't much hampered by fog. They find you wi' their ears, which are better, even, than mouse ears, and I hear tell they're better in fog, when the air's wet."

"Maybe, but they perch closer to the ground in fog, Grandpa; must mean something."

"Could be. Could be there's more cars than owls, too."

"Less on foggy nights, I reckon."

"Slower, maybe, not fewer."

I broke in wi' this: "We all know Bigs like their ease. Seeing in fog's no easy. Being out late in fog ain't, neither. I'm fer going off tonight, give it a try, and be it a go, I can hang out wi' Mo in Secret Chambers. That way's like kicking the field goal on third down: if there's a muff you ha' fourth down to try again."

Grandpa Scootch said, "I don't ken your football gabble, if that's what that be. But I catch your drift, Pardner, you mean to try Sunday, and if it be a no-go, there's always Monday."

"And," I said, "going a day early I can find my way from Secret Chambers to The Matrix's lab soon as she clears out after work, so I won't have to do it in the wee hours."

"Make it so," Grandpa Scootch said, pointing like Captain Jean-Luc.

Mo and I were to let Brack and Mack get as far as the telephone pole before we started out. Everthing went as planned—far as you can plan first-time things. There be no planning fer sore paws when a house-bound mouse first walks on the rough surface a Wide Boulevard's black paving. Mo had no clue as to my softness, never having a gimpy leg. Often she had to wait fer me, and, though impatient, she did, even in the middle of Wide Boulevard, where we crossed a pair of yellow swatches as wide as from my nose to the tip of my tail, and stretching farther than I could see in fog. I marveled once again at the ways a Bigs, how they ever surprised me wi' ways they altered the world I would never have imagined till I saw 'em.

Over Wide Boulevard and past the sidewalk that circles Stedwell Institute, we were in the middle a the lawn when I was knocked into the air by upside-down rain. Was the only thing I could think, turning summersaults: upside-down rain. I squealed.

"Sprinklers!" Mo yelled. "Follow me!"

She got out ahead a me and quick as a wink I ran cross a black peg rising out a the grass, and again shot into the air and landed facing back towards Wide Boulevard and couldna see Mo fer nothing.

She ran back and said, "Right on my tail, Microchip, or we'll drown before we get to The Lab."

And I did, running fast as my three good legs would take me, coughing and sputtering, shivering and shaking, wondering how often scouts face ordeals like this. When at last we were about to reach a sidewalk, there tramped along, no farther from us than the length of a recliner, the biggest Big I ever saw, a galoot bigger'n Mariah's Bob, even, walking twixt fountains a water, as if 'twere ordinary doings. We had to stop in the water to let him pass, which wasn't long, his strides being forty mouse-lengths, I warrant.

I found myself shivering even worse. I was used to carpets in Ramback house; I was no used to Big galoots wi' thick clothes and clompy sneaker shoes and humps strapped on their backs. He even had doodads stuck in his ears, wires coming down to a gadget on his belt, made him look like a pilot wi' na airplane.

Before we got to the closest building the path branched. We took the branch where fewer lights shone, me shivering the while, and down steps, my energy giving out, to find an opening through the thick concrete wall fer a pipe. Mo ducked through it in nothing flat, but I had to squeeze through, fearing I'd be stuck any second cause a my girth.

Once inside Mo said, "Give your eyes a second to adjust. And shake off the water—but not on me."

Inside was filled wi' humming. Pipes ran through it, many pipes, grand and wee, the closest wi' stuff wrapped round I'd never seen afore, giving off heat, another square, like the air ducts in Ramback House. There were giant grates in what I took to be a floor above us, holes in 'em so big me and Mo could ha' fit through at once. And then there was a black hole going up, a shaft like the one let the pipe go up from the water heater in Ramback House, only ten mouse-lengths across and going up to heaven, wi' nary a light anywhere.

When I had shook a good deal of water out of my fur and my eyes got used to the light, I said, "This be a grim place, Mo, fer a mouse to live."

She said, "This is just The Passages. The Passages is how we get from wing to wing and floor to floor."

"Wing?" I repeated, the word only going with birds in my mind.

She said, "If you put ten of your Ramback houses crammed next to each other, would make up one floor of one building of the Institute. Each floor's divided into wings: east, west, north, south. There be seven floors, one atop the other. There be four buildings. This building's given over to molecular biology and genetics. Another's for microbiology and virology, one for biochemistry and biophysics, and one for cognitive sciences, epidemiology, administration, the think tank and stuff like that. Has a cafeteria, too. And an exercise gym for Bigs, with a swimming pool. That one's closest the ocean; Bigs go out, in the summer, and swim there."

"On purpose?"

"Bigs master all. —But we need to get you someplace warm. And you need to meet Wom, as we call our chief Wise Old Mouse."

I'd heard a Wom, but never knew of any mouse from Subdivision had met him. Was said he be far older than Grandpa Scootch, the oldest mouse in the world, and quite scary.

"Do I really need to meet him? I'd no want to bother him."

Mo said, "He's asked to meet you, when you come."

"Oh."

##

I was led, up and up the dark shaft, cross and over 'neath grates, what seemed like round and round, till I was to a great degree confused, besides bedraggled and bewildered. Which is all the big words I know fer describing a wretched mouse. The higher up we went the warmer it got. We ran up pipes covered with what Mo called insulation and along the floor of the trenches wi' grates over 'em. 'Twas easy going fer her, 'twas not so easy on three legs. Finally we were in a room where the humming was loud and the air hot and dry. I could feel the last a the water from the upside down sprinkler rains drying out as Mo said, "Wait here. I'll make sure Wom is ready to receive you."

I looked around. Light seeped in from somewhere, 'twas so soft and scattered I no knew where it came from, though there were red lights, blue lights and green lights half way to the ceiling I could see, some steady and some blinking.

I hunkered down to wait. Fore long I was nodding, tired from the trip, till, I reckon, I was asleep. Seemed ages passed fore I heard a voice saying, "Come over here, child, so I can look at you."

I froze, wide awake and keen as a knife. I'd never heard a mouse with a voice so deep, never been called child, what Bigs call their young'uns, not a mouse word.

The speaker had to be Wom.

I turned, looking ta see where this honored mouse was. 'Twas dark everwhere but one place, about a score of mouse lengths away. I went towards the light. When I was in the middle of it the voice said, "Stop. Stay just there."

Now I knew where the voice came from. Wom stood in the shadow of a machine. He could see me but I not him. I knew he wanted it that way, but 'twas not like meeting another mouse, was like being put in the cage of another's eyes.

"May I see you, sir?"

"In time. Tell me your purpose here, first."

"But that you know, sir."

He said, "Don't call me sir. That is humans' sweet talk. Call me Wom. —Now, why are you here?"

"To help us mice," I said, not calling him sir but not calling him Wom, neither.

"You mean to carry away a secret from here, to make the mice of Subdivision more powerful than those of The Lab."

"No, sir—Wom, I mean. I mean to help all mice, everwhere—all Talkers, certainly, but mayhap Mutes, too."

"I should have that secret first, for I am the mouse who can make the judgment, whether the knowledge is of benefit or not."

"I'm sorry, Wom, I donna know how that be done, if things go true to plan. The more time I spend on The Matrix's computer, the more chance a getting caught. Same at Ramback House. And I canna tell Grandpa Scootch I may not tell him what's on the computer file: he is my leader."

Wom said, his voice deep but quivering, "Do you recognize the hegemony of Secret Chambers?"

"I'm sorry; what is hegemony?"

"Power, majesty, Secret Chambers _über alles_."

"I know nothing bout that, sir Wom. I'm just a semple mouse trying to help her kind."

"What do you know, lady Microchip?"

I never thought much before aboot tones a voice in mice. Heard lots a different ones in Bigs, from the phony honey sounds Artemis and Mum Ramback coo to the anger in Jason's voice. Now I was hearing something I didn't like at aw, was hearing a mouse making the drippy-nasty sounds of a Mariah, sounds chilled my heart from her, chilled it now from Wom.

I paused, but I knew I must answer him. "I know to write on the computer and to do other things on the computer, like store files. Ame a good lookout fer my family, too."

"Do you know how to make decisions?"

"I've no made many; never any fer others, no; —'cept maybe when to bait the cat and when to hide from her."

"Do you know how to foresee the destiny of a people?"

"Not at aw."

Wom said, "Then I must be first to know what's in The Matrix's paper."

Lying fer the first time in my life I said, "Oh, and you shall, Wom, you shall."

"Exactly," he said. "Now come over here so that I may touch you. They tell me you are a zaftig little thing, and I see you are."

chapter 11: One question too many

I went towards Wom's voice. In the dark an image a doom floated aback my eyes: Zack caught in the trap, back broken, pink foam aboot his muzzle. I cast out the vision, but 'twas replaced by such dread I'd never known fer myself, dread worse than would come on me when making Diversions where I might meet Cat and find myself pinned 'neath a mighty paw. Why, asked my inner mouse, would a somebody thought so wise play cat games wi' female kin, distant though I be?

When he said "Stop" I was close enough I felt his breath wi' my whiskers and almost at the same time smelt it, a faint smell a rancid sunflower seeds. Next I felt his whiskers as he snift me, like sniffing a meal—birdseed or discarded steak bone—from muzzle to the base a my tail, pausing there, till I feared he had The Notion and might do a thing aboot it, though I wasna in season. The thought made me sick in the stomach.

I backed away and skipped o'er to the light again, and Wom came after me. "Where are Secret Chambers?" I asked as he came out of the darkness.

He looked not so different from Grandpa Scootch, though bonier, as if muscle and fat were wasting away. He didna answer right away, stopping and licking his belly, a nervous gesture, I warrant, a tic. When he finished he said, "In good time. You think me an awful old man, don't you."

"Not any kind a _man_ , sir. I think you just an old, gray mouse."

He made a sound I'd not heard from mice before, a snicker I'd call it, as they might on the teevee, a very human sound. "Are all of you in Subdivision so impertinent?"

I replied, getting right to the point, "Grandpa Scootch has strict rules aboot who humps whom, and there's only one mouse in the house who's not so good at following the rules, and he tries to hump me, but it does no good; I never let 'em, young and strong though he may be."

"I've heard of your Grandpa's countless rules," Wom said, ignoring that I'd warned him off. "We have fewer rules here, favoring free will more; it fits intelligent beings better."

"We have rules in order to get along, but we donna have religion, so I hear of idees like free will only from preacher men on teevee."

"No moral basis for not humping, yet your grandfather deprives you of the pleasure."

"Grandpa Scootch worries aboot my lame leg, sir. Afraid I won't make a good mother."

Wom, whom I noticed no longer shammed aboot the 'sir' business, said, "That shows what a poor grasp of genetics he has. The lowliest mouse in Secret Chambers knows you can't pass on accidents of birth."

"Grandpa knows it, too. He's worried I wouldna do a fitting job a rearing offspring. Or else get et defending 'em."

"And besides, Microchip, you're too valuable as the great writer of Ramback House. If you were tending pups you might slight other duties."

"Please, sir, may I get to Secret Chambers, so I can rest and be ready to go to The Matrix's lab and perform my duty?"

"Not until you tell me how it is I will be the first to know what's in Dr. Godwyn's manuscript."

I had never heard The Matrix called by her human name. It troubled me, though I knew could be no harm in it. 'Twas not as if she were God. It was more like Wom were trying to make me feel uneasy. He was angry I hadna let him have his way wi' me.

To answer him I told another lie. I said, "If there is a way, I will get you the contents first."

He said, "I'm sure you will. I've decided to send Guards with you to make sure you do."

I said, "Won't that risk discovery a Secret Chambers, or Ramback House? What if some Big sees a bunch a mice traipsing cross Wide Boulevard?"

"This is worth the risk. I wouldn't want the information falling into the wrong hands."

"Whose wrong hands?"

"Maybe your hothead brother, Brack."

My trip to The Lab was getting less and less pleasant. I'd grown up thinking The Lab was a place a bigger thoughts and mice made a sterner stuff, mice knew more and lived closer to the sources of knowledge. Now I saw they were no more cunning than us suburban mice, they just knew bigger words, so they could excuse behavior we were too simple-minded to think of.

I said, at last, "Grandpa Scootch and Poptart keep Brack in line—and, please, now I need to go where I can poop wioot giving us away."

"By all means, little country cousin."

##

I followed him to Secret Chambers, my eyes glued to the outline of his backbone. I had no better sense a where we were, knowing only we went down one floor and into another wing, though I couldna ken if it be north, south, east, or west wing. We met mice coming and going, and rather than a sound they stopped, like ants, and sniffed. I was sniffed by a dozen strange mice—cousins, of course, but none I met before. Such sniffing would be impolite in Ramback House. We greeted visitors wi' words, sniffing is reserved fer close family. So, to each mouse who sniffed me I said, as quiet as I could, "Dorothy Mustt, if you please." And they said nothing, but they did look at me wi' cunning looks.

In Secret Chambers Wom passed me on to a mouse ca'ed Petri and then vanished into a horde a mice who seemed to have business wi' him. I recalled a nature show on the insides of a bee hive, workers hovering round the queen bee; the image did not look nice on mice.

Petri showed me around. He was younger than I and politer than Wom, a mouse wi' silver tips to his fur and a head much bigger than a Mustt's head. He mentioned he was aboot to enter academy, where he'd learn mouse genetics and other subjects suitable fer Heads. When I asked him what Heads were, he said they were mice had more cranial capacity—"You know, bigger heads." He tapped his forehead with a finger.

I wondered if, cause my head wasna so large, he thought me dumb, though he seemed to no notice.

Secret Chambers, wi' concrete walls and floor, was not so nice as the Musts' nest in Ramback House, though much bigger. 'Twas divided up more like a mouse house, or a mouse camp, wi' an eating area, a nursery and bedrooms, plus a "poop and pee parlor" much different from the floor drain in Ramback House, wi' pine shavings to absorb pee and chewed-down Dixie cups to catch poop. A gang a mice youngsters, called the "Out Muffin Mob," had to dump the waste and replace the Dixie cups each and every day. They made daily raids, Petri told me, on kennels where beagles had scented wood shavings as litter, which masked the mouse smell would ha' given away Secret Chambers to the animal caretakers.

Petri told me, on the quiet, how, wi' so many Talkers in The Lab, Elders were always thinking up new ways to keep 'em busy. I never heard of Elders but supposed they were advisors to Wom, and had to be named such cause there were so many mice.

Hoping I'd hear something to report on easing The Sadness, I asked, "What happens if mice here don't keep busy?"

He said, "Oh, they fight, they go off to other buildings and raid human food supplies. They go to the beach sometimes."

"Did you ever do any of those things?" I asked.

He sat twitching his whiskers, deciding if I was to be trusted. One of his ears, I noticed, was cruelly notched, so I reckoned he'd done the fighting part. When his whiskers stilled he said, "I've done them all—and more."

"Can I ask you what more?"

"I don't know yet if I trust you so much," he said, and as if to change the subject he said, "What else can I show you?"

"A map a this building. The way to The Matrix's lab."

He looked round, as if to spy out if any mouse be listening to us. Far as I could tell, none was, they all seemed to be going somewhere to do something. Petri said at last, "I was told not to. When the time comes you'll be led there by Guards."

"Who are these Guards?"

This time Petri put a finger to his mouth.

I said, taking care not to be too loud but also not seem afraid, "Take me where we can talk. I must know aboot these Guards. Wom says he will send me home wi' some, and I willna take any mouse to Subdivision is a threat."

Outside Secret Chambers is the room housing the genetics hamster colony. It being night, the hamsters were full awake and busy, turning their infernal wheels, making more racket than ten times more mice.

When we were under the hamster cages Petri said, "Secret Chambers Mice don't admit knowing anything about Guards."

"Why?"

"Nobody told me that."

"Well, I assume they are mice wi' the duty to guard. I do that when my family is foraging. But guard what?"

He said, "They carry out the Elders' orders."

"Like what?"

"They discipline. They make bad mice disappear."

I said, "Would I recognize a Guard if I met one in my soup?"

Petri didn't laugh at the way I put the question. He put his muzzle close to my ear and said, "I've seen 'em just once, but those I saw were white, with pink eyes and pink tails, and they are some bigger than us."

"I was told there are no white Talkers—or are there?"

He shook his head.

"Then what are they?"

Petri put his muzzle real close to my ear, so's I would ha' laughed fer being tickled, if this weren't such a serious matter. "They say Wom sent a party of Talkers to raid the mouse colony in the virology lab and liberated a cage full of albino does and kept them in a secret place to rear young'uns half lab mice, half Talkers. So they can understand simple orders but can't talk."

"Humping wild mice is considered very low, where I come from."

Petri said, "They're not wild. They're highly inbred mice you only find in laboratories."

"It's still taking advantage of a Mute."

"Well," he said, eyes half closed, "I didn't hump none, and I wasn't asked for my two cents' worth on the matter."

"Have you feelings aboot it?"

He looked up at the cages above our heads. "Best not to have feelings about things here."

"Ah," I said. "Just answer me one thing aboot Guards. If I talk to one, how will I know he takes my meaning?"

"I never talked to a Guard. I hear tell the one thing you know from them is, they don't like what you say, they bite. Otherwise, they go off and do as they're bid."

"Can you take me to a place I see one of these Guards?" I asked.

"That," Petri said, "is two things you're wanting answers to."

##

He led me back to where I was to sleep, fer sleep I needed, after the trek from Ramback House and meeting Wom and aw. Petri looked happy to have me out of his fur. Dwellers in Secret Chambers did not, I gathered, ask so many questions as I.

My berth was in a corner where a passel of young does bunked, ones too young to pup. I introduced myself and asked where I might curl up and sleep. Several fingers pointed to a very nice bed a wood chips and fur, off in a corner. I thanked my nest mates and went into the corner and curled up quick though it was the middle of the night.

But didn't sleep. I was too het up from the jabber wi' Petri to drop off. Why hadna Grandpa Scootch nor anybody else told me how things stand in Secret Chambers? Why was I no warned aboot asking questions? Did anyone over Wide Boulevard even know the true nature a Secret Chambers? And if the facts been hidden from my kin, why was I allowed to know them?

Because I was to be guarded forever after? I no longer felt safe. I felt unsafe in my person and worried fer the safety a mice scattered all about Subdivision. Where was Perry Mason when you needed him? Or, more to the point, the ACLU?

As I was passing on to troubled sleep it came to me: maybe Brack had coaxed out of a scout the true nature of Secret Chambers, maybe it was where he got the idee fer being supreme. But wi' Brack, so far, 'twas just idees. He had no humped white mice and made Guards, no become cagey and surly, like Wom. Maybe, all over Subdivision and Secret Chambers, mice were dreaming a being Supreme Commander. But so far was just Wom and Brack I knew of. I would keep the two of 'em apart, if I were made the Chairperson of Mousedom.

chapter 12: Heading for the beach

When I woke nothing was familiar but feelings. Groggy, sad and frightened at once, I hated to leave the nest's warmth, not wanting ta face what I must do. I excused my lingering awhile by admitting that what I must do didna jump out and smite me. In fact, as I lay there groping through the fog a worried sleep, I knew less and less what it was.

Fer sure, I been lured to The Lab to do a deed not in the best interests a Ramback House—not even, I reckoned, of Secret Chambers or mousedom generally.

At home, before this plot to lure me over to The Lab to serve Wom's hankering after power, I'd been out on the little lawn beside the swimming pool licking up the dew and preening my whiskers and otherwise waking up to the day. Here I was only wishing I could drop in on Grandpa Scootch and ask him what to do. Grandpa Scootch ne'er sniffed a kinslady's privates, ne'er snickered, he ne'er talked a free will when he meant slavery.

My teeth chattered when I thought a what my life would be if born in Secret Chambers instead of Ramback House. How could everone over here put on such a face when they were under the rule of a mad mouse?

I canna go through wi' this fetching a what amounted to sacred texts, I told myself; I shouldna, mustna. Besides dishonoring the sacred, I'd lead those white Guards o'er Wide Boulevard and into Ramback House, thugs who no would care if they're discovered, just told to bring me back wi' secrets to explain the Days Of Origins and how Talkers came to be.

Course it came to me, if mice here were used to reading laboratory gabble from the White Coats' computer monitors, I didn't need to take anything back to Ramback House. I just needed to teach someone how to run a computer, copy The Matrix's paper, and hide the file. Then they'd have it, and if I sent it to myself at Jason's computer I'd have it, which means I could warn Grandpa Scootch and all Musts aboot Wom and what looked like a craziness fer conquering all mice.

—Or was I crazy myself? Was I imagining that, just cause he had The Notion fer the wrong creature at the wrong time, Wom wasna to be trusted? Just cause he didna act as nice as Grandpa? Maybe Grandpa Scootch was the different one, maybe Wom was more like all t'other Wise Old Mice.

I shook these bad thoughts from my head long enough to look around. The young'uns round me had spent the night in activity, as a mouse should, and would wake later. I envied 'em that they had no decisions to make. But I pitied 'em that they were ignorant a what was happening under their noses.

And, I was hungry, too. But first I had to pee-and-poop.

##

I made my decision aboot what to do next in the pee and poop parlor. I wouldna lead a bunch a white Mutes into Ramback House, I wouldna give Wom the power a knowledge. I would skedaddle—right after breakfast.

As I left the pee and poop parlor I ran directly into Petri. I jumped straight up. He said, "Whew, I was afraid you'd wandered off. There's no wandering during the day, you know, unless you have Business."

"I have Business," I said.

"But not till The Matrix goes home this evening."

"I need to eat. Then I need to learn the way to The Matrix's lab."

"Eating, yes, learning the way, no. Someone will take you."

"Petri, what if we come into trouble? What if the Guards meet a rat, or we one way or t'other get split up? Could happen, you know."

He shook his head. "Look," he replied, in a tone said I didn't know what I was talking aboot, "no one goes about The Lab in the daytime 'cept those with Business. There is no telling where you'll meet a laboratory helper or a stray microbiologist or any kind of White Coat. You don't know the hidey-holes. You got to be sensible, Microchip. I'm just doing my job, and it's darned important, too. For all the Elders agree you're powerful important to The Cause."

Then he clapped his hand o'er his mouth, like a Big who'd said a bad thing, and I could get nothing from him aboot what this cause was, but I guessed it to be nothing less than the plot to take over Mousedom.

I decided to press Petri. He was a nice young buck, but he been beat down and filled wi' nasty thoughts. "You want me to sit idle, Petri, whilst you do your job a keeping me prisoner, you must feed me first, and then you must answer questions. You been told you to tell me naught, but if you willna tell I'm forced to take matters in my own hands and run amok."

He twitched his whiskers and said, "Come. Food. Dining hall."

It occurred to me, looking round at everthing as we made our way to dining hall, Secret Chambers was a place Bigs had made fer purposes other than housing Talkers. The first settlers came here just to hide. It was a good place to hide, but there was electrical stuff against the walls, cables and pipes and wires running ever which way, and in one section off the main hallway of Secret Chambers was a thing with a zillion wires coming into very neat packets of connections. It worried me.

"Petri," I said, "What happens if Bigs come in here?"

He was hurrying to dining hall and didn't stop to answer. When we entered the dining hall he turned and said, "Bigs coming here is not my worry. The Elders worry about such things."

The legendary Secret Chambers muffins—that is, the hamster chow—were set out along one wall, piles of them, neat little cones of pellets. "Do I get to choose?" I asked.

"They're all the same. The In-muffin Mob count them out."

"They all taste the same?"

Petri nodded his head, but he had already taken a pellet in hand and was munching it. Because a the hour, we were the only mice eating. One of the In-muffin Mob came in and replaced a pile had been eaten earlier. He pulled along a piece a paper twice a mouse length wi' the right number of pellets on it, and piled them neatly in place, counting the while. He was muttering numbers under his breath.

I asked Petri if he didn't get tired a the same food day in and day out.

He nodded towards the In-muffin Mobster, who was turned away from us, and continued to chew. I chewed along with him. The so-called Muffins were all right but bland, and would get real tiresome in no time flat. There wasna sufficient salt in 'em.

When I finished my pile I started to move to the next, but Petri squeaked, "No, no. One pile to a customer."

"That's all I get?"

The In-muffin Mobster had left. Petri said, "We can't afford to take too much hamster food or the White Coats will catch on. So, we only get more on special occasions."

"Aren't I a special occasion?" I asked. Course I was teasing, trying to get on to the good side a Petri. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I was no going to The Matrix's lab tonight. I was going to escape.

Petri didn't even answer me. He said, "Let's go poop-and-pee."

I had already been, but I went along anyway. On the way I asked him, "Don't you ever get any meat or vegetables?"

He gave me a dark look. 'What makes you think we eat meat?"

"My family eats meat. We gnaw meat off steak and chop bones. Bigs leave amazing amounts uneaten you know. What aboot veggies?"

He put his muzzle close to my ear and said, "That's why young'uns like to run off to the beach. There's grasses out there are wonderful tasty. Otherwise, if you have certain kinds a duties you get to go once a month to the trash cans behind the cafeteria. The best stuff is lettuce in hamburgers doesn't get eaten. Carrot sticks. The fruit salad's got too much mayo on it for my taste."

"Any mayo would be too much fer me," I said.

"But no meat." He didn't even look at me this time.

I spent the rest of the morning pondering, as they say on teevee. Were only so many things I could talk to Petri aboot, he was such a wreck worrying aboot who would hear him saying what to me. And the rest a the mice, though they seemed to know who I was, went aboot their business as if I were nothing but another Secret Chambers mouse. After I stopped talking and hunkered down fer a long wait, Petri started to nod off. He jerked awake a couple of times and the second time I said, "Donna trouble wi' me, Petri, I couldna find my way back to the pee and poop parlor if you paid me, much less wander aboot. I will wake you when I need you."

And once more he gave me a dark look, as if the idee a letting me stay awake while he slept was unheard of. So finally I closed my eyes, as if to sleep, and began counting backwards from one hundred. At fifty I opened one eye a wee bit and saw Petri seemed to be asleep. I jumped up and down a couple of times, waved a hand in front a his eyes and still he hunkered there, whiskers at half mast. I walked away.

I am an obvious mouse: fat and crippled. But no one challenged me as I poked aboot till I came, by luck or chance or some faint memory, to The Passages.

My heart rate went up and up. I had to go down and down. Is one thing to go up insulated pipes, as you are using your hands to do most of the work lifting your body. Going down an ordinary mouse would use her hind feet to cling to the rough surface, to keep from sliding. As I had only one good hind limb, I had to be very careful.

But that wasn't what made my heart race. I was running away. I was, on my own, breaking an agreement twixt Secret Chambers and Ramback House. I wasna so sure something bad might happen to Ramback House fer my doing this. But there was no way I would let the likes of Wom ha' knowledge whereby he could lord it over the mice a Subdivision. We might not be so learned, but we were free mice and I reckoned I wouldna wreck that if I knew better.

Though my heart raced my mind was clear as rainwater. I jumped over to the insulated pipe and inched down. Was hard work but not so dangerous as I thought. I went down and passed one floor but at the second decided to rest. I hopped off the insulated pipe into the channel with the grate atop it. I stayed in a shadow. The hum of the machines high up had grown so faint I could hardly hear it.

Just then something white went by, going down the pipe just as I had, but twice as fast. Then another white thing. I saw better this time: white mice. Guards! Now my heart beat faster than ever. If they caught me I'd be not a sort-of prisoner, which I been since the night before; I'd be a real prisoner.

My first thought was, never would I see Jason again. My second thought was, never again would I see Mumsy and Poptart, my brothers, Grandpa Scootch, that wise and noble mouse. My third thought was, I should a stayed crosst Wide Boulevard and give mind to cheering up Jason first, cause this Secret Chambers task was turning out a gosh-awful failure.

##

It came to me, as I sat frozen, the Guards would turn back when they reached the bottom and hadna caught up to me. Maybe they'd go out on the floors from the up-down passage. I couldna sit still.

So I ran. I ran along the trench with its smaller pipes and cables, at first just getting farther away from where I seen Guards, but then I reckoned I'd end up in another wing, and maybe in t'other wing I'd find another up-down passage.

As I was running along, a Big, walking above, shook the floor. I froze. I figured a still mouse would blend in with all the concrete. A moving mouse might catch the Big's eye. He or she passed, a swish of a white coat, legs, not trousers, I donna know whether man nor woman, the person was by me so fast. I began to trot along behind.

I came to a junction where there was a hollow going each way from the trench I was in, full a pipes but still enough room fer a mouse to fit. But dark. Awfully. I went into the hollow far as the light went and then a bit farther. I peed. I pooped. If the Guards knew anything aboot tracking, like Indian scouts on teevee, they'd think I went down that hollow and would look fer me there.

I went back out to the trench and along until I came to another up- down passage. Wioot a second's wait I jumped to the insulated pipe and went down it. My biggest worry was knowing when I'd reached ground level, but the closer I got to the ground the louder was the hum I heard when first I arrived. It wasna like the hum around Secret Chambers, 'twas more like an up and down sound than a round and round sound.

Was a window I hadn't noticed in the dark, and I climbed the wall and looked out. Mustt be in the west wing, I reasoned, cause there was water bigger than ten times ten swimming pools. There was, Christ Amighty, the ocean. It made mice and men and The Lab seem puny and not worth thinking on. I couldna still my eyes from wondering over it. It went on and on and nothing blocked the view of it. I decided to head fer the beach and look fer grasses to eat.

I would find a decent grass and munch and think aboot The Cause Petri had let slip, what it meant and what I was to do aboot it.

And I did find grass, a sweet, juicy grass gave off a pretty smell when you bit a blade of it, a smell that took me back to Ramback House and Jason, fer the smell reminded me of him.

Chapter 13: June-June

Once I watched on teevee a Big with a soft, dark face and voice like music. He said, "Free at last, free at last!" I recalled his face when the waves a the ocean reminded me of his voice and how I was also free, though I been a prisoner only a short time. I felt a gleaming inside me, a force pulling me into the world from a cramped and fearsome place.

I may ha' been like a prisoner in The Lab, but I been a prisoner of a wrong idea fer longer. I thought there was a pecking order and mice from The Lab were higher up it than Subdivision mice. After all, Subdivision dwellers had fled Secret Chambers while the mice in Secret Chambers learnt to use the White Coat gabble to ken more aboot where they lived—I mean, fancy mice and dead mice and the nature a science? So maybe this change, Wom creating Guards and everone being afraid, was going to lead to another change, where the mice of Secret Chambers got up on their hind legs and gave the Wise Old Mice an idee a where they should be leading. Maybe this was a passing fancy and would go out when Wom and his cronies died out. Maybe they were a needed stepping stone, to be left behind when their time was past.

I couldna risk not being right about that. Just now I had my family to think aboot and wasna going to let affairs in Secret Chambers put Musts in danger. I always thought ours was such a boring life, leading to The Sadness all too often, but now, across Wide Boulevard and cut off from it, it looked decent enough.

I sat in the shadow a the building wondering which way to go. I was certaint Wom would send scouts out ta look fer me, and course they'd look the direction a Wide Boulevard, so I mustn't go that way. But there were Bigs on the beach, not many but some, and wind blowing from the ocean made me afraid of it. I wondered if, as I got closer and closer to it, the wind would get stronger and stronger and blow me away. Or the ocean would rush up and swallow me. I seen the ocean on teevee, but there never was any way teevee could show the ocean proper, cause it can only focus on a wee part of it.

As I sat debating myself a voice behind me said "Are you a Scapist?" I jumped straight up, as high as a fat, three-legged mouse can jump, landing turned towards the voice.

There stood a mouse small as Mo and almost the color of the twins' hair, but with here and there black and red hairs. "Who are you?" I asked, in a voice none too friendly, fer the wee mouse had scared me, even though I knew he was no Guard nor anyone else sent from The Lab. He was no mouse I'd ever met in gatherings in Subdivision neither. The only other type of mouse I knew were Mutes, and if he was a Mute the whole world just turned upside down.

In answer to my question he said, "This isn't the place to talk. Follow me." He ran straight towards the Ocean a ways, zigged left, to follow a raised flower bed, and zagged across a sidewalk, ignoring Bigs sitting 'neath umbrellas behind The Lab, eating (I could smell human food) and he went cross more lawn and through a hedge, as if 'twere an everday thing, and we were on sand. It felt nice on my feet. Ahead of us grass grew in clumps and bits a fine sand blew from the mounds around the clumps, some of it getting in my eyes.

When we were a hundred mouse lengths onto the beach the blond mouse ducked behind a trash can and into a hole under the concrete pad it sat on. I stopped at the entrance to the hole and squinted into darkness I couldna fathom cause the sunlight was so strong I would have to wait for my eyes to adjust.

"Come in before you get stepped on," the mouse said. "Come; don't be afraid."

I figured 'twas safer than standing out in the open, so I entered. It were cool under the trash can. I liked cool. The hole was on a side of the pad away from the ocean, so the wind couldna get in. I said, "Now tell me who you are and where we are."

"I'm June-June the Scapist and we're under the Near Trashcan. Who are you and where do you come from?"

"I'm Dorothy Mustt a Subdivision, and I've just escaped from The Lab."

"I guessed you were a Scapist."

I said, "What's a Scapist?"

"Any Talker living outside The Lab, as far as we're concerned, is a Scapist. Mice who live along here call ourselves that cause we escaped from The Lab."

"Are there many of you?"

"More than we can count. —Of course we aren't much good as counters, but there's lots."

I told him the state of my affairs, how I was visiting Secret Chambers on a special mission and decided not to carry it out, cause I wasna sure I could trust Wom.

"And Scapists are living in the wild cause we don't trust Wom either, so I guess you're one of us."

He told me about Scapists, how a mouse named Arrene started asking questions one day but strange white mice no one had seen before took her away. Her littermates went to get her back when the white mice attacked 'em and killed one and wounded the rest. So they talked to cousins they felt they could trust and a group started night raids to scout the world outside The Lab and found out it wasn't as scary as the world inside be, so they escaped. Cats prowled and owls swooped out here, but the way to beat them was to adapt, to become early morning and late afternoon foragers stead of night foragers. And doing things in teams instead of solo, so there were always critters looking out for prowling enemies.

"Biggest problem," June-June said, "is knowing whether stray Talkers are spies or Seekers."

I said, "I assume Seekers be mice from Secret Chambers set on being Scapists."

"That's so."

"And how come you didna suspect me a being a spy?"

June-June said, "We have our own spies inside Secret Chambers; they tell us what's going on. We've heard of the famous Microchip, who is lame in a hind leg and... and—roundish."

"I fear after today I willna be famous Microchip. I be in hot water, Pilgrim." I told June-June my discovery of a Cause and how I'd decided to flee The Lab in order not to give Wom a chance to further this Cause, cause he might decide to invade Subdivision.

June-June responded, "Scapists look at the world a little different. Wom and his gang of Wise Old Mice don't amount to much in the world. Talkers don't even amount to much. So far as we know this is the one place in the world we exist, even.

"Now all mice, we figure, amount to a lot. We figure there got to be mice everywhere humans are. And humans don't much like mice. We figure if Talkers ever disobey the Prime Directive, the Worst Case Scenario could kick in. So the one thing Scapists got to worry about is if Wom and his gang, because they're haughty and stupid, cause humans to know there's such a thing as talking mice. Or some lamebrain mouse thinks there's a reason he's got to talk to a human about something he thinks is more important than safeguarding our species."

"Which sounds very wise," I said, Jason flashing into my mind, "if the Worst Case Scenario is bad as it sounds. —Er, what is the Worst Case Scenario?"

"Ah," June-June said, "I can see we have lots to talk about. How's about some chow first?"

"Chow?"

"Food. Fruits, nuts, seeds. Depends on how far you care to travel, but I know where there's a lady throws out cracked corn and milo for the pigeons. I also know where a man throws bread out for ducks. And there's always plenty lying around. At night the rats clean it up, but this time of day there'd be plenty."

I asked him, "Are you no afraid a being seen by Bigs?"

"Sweetheart, we're talking about open spaces, public places. Long as you don't go up to one and say, 'Hi, I'm Dorothy Mustt, the talking mouse,' they'll never know you're anything but a plain old house mouse. And we Scapists don't call them Bigs, by the way. —And if you're interested why, it's cause we don't want to make them more important than they think they are."

"You don't try to stay hidden?"

"Only humans will run after you are children, plus the humans' dogs and cats. And then you have to duck for cover. Grown-up humans think we carry diseases and stay away from us."

"Let's eat while we talk. My guide in The Lab, Petri, said there was tasty grass out here."

"Good old Petri. He's one of the group we call Scaredies: wants to escape but wouldn't dare cause it's too scary. —Let's go chow down."

We ran out from under the trash can. June-June mentioned as we left that trash can food was okay in a pinch, but Scapists try to leave them to rats and Mutes. We were in a place where you could walk right down to the water, but I could see, as we started going to the left, which I figured to be south, there were bluffs a short distance away, and atop 'em, right up to the edge, sat Bigs' houses, and a walk ran along the edge a the sand far as I could see. June-June stayed close to this walk, on the ocean side. We crossed under it through a small culvert with a trickle a water down the middle and came to a place he called a wetland, and went up to a group of grasses I'd never seen before and started to snip off the stems. I bit into a stem and it was okay, but not so tasty.

June-June said, "No, sweetheart, you don't eat that part. You eat the seeds. You get to the seeds by chopping down the stems. Sit tight for a while, I'll make a pile for us to pull into the bushes and eat at our leisure."

When he was done cutting, he told me to watch how he scooped up the maximum number of stalks in his mouth. Then he said, "You grab these and cross that path. On the other side's an oleander bush that some human planted. Settle down under it."

He gave me the mouthful of the grass (or slough sedge, as it turned out to be when we discussed it) and he followed me to the oleander bush. I could see it would be much harder to get the remaining stems into his mouth—he'd given me the easy task. When he threw his on top a mine he said, "I suppose you know this oleander is poisonous to mice, right down to its seeds. So watch what you eat."

He started stripping the wee seeds from the stalks. "We learned about this stuff from watching birds eat them." I bit into one and 'twas tasty. I et another one, then another. Soon they were all gone. When we were finished June-June said, "So the Worst Case Scenario. Never heard of it? It was first thought of by Wom, but he only passed on his thoughts to the other Wise Old Mice of Secret Chambers, so we had to figure it out ourselves. The Wise Old Mice would say to us younger mice, 'You can't do that, cause of the Worst Case Scenario,' but they'd never tell us what it was or how they were sure what we were doing would cause it. It was a way to control us—period."

"So what is this Worst Case Scenario?" I asked June-June. "And how did you get ca'ed June-June?"

"My ma had a litter of twelve two summers ago, in June. My Pa named us June-January through June-December. Simple"

He looked at me for a moment, as if trying to decide something weighty. In a bit he said, looking out at the water trickling through the reeds, "The Worst Case Scenario is, cause humans believe that the spread of intelligence among mice could destroy their world, they must wipe out all mice, to make sure they have killed all intelligent ones."

Now I was the one staring at the water flowing by. "That's silly. Bigs canna be so stupid."

"No?" June-June said. "You watch television?"

"Yes. Lots."

"Do you follow the reasoning of the world's human leaders? You paid attention to what's going on in China? What's going on in Iran? What's going on in North Korea?"

"The Big whose teevee I watch favors John Wayne movies and such over news."

June-June let out a noise somewhere between a squeak and a scornful laugh. "While those dolts in Subdivision are watching John Wayne, things are happening in the world makes you glad mice are so flexible. Because human civilization may end one day soon, and we won't have them around to depend on for food and shelter. But we have to survive as long as that takes. And with the likes of Wom around, we might not outlast them. We laugh at his predictions of the Worst Case Scenario becoming a reality, but him and his dreams of power could be the very one to provoke it."

I sat still, munching the last seed and watching the water trickle down to the beach, wishing I had nowhere else to go in the world or anything hard to do.

"What are you Scapists going to do if Wom brings on the Worst Case Scenario?"

"Hide."

"Can you hide from everthing the Bigs could use to kill mice?"

"We figure," June-June said, not sounding frightened but weary, "they'll use gas or sound as weapons of choice. More likely sound, cause sounds that could kill a mouse would just give humans a headache, whereas gas might knock 'em off. We have a place to go we figure is soundproof, especially if they don't know we're there."

"Are you living there?"

"No, not yet."

"Would you have enough room there to take in all the mice in Subdivision and The Lab, too?"

June-June shook his head.

"Then would you advise us to make our own soundproof place?"

He nodded.

"I must get back to Ramback House—quick—to warn my family."

June-June said, "I'd travel at dusk, if I were you. And I know a way back where you go _under_ Wide Boulevard, and keep away from The Lab to boot. Hang out with me and my homies till dusk and I'll see you home."

I agreed that was wisest to do, but I wasna sure I could sit still that long.

"Hey, sweetheart, me and my buds got some grass you can chew on will take away all your worries for a few hours. Stick with me and you'll be not only safe but feeling no pain."

chapter 14: Dream weed

'Neath the "boardwalk," as June-June calls it (though it's made a concrete) runs a maze a tunnels made by ground squirrels. As I peered inside I asked him where the ground squirrels had gone.

"A few were left when we started moving in, but they died out from the poison grain."

I backed away from the entrance.

June-June said, "Oh don't worry; we cleaned it all out. You couldn't miss it: bright green, smelt a little strange. Couldn't get the ground squirrels to stop eating it; it was so easy, you see, so handy. So they kept dying. It was like their own Worst Case Scenario. A shame we couldn't talk with them. We even tried to run them off, but they're bigger, you know, and they thought we were trying to steal their grain."

"The Bigs killed them, then?"

"Who else?"

"Why?"

"As near as we can tell it was cause they were killing plants in the flower beds around The Lab. There are still burrows over there, and we use them in emergencies, but not for living, cause they flood when the groundskeepers water. —Come to think of it, that may be the reason humans killed them—water being wasted. The little dummies had to dig, you know, like a curse: dig, dig, dig; and they would... I don't know; they messed up the flower beds.

"We have more tunnels than we'll ever use—unless every mouse in Secret Chambers turns Seeker. They run from here to the end of the boardwalk."

I followed him into tunnels. I didna like the idee a going where other critters died, but I was more at ease under the boardwalk than above ground. The tunnels were big (for mice) and cool; the sand in 'em firm to walk on. Just as light from the hole we went in began to fade, light showed from another entry up the way, and when we got to that we did a quick right turn and were in a gallery, was what June-June called it, big enough to hold mair mice than Ramback House. It had a second opening on the beach side, and light filtered in from that. A mouse was coming down it as we entered.

June-June said to this mouse, "Roddy! How they hanging, brudda?"

"They hangin', they hangin'. Wuzup wit you and yo momma an them?"

Later I would ask how they came up with such strange greetings, but right then I was more interested to see who this critter was. A big mouse with the longest whiskers I'd ever seen, he loomed over June-June.

"This is Microchip, from over Subdivision way. She's come to chew the Dream Grass with us."

Roddy came up to me and sat on his hind legs. He said, "My pleasure, _chiquita_ , gimme five."

He held up one of his hands. I'd seen people do this in teevee movies, so I gave him a high five, but I felt silly, so much being on my mind.

June-June started to explain why I was there when two more mice came from the tunnel behind us and he had to introduce me again, to Dina and Cheri, who did not offer high fives. June-June started over and did a fair job explaining why I crossed Wide Boulevard and why I left The Lab after one night.

Dina said, "You figured out that control thing, eh, sister?"

"My Grandpa Scootch controls things back home, but he darena use tricks. He gets real controlling only 'bout mating, since he reckons there be fights, you know, and bad results from interbreeding, too."

"You'll find it's different here, Babe," Roddy said. "More like free love."

"Microchip isn't sticking around, guys. When the sun gets low I'm taking her the back way to Subdivision. She's feels she's got to warn the mice over there about the evil Wom." He said _evil Wom_ an odd way.

"Wom's harmless," Cheri said. "Mad old fool."

I said, "I think he be the most dangerous thing since cats and snap traps."

They all laughed. I ne'er heard four mice laugh together. Come to think of it, the only mouse I ever heard laugh was Brack, when mocking someone.

"Hey," said June-June, "Wom put Guards out looking for her, so she's a marked mouse. Back home she's got littermates to fight for her, and no one over there—at least in her family—has got the real word on what's going down in Secret Chambers. So I think we need to help. But first, I want to turn her on to some Dream Weed, make sure she's aware of the benefits of fleeing societal constraints."

He said _societal constraints_ the way he said _evil Wom_ , a mocking tone. But even if mockery reminded me of Brack, he wasna so crazy as my brother, he and his pals didna take life too seriously.

Roddy pulled a zipper plastic bag out of the shadows into the center of the group. "Only one bag left after this," he said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Called marijuana," June-June said. "Some human stuffed it down a hole under a trash can—reckon to hide it. There were six bags this size. We swiped 'em after my brother, June-January tasted it. You have to try it."

He peeled open the bag and dragged out a stalk of dried plant. "You go ahead, Microchip, be our guest."

"What do I do?"

Roddy said, "You chew it, darlin', nibble off a couple leaves, and chew it. Then you chew a few more. These buds up here are best. But don't eat too many the first time."

I bit into the bud he pointed out. Was like something Mum Ramback puts in stews; not very tasty. I didna understand why they et it.

Dina said, "Wait a few minutes to get results. Isn't the taste, dearie, it's the high."

"High?"

"Just wait."

I sat back and finished off the bud while the others worked their way down the stalk and chewed off the rest of the leaves.

Someone said to me, "Feel it yet?"

"Not yet."

"What's really neat," said Cheri, "is to cross the beach when you're high and watch the sunset. When you get a sunset on a lazy summer day, tide going out, man, it's the greatest."

I heard 'lazy summer day' in teevee movies; I never heard a mouse say that like she knew what it meant. I repeated the words. They came off my tongue like bubbles rising in a glass of champagne. Then I realized I never seen bubbles rise in a glass of champagne 'cept in movies, but it was like the picture of 'em was as clear in my brain as if I was inside the teevee, sitting on the table of a nightclub wi' Joan Blondell and James Cagney.

I told the group that. Only I said 'buggles' for 'bubbles.' I laughed. They laughed.

"She's ripped," Roddy said.

"Ripped?"

"Stoned, high, whatever."

"High's okay," I said. "No stones, no ripped."

Everyone laughed. I laughed, too.

"Now what do you think of Wom?" Dina asked.

I thought a minute. I remembered him sniffing my privates. I started to feel sick to my stomach. "Dirty old mouse," I said. "I'd like to rip him."

"Right on," someone said.

"You bet right on," I said. "Rip his fucking whispers off."

And then I put a hand over my mouth cause I never use that word, although I hear Jason and Dudley use it, and Mariah, too. It just wasna used among the Musts. Even Brack didn't use it.

No one seemed to notice my foul mouth. They were chattering up a storm, like a mob scene in a movie, and I sat back and listened. When the laughter died, Cheri asked me why I was so upset wi' mad Wom's wanting answers to how mice had learned to talk.

I said, "'Tis not just that we talk. Parrots talk. Mynahs talk. I see ads on teevee fer talking cars. If I didna know bout the Guards I might not worry, but I believe Wom thinks he can turn all mice, in every wing of The Lab, into Talkers and use 'em to rule the world. Maybe turn dogs, rabbits and monkeys into Talkers—who knows? I think he'll no succeed—he canna do what humans can, he canna even write yet—but he might mess up a whole lot of things—"

"—Yeah, yeah," Roddy said, "then we arrive at the Worst Case Scenario and kablooie, there goes Mousedom."

"I think that is putting it fairly," I said, surprised that I was tripping over words no more, cause I still felt high.

"But you're kidding yourself," Roddy said, "if you think the Worst Case Scenario won't kick in anyway. Some dumb mouse gonna say, 'You stole my muffin, mammy jammer!" while a White Coat's hanging round and the cat will be out of the bag."

"Or some Scapist will get higher than we are and kick sand in some surfer dude's face on the beach. End up in a mouse circus, reciting the Gettysburg Address in a little Abe Lincoln costume. Then Congress will pass a law and the president will send out the FBI and CIA and maybe the Army to take us out. Be over before my kids grow up."

I saw Abe Lincoln in a teevee movie. I didna know he was real. I didna know aboot the Gettysburg Address. I wasn't clear who the FBI and CIA were. And these mice had no to teevee watch, living on the beach.

"How do you guys know so much stuff?" I asked.

Nobody answered at first. Then Dina said, "Keep our ears open."

Roddy said, "Lots of kids from the university come to the beach."

June-June said, "Down the beach are places they hang out at night, have weenie roasts, drink beer."

Cheri said, "The chatter gets pretty wild sometimes. We just sit and listen. Better than teevee—more exciting, anyway. —Don't the people in your house talk?"

I told them Jason was very smart and he talked wi' his friend, Dudley. "But they both have their looks on their minds." Only I said 'mings' for 'minds.'

"You crack me up," Roddy said. "Let's have some more grass."

"You go ahead," June-June said. "Me and Microchip need to stay half-way straight for when it's time to go."

I went back to talking about Jason and Dudley. When I said Jason had a patch of mouse hair on his face, no one was ready to believe me. "Maybe someone spliced a mouse gene into his genome," Dina said.

The other mice all nodded. "I'm hip," Cheri said.

"Jason keeps a diary. He writes in it about a condition called hirsutism in humans. Other humans have it, too."

Roddy, Cheri and Dina were munching more Dream Weed. I asked them if they truly thought someday humans would wipe us all out.

"They won't be able to stand us, once they know we're intelligent. They'll think the Red Chinese are using us to undermine the morals of their children."

"Or steal secrets about military weapons."

"Or counterfeit billions of dollars and ruin the U.S. economy."

"Stop!" I said.

"What?"

"They couldna wipe us all out. We be too nimble."

Roddy said, "Okay, when the guy comes around with his hose down a tunnel and starts to gas you, how you gonna stop him?"

I said, "I donna know; I just willna be around when he comes."

They all laughed.

"There's Talkers in China," I said.

Nobody laughed. At last Dina said, "How do you know?"

I said, "China must have a Matrix, too. Maybe not _The_ Matrix, but _a_ Matrix. Somewhere in China a group of mice is talking just like us."

"Only Chinese," Roddy said, and everyone laughed.

"Hey, don't make fun of her," June-June said.

"Listen," Roddy said, "we're a freak accident at one research lab out of hundreds of labs. You think anything more, pretty soon you'll be saying there's a Big Mouse in the Sky looking down and taking care of us. Forget it. Enjoy the shit that's going down; it's later than you think."

I said to June-June, "You know, if we wait till 'tis wholly dark, Guards will be everwhere. Why doont we start out?"

Everone wanted to give me a high five fore I left, and I thanked them fer the Dream Weed and said it had been very exciting talking wi' them, only I said 'berry" instead of 'very' and someone said "Good old Microchip," and everyone laughed and June-June and I left.

chapter 15: Back in Subdivision

Sudden sunlight hurt my eyes. Humans (it dinna take long to change from "Bigs") walked alongside us on the boardwalk, most wi' dark glasses, some with ears wired; noon aware of us.

The sun was a huge orange ball aboot ta drop into the ocean. The waves wirna scary big and the wind was just past a whisper. I wanted to run across the sand and lose myself in that huge orange ball and those gentle waves.

We were back at the wetlands when I stopped June-June and said, "Am I crazy to think there might be Talkers in China?"

He said, "Com'on," and ran under the oleander bush where we'd eaten. He said, when he got comfortable, "We don't know how we got here. That's part of why Wom wants you to look at Dr. Godwyn's stuff. He thinks it will reveal all. But even if we know, what good will it do us? We can't repeat what she did. We can't change anything. I figure our job's to protect ourselves from humans as much as we can. Fly under the radar, as the kids on the beach say.

"I wish you'd stick around a while and listen in on the beach bunnies. You think humans can do lots of things—cook stuff, build laboratories, drive cars. But they still feel helpless. They feel it's a cold, indifferent Universe out there, and humans are all alone in it, and if they aren't careful they're going to blow themselves up."

"Do you think they're so bad as Roddy says?"

June-June sighed. "You know, Roddy's a romantic; he believes in innocence and protecting it. You listen to the dudes on the beach at night, getting some hottie in the mood to do the Good Deed, and you learn—cause you hear so often—they make the same pitch over and over to different girls—lie through their teeth just to jump some babe's bones. And they don't much care which one. You get a bunch of guys out here drinking beer at night, and when they aren't talking Zen or how the president's running the country into the ground, they're talking about how they scored the night before, how easy it was to get in this chick's pants or that one's: in other words, how often they can do the Good Deed, as if that's a such a Big Deal."

He laughed that wee laugh I was getting used to. "One night Roddy got so riled, listening to this one brat—we all knew him, he'd lie to Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the same breath—he waited till the guy had his pants down then ran up and bit him on the ass." He laughed again. "Get the picture? This guy's ready to bone the chick and Roddy ends the party with a nip on the tush. Course the dude thinks it's a snake, or a vampire bat, he yelps like a dog run over by a car, the chick screams, the mood is gone forever. No boning on the beach blanket that night."

"Why did he get so mad? What's wrong wi' humans humping each other?"

"Cause the guy's so frigging dishonest—pardon my French—the guy's saying he loves her more than pizza pie he doesn't care shit about her, just wants to bone her. It could be Annie, Chrissie, Betty Crocker, Oprah Baby, Chiquita Banana. He'd say the same thing, end up with another chick on the beach the next night and try it all over again. Mice don't treat each other that way—not beach mice."

I told him about Mariah on the recliner with all her fellers. I told him I didna think she cared a bit if the fellers were lying, she just wanted to be kissed and hugged and such.

"We live in different worlds, kiddo," June-June said. "But I like you. You think. You ever have the urge, come back over and we'll have some serious parley—and that's no jive. —Com-on, before the Guards bag us under the oleander."

I was amazed. We came to the place where Wide Boulevard crossed the wetlands and there was a bridge over a glen and I could see the cars going over the bridge, and when I was under it I could hear them rumble across, and I realized I was still feeling the Dream Weed, cause the car sound kept getting mixed up in my head with other sounds: Mariah sighing twixt kisses, but sometimes the sound of a toilet flushing, and I had the feeling a rolling over—not on the ground but in the air—and my stomach flipped o'er t'other way, so I had to ask June-June to stop and let me get my bearings.

At last we were on Subdivision side of Wide Boulevard and he turned north and climbed up the side of the glen till we came to ivy growing o'er the edge. June-June stopped. He said, "I'm not going all the way home with you—you can find it yourself. Just keep going next to the sidewalk till you come to a place you recognize. Remember, humans won't pay you any mind. If they're walking dogs the worst will happen is you get an ear full of barking, cause the human will rein the dog in—it's a control thing. Should be too early for cats to be out, but if you run into one, climb into the middle of a hedge or a bush. The dumb felines in your neighborhood are too well fed to do any real work to catch a mouse—usually."

He gave me a hug, something no mouse but Mumsy had ever done, and I hugged him back and he said, "Good luck, Mighty Microchip. Now that you know where to find us, drop in. Bring along any of your littermates. —Hang loose."

When he scampered back down the trail I was scared half wild, alone in a strange place, so I ran like crazy till I made out the way into Ramback House. The sprinklers were going but I didn't care, I ran through 'em and through the secret passageways into the Musts' nest. The first person I ran into was Mumsy, who said, "Look at you, all untidy and wet. And what is that you've been eating? Your breath smells awful."

##

After Mumsy licked me dry all the family came together. As the air conditioning was going we didn't have to worry any Ramback would hear us, so I asked them to hold their questions to the end, I'd try to answer everthing as best I could.

I told 'em a meeting Wom and bout his sniffing my privates and having The Notion, but not how it made me feel. I told 'em bout his insisting he be first to know what's in The Matrix's computer and notebooks. How he meant to send Guards wi' me to make sure a this and who those Guards were, some vile mixture of Talker and Mute, fearless, able to ken simple orders but no talk. I told 'em a Petri's fear a being spied on, the young does I bunked wi' not wanting to know anything bout me nor my mission. I told 'em about my fears for Subdivision and mousedom, how Wom wanted to take over the world.

"We've got to beat him to it!" Brack threw in, his whiskers bristling.

"None a that," said Grandpa Scootch. "There'll no be taking over the world while I'm among the quick. —Now what gives you such a foolish idee, wee lass? No one's going to take over the world, no mouse at any rate. 'Tis just some wrong feeling ya got."

So then I told them bout escaping from The Lab, and I would ha' kept on to tell a meeting June-June and Roddy and the other does but Brack broke in again with a huzzah and Grandpa said, "You what?" as if I'd broken the Prime Directive, and I said it again.

"I ran away. Guards chased me. If everthing was up and up over there, why would Wom send Guards to chase me?"

"Maybe trying to save you from harm?" Mumsy said.

So I told 'em bout the Worst Case Scenario and Grandpa Scootch said, "Yes, I've heard of it. You learned what the Worst Case Scenario is?"

I told him about running into June-June and talking wi' the beach mice and how they told me the Worst Case Scenario.

"You fell in with a bad lot, granddochter. They donna know what they talk a."

"If things are so cherry pie perfect," I said, "how come Wom wanted to send Guards over here wi' me? How come he wants to know The Matrix's words 'fore anyone else?"

Grandpa Scootch sighed. "I need to meet wi' the Wise Old Mice of Subdivision. Frac, get your littermate some a that nice granola we swept up. I hear the muffins of Secret Chambers be noon too tasty."

"Grandpa," I said, "I think you should pay me mind. I wouldna be surprised if someone like Mo or Petri come over here with a horde a Guards to take me back by force."

Brack was so riled by this he was gnashing his teeth.

"Be quiet, Brack. —Dorothy Mustt," Grandpa said, "I know na where you get your ideas, but those are our cousins o'er there. Wom was a comrade in arms. We parted with a handshake when the Musts came o'er to Subdivision. I canna believe he would act that way."

"I donna think Dorothy is making up this idea," Poptart said. "Why were we no told bout Guards? And about beach mice—"

"—The beach mice ca themselves Scapists," I threw in. "They believe themselves lucky to escape The Lab. They call Wom a dangerous old fool."

"Dorothy Mustt!" Grandpa Scootch said, "there be none a that."

"He gave me the creeps," I said. "The idea of a buck wanting to mate with a doe young enough to be his granddaughter."

Mack, who does not talk much, said, "I believe, until you ha talked wi' t'other Wise Old Mice, Grandpa, 'twould be best if one of us bucks is always wi' Dorothy. And I think if any mouse from The Lab comes over wi' Guards, they must be kept outside. I myself am very upset at the idea of making a special class of mice to use as slaves."

"That's right," I said, "June-June called them slaves."

"Conscripts," Brack said, "mercenaries."

After that I thought it best to give everyone time to think about what I said, so I asked what ha' happened wi' the Rambacks since I was gone. It turned out to be a lot.

Jason caught Artemis in his room, reading his journal. She ran downstairs to escape his yelling, only he followed, and shrieked how he would tell Mum and Popsy that she and Apollo were humping each other if he ever caught her in his room again. Mum was in the dining room, round the corner from where he yelled it, and lucky Artemis called Jason a liar, so maybe 'twas why Mum Ramback only put her hand to her chest and closed her eyes 'stead a going in the kitchen and yelling, too.

Mariah and Bob moved from the recliner to her bedroom, and Brack had followed 'em upstairs. Said he heard humping noises coming from her room. When she took him down to the front door she said she was going to move to an apartment, so they could spend nights together all the time.

Frac took my place as family lookout, and in a weak moment teased Cat when Apollo walked into the kitchen and heard Cat making hunting noises, so he opened the pantry door. Lucky it was Frac gave the alarm and everone froze behind a can or bag or, in Poptart's case, the broom. Apollo went away none the wiser.

Everone watched Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry in a movie called _Sudden Impact_ and again were having a hard time wi' Bigs and their ways aboot humping. Shooting Bigs fer humping seemed a little harsh, but my sister, Glenda, visiting from Pryse House, said watching Clint Eastwood made her wish she were a Big.

"I like his gun," Brack said, "'the most powerful handgun in the world.'"

Mack said, "If Clint Eastwood shot you wi' his handgun there would be no piece of you left bigger than a pea."

"A split pea," Frac said.

Brack said, "Glenda wants to be a Big so she can hump Clint Eastwood; I want to be a Big so I can shoot bad guys with a forty-four magnum."

I nodded and said "Mmm hmm," but I found myself wishing I were back with beach mice, where I could speak of important things, like the Prime Directive and Worst Case Scenario and watch the sun go down in the ocean like a glowing penny.

No one asked me what the ocean was like. No one wanted ta know how sand felt twixt your toes. There was no reason to tell them that June-June was blond as the twins and Roddy bigger and almost the color of shadows. And I would ne'er feel at ease talking bout Dream Weed to my family.

By that time I knew all the Dream Weed wore off and I was a little sad—not The Sadness sad, but sad enough. There was a mighty crisis in the world and my family was acting like a bunch a Rambacks.

##

As I had et a passel of granola on coming home, I asked to skip foraging to get some rest. Course I was too nervous to sleep. I wanted more than anything to see Jason again. Where was he? In his room? Over at Dudley's? I waited till the horde slipped into the pantry to galumph my way through the dining room and into the central hall. Just as I was about to go upstairs I felt the shaking of a footstep above and looked up to see a foot coming over the tread of the top step. I could make out 'twas Jason coming down, I'd know his step and his shoes anywhere. He hadna turned on the light at the top a the stair, so all I needed do was flatten myself into the deepest shadow and wait fer him to go by. As he did I could smell him, the smell a washing and drying of his clothes, the leather and rubber of his shoes. I was curious but unafraid. Going out into the world had made me different.

The other way I was different, I found myself deciding whether to go up to Jason's bedroom and have a look at his computer monitor or go down and sit under the recliner, to be near as he watched a teevee movie. I decided I needed more to know what was on his mind.

After all, I'd had serious thoughts a breaking the Prime Directive to save Jason from himself. Now that I knew a the Worst Case Scenario I was risking all mice in the world—all the mice in my world, anyway—to save a human, wi' the romantic (or crazy) idee he would do the same fer me and mine.

### chapter 16: Decisions

I slipped into Jason's room—dark 'cept fer the glowing computer screen. Who knew if he were downstairs fer a can a soda or to watch teevee till the wee hours, but I felt no fear running up the electric cord and cross his desk to gaze at the picture there. After fleeing Secret Chambers chased by Guards, the insides a Ramback House would never be so scary as I grew up believing them to be.

What I saw on the screen made my brain go two ways at once, fer 'twas a drawing in a bright color of a woman's head, and she crying. 'Neath her picture it said, "Crisis counselors are waiting for your call." And below that "24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

I pondered what this might mean. In a thrice the screen saver, a picture of a dragon, covered the woman's. I got it! Jason was looking fer help. One part of my brain said 'twas good, one part said he might be in worse shape than I reckoned when I left fer The Lab.

Just then I heard a creak on the stairs and ran behind the computer. Sure enough, Jason was back, a can in hand, but beer, not soda. I slid down the power cord behind the desk as he sat down. Then he started singing softly to himself, "Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes . . ." and no, Jason wasna going to put the terrible razor to his throat this night. I ran away cross the carpet a the darkened room and through the crack Jason always leaves in his door, out into the hall and down, down to the safety of Musts' Nest.

##

I sat still. All the Musts, 'cept Mumsy, who was nest tender that night, were out foraging. Mumsy told me sit tight and someone would bring me goodies to eat. She asked me would I tell her more bout my journey cross Wide Boulevard, and I simply shook my head. Mumsy would be more tolerant a my adventure on the beach than Poptart or Grandpa Scootch, but I couldna tell her aboot Dream Weed, fer I knew she'd worry 'twould lead to pizon, things that looked fit to be eaten but you never saw a Big eat. You were taught to stay away from such, and though it wasna anything like the Prime Directive, 'twas still a serious rule and I had broken it.

I also told no one, and no one asked, bout the tunnels 'neath the Boardwalk, how ground squirrels, such natty-looking rodents even if they're all mutes and not even used in The Lab for spearmints, were killed cause they meddled wi' humans watering pretty flowers.

And as I sat and thought about these things I began to worry aboot all sorts of evil coming o'er Wide Boulevard towards Ramback House, things I couldna even imagine.

Before you knew it, I fell asleep, pooped from the doings a the last two days.

I woke after all the family turned in fer the night, from a dream wherein not a squad a Guards but a great horde burst through the doors of Ramback House and attacked everone inside—mice and humans too—running over Jason, nibbling away at fingers and toes, ears and nose like an army of Lilliputians. Weighing him down; sitting on his chest.

And something did come across Wide Boulevard and enter Ramback House. It—or rather, he—was not violent like my dream, this visitor was sneaky, as befitted a messenger from so bad a customer as Wom. An Elder named Allele, the most mousy of mice, so gray, so average a size, so almost scruffy, arrived at the outside entrance to Musts' Nest and asked if he might have a word wi' me. Flac was assigned to watch the door and he admitted Allele, but instead a leading him directly to me he had the sense to ask politely fer Allele to wait in the foyer and would he like a nice fresh grape, which we happened to have on hand.

This elder, I imagine as much to seem in no way anxious as to sample something he must surely not often get, accepted. While he was munching away Frac grabbed me on the fly, as they say on teevee, and took me straight to Grandpa Scootch. Said there was a mouse from The Lab had come out a the clear blue, eye-deed himself as an Elder, and asked to speak to me.

"Strange," said Grandpa Scootch. "Normal practice is to ask fer the Wise Old Mouse fore asking to speak to any a his offspring. Did he state his reason fer coming?"

Frac shook his head.

"Well, wee granddochter, a course you must speak to this bigwig. I'm sure he wants you to go back wi' him to continue your task."

"I mustn't go, Grandpa."

"Oh but you must, Missy Mustt. We made a bargain, you see, the whole a Subdivision with the whole a Secret Chambers."

"We made a bargain na knowing what all was expected. If I go back to The Lab wi' this Elder, you shall never see me again," I said. I could feel tears coming to my eyes. I never before cried—mice donna cry, so far as I know—but a sense a doom so pierced my heart I felt lost and alone.

Grandpa Scootch kenned my upset. "Wee whiskered one, why are ye afeared? No harm will come a this."

"If you want to send me to my death fer the sake a relations wi' Secret Chambers, I'll go. If Wom succeeds in his plans 'twill make no difference anyway, all a Subdivision will be under his control and that of his elders. Most likely life willna be worth living a tall."

"I'll go with her," Frac said, which made me cry in earnest, to have such a brave brother.

"And I too," said Mack, who had come up and heard the last of our exchange.

"Frac," Grandpa Scootch said, "go stay with our guest. He'll no come back here till we have this out." By this time Mumsy and Poptart showed up, as had Brack and his new mate, Katy.

Catching the odor of importance in the air, Brack said, "Trouble, right here in River City?"

Grandpa Scootch said there was no trouble 'cept my being pigheaded.

I was still crying, and Mumsy come over and began to lick the tears away, making wee mother mouse sounds.

"Canna you hear her out 'fore you condemn her?" Poptart asked.

For some reason Grandpa Scootch was bound to have his way. He fairly screeched at Poptart, but halfway through his harangue he dropped his voice and said, "You're not ready to lead this family, young'un. I reckon I have a good year left in me."

But when Mack said, "I think Brack should cross Wide Boulevard wi' the rest of us. If the Guards are as tough as Microchip claims, we'll need our toughest mouse to fight them."

"I'm fer that," Brack said, stiffening his whiskers and swishing his tail like an angry tiger.

"Hush, all a you. I can no believe our kinfolk cross the way mean harm to any of us, but to keep peace in the family I'll go put him off till tomorrow, so we Musts can thrash this out and come to an accord. And I think I must consult t'other Wise Old Mice in Subdivision, so Brack, you must make the rounds and tell them we have word back from Dorothy's visit to The Lab that needs attending to this night."

"I Roger that," Brack said, and went out the back door a Musts' Nest, under the house and cross the patio.

I wasn't there when Grandpa Scootch met with Allele, but Frac reported he said I caught cold in the upside down rain on my way to The Lab and hadna the voice to relate my adventures. "Except" (this is Frac reporting his words) "she managed to say something about Guards. Are there any such weird critters in Secret Chambers, Mister Elder Allele?"

This caught Allele napping. He asked grandpa to repeat his question. And Grandpa Scootch, seeing the Elder anxious and caught out, had the good sense to mutter, "Never mind," and retire into the Nest.

##

While Brack was gone Grandpa Scootch asked me, not calling an assembly but including everone in the palaver, to say again why I was afraid to go back to The Lab.

"Think on this, Grandpa: if things were so dandy o'er there, why would a whole mob of Talkers be living on the beach and no mouse from The Lab ever told us of them? Makes you wonder."

"I'll grant that fact and its strangeness," Grandpa said.

"These Scapists, as they call themselves, say Wom and his Elders hold the Worst Case Scenario over mice's heads like a punishment fer stepping out a line. But they never will say what it is. So the Scapists went to the beach to get away from Wom and the Guards."

"You've seen these Guards, eh?"

I said, "I have. When I left Secret Chambers two of 'em—maybe more—came looking fer me. I've not seen any white mice afore, but these were white and went by me while I was in a hidey hole."

Grandpa Scootch's whiskers drooped. "I have a hard time believing mouse agin mouse. Can you ken it no other way?"

I told them about Petri and his saying sometimes young mice went out on the beach as an escapade, and I admitted there were temptations on the beach—free love, as Roddy had called it—but I also told him how they had no fear a humans but learned different things from students on the beach than Talkers learned from the White Coats in The Lab, about the ways of humans whom they donna call Bigs.

Poptart, quiet till then, said, "I have an idea. Why not have a mouse from Secret Chambers come over here to learn from Dorothy the Bigs' wiggly writing and how to work the computer, and in turn we get the writings of The Matrix. At least that which is already in the computer. And no Guards come or go here in Ramback House."

Grandpa Scootch sat wiggling his whiskers and rubbing his thumbs together fer deep thinking, and by this time ever mouse in the house, the newly arrived Wise Old Mice from round Subdivision and all the family, was crammed into the wall space in the garage, and he said, after clearing his throat, "Here is what I counsel. I want all here to assent to it afore we put it in practice, fer I fear there may be costs we can no ken."

He looked from mouse to mouse fore he continued. The Wise Old Mice from t'other houses nodded along with Musts, though in truth they sat a little way off, as if not to be in all a part of the decision.

After clearing his throat Grandpa Scootch said, "Poptart, I want you to take your sons, after night falls, and proceed to Secret Chambers the way Mo took Dorothy Microchip. But you must go into Secret Chambers alone, leaving the bucks outside. You young'uns are to watch the stars, and if your Pa ain't out a there by the time Orion wets his belt in the ocean, you're to come back the way Dorothy described, along the wetland and under Wide Boulevard. And if you come upon any a these Scapists you just politely eye dee yourselves and ask 'em if you be going the right way.

"Granddochter, you coach the bucks on the route after they cross Wide Boulevard, so they know the way. I think there no be trouble and Poptart will be out a there in half no time, but we must take no chances. And if you see any a these Guard characters coming or going, donna turn your backs on 'em but command them to go back where they came from, and bite 'em if necessary. Whatever you do donna scatter, but keep side-by-side. —And watch for the upside-down rain.

"Do all agree to this?"

Of course we all did agree, and the Wise Old Mice as well. I sensed a wave of excitement run through all, for at last was an issue in our lives different from the lives of deer mice and country cousins and kangaroo rats we knew of.

Then Grandpa told all but me and the assigned bucks to go about their business and proceeded to say this:

"There no be wisdom in following rules. There be order and serenity, but at times rules donna apply. Ye all know how fond I am of my wee granddochter, fer nothing else cause she showed me we ain't just Talkers, we be thinkers, too, and readers and writers.

"It still ain't talked into my head there be a point a knowing where we came from, but we've started on that path and there be costs to choosing any path. What I donna want this venture to cost is Dorothy or any other Mustt. Even if we slip back into Mute ways, I'd rather die fore any a my offspring. So keep these things in mind as ye palaver wi' Wom and his Elders, Poptart, and Brack, I want you to be brave and strong but no be rash. Can ye do that, pup?"

I could see a gleam in Brack's eye as he said, "Aye, Cap'n, I'll do'er."

### chapter 17: War council

And do it Brack did, though 'twas not till sunup we found it out. And my new friend, June-June, had a hand in it, too, as you shall see.

The Musts who remained behind, including Brack's Katy, took turns standing watch, sitting up in the gardenia bush in the front yard, where cats and other critters couldna smell us fer all the perfume a the blooms, and 'twas on my watch, when the sky was growing pink in the east, that the group could be seen running north along the sidewalk's edge from the Wide Boulevard bridge over the wetlands. As they came closer I spotted June-June in the lead.

Also, when they came close enough to trade greetings, I could see that all, but especially Poptart, were panting and tuckered. I looked out along the sidewalk fer pursuers, but all I could see in the distance was a dog trotting nose-to-pavement in the opposite direction.

"Father!" I said as he came up. One a his ears was bloody and chewed and he was blinking one eye as if it smarted a good deal.

"You were right, Daughter. Right as rain. And I think we are in for it. Had it no been fer your friend here, we might not all ha' come back. Your brother held off three Guards whilst June-June and his comrades took us through a maze a tunnels till no mouse in creation could ha' followed us."

I said to June-June, "You've not revealed your home to Guards, have you?"

"Oh no, sweetheart," he said, wi' that funny laugh of his. " I told you ground squirrels were digging fools; well, we took 'em through a set of abandoned burrows on the south side of The Lab. And Roddy like to assassinated one of the buggers—fought him all the way up a tunnel while the other buggers were jammed up behind—like Jordan in _For Whom the Bell Tolls_. They won't come our way again till it's time for all-out war."

##

When Poptart got to The Lab, his tale went, no one was watching the mouse entrance. This seemed peaceful enough, so he and the boys chose a place they could hide would give a view a the horizon, should the fog lying offshore ever lift or roll back out to sea. They could hear the waves breaking, all right, and could see the whiteness a foam as they died ashore, but the horizon itself was missing. Frac, at least, knew where Orion should set, so that seeing his foot above the fog would occur not too much sooner than if it going down in the ocean.

(Later Brack took me aside and told me this experience had changed him. He said, "I ne'er imagined a thing like a horizon. I know I must ha' seen it in pictures on teevee, but I never knew what I was looking at, so I couldna see it. There be so much newness out there, sister, the problems of one little mouse family don't amount to a hill a beans in this crazy world. Took me seeing the horizon to understand that. So, 'Here's looking at you kid.'" And he patted me on the cheek, something he'd never done before.)

After greetings, Brack led June-June to the slow-drip faucet to drink his fill, then took him down into Mustt Nest. I was about to follow but Poptart stayed back and said, "Daughter, a word."

I stood nose to nose wi' him, so our words wouldna attract a prowling cat. He closed his eyes a moment, as if gathering strength, and then said, "Sorry I wasna more spirited in defending you to Grandpa Scootch. I can see now that every trip from Subdivision to The Lab met a carefully planned welcome; every scout came this way from The Lab was told just how to act and what to say. Some mice ha' gone bad o'er there, and you and I must convince my father and the other Wise Old Mice this side a Wide Boulevard to defend liberty."

I answered, "I wish I knew fully what lurks in Wom's mind. He's no doubt the one led t'others astray, including the Elders, and I canna believe it be solely so he can boss around other mice. But my mind shrinks from what the Scapists believe—or at least say they believe—that he wants to change cats, dogs and monkeys into Talkers, too, and wi' their strength and ferocity and numbers take over the human world."

Poptart said, "It boggles the mind, as they say on teevee. I think I ken what boggle means, fer if this is boggling going on in my head just now, this be the first time I been truly boggled. Compared to this, child, staying clear of old Fart and Cat —even a Ramback—be a mere nothing."

"I learned that, too, Pop. —But we must go in. I ne'er seen you so tired, and you must drink and eat and warn Grandpa Scootch."

"One last thing, Child. It came to me as I watched that fleet-footed and fast-thinking young buck in there—June-June, you know I mean—he would make you a good mate. Have you thought on that?"

"No," I said, telling yet another lie, fer as he asked me a warmth spread through me, but not a second later I saw Jason Pony Boy's face in my mind and was sorely divided.

##

We debated long and hard not only in Ramback House but at other houses in Subdivision, about the best course of action to meet a threat from The Lab. Only it did not meet with any approval to make it The Lab versus Subdivision, we must think of it as Wom being a bad apple, Wom against the rest of Mousedom. Even then one Wise Old Mouse, who lived in a house where they watched nothing but education teevee, likened this to a set-to in Christendom, a false pope in Avignon, until we got bogged down in his ramblings.

But the sense of his words, even if they wasted time, was clear enough. Talkers were Talkers, there'd never been a sense Talkers from Subdivision be any different from those of The Lab. And it took this bunch a mice a long time to believe that something not a thing the way a grain a rice or a raisin or even a mousetrap were a thing—an idee, to be precise—could cause some mice to think themselves superior.

I was included in these confabs cause I become an expert a sorts. I dinna think I was much of an expert on anything, I been by accident at the place to learn an awful truth, so I mostly held my peace. But at the point they were discussing how an idee could divide mice I said, "But have we not been doing this all along? We think Mutes no better than raccoons or owls, just cause they canna talk human gabble. But they bleed when they're hurt, and they defend their pups with whiskers all bristly, and they live among their kin. 'Cept fer what The Matrix did in The Lab to give us power to talk and think, we be same as them."

And that sparked a debate as to whether Mutes were like us but voles and shrews and gerbils were somehow inferior and could never be given the power to talk.

At one point Grandpa Scootch lost his temper. He shrieked in that way only he can, and stopped every chat going on in the room. We were meeting in the garage of a house where Bigs ha' moved out but no new ones yet moved in. Present were Wise Old Mice from every house in Subdivision, plus myself and June-June, who was treated politely but no given the credit he deserved, cause he was an "outsider."

When Grandpa Scootch brought quiet he said, "Fact is, folks, we face bad times. Donna much matter if Wom be crazy, or if the Elders be as bad as he, we a Ramback House ha' seen first hand what's afoot over there and it's coming our way. We can poke our muzzles in a hidey-hole or be like those rats followed the Pied Piper out of Hamlin, or we can defend the life we come to enjoy over here. God knows I donna want mouse blood shed fer an idee, but I donna want bullying and terror by none of those Guard critters, which my offspring, Poptart, and his offspring, Brack, long with this pup here, June-June, has fought, and my granddochter, Dorothy, ha' seen and been hunted by.

"Right now we can only plan and put our houses in order. I know little aboot doing that, but I think 'tis to prepare like we prepare fer snakes when they come round summers. At Ramback House snakes big enough to eat pinkies and pups we kill. I bet you do, too. Reckon we can kill a Guard well as a snake. The trick is knowing they be coming. And knowing they had scouts in ever house over here, and learned the ways in and out, and the hidey-holes.

"I reckon they'll try to take us one house at a time, maybe Ramback House first, to capture Dorothy here, cause we willna have the numbers to stop 'em.

"So. I put to a vote that each house makes its own defense plan in the next two or three days and we meet back here to thrash out needed steps for mutual aid. We got to think of ourselves from now on not just as neighbors, a source of good mates for our young'uns, we got to think of ourselves as allies."

That did not meet with complete agreement. One Wise Old Mouse said Grandpa Scootch was trying to be the Wom of Subdivision, giving everone orders, and that made some heads nod.

After more asides June-June said, "Stop! You just heard the first smart thing's come out of any mouse since this get-together began, and you want to throw it away cause you didn't think of it first. Let me tell you, from a couple of years on the beach: ideas got more influence than any crafty cat or ferocious terrier. Ideas are what The Lab—the humans in The Lab, I mean—turn out. They think. Not about how to stay clear of cats and get treats like grapes and raisins, they think about the origins of life and passing on genes and other stuff far beyond the grasp of this mouse, anyway.

"Wom and his clique will be here. They will do things you and I can't imagine, maybe take your pups off to The Lab to train them as soldiers. Maybe they'll figure out how, if they have enough mouse power, they can enslave other animals. But they're coming and they want their way—no compromise, no mercy."

One crusty old mouse near the age of Grandpa Scootch, white around the muzzle and thin a fur atop his head said, his rusty old voice quivering with anger, "Get on with that talk. We need no outsider coming over here telling us what to do."

At which I lit into him and was not polite.

When things quieted down (in Subdivision does don't insult Wise Old Mice very often, you can bet) there was timid support for Grandpa and June-June, but it didna grow. These were no patriots ready to give up life or ease for the good of all, these be contented and mindless householders not wanting their lives troubled.

Just then Brack came scurrying through the crack between the big garage door and it's frame and ran up to Grandpa Scootch and whispered in his ear.

Grandpa Scootch turned to the assembled mice and said, "A runner's come from the Scapists' burrows. A Guard found an entry hole and dashed down it, trying to drag away a young doe. The Bucks present killed him, but they fear there will be others. Any who doubt we're in for it are invited to go over and view the brute's body."

June-June motioned me aside and said, "You heard that. I need to get back, sweetheart. I hope some mouse can convince these puritans they need to fight the lab mice wherever they strike first—even on the beach."

Brack stopped two or three mice from leaving before the meeting was over. He jumped up on an overturned Starbuck cup was left behind and said, "I ain't no Shakespeare, but if I were I would say that speech about lending your ears. I traded bites with those buggers. You want your mates and your pups pawed by pink-eyed thugs are followers of an evil mind, go right ahead and wait till they be at your door. For me, I aim to go out on the beach and pitch in to defeat 'em o'er there, cause if we dinna, they by golly be here in Subdivision in half no time.

"Amen."

To which June-June replied, "Amen, bro. You're dishing the real dope. Keep it up."

And I said, as June-June headed for the door, "Be careful, June-June. I would come and fight, but I think I need to make a plan to get me into The Matrix's lab to find out our true origins before Wom does."

DOROTHY MUSTT'S DIARY, PART 3: The Matrix's Sanctuary

### chapter 18: Keeping Subdivision free

Whilst Grandpa Scootch and the bucks were busy making plans fer defense, we does kept our eyes open, looking at our old world in new ways, then passing on our discoveries to the bucks, who would look at us wi' some whiskers up and some down, meaning they hadna thought a what we just told 'em.

Before my trip to The Lab and the beach I would never ha' spoken up, but now I complained to Mumsy how this wasna what I wanted ta do. I was a better planner than my littermates, I reckoned, and could save our mob time and make our defenses better if they let me plan wi' 'em.

"They be doing the fighting, if it comes to that, so best they be planning fer it."

"I could fight: I'm good at some things. I got away from Guards. I made friends wi' Scapists. I could be a scout, like Jimmy Stewart in _Broken Arrow_."

"You must face," Mumsy said, "you were not meant to fight. So, you need help the cause some other way."

I said, off the point she was making, "That word, _cause_ , I be wary of, Mother. 'Tis what Wom and his gang have, a Cause. No one in The Lab confided to me what their cause is, but it must be something they spell in capital letters, fer Petri, the guide I spoke of, was most sorry he let slip the word. I will ask June-June when I see him next."

When I spoke that name, it occurred to me I ought to go over to the beach and find out how things were going, more important, what was in June-June's mind regarding me.

"Is that one all right?" Mumsy asked, as if reading my thoughts. We were alone in the pantry, dining on Uncle Ben's rice, which is all right, but not as good as the lentil-rice pilaf Mum Ramback buys sometimes.

"All right?" I replied to her question about June-June. "In what way?"

"Your father thinks he might be a good mate fer you."

"I suppose, after our world settles down, I could think a him that way. He be brave and smart. He has a nice coat and very shiny eyes."

"He reminds me too much of your late brother, Zack," Mumsy said. "Takes chances like Zack."

I said, "That's the way wi' the mob live under the boardwalk. They believe 'tis only a matter of time humans discover our talking and thinking and decide to wipe us out or take advantage of us. So the Scapists live fer the moment—which is a good way ta live, I suppose, but they do it fer the wrong reasons."

"What do you mean, take advantage of us?"

"Capture us, use us. But there is also the idee a using without thinking a the effects on us mice. Some ways the Scapists thought of is as spies—dropping us from airplanes into other countries, wi' miniature parachutes and wee radios strapped to our backs. Or looking over machinery where humans canna go cause the space is too small or there's pizon in the air. Or to operate wee planes we might fly like bombs."

Mumsy said, "And be blown to pieces? Do they really think Bigs are that wicked?"

"Mumsy, it all depends on what was in The Matrix's mind when she created us. What were her aims? June-June thinks 'twas no more than to see if she could make a wee critter take on human traits. He says living in The Lab and spying out White Coat ways taught him humans be more curious than cats. They must know what makes things work. They want to know—not White Coats in The Lab but scientists somewhere—how the sun and stars got there. They want to know why Earth got life and the next planet over ha' noon."

Mumsy said, "Luckily mice ain't so curious. We havena big enough brains to store all the lore comes from curiosity."

I didna tell her t'other Scapist theory about Wom's aims. How they told me he was planning to find a way to link up mice brains so's a whole litter could work together to solve problems—make 'em smart as one human working alone. (Which is when I told the Scapists about the Borg on _Star Trek_ , how they were made-up critters, half human-half machine, all linked up through what they called collective intelligence.

(To which Roddy remarked, "See? You can imagine it, humans will make it."

(I told him 'twas just a teevee series.

("Someday there'll be a show called, "The Talking Mice of Stedwell Institute."

("What's Stedwell Institute?" I asked.

("Why, it's the proper name for The Lab. Like your proper name is Dorothy? The Lab is Stedwell Institute."

("How do you know?"

("Cause," Roddy said, "every chair, desk, and microscope, got a little blue and silver sticker on it says 'Property of Stedwell Institute'—plus a number. And they'll tattoo one on your ear when they find out you can talk."

("How ghastly." Realizing as I said it Roddy could read, too.)

And that was why I needs must get back to The Lab and into The Matrix's nest, to read her paper and e'en her notebooks. I wanted to believe there be a hidden desire aback her making us, how she wanted there to be other cunning critters in the world besides humans.

While Brack was eating dinner I talked a this to him. Since his foray to The Lab he was a changed mouse: grown up overnight. I remarked to him aboot seeing a Shakespeare play on teevee, concerning one Prince Hal, been a crazy, mixed-up yonker till 'twas time to be king, then he acted like a grownup. I told Brack that's how it was wi' him, he was still thinking in terms of fighting and conquering, only now 'twas aboot keeping Subdivision free and liberating mice under Wom's control.

Brack just ducked his head, humble-like, and he repeated that line from _Casablanca_ , bout the troubles of two little mice compared to the whole world, meaning it this time, no sarcasm even if there were humor.

Seeing him in a patriotic mood, I brought up the matter of getting into The Matrix's own lab. He said, "How long would you need to be in there?"

"No idee. Be the computer on and I can ken her file names, I could send myself her Talker paper in a wee spell. Then I'd have to hightail it back to make sure Jason didna open his e-mail fore I got the paper hid."

"A commando raid," Brack offered. "Sneak you in all hush-hush, get you back out the same way."

" _You_ might go in and out fast; remember my crumpled leg."

"Parachute in. Get some birthday balloons, tie one mouse to each one, land on the Lab roof. Go back the same way."

I flexed my whiskers to one side and the other, to let him know I thought he was daffy.

He said, "Bigs is always saying 'Think outside the box.' How else we gonna get you o'er there, wi' Wom and them on the warpath?"

"There must be a way into The Lab Wom and them donna know about but June-June's mob do."

Brack said, "I'm going to tell Jason how you're stuck on this June-June lad."

I felt my cheeks warm. This was the first time Brack ever teased me in a nice way, and I wasna ready fer it.

"It's just that June-June told me they have people on the inside are in league wi' the Scapists."

"Moles," Brack said.

"No, mice, surely."

"Sister, you ha' learned a lot in this world, some things you don't know diddly about. A mole be a kind of spy."

"I dislike the word, spy."

"'I regret I have but one life to give for my country,' a very famous spy said once."

"That's what I'm afraid of, Brack, giving your life. I think I'll just hop on over to the beach and see if the mob there can get me into The Matrix's lab on the QT."

Brack was no fer that. We would have no feedback. I could be killed or captured, Wom might ha' me tortured, he wasn't sure the mob on the beach would protect me the way my own kin would.

"And your idea is so practical? Let me remind you, the wind blows from the ocean day and night, so balloons would be good fer getting back, but not getting there. Besides, commandos are fine trained and use automatic weapons."

"I have automatic teeth," Brack said, chattering them at me.

"Don't be making this war all trifling, brother mine. Wom is an evil mouse."

"And 'My strength has the strength of ten because my heart is pure,'" Brack shot back.

"Define pure heart," I said.

"Well, I'm working on it. I have a mate now and I'm faithful to her."

I gave him a couple of twitches of my whiskers and went and told Mumsy I was going.

"Not wioot an escort, my little pinkie."

"Yes, Mumsy, wioot an escort. The simpler the better. If I'm not back in two days, send someone sides Brack to look fer me."

There was a tear in her eye as I headed oot. I had cried my first time not long before, and now someone was crying fer me. 'Twas the saddest thing in the world.

"I promise I'll be back," I said and dashed off fore the first of my own tears fell.

### chapter 19: We don't assassinate

When I set out, the last nick a sun had sunk into the ocean. The light was like that of a winter's night when rain's aborning. But it didna rain; 'twas just a moment a stillness, like the world be mulling why a mouse be out and about. I ran along the sidewalk, heading fer the bridge o'er wetlands, catching a mosquito on the way and munching it down, a funny kind a sweet snack. I'd never eaten a mosquito before and I thought a telling June-June about it. I flicked away a thought a talking mosquitoes.

Each thought a June-June sent my back to Jason. I told myself I must stop this nonsense aboot Jason. Would be far better to make pinkies with a pocket-sized blondie than dream up fantasies of an affair with a human. There was no end to that—the fantasy, I mean—I would be forever pining, and he would go off to college and find a girlfriend to make pinkies of his own, one at a time, the human way. I would grow older but not old, fer I would die of a broken heart.

As I came to the sidewalk end and went through the fence tha' kept Bigs from rambling into the wetlands glen, I realized this was the first time I be doing something on my own, like a grown body. I'd decided; I'd acted. I was scared and thrilled at once, my heart feeling like 'twas too big for my wee chest, when I came upon a snake in my path and jumped sideways and backwards straight away, missed my footing and tumblit down into the glen like a ball a fluff.

Then I wasna thinking aboot June-June nor Jason nor how grown-up I was, I was stupefied and hopping in place round in a circle, looking fer the snake, but 'twas nowhere in sight. It wasna a big snake, a grass snake just, but I knew as I took a big breath there must be noon a this wool-gathering: I could ha' been a snack were it a gopher snake or an adder, or a tasty supper fer some other critter.

It dawned on me this might be a Talker weakness: no bad happent to me the first time I went this way, so nothing bad ever would. A clear case a thinking overriding instinct. Humans do that, too, which is why June-June and his mob get away wi' so much. Was also why Zack kept on wi' his run-and-snatch job-trot after Poptart and everone else told him to hold by. This was a downside a thinking; Mutes ne'er get used to anything tha' goes against instinct.

I skirted the trickly water, listening to birds, watching swallows catching insects in the near night, feeling good I was in the time cats and owls wirna out hunting yet, though keeping alert, too.

Then all of a sudden I came nose to nose with a mouse I'd never seen afore, not a Guard, but he could be from The Lab. My excitement turned to terror.

"Are you Dorothy Mustt?" the strange mouse askt fore I could bolt.

"Who's asking?"

"I saw the bum leg and I see the direction you're coming, but I have to ask. Either that or give me the password."

"Password? Sounds like you been talking to my brother, Brack. Yes, I be Dorothy, but you scared me oot a half me years."

"I'm June-July, June-June's littermate, only you can call me just July if you want. We're guarding the passes, as you can see."

"I've come with a request. Is June-June under the boardwalk? Will I be able to find him, Just July?"

"You will, Dorothy Mustt. He'll be down at the end near the Institute, but I reckon you ought to go into the tunnels this end, for there's Guards patrolling—in packs of four and more."

"Oh dear."

"The password is 'rainbow.' You'll find you need it. Every tunnel entrance is guarded. Every Scapist is on the alert for infiltrators and tunnel-rushers."

"I best be going, then. If it gets a degree darker they won't see my crumpled leg and I might get bit."

Just July said, "We've been told to watch out for you, so I'd guess you'll not be harmed."

"Is June-June in charge of things?"

Just July made a laugh sort a like June-June's but deeper. He said, "Heavens no. We may be easy-going, but we wouldn't let a pothead like my brother run things. Dude named Socrates is in charge."

"Socrates? Like the Greek Socrates? I should ask to be directed to him, then."

"Riiiight. Socrates. Watch out for him, he's a whole lot smarter than Wom, and he's a swinger." There was something lilting in July's voice, as if something funny was going on. I didna stop to chat about it, though; I was eager to get on wi' my plan.

##

Under the boardwalk things were a deal changed. First off, I could smell mice. I could smell poop and pee, but I could also smell lots of warm bodies in too small a space. I no sooner went down an opening when I was face-to-face with a doe. The look in her eye said she was no in the mood fer chit-chat, so I called out at once, "Rainbow!"

"Who are you and what's your business, stranger?"

"I be Dorothy Mustt of Ramback House, Subdivision, and I come to talk to Socrates."

"I'm Yoko the Scapist. How do you know bout Socrates?"

"The hemlock drinker or your head mouse?"

"Don't be funny, sister. This ain't no time for the usual bee ess."

"Sorry. I ran into Just July up by the wetlands; he said to ask fer Socrates."

Yoko explained there was a second password, which, if I gave it after 'rainbow' would allow me to pass from checkpoint to checkpoint wioot having to stop at each sentry and eye dee myself. But just then Dina, of the Dream Weed lark, came trotting by. Yoko called out to her, "Hey, girl, you going up HQ way?"

"I sure nuff am, sugar. Need something?"

"Need you to safe-passage Dorothy Mustt here."

Dina came up close to me. "Wildness! Hello, Microchip. Good to see you again. Just put your nose to my tail and don't stop till I say the word—hear?"

She must have been in a hurry. She set off and I kept up wi' her, but just barely. At ever checkpoint she called out, "Skidoo; rainbow skidoo; coming through; skidoo." We sailed right along. I heard my name spoke atimes, and felt funny inside, being known to so many wioot knowing 'em back. At last I called out to Dina, "Hey. I need to stop and pee and poop."

Dina came to a halt. She turned and said, "You know, we haven't got pee and poop parlors like in The Lab, so you're suppose to find a place as close up to the concrete as you can get and dig a little latrine—that's the technical name. Then you bury your business. You can hold it till we get to HQ, they got a latrine already dug. You just use it and kick some sand over the side."

"I can hold it," I said. "But what's HQ?"

"Headquarters," Dina called back as she set out again.

By this time I'd caught my breath, which was the real reason I'd called fer a pee and poop stop. As we went forward we came upon other mice on the path who wirna going so fast as Dina, so she had to slow down. Even so, she would call out, "Courier! Move your ass, put it in gear, there, lady!" till I wondered if she'd been watching teevee, too.

Headquarters turned out to be the burrow where Roddy and them introduced me to Dream Weed. Now 'twas packed wi' mice all seeming busy wi' something. The amount a chatter was enough I wondered aboot being so secretive if they made all that noise.

Dina went up to none other than Roddy, who was surrounded by mice of varied hues and sizes. "Dina reporting, general. And look who I've got with me."

"Hey, _chiquita_ , how goes it?"

"I had an idee I need to talk about. I was going to talk to June-June, but his brother, July, said I should talk to Socrates."

Roddy said, "You can talk to both, cause they're together up yonder. Will you take her, Dina, and come back?"

Dina motioned fer me to follow once again and a short distance away, although 'twas not in a straight line, given all the knots a mice, there be a brownish mouse, pretty ordinary, who said hello in an ordinary voice when I was introduced.

I nodded to June-June and told Socrates I had an idee I thought might be important.

He said, "You have a reputation for good ideas. Your Grandpa Scootch says you may be the smartest mouse in mousedom. Shall we take a walk on the beach?"

"Is it safe?"

"We've driven the Guards off the beach side so often they stay on the Institute side, so it's only the usual suspects we need worry about."

I thought he meant just me and him would go for a stroll, but June-June and two others fell in behind as we went up a beach-side tunnel. A breeze much stronger than a few minutes before blew off the ocean.

"When it blows like this there's seldom fog. —There a moon tonight, Jerry?" he was talking over his shoulder to another mouse.

This Jerry said, "It's the second quarter tonight. Moonrise at seven-thirty."

Socrates chuckled. It was an honest-to-goodness chuckle. He said to me, keeping his voice low enough the others couldna hear, "Imagine I'm checking my wristwatch, will you."

I tried a chuckle, but 'twas no convincing, fer I was a wee nervous. We went on till we came to a tussock formed a several clumps a grass with a cavity amidst 'em. Sand had built up all around it. We were out a the wind in the cavity.

"Now," Socrates said, "tell me your idea."

I said, "Over at Subdivision they donna know much aboot Wom's idees. So there be no much help to our Wise Old Mice, knowing how serious to take him. Rumors fly aboot, based on next to no good lore. I thought 'twould do some good if I read The Matrix's paper on her spearmints that led to Talkers, so we might know if some a these rumors are more than tha'."

Socrates said, "We've read the paper, Microchip—right after you left. The Matrix, as you call her, left her desk for lunch and left the file open. We needed to learn how to scroll through a computer file, so we did. There's a lot of words about methods she used to recombine human genes and mouse genes in the same mouse egg. It's pretty routine stuff in the field of molecular genetics these days. There's also a lot of words about what she tried to get our ancestors to do in the way of learning new skills using their thumbs. There's some discussion of why she thinks we didn't learn these skills.

"She's silent on the subject of mice talking. It's as if it never happened. Maybe she's going to write another paper on that.

"What's true," he went on, "is that a mouse couldn't—a litter of mice working in concert couldn't—use a microscope, an ultracentrifuge, or a micropipette. In short, Wom's threats are dream stuff, as far as making more strains of mice into Talkers. Or monkeys or dogs. We think if he bred his Guards to Talkers he might get a few along the way with the size and strength of the Guards and simple speech. But that's going backwards, not forwards."

"Then you don't need me," I said.

Socrates said, "We need all right-thinking, intelligent mice. It's just we don't need you to read Dr. Godwyn's paper. It would be interesting to know what's in her notebooks, which no one here can decipher—even more interesting to know whether she didn't write about mice talking because even then there was a Prime Directive, or whether she's saving that. But I don't think so. Else why did she tell Charlie Ruiz to destroy us? What would any normal human have done—what would the head of Stedwell Institute do—if they discovered talking mice?"

"What, sir, should I tell my people?"

"Tell them Wom's chief aim is to wipe out all Scapists on the beach. When he's done that, he plans to take over Subdivision. Not kill all the mice there, just run them the way he runs the mice in The Lab."

"Where be the proof?" I asked.

"Ah. There's nothing but my word. We have spies in The Lab and this is what they report; nothing's written. If you asked Wom to his face he'd deny it, I'm sure. But I gather your father was almost locked up over here on his last visit. I think he's had proof enough of wicked intentions. It's just the extent of it. We'd very much like to have a Subdivision Brigade to fight with us when the battle comes."

"You think a battle is certaint?"

He said, "Unless that old bastard dies before he's worked out his grand strategy."

"Have you thought of assassinating him?"

"Yes," Socrates said, "and you should appreciate, as a thinking mouse, it would make us sink to his level. What would be the use of it if we are to stoop so low?"

"A couple of weeks ago, sir, a thing was a thing. Now idees are things, and I'm very confused. Had I the chance, I'd kill Wom, and not think it worse than killing a Guard in battle, or killing a snake who struck at my kin."

Socrates chuckled. "You're no doubt the wiser mouse, Microchip. But on the beach, here, we've cobbled together a code of ethics. We don't assassinate."

We talked more. Night came on till it was time fer the moon to rise above the hills behind the Institute.

"Best we go in," Socrates said. "And you'll stay here until sunrise. It's the time Guards roam freely."

I thanked Socrates for the interview, but in my mind I was anxious. I decided, if I could get him alone, to mull things wi' June-June. I needed feedback, and not the kind you get from kith and kin, I needed the no-nonsense sense of a beach bum.

### chapter 20: Stormy weather

By the time we left the comfy tussock, the wind off the ocean came hard enough that Jerry, June-June's "weather nerd," forecast a summer storm coming up from the Sea of Cortez.

I askt June-June how Jerry knew so much. I was having to shout to be heard o'er the wind's whistling.

"Jerry runs down the beach to a lifeguard tower where they leave a little radio running twenty-four hours a day. Broadcasts nothing but weather. He goes and sits in the window and listens. Learns by heart what it's saying. And he's lived long enough now he can read sign. He calls it that—'reading sign.' Watches the color of the ocean, height of tides, the color of sunsets."

I'd have admired tha', a mouse learning something didn't come from humans, but sand pelted us and wind ruffled our fur. O'er sounds of a coming storm June-June added, about Jerry, "And, too, he's got the knack. He can smell rain, I've watched him do it. I think our Mute brothers, mice and rats both, can smell rain, too."

I remarked, as we dove underground, 'twas the first time I'd ever heard a mouse refer to a rat as brother. I would liked to talk more aboot tha', but I had heavier things on my mind. I asked June-June if he could get off duty a few minutes to talk to me.

"No need to ask, sweetheart. Things run shipshape since Socrates took over, but we still know how to kick back. No one's going to the brig for not shaving."

"What?"

"Never mind. It's sailor talk. Sailors come to this beach to meet college chicks. —Let's find a place we can be alone."

And find a place we did. He led me up a tunnel that ended in a small gallery smelling a does in heat. 'Twas dark dark.

"Anybody here?" June-June called out.

The smell made me jumpy. "What's this place?" I askt.

"Relax. We call it the Make-Out Parlor. We come here when we need privacy to do the good deed—you know, mate. But I didn't bring you here for that: of late it's the one place in war-torn Scapist land you can get a little peace and quiet—no pun intended. Not much mating going on—everyone's too tense. Some of us even come here to chill out."

It dawned on me: I never seen pinkies at the beach; I never seen pups. Yet Scapists, I reckoned, mated more oft than us in Subdivision. I had a million questions: was there a doe June-June was already keen on? Were they mated fer life? Had he sired pups? But no time for tha'. And the smell around me, I could tell, was working on me. Was setting things off inside.

"So why are we gathered here?" June-June asked.

I started to talk but the words got stuck. I sighed a couple of times. June-June said, "Hey, you didn't plan on jumping _my_ bones, did you?"

"I don't know what I'm doing na more, June-June. I don't know what I'm good fer. I thought I was needed o'er here. Turns out you fellas learnt how to run a computer soon as you needed to. I was fooling myself thinking I knew so much."

"Wait a minute, sister. Just a doggone minute. There's a big difference 'tween someone _having_ to run a computer and someone running one cause she's curious, or wants to create something. And you were the first to do it, far as I can tell. You taught mice it was possible. So don't go feeling lost."

"But I am lost, forwandered, as Grandpa Scootch says. That's how I feel." I told him about Jason. I didn't use the word, love, but I spoke of 'regard' and 'concern,' sounding like a teevee movie script. I told him I had two things I thought I ought to do, one to help Talkers and maybe all mousedom, the other to help Jason but maybe save Talkers a different way, making it important to one human to have real contact wi' another intelligent being. Now it looked like 'twas down to one thing, and that might get messed up if Wom and his gang invaded Subdivision.

When I finished telling him June-June said, "Want to know what I _really_ think?"

"That's why I told you."

He paused but a second. "I think you're nuts. Not the part about translating The Matrix's notebooks. That couldn't hurt to know. It's the other, the Jason thing. He doesn't even sound like a very nice guy."

I said, "How's he supposed to be nice if he's a Ramback? Rambacks no be very nice humans. Jason is the best of 'em. Trouble is, ever wickedness that's in Rambacks is in the rest a humans—and worse. You donna watch teevee. Mixt in wi' John Wayne movies I a bit a news an you hear a thousands, maybe hundreds a thousands, of humans cut up like pork chops by other humans. Twice I seen pictures of a President of the United States shot in his motorcar. I think they play it over and over, cause it's so hard to make the idee in sink. Atimes they would hang humans Roddy's color just cause they be black. Humans ca'ed Japanese did spearmints on humans they call Chinese, to see the best ways to kill their kind. So then we dropped a bomb on Japanese smashed a whole city, to pay 'em back. Then there's what's called The Holocaust will be remembered by humans fer all time, cause they ha' museums, books and movies . . ."

"—All right, I got the picture. You're even crazier than I thought. You don't want to just save Talkers or all mousedom, you want to save humans from themselves. You're what Beachies call a bleeding heart. God, Microchip, grow up."

I started to cry. My hormones were going whacky. I said, "You've never heard of Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela. There are Bigs worth saving. They wouldna carry out the Worst Case Scenario."

"I have too heard of Mother Theresa. I listen to what Beachies talk about, and she's gets mentioned sometimes. Takes care of the sick and poor. So what?"

"So what?" I sputtered. "If we not going to get stamped out by Bigs, we better heed 'em. Maybe see if we can persuade 'em."

June-June didn't say anything fer a time, but I heard him sigh. At last he said, "We better get out of here. Please don't break the Prime Directive, Microchip. We've got enough trouble with Wom and his gang. We don't need to have your Jason and his scar-faced buddy putting our kind in cages. And stop calling them Bigs."

"Oh," I said, "let me out of here," and I ran smack into a wall trying to find the tunnel out of the Make-Out Parlor. Was humiliating, a word I had heard plenty on teevee but never understood so well till now. I felt along the wall till I found the tunnel, and June-June was right there, almost blocking my way.

I pushed him aside and ran out. I ran past ever mouse in the main burrow. I found the first exit on the land side a the boardwalk and ran up it.

"Hey," the sentry called, "you can't go out there."

But I could and I did, lame leg, fat cheeks and all.

##

I found I'd made a bad mistake. A flash of lightening lit up the beach and Stedwell Institute, blinding me, making me flinch like a frog. Something bigger'n a mouse—or was it a group a mice?—ran past a whisker's width away. First thing I saw after the blindness went away was a human shielding his eyes as the next strike a lightening flashed. I turned and ran towards the ocean, cross the boardwalk, past a trash can, through tussocks a beach grass, till I saw, in the next crashing flash of thunder-lightening, waves commencing to glow white in the brief day-like gaps in blackest night.

Still I ran toward the ocean, convinced some evil were bearing down on me from behind. I couldna help myself.

—Until I ran so close to another mouse I stepped on her tail. She reached out and hung onto my own tail long enough to stop me. I rolled like a ball, head over heels, and stopped long enough to see 'twas not a Guard nor Scapist, 'twas an ancient mouse wi' white muzzle and cloudy eyes, a ghost of a mouse, who called out fore I could bolt away again, "If you keep running that way, young'un, you'll run out of earth and be swallowed by the ocean."

I heard her voice though I couldn't hear myself think fer the roar a wind and crash a water. I took a step towards her, and when the sky lit up again I saw her clear as day, the oldest mouse I'd ever seen.

She said, "Follow me," and we made our way to a bump in the beach turned out to be a crate upended in the sand, and she dove under a corner of it.

I sat inside the crate, hearing sand hitting it like bullets in a war movie, my teeth chattering, wondering what sort a critter I'd allowed to pull me into her lair.

She said, in a quavering but commanding voice, a voice I'd heard once in a teevee movie but never knew the actress's name, "Calm down. Waves never come up this far, no matter how angry the ocean. And no creatures are about, you can be sure. I have juicy fruit and lettuce, so we'll not get hungry nor thirsty before the storm blows over."

I found her voice and her words so cheery I did calm down. I calmed down enough to ask her name.

"Let's just say, I'm the original Scapist."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Why? Why did you escape?"

She made a noise like a human clearing her throat. "It came to me I was very unhappy about what was happening in The Lab. When the number in Secret Chambers got past counting—more than a dozen dozen anyway—we started having leaders, persons to tell us what to do. We needed rules. We stopped just living and started planning to live, dreaming of better ways, regretting things in the past. We had to have someone—or something—to blame. I decided I was better off out here, by myself."

I compared what she had just said ta life in Ramback House. We had a leader, had rules. I dreamt better ways. Before the Wom threat we'd never planned much, just fer the next task, be it food gathering or mating ceremony.

I asked this old doe, "Are you happy by yourself?"

She said, "Gosh, young'un, turns out I'm never completely by myself. I spend time watching little birds, not much bigger than mice, squabbling over food in the sand. I've sat by the hour listening to humans build castles in the air out of words. I've watched my brethren, the ones call themselves Scapists, trying to master a freer life, not making the mistakes of Secret Chambers. Then, when I want to, I can be alone, with only the ocean and sun and moon and stars or some clumps of grass to talk with. You see, you're only really alone when you're dead, and I have a couple of months left."

"How old are you?" I asked her.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. —But tell me about yourself, young'un."

##

Compared to telling June-June, 'twas easy to pour out my heart to her. I sat back and told her bout my family, bout Ramback House and the special place Jason had in my heart, bout learning to use the computer, how I was writing a memoir (if that wasn't too fancy a word) of my life among Rambacks and Musts, how I felt always on the sidelines, what wi' my lame leg and being too fat. I told her I worried bout Jason and his talk a suicide wi' his scar-faced friend, and how I thought, if I talked to him, he'd find a reason to keep living.

After I told her how I happened to be on the beach in a storm, I shut up.

When it was clear I talked myself out, my hostess said, "You've led a very complex life, for such a young'un. Very complex. You have thoughts could lead mice to glory or damn them to hell. I'd not like to be in your shoes."

I laughed. She asked me why.

"Talkers pick up some mighty funny words from humans. 'Be in my shoes.' I ha' thumbs; I guess I could tie shoe laces; but I donna wear shoes. Would it no be funny if mice decided they had to wear shoes?"

My hostess said, "Don't laugh. If humans took over our lives—and the longer I live the more I think this will happen—they might decide we needed shoes—and little trousers and jackets."

"Oh God," I said, "I'm so confused."

She said, "When I'm confused, I imagine the Almighty is a mouse and laugh and laugh."

### chapter 21: Gilda and Joaquín

Fer a time wind blew and sand pelted like a Force trying to tell us something important. We couldna ken it, so the wind and sand shouted louder. Snug 'neath the crate, listening to fury, I asked the old doe, "Do you believe in God?"

"I believe," she said, "in the unity of all things in nature. For me that's God enough. Otherwise, why shouldn't God be a mouse or rat—or a cockroach? I think Nature is vaster than any of the images humans make of their God. It takes in the stars, which we admire, and the sun and moon, which we depend on. So, if there's a God, she's way beyond what a human can grasp, let alone a mouse."

"Do you talk to Scapists, Miss... er—I don't know what to call you."

"You may call me Xanthippe."

Wind rattled the crate. A thunderous lightening flash lit the entrance to her den, but failed to light the old doe or me. When 'twas quiet enough to hear myself speak I said, "You said _may call_ —Xanthippe ain't your real name?"

She answered my question with a question: "And how may I call you, young'un?"

"My gi'en name is Dorothy—my family is the Musts of Subdivision—but I'm also called Microchip—and other things."

"Then I've heard of you. The Scapists often talk about you."

"So, you do talk to Scapists."

I could sense her shifting position to be more comfy. "From what I just said, may you not also gather I only _listen_ to Scapists? Actually, Scapists don't even know I'm alive—or I don't believe they do. I've heard them talk about me, but in the very past past tense."

I didna say anything fer a blink, pondering what the "very past" past tense meant. I'd never heard them mention a Xanthippe. An elder? A wise old mouse?

She went on. "It wouldn't do for me to pal around with Scapists. They'd be in my hair the livelong day. So, I steer clear of 'em but stay close enough to listen. And they've discussed you. Some call you 'Smart Girl.' They seem to like you."

"Does June-June... like me?"

"Ah. Is it an interest on your part I sense? Watch out for that rascal. He's charming, but then all the does think that. He could have any mate he wanted—but he prefers to play around."

I told her how, in my last interview with June-June, we discussed ways humans might exploit us.

She put a hand on me, there, in the dark, and it stopped my words. "Listen" she said. "If humans discover us—which they will, they discover new species of animals every day, I've learned—there'll be many different reactions. Learned ones, like our Dr. Godwyn, will want to study us in detail, scanning our brains and cutting up our lungs and livers. The military will want to make us into microbots, to spy on evil enemies, of which there's always plenty. Spreaders of religion will say we're the Devil's spawn and proof Armageddon is near. Humanists will say we ought to be inducted into the family of intelligent beings, but only bit by bit. They'll call us Mouse-Americans. In no time, medical researchers will use us to study drugs, especially the kind that make you lulu; they'll feed us a rainbow of pills. Neocons, as the beach kids call them, will argue we'll become wards of the state and thus a drain on tax dollars. Manufacturers and advertisers will figure out how to put money in our hands so we can buy what they sell. Hustlers will say we have no souls so that they can sell us as pets. Scary human brats will leave the circus with pet Talkers on tiny chains, giving us names like Sam and Maggie."

When she paused for breath I called out, "Stop! I canna ken half a what you say. But I know this: not once did you say some humans would ask us what _we_ wanted."

"Of course not. They won't think they have to. We'll only have the rights humans grant us. After all, we're a human-made product."

"Not even one or two humans?" I asked, beginning to feel cold. The wind ha' shifted around some, making the air under the crate more lively; the lightening and thunder was moving off into the distance.

She didna answer. Maybe she was shaking her head or was lost in thought.

I said, "Can we sit still like we are now, whilst I ponder all you've said?"

The old doe, whom I could not bring myself to call Xanthippe, said, "Of course. I've talked to you more than to anyone since I fled to the beach. In fact, up till tonight, I was worried I'd forgot how. And heaven knows where I got all these ideas. Years of listening, I suppose."

And wi' that she stopped talking and I did, too. Brief flickers lighted the entryway; soft thunder rumbled off where the night sky met the ocean. Wind came in gusts, wi' brief rat-a-tats a sand on the crate. I dozed, I thought fer only a sma time, but next I knew, the light in the entrance had changed to soft blue and I wondered what time it was.

As if reading my mind—she seemed good at that—the old doe said, "In an hour it won't be safe for you to go about. You can stay here the day, if you like. Or if you have to be somewhere, I suggest we say good-bye and you toddle off."

"I needs be home. —please, ma'am, give me your view: _should_ I speak wi' Jason fer ta save him from himself?"

She said, "Oh my oh my oh my; what a question. The fate of all mousedom rests on my answer."

I said, "Are you mocking me?"

"Just a little. I can't tell you what to do. I no more know the heart of this Jason than I know my own. You love him, I gather, but it's not a realistic love—if there be such a thing. I once found a discarded sack of dried cranberries. I loved them—sweet and tart at once, a perfect blend of tastes. I tried to ration them, but couldn't; I ended up eating the lot in two sittings. By the second sitting I knew dried cranberries don't love me. I pooped and pooped and pooped. And ached in the tummy, too. I decided, should I ever ran into dried cranberries again, I'd run the other way. —Of course I haven't come across any more, but I dream about them sometimes."

"That's your view? Don't eat dried cranberries?"

"No: it would be better not to eat _so many_ dried cranberries. But you will, and you'll regret it in some way, and when the story comes to an end you'll dream about what might have been. Now, go, if you're going, Dorothy Mustt."

"Please tell me who you are, ma'am."

She came close and looked hard into my eyes. "I'll tell you who I am if you will never tell anyone, mouse or human, that I roam the beach."

I thought fer a spell. She askt a great deal. 'Twould be easy to just slip and tell my family, tell the Scapists. The oldest mouse in the world, what a thing. I understood she offered knowledge for silence, as a way to preserve her privacy. I said, "I promise to keep your secret if you promise I may come again to see you if I need your wisdom."

"Done."

"Well?"

"I'm Gilda, of the Great Escape."

"No, that canna be!"

"But I am."

"Gilda? No second Gilda, or another Gilda. But _the_ Gilda?"

She said, "The very one."

When I let that sink in a spell I said, "Gilda, ma'am, if you e'er get tired a being so solitary, I would be honored, and my family too, surely, if you came live with us."

She let out an old mouse's version of a laugh. "So be it," she said. "And if you come back to the beach to see me, sit around in this crate and I'll show up, eventually. —Or not, if I'm dead. But I'll try to die right here, so you'll know. But mind you, the entry gets covered with sand if it's not dug out often. So you may have to dig yourself in to find my corpse. Remember to look back as you go, so you'll know the spot."

"That I'll do. And good-bye, Gilda, ma'am. I hope you're no corpse. Because, I'll be back. I swear."

##

I debated sticking my head in at HQ, but 'twas more important I get me home. I needed to look in on Jason, take a fresh look at my desire to rescue him. In truth I had no need to, 'twas just I was no needed on the beach, though all able-bodied mice Subdivision could spare needed to be on the beach. Or Wom and his gang needed to believe all the mice a Subdivision would show up if he started anything.

Which set my mind to working. I made my way to the wetlands and ate some sedge seeds under the oleander. I thought. I thought some more. I saw, a ways off, four white mice swim The Trickle. I was no afraid, but they were. They scampered along as if any second they would run into a hundred Scapists.

Watching them, not feeling scared but pleased at their scaredness, what worked its way into my mind was a strategy. The worth of the strategy lay in how trustworthy was Socrates's mole in Secret Chambers. If he or she could warn where and when Wom would attack, we could send runners twixt Beach and Subdivision. We could shift troops from one place to t'other to focus our forces.

Okay, I thought the idee, now what to do wi' it? Give it to Brack, I decided. I had no time to be General Microchip. Asides, I was sure I overlooked something. And also asides, how would Subdivision troops and Beach troops recognize each other? Every mouse could dip his right foreleg in ink. Or paint—war paint, like Injuns. The thoughts were coming faster and faster. The world was coming at me as fast as thoughts... I needed rest . . .

##

I awoke in the arms of a handsome brown mouse who said, as I opened my eyes, "Do not be alarmed," pronouncing the word, _alar_ -med. "I am Joaquín, of Sanchez House, and I found you by chance as I was returning home. Are you in any way hurt?"

"No," I said. Not just handsome, he was very handsome: fur that seemed to shimmer; the neatest shading from sable on his back to the color of dried bamboo on his belly. And, he had a look of genuine concern in his shiny black eyes.

"Not hurt," I said. "I think I fainted."

"Mice faint?" he asked. " _Qué encantadora_ ," he murmured.

I felt caressed by his words. I murmured back, "I donna know what else to call it."

"I call it fate, _señorita_."

Like an idiot I said, "You speak Spanish."

" _Cómo no_ ," he replied. "In Sanchez House _el_ _Grandes_ speak both Ingles and Espanish."

"How interesting. I wish I could stay and talk. I'm Dorothy from Ramback House and I'm on a mission. I must get home to my family."

"Then I shall attend you, _señorita_ —you are _señorita_ , are you not?"

"Yes indeed, Joaquín, I am a señorita. And I accept your kind offer to accompany me. You canna be too careful these days."

"If you are worried about me, _señorita_ , have no fear. I have pledged on my honor to be in the forefront of those fighting the filthy mice from Secret Chambers."

I said, "Do you know the way to Ramback House?"

"Regretfully, no."

"Then follow me, and watch my behind—I mean, make sure no one comes up behind us."

"I am your fearless servant, _señorita_."

### chapter 22: Jason meets Dorothy

This time, when I returned to Ramback House, was a different homecoming. A mouse from another Subdivision house met Joaquín and me at the entrance. I kent him but he acted as if he didna ken me. When I tried to enter he cried out, "Halt! Advance and be recognized."

"As you can see, 'tis Dorothy Mustt. This is my (I almost said 'fearless servant') friend from Sanchez House, Joaquín."

"Password?"

"There was noon when I left."

Just then came a voice from behind the sentry, "'Tis okay, Tater Tot; 'tis my sister, Dorothy Microchip."

"But who's this one?" Tater Tot asked.

Brack appeared. "That's right, pardner, who are you?"

"Joaquín Pedro de Los Sanchezes, at your service."

Brack said, "I know the Sanchez House, o'er on Sea Mist Way."

" _Claro_. Word came to us that señorita Dorothy was missing and I took it upon myself to look for her. With God's help I found her lying under a bush—how do you say: fainted?"

"Fainted?"

"I just over-exercised my brain a wee and went to sleep. Think nothing of it." I was as startled as anyone to know that Joaquín had been out looking fer me. I had no idea my trip to the beach ha' been a general topic in Subdivision. Clearly, the idea of mutual aid was catching on.

Joaquín said, "Now that I have returned señorita Dorothy to her family, I will be going home myself. _Con mucho gusto y buena suerte, caballeros y dama_." He bobbed his head in the mouse version of a bow.

Brack said, "Wait. Take some food wi' us, or at least a drink of something."

Joaquín said, "A sip of water only, _señor_." He bobbed his head again as he entered through the wall.

I said good-bye to him, though 'twould be nice to hear 'señorita Dorothy' more. I liked the looks of his two-tone fur. He was handsomer, even, than June-June.

But I had idees to speak of. Not the business a how to organize troops. While I was asleep, or fainted or whatever, it came to me: there be good reason fer reading The Matrix's notebooks. I recalled the title of her paper, "A Failed Attempt at Genetic Modification in _Mus musculus_." Maybe I could stop Wom wi' my brain 'stead a biting and clawing.

I went looking for Mumsy.

When I found her I said, "I must go back to the beach." Before she could object I told her the Scapists had learned, as soon as they a had need to, how to use a computer, and already read The Matrix's paper on her spearmints. "But I found someone else knows what's in her notebooks. It just dawned on me how important this is."

"Yes, indeed, 'tis big," Mumsy said, "but to go back to the beach so soon. You must be worn to a frazzle."

"I think we can talk Wom out a his madness. Think on it, Mumsy: the author's paper admits failure. He's going to fail, too—Wom, I mean. So we must convince him a tha'. We use diplomacy to win, 'stead a mice having to die. I know we can."

She said, "You intend to go back directly?"

"First I must find out how it is wi' Jason—do you know?"

Mumsy hemmed and hawed afore telling me several sad things, each dragged out a her like pulling teeth. Item: there been a really big fight wi' his parents. Item: was another all-night session wi' Dudley, them drinking and vowing to end it all. Dudley had gone to a gun show wi' his da and while the da was watching a movie on something called an M60, Dudley bought a gun. Was so easy he was sure he could get another. Even though he was under eighteen, 'twas another instance a folk giving him what he wanted to be rid a him. He brought this pistol to Jason's house fer hiding.

I had a vision. Seems I fainted again, cause the next thing I knew after Mumsy told me a the gun, I had a vision of Jason sitting at his computer and me, sitting someplace off to the side in the dark, talking to him as if I were a spirit voice, telling him not to take his life.

Mumsy, Poptart—everyone but the sentry at the entrance—were crowded around me when I knew the next thing that I knew. "You be taking a rest afore you go gallivanting to the beach again, young'un" Poptart said.

"Yes, yes. I shall spend the night, then I'll go back to the beach. And I must carry the word. If my plan fails—"

"—What plan?" Poptart asked.

"I know someone—a mouse, to be sure—has it wi'in her power to scotch this Wom madness wi' words alone, wi' knowledge. I must get back and convince her to do so."

"Who is this mouse?"

I said, "She prefers to keep that secret. But never mind. If it works, perhaps she'll make her eye dee known. If it doesna work, there'll be a war, and I know, sure as I'm Microchip, the war will be the reason humans discover we talk. We must stop the war and prevent the Worst Case Scenario."

Grandpa Scootch elbowed his way to the front a the group around me. I realized he wasna old as Gilda. I was about to defy him, and real sorry I had to, but I promised that about preserving her eye dee.

Grandpa Scootch said, "This is downright nonsense, young'un. Mumsy tells me you found out these Scapist mice have read The Matrix's paper, yet you must go back to the beach. You'll be ambushed by Guards, torn to pieces."

"Grandpa Scootch, things no be near so scary as they seem, living all our time in Ramback House. I saw four Guards patrolling the beach this morning, and they were the ones scared. The world's about to get topsier-turvier if we're no careful. And I think I know the answer. But 'twill take this mouse who knows The Matrix's notebooks to convince Wom his idee willna work. Trust me. Donna worry if I'm caught. They'll no hurt me, they'll try to make me help 'em, and I can stay alive a long time stringing 'em along."

"I'll no let you go," said Grandpa Scootch.

"Grandpa, can ye recall the show we watched on teevee about the Dutch resistance fighter, back in dubya dubya two? The one the Nazis were so sure had all the names of all the underground mob, and they kept pulling those stupid tricks, like pretending they were about to shoot him, would line him up afore a firing squad?"

"Aye."

"Wom is Nazi dumb. Long as he thinks I know a deal I don't, he'll no harm me. So stop trying to protect me. I'll be all right."

He said, whiskers going up and down, like he was mad, "Then I'm sending Brack with you."

"He'll be killt. He's too reckless, cause he's ne'er feared things the way a crippled mouse fears. My weakness be my strength, Grandpa, and I go alone, by your leave."

Mumsy said, "She must, Pa. She must. 'Tis why we're named how we are. When a Mustt must, she must, that's the short and the long of it."

"I'm glad I'm old and soon will die," he said, and elbowed his way out of the crowd.

##

That night Dudley didna come to visit. The Ramback family went through the usual evening, Mum Ramback fixing the twins' food, and drinking more than she ate the while, Popsy off playing poker wi' friends at another house, or so he said, Mariah Hellion moved to her own apartment by then, and Jason calling down from top the stairs that he'd eat later.

I didna waste time worrying aboot being seen. All the back and forth to the beach had taught me I wouldna, so I waltzed cross the dining room, through the central hall, up the stairs and through the door Jason always kept ajar. 'Twas summer's end and the night, no breeze blowing from the ocean, was warm as a pile of pinkies snoozing. I climbed the clock radio cord to the shelf closest the computer screen and watch as Jason typed away. This is what he wrote:

Dear Dudley,

I live in a family of idiots and sadists. Last night at dinner my father said the only reason I like you is that you're more pitiful than I am. I left the table and went upstairs, to show him what I thought of his insensitivity. I decided, after thinking on it half the night that, besides being grossly rude, my father is a rotten judge of what makes people tick.

I don't have a minute's pity for you; don't ever imagine that. I empathize with you, maybe, but mostly I admire you. When I look at you I see a person who's endured misfortune and chosen courage rather than despair. I see a person who chooses to go on living when living prolongs his sense of separation from the rest of mankind. Remember how we sat together in your doctor's office and watched the other patients turn their faces away? Even the nurse and the receptionist can't act natural towards you. I feel like a gold-plated wimp by comparison, but I'm trying to be braver and ignore my brother and sisters' insults.

There must be a way—we're too smart not to think of it—where we could do something on the Internet that would make us fantastically rich and I could go out and do the shopping and that sort of thing. Or we could do something where we both wear masks, really astonishing masks, maybe have a rock band called Masked Bandits and we could be like the Phantom of the Opera, only sometimes I would reveal the "good" side of my face and everyone would be fooled.

We could even have women come to our house and make it very mysterious and romantic/sexy or whatever. Anyway, we could get by.

What do you think? I think if there were ever anything like a face transplant you might try it, but I think there is a cure for me down the road. But even if my pony hair went away tomorrow it would never change my regard for you.

I know this doesn't sound like someone ready to commit suicide, and sometimes I think it would be a mistake to do it, even if it ended the agony of being around people other than you.

In short, I'm so confused. When you're around, and you show me the gun, I know we're doing the right thing. But when I hear a bird or go down to the beach and watch the waves at sunset, when no one can get a good look at my face, I think there must be a way.

When do you think you can get the other gun? I have the other half of the money to pay you back—isn't that silly? I hand you the money and then we shoot ourselves. But somehow I need to pay you.

Best,

Then he was sobbing, just a wee at first but then gobs a tears, face in hands, shoulders jiggling, and I called out to him, "Jason! Stop this gibberish. You donna want to end your life."

He stopped crying. He looked around. He might ha' looked right at me but if he did he couldna make me out, cause the only light in the room was from the computer monitor. He got up and came right towards me, and I froze. But he went right on past me and felt behind the bookcase, to come out in a moment with a gun. 'Twas the kind Sam Spade carried in _The Maltese Falcon_ , not the kind Miles Archer carried. He freed the cylinder and spun it. It had bullets in it. I yelled, "Don't do it!"

This time he heard me, and a instant later his eyes found me. I looked up at him, knowing the moment had come when a 'lower animal,' as they call us on teevee, was communicating wi' Man.

But stead a being puzzled, or awed or anything been running through my head when I foresaw this moment, his face went furious, as if he seen the real enemy a his life and was rushing to destroy her.

Wioot a second's pause he turned the gun to, grasped it by the barrel and brought it back to his ear, then hammered with it—tried to hammer me! 'Twas my luck he failed to consider the narrowness a the shelf. The gun's butt cracked the shelf above my head with a report made me jump like a kangaroo rat.

"Jason!" I yelled. His lip curled, teeth showed, he brought the gun back once more to his ear and I didna wait to see his aim improved, I leapt straight away, hearing the crack a gun on wood almost at the same instant I caught hold a the radio cord. I swung round so's I was heading toward the door as I hit the floor, running as fast as three legs would carry me.

He tried to stamp on me but missed. I was oot the door and on the stairs fore he advanced again.

I ran into the dining room and under the buffet, to find the broken electrical outlet and the company a mice, safe at least fer the time being.

As I ran under the buffet I heard Jason call out, "Mother, did you know there's a mouse in the house?"

### chapter 23: Gilda on talking

I sat in the dark, twixt the Ramback part and Mustt part a the house, realizing what I dreamt so long ha' turned into a first class mess-up. Now I must warn my family and visiting mice a human spotted me and traps would be set, pizon put out, and maybe Cat shut in the kitchen at night fer a month and more, till Jason or his Mum decided I was just a passing mouse who didna stay in a house where a human tried to hit her wi' the butt of a gun and stomp her like a cockroach.

How foolish a me, to think a human would listen to a mouse. What I couldna grasp was how wrong I been about Jason. I thought he was different from other humans, but no. He was like the one shot the President. Was like trappers took poor beavers most cruelly. Like buffalo hunters in _Dances with Wolves_ , would shoot a hundred critters in a day, just for their hides.

How could I ha' been so simple-minded, how could I ha' been so wrong? Stupid mouse. As stupid as I was lame. Let someone else do all the thinking from now on. I just proved I could be worse wrong than any two Bracks or Woms.

I not only misjudged Jason, I'd disobeyed the Prime Directive.

I debated what I would say to Grandpa Scootch, he being so leery a me even thinking bout talking to Jason. What would I say to my own Mumsy and Poptart? I never in my life lied —well, yes, I'd lied to Wom when he been so creepy. But to my own family?

Was it not lying, though, my dreaming and not sharing my dreams, thinking my judgment better'n my kin's, dreaming I would save the world by talking ta Jason, wirna my keeping that all in my head and not putting it out in the world, to see what the world—my world, my family—thought of it, wirna that lying?

How was I to make up fer my failing? How could I make up fer breaking the Prime Directive and being wrong about Jason to boot? Jason-like, I let a thought a killing myself cross my mind and understood him more in that second than ever I had till then.

I knew I must go back ta see Gilda. I thought to get her to tell me why there was a Prime Directive in the first place, to tell me what happened in The Matrix's lab afore the Great Escape, so's I could use it to prove to mice everwhere that Wom's dream a world dominance were fantasy.

Now all I wanted was fer Gilda to tell me how to make up fer breaking the Prime Directive. If it wasna too late already.

By the time I reached this pass, I was calm enough to know I had to lie again. I would tell my kin I been spotted in Jason's room. I just wouldna tell 'em I'd talked to him. Maybe I hadna spoke loud enough. Maybe Jason was so deep in his own thoughts he hadna kent I was talking, only that he'd spotted me.

I went straight to my corner of the nest and snuggled into the warm bedding, realizing I was shaking some. Mumsy said, "There's a wee one. Close those eyes and rest, we'll talk about the beach in the morning."

"Oh, I'm going, all right, Mumsy. There's no way to stop me but to tie me up with duck tape and throw away the key."

"See? You're so tired, Dorothy, you're talking gibberish."

##

Though tired and confused, I slept lightly. Or maybe 'twas cause I was so tired and confused I spotted Brack coming in and went over to his nesting place as he was about to snuggle in and said, "Brother, I need speak words with you."

"Later," he said; "I'm tired."

"Now," I said, in a manner left no doubt he needs must heed me.

We huddled in the entranceway. Brack asked the sentry, who at this hour was one of our own, Frac, to step away some, to give us privacy.

"I screwed the pooch, brother," I said as soon as we were alone.

"In what manner ha' you screwed the pooch, sister?"

"I was in Jason's room, reading over his shoulder and I sneezed. He saw me and tried to kill me."

"Your sweetheart turned on you, did he?" His manner was gleeful.

"'Tain't funny, Brack. He went out in the upper hall and called out to Mum Ramback how there be a mouse in the house. She'll ask Popsy to set traps and put out pizon and starve Cat."

"Why are you telling me, Microchip? This be a topic fer a family powwow. So, fer a month we ignore traps and pizon and you'll do more Diversions of Cat."

"I'm telling you cause I must go back to the beach as soon as the moon sets."

"Aw, sister, you're daft. Your place is here wi' us."

I said, "I met a mouse out there knows what's in The Matrix's notebooks. I believe wi' such knowledge we could parley with Wom and prevent a war."

"How do you know?" Brack asked, a tinge of regret in his voice. I no expected he'd be too keen on parleying.

"Well, I don't, for sure," I said, "but it's worth a try."

"And who is this mouse with such frightful knowledge?"

"I canna tell you," I said.

"You're not only daft, you're high and mighty. I can remember you were nothing but Fat Broad, now you're getting to be a raiglar Princess."

"That's not fair. I promised her. I have to keep my promise."

Brack paced back and forth and stopped to sit on his haunches. "Okay, I'll pass your stupid sneeze on to the Nest. I'll tell 'em I thought it was right fer you ta go, but this is the last time you make this trip by yourself. I donna want you a snack fer some roving cat or rat terrier."

I thanked Brack. I told him I'd hang out at the entrance till the moon set and he went back to the Nest. Just before he left I gave him a big hug.

"What's that fer?"

"Because you still know I'm a Fat Broad underneath it all."

"You keep limping over to the beach so oft you'll get right skinny. Then I'll only be able to call you Crump."

"I hope this is my last trip, brother."

And wi' that I sat near Frac, who had heard enough a me and Brack talking to know I was going to the beach, and he said he'd like to go himself, to see the ocean and The Lab.

I said, "You know, brother, soon as this nonsense wi' Wom is history, we can all go over to the beach and have a picnic. You can meet some cool mice who know how to kick back and enjoy life."

"Yeah! That's a date, sis."

##

As I limped along the trail that was beginning to be worn in the grass next to the sidewalk, I reflected how crossing Wide Boulevard been such a big deal fore I did it, and now, since shown the back way to the beach, it was just annoying to trot so far.

But I kept my eyes open. Once burnt twice leery, as some wise mouse once said. Or maybe was a wise human. Out on the trail by myself, I was soon as forlorn as I was frightened when Jason swung his pistol at me. To see the look on his face. How could anyone with a patch a mouse fur on his cheek so hate a mouse? Or maybe 'twas because he had a patch a fur he hated to see a reminder of it.

I thought he would be so amazed discovering a talking mouse. Instead, 'twas worse than naught. Was as if I'd called him Pony Boy to his face.

I passed the oleander bush and paused, looking both ways, remembering 'twas from here I seen Guards swimming The Trickle. Was no one coming, so I went on to the end of the boardwalk, searching my mind to remember the password. Course I didna want to see anyone in the beach colony, just Gilda, But I didna feature running so far as the wooden crate out in the open.

I decided to try another route. I ran out on the beach till I found a high tussock and climbed it, to look down at water and wet sand from where the waves just retreated. I saw not a single human, not running nor walking nor wading. But I did see seagulls, and there were more of these in the air and out over the water. Something told me I shouldna go running on the packed sand. Birds, I'd always been told, ha' good eyes. Above all owls. I wasna certaint aboot gulls, but watching 'em dive in the water and rise again, I kenned they were hunting breakfast. I decided I made one mistake too many lately, and I wouldna make a similar one by being a gull's breakfast.

##

Going the long way—that is, along the boardwalk on the beach side till I was even wi' the crate and cutting across—I was thirsty when I got there. Were I a seasoned trekker I would ha' drunk at the wetlands. I called out as I went into the crate, announcing myself. I realized as I did that things could a changed since I last saw Gilda. She could a been found by Guards; she could a been found by Scapists. She might ha' died, as she said, gi'en her age.

She wasna under the crate, and I stood on the jutting corner to see if she were in sight, and while standing there, peering towards the ocean, I heard a voice behind me say, "I didn't hide out all this time standing on the highest point of the beach at sunrise for every mouse and seagull in the world to see me."

I whirled around and there was Gilda.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"You went right by me."

"No."

"You did," she said. "I blend in rather well, and I never, never show my head above the crest of even the smallest ridge of sand."

We stood looking at each other. Could I make a smile I would ha'. I reckoned she felt the same. The cant of her whiskers declared she was glad to see me. At last she said, "I warrant you're thirsty. I've laid in some lettuce from someone's peanut butter and pickle sandwich."

I followed her into the cavern. "What kind a sandwich?"

"Peanut butter and pickle. A girl named Christy, from the college, comes to the beach quite often with sandwiches. She always leaves a bite or two. I'm not sure she knows I'm here or if she leaves them for the birds. I'd like to think she can see me when no one else can."

"How sweet," I said.

Gilda said, "There are many sweet things in this world. I was telling that to my favorite seagull as you were trotting across the beach."

"Gilda," I said, "I want to know about you and your favorite seagull, above all how you keep him from eating you, but I done a terrible deed and I need your help."

"Ah. You didn't come to see me for myself alone but for my help."

"If you be serious, ma'am, I truly am sorry I couldna have come back just fer your company, fer I cherish it and want fer more. But if you be teasing, you need to know I'm a little sensitive just now, fer I did do a terrible deed, the worst a Talker can do."

"Ah. You ignored the Prime Directive."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You spoke to your beloved Jason."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And did it let loose the Worst Case Scenario?"

"No."

"What did he do?" she asked.

I said, "He has bought a gun fer to commit suicide, and he tried to hit me wi' the handle of it. And then, when I jumped to the floor to escape, he tried to stomp on me."

Gilda said, in a voice that sounded mirthful to me, "The brute!"

"Please donna mock me, ma'am."

"I'm not mocking you, young'un. Was a terrible thing he did, but ever so human. Humans don't much like rodents. They absolutely loath rats, they despise gophers and moles and wee ground squirrels for their destructive ways, and they have mixed feelings about mice, cause we're so tiny and cute but we chew the way ground squirrels dig. But all in all they like birds better, and of course dogs and cats, who have learned very well how to handle humans."

"Well, the cat is out of the bag. I suspect when Jason realizes he was spoken to by a mouse, called by name, in fact, he will start thinking bout talking mice and what to do wi' 'em. Then the Worst Case Scenario will be upon us."

"I don't think so."

I said, "Why not?"

"Perhaps your voice is just a little too high or too soft for him to make out words, young'un."

You mean he didna understand me?"

"Something like that," Gilda said.

"Yes?"

"I'm suggesting your Jason didn't react as expected because all he heard were some high-pitched squeaks."

I paused, mulling her words. "You mean?... I just assumed if we talked humans would understand us. You mean there's more to it?"

Gilda said, "I wish we could sit and drink tea. There's a great deal to discuss about the Prime Directive. I think, in the end, it's very, very wise. But as for your talking to Jason, I'm afraid you'd be better off leaving him a love note on the computer."

"How sad," I said.

"But then, young'un, you have speech with me, and it is right and good, so enjoy it and don't cry over what can't—or shouldn't—be."

I was at once relieved, sad, angry at my elders and already thinking of ways to get round this problem of the pitch a my voice. I thought about the Science Man on teevee, and how he would make a machine that took our squeaky talk and made it sound like human talk.

Gilda said, bringing me out of my shifty mood, "I think you need to read The Matrix's notes on her experiments, and you'll see that the pitch of our voices fooled even her."

"You can get me in to see The Matrix's notebooks?"

"I wouldn't have brought it up if I couldn't."

### chapter 24: An awful truth

Course we couldna just walk in the front door like a pair of joshkins looking to take a tour. Eager beavers, as Gilda called 'em, were already trickling into the Institute, humans set on finding parking space near the building, or getting started early on spearmints. We would bide our time.

And oh, the thrill: having to do a delicious thing, the thing you'd most want to do if duty didna call. I wished fer this time wi' Gilda, but thought 'twould happen some day off in the future. Oh joy, 'twas happening Now.

"Tell me about life in The Lab before the Great Escape."

"I'd rather tell you about my favorite seagull first."

"Is it important?"

"To me—in this respect: I have, just because I was freed from captivity in The Lab and allowed to do pretty much as I please, tamed a member of a species that eats mice when they can. For the most part gulls live on things humans and other big feeders leave behind. But they will eat insects and fish and, yes, mice, if given half a chance."

"How did you tame this seagull? Does he have a name?"

"I call him Helix, after a former mate. I tamed him because he was about to eat me. I feared for my life, so I did what came into my head, I sang and danced in front of him, like Salome in front of Herod. He was so taken with my voice, or perhaps my prancing, he watched instead of plucking me off the sand. Next day I felt a need to go back to the same place and he must have too, for there he was. I sang and danced again. This went on nearly every day, till he went away in early summer—to breed, I guess—but when he came back I didn't even have to dance, I just sang. One day, instead of singing, I talked to Helix. Of course he never says anything back, and I don't believe he understands a word I say, but I tell him how handsome he is, what a noble sight and how all the gull hens must think he's the cat's meow—"

"—Cat's meow?"

Gilda said, "Funny turn of phrase I picked up somewhere. Mean's the same as 'living end,' or 'boss trick,'—something superior."

"Can you tell me please aboot the time afore the Great Escape? I would like to come back and meet Helix someday, but I fear time is fleeing: this fighting could break out any day."

"Very well," Gilda said. "Let me think a moment on where I should begin."

I munched lettuce fer my thirst. I started in on peanut-buttered bread and found the pickle juice left on it made it more tasty. I cleaned my whiskers and sat back to listen.

"It would be logical," Gilda said, "to begin at the beginning, but what you want to know about is just before the end, so I'll work backwards."

##

When I told my family I found a mouse who knew what was in The Matrix's notebooks, I wasna quite truthful. I was no lying, I just wasna telling plain facts. She seen The Matrix making her notes all right, she didna know what they said, any more than I. What she did know was what made The Matrix give up on her research and tell Charlie Ruiz to do in her and my folk.

Mice, Gilda reminded me (who never studied mice except from the inside out) live by instincts. A mouse will, she explained, adopt the same position, time after time, if you lift him by the tail. A mouse will use its tail as a rudder while falling, and is able to turn more'n a quarter turn to land in a preferred place—if you drop him from enough off the ground. Mice can learn to identify shapes and remember patterns, such as turns through a maze to reach a bit a peanut butter.

Gilda was of the generation of mice who first learned to talk. They learned, she explained, by listening to The Matrix and her students and to their keepers, laboratory assistants like Charlie Ruiz. One graduate student, Athol, from Scotland, gave his accent to the mice he worked with closely, as did a Scots animal caretaker.

"Charlie Ruiz taught us a lot, for he had a reading problem," Gilda said. "He would repeat aloud everything he wrote on the cards in the card-holder on the front of our cages. There he recorded the ordinary facts of our care, like when water bottles and bedding were changed. Charlie also talked to us: 'Com'ere, you little devil,' he'd say, and 'That's a most excellent mouse,' or 'Right onnn!' when we cooperated."

Gilda broke off her telling. "Seems I'm not starting at the end, as I promised. Mind if I skip around?"

"Of course not, 'tis your story."

"Why, it's your story, too, young'un. You wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for Charlie Ruiz, so he matters a good deal."

By the time of Gilda's generation, The Matrix had a new crop of graduate assistants, and she explained to them the hypothesis guiding her efforts. All the mice, who by this time could understand human speech quite well, sat and listened, too.

She never meant to make talking mice. She wanted to learn how mice learned. If she changed mice in some basic way, so she reasoned, gave 'em an ability never before possessed, she could teach 'em to learn entirely new behavior. After all, learning a maze ain't so different from learning the way through a warehouse to the cracked corn. Learning to tell a pyramid from a cube ain't so different from learning a grain sack from a cement block.

"What she wanted to do, she told her students, was make mice learn a wholly new skill and observe and record how they did it. If they had a new physical ability—grasping with an opposable thumb was the one she settled on—would they automatically start using it? Would it take trial and error, or would there be feedback from new muscles and altered joints to the central nervous system?

"I myself saw the insides of mice—any one of them could have been me—laid open 'neath the microscope to reveal changes brought about by splicing human genes—The Matrix's genes—into mice eggs. I saw photos taken through the microscope of our tiny 'hands.' If you ever get the chance, look at a Mute's forepaws. You'll see there's even a place where humans and apes have thumbs, a nubbin, and she changed it into a working thumb.

"But tacking on a thumb that bends like a human's is not what changed us. Dr. Godwyn thought to give us new tasks requiring thumbs, like hanging onto wooden dowels while being lifted to a special feeding cage. Somehow it wasn't a real challenge. Maybe our ancestors knew they'd be fed anyway.

"She gave us little knobs to turn which allowed special treats to drop down. The treats weren't particularly tasty, so no mice turned knobs. She gave us special tools, like spoons, and set up problems where we had to reach through the cage bars in order to scoop up pellets or mush. The problem, we lab mice agreed, was that the food was no different from what we ate every day.

"Dr. Godwyn wasn't too smart on mouse psychology, even if she was a whiz on mouse genetics. Had she thought of a wonderful treat, like getting picked up to be petted, or being allowed to socialize with mice in other cages, we might have reacted better.

"So one day she was ready to give up on us—thinking, I'm told, how mice were not very adaptable (a big joke on her) when an associate—remember the name: Dexter Moss, for he's important to our history, too—suggested she splice a second gene which might govern manual dexterity (a fancy term for using thumbs well!)."

"Whatever human gene she selected did more than equip us to have nimble thumbs. It brought on reasoning and talking. And that is when we began to change into what we are today.

"The Prime Directive, it seems, existed from the first time one mouse talked to another. Not quite, but I suppose it was soon after some mouse put to his mates that things might go worse for us if The Matrix knew we could talk. We had our mush and oats and the occasional carrot tops or fresh lettuce. We had all the water we could drink. They changed our litter often enough we didn't stink too much. We could breed, even if it was The Matrix selected which mouse and when, we were only cut up when she needed answers to questions about our insides. And the common wisdom was that it was not a bad way to go. They gave you a shot and you went to sleep, never to wake up again."

Gilda talked on till 'twas time fer us to eat more. I asked her if she ever et sedge seeds and she had, but there was too much ground to cover getting to the wetlands and it being just lunchtime. She pointed out a trash can not ten yards from our location, and with luck some careless human would throw away something to tide us over till evening.

"When you will get me into The Matrix's laboratory," I said.

Gilda replied, "Let's talk more about that, after we get some food."

So we scrounged, as Brack calls it. We first found a potato chip bag wi' lots a yummy, salty tidbits in the bottom. Next to it sat a large cup with a mouse-sized serving a strawberry malt in the bottom. We found an apple core. We et quite well. And we gathered some juicy, not so tasty, beach grass to suck on when we went back under the crate.

When we finished cleaning our whiskers, Gilda said, "I can tell you anything you want to know about how we got here. I'm not sure how you think that will check Wom's plan for ruling mousedom, but I have all that you need in my head."

I said, "I been round Wom just enough to know he wants more than anything to be superior. At first I thought 'twas superior to all other mice; now I think it's also to be superior to humans: control 'em, so they do what he wants, the way we used to do what they wanted. He wants to launch 'em like armies launch rockets, to destroy or capture.

"I think if you told him how he got here he would say you were passing on fairytales. But if it's written down in The Matrix's notebooks, he willna be able to prove it false."

"And you want to prove to Wom...?"

"That we be an accident, a freak a nature. We have no Divine Destiny to carry out."

Gilda said, "You think Wom believes we have a Divine Destiny?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do. I canna believe Wom is just a bigheaded jerk."

Gilda made her sound like a laugh. "I've overheard Scapists saying how some mice born these days have unusually high foreheads, which some think indicates more brains. I think if there were no Bigheads, as they're called, Wom would make a case for there being superior mice. Whisker length, bigger thumbs, particular colors. I think Superiority is an inherited idea. It came with our talking gene. We got it from Dr. Godwyn, nice as she is."

I found myself scratching my head with my forepaws. "Golly, this is so complicated."

"Have you ever thought of assassinating Wom?" Gilda asked.

"Socrates—you know Socrates?"

"I watched him grow up."

"He thinks assassination ain't fair."

She said, "So Socrates has grown wise with age. Well, that's another idea that came with thumbs and speech. Mr. Wom is going to end our way of life, young'un. He alone will bring on the Worst Case Scenario, by starting a war.

"Let me cut to the chase, as some beach bunnies say. Prepare yourself for the piece of truth that should end Wom holding the Worst Case Scenario over everyone's heads."

I held my breath.

"We can't talk to humans, wee one. We can try—some of my brethren tried when they figured out Dr. Godwyn intended to destroy us. But neither she, nor any of her assistants, not even kind-hearted Charlie Ruiz, could understand us. I reckon our voices are too high for them to hear the different parts of words that give them meaning. Like elephants' voices are too low. And I heard that from another scientist, sitting out here one evening romancing one of his graduate assistants, getting her in a receptive mood."

"So when I tried talking to Jason," I said, "'twas not his being plain mean, it meant I did no more than attract his attention. He just heard a high-pitched squeak."

"Right."

"So I amna going to talk him out of committing suicide."

"From what you say, he'll talk himself out of it. But if you want to communicate with him, try typing out messages on the computer."

She'd said that before, but now it made sense. I was ready to cry.

Gilda said, "Out with it, young'un. Don't keep it pent up."

I said, "I wished I believed in reincarnation."

"Reincarnation?"

I told her I learned the idee from listening to Jason and Dudley talking. I explained it to her.

"And if you were to be born again, what would you like to be?"

"A sea turtle. Or maybe a redwood tree—something dinna think and feel and grasp with opposable thumbs."

"You'd be unhappy as a sea turtle, after knowing this life, wee one. But let me make a suggestion. Maybe I'm wrong about what I told you. Maybe we should go to The Matrix's lab and read her notebooks, just to be sure."

"How will we get past the Guards?"

"Do I look like a mouse to be stopped by a bunch of thugs?"

"No ma'am."

"The moon will be up well after the sun's set. Before the moon rises, we'll invade Stedwell Institute. For the good of mousedom."

"For the good of mousedom," I said, thinking a D'Artagnon and the three Musketeers.

### chapter 25: The Matrix's notebooks

"Let me see," Gilda said, "I think the power cable route is out. I'd want you to do it once in daylight before you tried it in the dark. And what with mice being on war alert, it's no daylight excursion.

"Running through the exhaust fan might be fatal if you aren't quick. And face it, young'un, old as I am, I'm a little quicker than you."

"You mean we canna go in at all?"

"No," she said, "I mean we'll have to wait till Oskar comes out on the back porch to smoke. He leaves the door propped open, and we just walk in."

Oskar, Gilda explained, was the laboratory assistant who replaced Charlie Ruiz when Charlie went off to work at the San Diego Zoo. Oskar hales from Iceland, a farm lad who, in another age, might have been a jolly Viking. Blond, with a receding hairline and ponytail, he whistles all evening as he works—except when smoking. On the back porch he sings wee snatches of songs in Icelandic between puffs.

"Are there mice in Iceland?" I asked Gilda.

"There are mice everywhere except Antarctica—and I bet one or two ended up there."

Course I heard that, both from Grandpa Scootch and on teevee, but Iceland, out in the middle of a huge ocean, seemed too out-of-the-way fer mice. Unless Scandinavian mice were used to riding in Viking longboats. I tried to imagine myself, dodging giant leather-wrapped feet in the innards of a giant, tippy canoe.

Waiting fer Oskar, we sat in the mild summer evening, like a young lady and her grandmother from _Little House on the Prairie_. We sat under a bush wi' pretty blue flowers had no smell, light from The Lab's back door in plain view, and beyond, girded by a wire fence, the dumpster where Gilda and her generation were to be dumped, chloroformed and autoclaved, but fer the kind-hearted (and cautious) Charlie Ruiz.

The moon wasna up but its glow backlit the hills into which Subdivision climbed, street by street. And then, wi' no fuss or to-do, Oskar the Icelander pushes open the door, kicks the prop down to hold it, and plunks himself on the top step with a cigarette. Gilda nudged me. We left the cover a the bush and ran through shadows, to climb the concrete stairs and whisk through the door to an Icelandic jig.

Gilda ran up a wire leading to a button on the wall and pushed it, to release the inner door latch. The door came ajar, wide enough to let in a mouse. It occurred to me as I followed Gilda we would have to get out a different way, cause Oskar mightna be out smoking later, 'cept by chance. I was sure Gilda knew the building better than any human and would have a dozen ways out, but my stomach still fluttered: how were we to avoid meeting a Guard or any other mouse from Secret Chambers?

The way we did it, we ran down the middle of hallways stead a under floors, we slipped 'neath doors where the insulation had curled at an edge, we climbed partitions did not reach the ceiling. But when we came to the door with _Eden Godwyn, Ph.D_. painted on it, we had to go where there might be other mice: in the channels under the floor where pipes ran. Gilda warned me to silence with a finger held afore her muzzle, and she motioned me to freeze while she explored. She emerged from a grating and beckoned wi' her hand. I dove in, holding my breath.

##

What did I expect? A shrine? A temple? Was no more special than Jason's room. A desk, piled wi' papers, a work table, computer, and file cabinet were arranged in a cubicle. Beyond the cubicle was a laboratory bench, wi' gear Gilda named fer me: a microscope, shelves wi' stuff she called reagents in clear and brown bottles, a safety hood and various pieces of equipment that had dials, screens, openings—the names were all gabble to me.

The laboratory part was neat. I didna see any mice or other animals, but I saw a door might lead to where they lived.

We crossed to the cubicle. Wee lights showed both the computer and its monitor be on. I climbed a power chord to the desk and nudged the gray device to make a picture appear on the monitor screen, a screen saver. A white rat filled the whole screen, a raither intense sight if you be a rodent the length of a rat's tail and weigh an ounce or so.

Gilda was up on the desk wi' me. She said, "I don't think you want to bother with the computer, if Socrates and his troops have already looked at it."

I said, "But I'll want to come back to it. I want to see that paper fer myself. I want to know how Socrates couldna tell The Matrix didna know we could talk."

"The notebooks, young'un. You're the one thinks she can trump Wom with the facts in them."

The notebooks were not so easy. One lay open on the desk, a book wi' thick cardboard covers and pages with blue lines forming grids. The page of the open notebook had information in code. I could decipher the letters and numbers, but they meant next to nothing. What, tell me, was "X080605?" This was the heading a several entries. One entry read: "significant association detected between Ms and haplotype marked by D15S994/D15S214/D15S146 (P < 0.001). Heritability estimated at .75."

"This is scientific gabble," I said to Gilda.

"What did you expect?"

"Some words ended up in that paper a hers."

"Scan the page before."

I looked at the left-hand page. One entry was labeled, "Possible Titles." The first one was, "Imputed Viral Alteration of Murine Leukocyte Antigen."

"I _sort of_ understand that," I said to Gilda, who was sitting beside me and looking at the same words.

She said, "I barely understand the squiggly writing, so that the most I can make out is 'Possible Titles.' The rest is beyond me. —I'll do us both better if I find a place high up to watch from, so no one comes in and thinks we escaped from her mouse colony."

Sure enough, someone did come. I searched fer the notebooks Mo told me of, the three bout creating Talkers. Notebooks were piled under the one was open. A desk drawer revealed more notebooks, and while I was trying to figure out how to open 'em, Gilda yelled, "Incoming humans, young'un. Hide!"

Amazed, I watched her run down the side of a file cabinet and head fer the laboratory bench. A cut out space below the lab benches was big enough a mouse could run under it wioot ducking.

A male human was saying, "I don't want to breed supermice, Edie, I just want to do some genetic studies of carcinogenesis in humans by first extrapolating from the most robust mouse strain I can come up with. And it sounds like your thumbed mice, even if they wouldn't swing through the treetops like Tarzan, were pretty robust little numbers."

"But you don't know anything about their susceptibility to tumors of any kind, Dex."

"Granted. So I'll be looking for markers on the genes of mice that do develop tumors after exposure to carcinogenic viruses, and then I'll look for analogs in humans with tumors. I'm not looking for a model for carcinogenesis, I'm looking for a model of heritable susceptibility."

I couldn't see them, but I sensed a shift in mood when this Dex who must be the Dexter Gilda spoke of, added, "Edie, be honest with me. I sense some reluctance on your part, not about my experiment but about those mice."

She said, "And you'd be right. Even though they couldn't learn a damned thing, I always felt they were sensitive little guys. Like they were trying to con me; almost like trying to talk to me."

"Go on."

"Really. Just before I told my lab assistant to make them disappear, one was trying to communicate with me, I swear. It sat there with its little hands clasped, making squeaks, as if pleading for its life. And I don't want to go through another instance of feeling like I put to death a bunch of intelligent beings."

The man said, "Well, I'm not so sentimental, so I'll take responsibility for their lives. I'll just save you a reprint of the paper I write."

"Couldn't you just use some standard strain out of the Bar Harbor catalog?"

"Now I may be the daffy one, but I'm intrigued by the idea of a mouse carrying human genes. And I don't really care about opposable thumbs or sad eyes; I'll choose some characteristic much more to the point. I just want to introduce the change myself, and I want your notes to help me learn the methods."

"Oh what the hell, Dex, what the hell."

"I don't want to feel like I'm twisting your arm, Edie."

"Oh, a lot you care about that. It's not like you didn't shine me along on a number of occasions."

"Well, that was different. That was passion, not science."

And with that they were at Dr. Godwyn's desk, where I couldna see them, but I heard the desk drawer draw open and, wi' a pause, slide closed, and I knew she'd given him the notebooks and I had, by fiddling about, lost my chance to save mousedom.

##

They left, Dr. Godwyn and her Dex. The lights went out, the door closed and locked. I sighed and whispered to Gilda, "A day late and a ha'penny short, as Grandpa Scootch likes to say."

"No harm, young'un. You heard it with your own ears: some mice did try to talk to The Matrix and she sensed it but never heard the words. Far as she's concerned we were a failed experiment because we wouldn't do what she had made us for. So she threw out the lot of us—though with a modicum of regret. And I guess we know something else in the bargain, we know no one but Charlie Ruiz ever guessed we'd escaped. I imagine he collected his trash can, decided he didn't want to risk getting fired for not doing his job, then kidded himself by supposing we'd not survive out in the world by ourselves.

"I reckon everyone in the world underestimated us, even Wom."

"How do you figure that, ma'am?"

Gilda said, "He doesn't know some Talkers pleaded for their lives. He assumed the Prime Directive kept everyone from talking, even knowing they were going to the autoclave."

I said, "And even if I could string together words to talk him oot a his mad design, I wouldna ha' the words to talk past the myth a mousedom's code of silence."

"Don't feel bad, wee one. We're no worse off than we were before."

"Actually," I said, "we be better off. Fer I have an idee may still work, even wanting the authority of The Matrix's notebooks."

What's your idea, Dorothy?"

"Why, we have the authority a the mouse who led the Great Escape. We have you."

"Oh no," Gilda said, "you're not going to drag me into this."

"You must, Gilda, ma'am. You be the only one can stop the war."

"But how?"

"I donna know. But I bet if Wom knew you were coming, he'd have you torn to pieces."

"This sounds like the crucifixion all over again."

"Not if I can help it."

FURTHER ADVENTURES OF A TALKER

### Editor's note:

This portion of the memoir was dictated in my presence. The circumstances of my interviewing Dorothy are strange and wonderful, but the topic of another work, the one I've threatened to publish if I get any more hassle from plain clothes soldiers who don't obey any rules but their own.

I believe this fits nicely with the written material. You'll notice some thing's have changed. Dorothy doesn't sound quite as quaint. My surmise is that, due to the long (for a mouse) separation from her family and association with none who spoke Scots English for that time, she more nearly adapted to current American English. If depends on her level of intensity. She will, at times, use some Scotticisms I can't resist throwing in.

The other thing worth noting is that, unlike me, she speaks better than she writes. These words, with far less editing, were recorded on my hand-held recorder and transcribed to a computer file.

### chapter 26: Calamity comes to Ramback House

Gilda's prediction was right as ninepence, as my late Grandpa Scootch used to say: I did eat too many dried cranberries. Which is to say I did make contact wi' Jason, and I wrote on his computer stead a trying to talk wi' him. It made no difference, writing or talking the results were dire, as she predicted.

I'm old now, old as Gilda when first I met her on the beach. And there's a funny thing about being old: you know more a what's going to happen, because more things has already happened, so you understand more about people's nature.

Aye, and I include mice here, when I say people. I mean what human's mean when they use the word: individuals... fellow members of the species.

Gilda reckoned I'd go ahead and make contact wi' Jason cause she seen examples of eating too many dried cranberries time and again, watching the beach bunnies and the Scapists and the odd scientist came down to the beach to take in the sunset or be alone wi' his lady. And she was right as ninepence, too.

I intended to make one last trip to Subdivision fore arranging a meeting twixt Gilda and Wom. I wanted to respect Grandpa Scootch and not disrespect my family. I wanted everyone else to accept my idea bout making peace stead a war, so that, like humans have elections, mice everywhere—beach, Secret Chambers, Subdivision—would take the idea of peace at any price as their own.

I dreamt a harmony. I dreamt of a great mouse migration, the likes a the Mormon trek west, as seen on teevee, finding a place we could live free a humans, making our own way without depending on 'em for scraps and crumbs. We'd be like the Indians, or the Original Americans, as Jason liked to call 'em, and hunt and gather, and Subdivision's notions a proper mating and controlling the numbers a pinkies would rule, and those from other places would say it was right as ninepence.

Because, wi' brains, thumbs and wi' kissing humans cheery-bye, we wouldn't need to make litters a pinkies every few months, we'd die of old age, not famine and traps and pizon. We'd have strict ways but a meaningful life.

Course that was one-sided, I mean I was thinking selfishly of mice and not men. I suppose I imagined, once humans did discover us mice, they'd see the errors a their ways, using up the earth, breeding more and more so that each had less and less, using up trees and chemicals in the ground and polluting water and air. In other words, humans would behave like civilized mice.

##

The trouble was, things were not so hunky-dory at Ramback House when I got there. In fact, they were plain calamitous.

I came back wi' the dawn, along the wetland route, and instead a finding a household asleep, there be cars lining the curb out front, some black and white, all the lights on, and Bob dropping off Mariah, who nearly stepped on me, ankling across the lawn.

—To be stopped by a man all in blue. I never seen a policeman in person before, but I knew he was one from teevee. Mariah, in jeans and sweatshirt, wearing sneakers, a way I never seen her dresst before, went in the house past the policeman while I ran in the usual way... to find no one from any other Subdivision House.

I came into the middle of the huddle and no one said anything, the locomotive in my wee chest going faster and faster, until I blurted out, "He's dead, ain't he."

Still no words.

"Somebody say something," I shouted, crying copious tears.

Mumsy came up to me, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, "'Tis not Jason, 'tis the other."

"Which other?"

"Dudley," says Mumsy.

"How so?" I ask.

"Killt himself wi' the gun Jason was hiding fer 'em. Shot the mirror in the living room, the big one over the couch, then shot himself."

'When?"

"An hour past and some," says Grandpa Scootch.

Says Brack, "I watched 'em take dead Dudley out in a body bag, put 'em in a black van, and druv off."

"And where be Jason?" says I.

"In the dining room, answering the policemen's questions," Poptart says.

"'Tis a wonder Jason didna shoot himself also. Each had a gun," Mumsy says.

"I must go to him," says I.

"While he's talking to coppers?" says Brack. "With all the clodhoppers clomping through den and family room and Sissy and Mum Ramback wailing like banshees? Ye be daft, sister mine."

Still, I went. The chances of catching anyone's eye were slim. I went through the walls and came out at the broken electrical outlet under the buffet, to hear Mum Ramback saying to someone I couldn't see, "Can't you leave him alone? Can't you see how devastated he is, my poor son?"

"Ma'am, evidence suggests he's committed several crimes. We need answers before we can get a clearer picture."

I lost the thread of what the man was saying, but the sheer presence of him, bigger'n Popsy by a ways, broad, filling space like the basketball players seen on teevee. And smelling different from all in Ramback House.

Jason sat where Apollo usually sits, arms on the table, face nestled in his arms, so I was unable to see it. I might never communicate wi' him now, he might be in jail the rest of my life. I don't know why I thought it, but it seemed to me the Rambacks might well move away from Subdivision althegether, to escape grim memories and the opinion of others.

The thought knocked me fer a loop, as they say in old teevee movies. Much as I thought Rambacks inferior to the likes a Gilda or Socrates, the idea a their moving away panicked me. Humans do that, leave perfectly good nests fer reasons I never heard. Think on how often had the wise old mice of Subdivision met in a house emptied of its owners.

I had no time to lose. I scouted the prospects of crossing to the stairs and climbing up to Jason's room, to compose a message on his computer, but the way was too full a strangers, seeming all busy wi' stuff beyond my ken.

I made my way back to the garage, to find my mob still huddled under the car, next to a slick of grease wider across than Mum Ramback's fancy platter.

"You can't stay here all night, you know."

"The way they been poking around," Grandpa Scootch said, "we feared they'd find our nest."

I said, "I don't think they be after mice. They be after evidence, as seen on CSI. I think we can be just as quiet and as afraid in our own place."

Members of the Mustt clan looked at each other and at me and Mumsy said, "He climbed to the top of the stairs, the first shot still ringing, and came tumbling down after the second. Mack was crossing the dining room and seen him."

"Wi' me own eyes," Mack said. "Was terrible."

"I went to pieces," said Brack's Katy, "there was so much bouncing of the floor as all those Bigs tromped about. I'm due to drop pinkies any day, and my nerves be like glass."

"I'm going to the nest," I said.

I did, and one by one they followed, but I was too churned up inside, wi' high anxiety, as some twit said on teevee. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't talk, yet I closed my eyes and made out like I was asleep, so that none would talk to me.

I believe they all did likewise, lying in the dark, as if each was alone in the world instead of a family.

All because one benighted human wi' burnt-up nose and ears couldn't face the world no more.

### chapter 27: Love note

Was a good long while fore I could pour out my heart to Jason. First off, the police took his computer to their place, though they could have, according to the twins, just copied the files on the hard drive. I'm sure they found my hidden file wi' the terrible writing of my dairy and could make no sense of it. I'm sure they askt Jason what it meant and he could make no sense of it, either.

The twins said, when askt by a policeman to explain a file Jason had himself hidden, that sometimes computers have a mind of their own and make files themselves, and hide 'em, which the policeman did not accept. The way he treated them, was plain he suspected 'em of keeping back the truth to protect their brother.

And maybe they did. For many days Jason spent a good deal of time being driven to the policemen's office, but was not put in jail. The first time I saw him when he came back from a trip downtown he was what you'd call a changed man. The boy had gone out a his face. The part I loved dear had gone out a his eyes. Mum and Popsy talked of a grief counselor, Mum more'n Popsy, but he came around. The problem was getting Jason out a bed and out a the house. When he got his computer back he spent hours in his bathrobe, in his room, sitting in front of it until it would turn off by itself. Then he'd get up and pace, shoulders drooping, slippers scuffling on the carpet, until he'd flop on his back across his bed, an arm thrown over his face, one knee cocked, and lie there making a sound only now and again: a moan, a sob, a throaty growl. "Jesus!" became a common outburst.

This only added to my longing to help him. He had to appear at what Mum called an inquest. Fore he did he talked to a lawyer several times, sometimes in the dining room, sometimes at the lawyer's office, always with Mum or Popsy along, more often Popsy, the lawyer's office in the same building as his. It was during one of these talks wi' lawyer, the house deserted, I made my move to write to him.

I won't try to remember all I said in that note. I tried harder than wi' my diary to make it seem sensible, but how's a mouse supposed to know where periods go, and how to spell?

I never said I loved him. I did tell him I thought Pony Boy a cruel jeer from his kin, that I thought his patch of fur be handsome and that it reminded me a mouse's fur.

Which is when I explained I was a mouse. I told him just a wee tad about The Matrix and how she called us transgenic mice. I did not tell him of all the Talkers in the world, not wanting ta make it too mind-boggling, figuring one talking mouse was enough. I said I was the mouse sitting in his bookcase he swung his gun at, that I had tried to talk to him, but the sounds I make are too high fer the human ear.

I told him I was sorry fer the loss of his friend and specially glad he did not do the same as Dudley. I ended the note telling him to keep his chin up, as they say on teevee.

That was all I put in the first note, except asking him, before the next time he went out, to write me back.

I signed the note "Microchip." If I coulda figured out how to make a smiley face, like he and Dudley used in their e-mails, I woulda.

Course I wasn't around when he read it. I had a hard time waiting fer him to write back, pacing about mousie hidey holes and being cross wi' my kin if they askt me why.

It took him so long to even turn on his computer I began to have sensible thoughts about Talkers again, fer Dudley killing himself had taken away all my fair thoughts a saving mousedom.

The rest of the Musts were not so taken up wi' Jason's plight, but there seemed to be no activity cross Wide Boulevard that had echoes this side.

Without telling me, Grandpa Scootch sent Brack over to parley wi' June-June and Socrates, to get the lay of the land. I found out later that mice from Secret Chambers had likewise learnt to use the computer and dipt into The Matrix's paper on the failed spearmint. Like any politician's message changing wi' the wind, the main point a Wom's tyranny shifted from making talking monkeys and dogs to how oppressed all the mice in Subdivision were and how evil were the mice on the beach.

According to Wom's new looniness, mice in Secret Chambers must conquer and convert the Scapists and conquer and liberate the mice a Subdivision. There was even nonsense (coming from Wom) about spreading democracy. I imagined him throwing handfuls a seeds like the sedge seeds in wetlands, only they were shaped like little d's.

About then the mole in Secret Chambers, who turned out to be no other than Petri, was caught sneaking out to parley wi' his contact on the Beach. Guards chased and caught 'em, along wi' his contact, a doe named Shirley, and a skirmish took place in which Petri and Shirley and June-July were hurt.

Based on this news, Socrates askt that a squad a Subdivision fighters take up defensive positions under the bridge over the Wetlands, and also that runners be sent daily to the Boardwalk chambers to learn the latest news, such as it was.

All this was enough to bowl me over, and then Brack took me aside, after reporting to Grandpa Scootch, and told me June-June had said he misst me.

Which put me in mind a Gilda, who musta thought I deserted her. I resolved, soon as Jason wrote me back, to go find her and bring her up to date.

(Chances were, so good was she at listening in on Scapists' gab sessions, she would hear soon about the calamity at Ramback House and know why I didn't visit. She was also so smart she would know it didn't matter if she told Wom what she knew, cause, like a certain president, when the first reason for war dint work, he'd invent another.)

That evening Jason came downstairs, looking sprucer than I seen him since Dudley's death. He walked into the dining room, where Mum, Popsy and the twins were eating supper and said, not in a boiling rage but at what Mum would call a high simmer, "Which one of you is the mouse?"

The looks were blank. They had no idea what he was talking about.

"Someone left a message on my computer, a bunch of dumb stuff about being a mouse, and signed it 'Microchip.' —Which one of you's Microchip?

"Not me," said Artemis.

"Me neither," said Apollo.

"I find out who did it, I'll think of proper retribution. —I'm going for a walk."

Mum Ramback looked worried at that. "Would you like some company, dear?"

"Don't worry, Mother, the police took my gun."

She still worried. Even the twins worried. I didn't, knowing he'd read my note, surprised he thought it a fake. I scooted up the stairs, went right to the computer, and wrote:

"i rele am tha mows yu swung yer gun at i can tawk an read an uz tha cmputr tho tis slow havin to bownc up an doun lettus hav a convresashun look over yer sholdr"

When I heard him coming up the stairs from his walk I climbed to the bookshelf I'd been on the first time he seen me and waited. Scared and hopeful at once, I watched as he touched the gray hump called a mouse, and my note came on the screen. He turned and looked at me. I looked at him.

"You wrote this?"

I nodded vigorously.

"Your name is Microchip?"

I nodded again.

"Say something," he said.

"I'll say something but you won't be able to hear more'n squeaks."

"I didn't understand anything you said."

I tried to shrug, as if meaning 'I'm sorry.'

"Would you like a roasted almond?" he askt.

I nodded.

"And you wrote that whole file the police found on my computer?"

I nodded. I was anxious to dialog, as they say in Secret Chambers, but I was happy enough he just looked at me and acted nice.

He lay the nut on the _New York Public Library Desk Reference_. I picked it up in my hands and began to nibble it. It was delicious.

"You've got hands!" he exclaimed.

I put the nut down and showed him my thumbs.

"Thumbs!"

I gave him the thumbs-up sign you see on TV.

"Can I watch you write?" he askt.

I nodded. He held out a hand. I climbed on it and felt the fairy gladness a being transported through space to the pad in front of his keyboard.

I jumped on the keys and wrote "hel o jaysn"

### chapter 28: The truth about Jason

Jason said I should move up to his room, he'd buy me a nice wee cage. I told him no, I had ta live wi' my own kind, cause important things were going on in the mouse world. He wanted to know what these things be, and I told him to read my diary, he would know then.

He dint read my diary right off, fer whatever reason. So he dint know talking mice lived across Wide Boulevard and thought they be only in his house. After he and I made contact and I insisted on going back to the Mustt nest, he acted like a love-sick lad I seen once in a teevee drama, I had the hardest time breaking away.

At the time I was glad I'd made the choice to write him, though, cause I seen a light come on in his eyes wasn't there since Dudley did himself in. Little did I know 'twas a gleam of greed, a sin according to teevee preachers, and a feeling—if that's what manner of thing it be—not native ta mice. I thought it was he had a reason fer living once more, a friend to take the place a the one he lost, someone who dinna care if he had a patch a fur on his face, in fact liked it. In ither wirds, I was believing what I wanted to believe and not the facts, ma'am.

Would you expect a one so set upon on all sides, no good guidance from parents, nasty brother and sisters, his only friend gone in the worst way, ta be a flaming saint? Only love can make you fool yourself into believing that.

I ran downstairs, almost under the heels a Pop Ramback going upstairs, but he was tipsy, the way Mum Ramback used to get but now got much worse every evening. I had this foolish urge ta tell my kin what just happen, but before I got to the nest there came over me a feeling as strange as greed, which I later kent as guilt.

Guilt makes you do strange things. You make up stories, evade questions, you change the subject to avoid speaking a matters too close to the sin. I broke the one law a Mousedom: I talked to a human.

Oh, I gave myself plenty excuses, like that of the boy being buffeted about. And I told myself my instincts were right as rain. Fer he was all gentle this time, gave me a roasted almond, dint wish me gone, hadn't raised the handle a his gun—not that he had it na more, but, you know, he was nice.

So I had two feelings thrashing about inside me, and if anything it started burning away the fat that had me ca'd Fat Broad, but it also made me think less of my kin. If Jason wanted me to live in his room, I must be something. I looked about when I got back to the Mustt nest and coont see fer the life a me why it had seemed such a special place just yesterday.

"What ha ye been up to, Grandochter?" Grandpa Scootch askt when he saw me next.

"Nothing much," I replied, busying myself arranging nesting material.

"Ye look like Mr. Ed after Wilbur give him an apple. Are ye feeling well?"

"Well enough. —Say, now that the commotion amongst Rambacks has died down a bit," says I, "would it not be good if we sent a brigade of Subdivision fighters to the beach, like they askt?"

"Ye're a day late and a ha'penny short. Ye dinna notice Mack be absent from the nest?"

"Mack? I pictured Brack going, maybe as colonel."

"Your handsome cavalier from Sanchez House was named colonel," he said.

"Joaquín?"

"The very same."

"Where have I been, Grandpa?"

"Same as all of us, only worse," he said. "You been in a daze. I reckon we've no valued life as we should, fer when one Big shoots himself we're all in a dither, whilst we mourn but little when a mouse dies. That may be as it should, fer we're only wee things in a vast universe, but with us living longer and learning more, may be we should value ourselves above Bigs, as yer brither is always preaching."

"Brigade or no, I ha' to be going back to the beach, Grandpa."

"What is it this time, Grandochter?"

"Ta see the doe who knew what was in The Matrix's notebooks."

"A doe is it," he said.

"Aye, Grandpa."

He sighed and I watched his muzzle move, as if he were talking to himself. He said, "A doe can be as wise as a buck, do you reckon?"

I said, "I think Mumsy be a mite wiser'n Poptart—just a wee."

"And you be wiser'n either, lass."

"Och, go on; yer teasin' me."

He said, "I can tell when ye be embarrassed. Ye talk more a the Scottish."

"I ain't wise, Grandpa."

"Only a wise mouse would say that. Harken: I'm no getting younger. My body's telling me 'twill no be long afer I go the way of all flesh. I'm thinking, when I go, you should be the Wise Old Mouse a Ramback hoos."

I shook my head.

"Is it because a doe never been a Wise Old Mouse?"

"Might come a time, Grandpa, I have to tend a batch a pups."

Which was not at all what I was thinking. I was thinking a Jason, how I felt about him, not knowing his true nature, and also that I'd broke the law, disobeyed the Prime Directive.

"Weigh that well, lass; weigh it well. Mayhap you were meant to be pupless fer the sake of Mousedom."

"I will weigh it, Grandpa, I promise."

He said, "Then 'tis off with you, lass. Go and see this wise old doe."

##

And I did just that. I found her at home in her den on the beach. She greeted me with a nod but without asking if I needed food or drink. I dinna notice until I also noticed she were lying in a position I seen Cat lie in but ne'er a mouse.

"Be you ailing, Miss Gilda?"

"Yes."

I said, "What can I get you?"

"I'm too weak to move or I'd find some water."

"Lettuce," I said, "or a grape."

"Very well, but first tell me about the commotion at Ramback house."

I told her how, when I came back last, Dudley ha' taken his life and Jason was suspected by the police, on the one hand, and devastated on t'other.

She said, "Suspected of...?"

"Aiding and abetting is the term I heard used."

"Which he did."

"You could put that face on it," I said.

Gilda's teeth chattered. "Go on."

"I no wish to burden you," I said.

"You wrote Jason."

"Aye."

"Dorothy."

"Well..."

"And obviously he didn't hit you with the butt of his gun."

"No, ma'am."

"He was pleased."

"Yes, ma'am. I seen the lights go on in his eyes the moment he kent the truth a my talking."

"A real gleam?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Gilda said, "I wouldn't take that as a positive sign, if I were you."

"Why not?"

"When a weak person grows lively—takes his head, as humans who ride horses say—they've gone outside their nature. And most often they do impulsive things."

"Yer talking over my head, ma'am."

Her teeth chattered more. "I worry that you're blind when it comes to this human. I can see him trapping you and exploiting you, as is feared by those who believe in the Worst Case Scenario."

"Not my Jason."

"Who would sit around all day swilling whiskey."

"But—"

"—And talk of suicide."

"But—"

"—And dream of becoming famous and powerful although he has shown not the least ambition to learn."

"Gilda, ma'am!"

"You've told me all these things at one time or another. I know you told them to me to show how badly the jibes of his family affected him, but taken by themselves they do not paint a picture of a healthy mind and spirit."

I sat, stunned. This was worse than calling him Pony Boy. This was right vicious.

"I'm dying, Dorothy. This is no time to beat around the bush to spare your feelings. I assume you've not shared your tête à tête with Jason with your grandfather or any other of the Musts."

"No, but—"

"Do. And insist they take themselves off to a new dwelling, away from the Rambacks and especially Jason."

I sat stunned again. "I should go and get you something juicy," I said, "your voice is getting right raspy."

"Don't run away from the truth, Dorothy. I wouldn't lie to you at the end of my life, and I would do nothing to hurt you if I weren't certain that in the end you'll be hurt far worse."

I wanted to run out, but her last words were hardly a whisper and I was afraid she might die any minute.

Which turned out to be true. I asked for her blessing and she didn't give it, cause she had no voice. And then I saw the light go out a her eyes same as I seen it go on in Jason's.

I wanted to scream, as I seen Bette Davis scream and Joan Crawford, in the black and white movies, but mice canna. I ran out from under the crate and down to the wet sand and would have run right on, but a human was walking all lonely in the tiniest waves and I froze, heartsick and aggrieved.

### chapter 29: Sadder than a teevee drama

I could tell you what took place on the beach after Gilda died, how it took a heap of convincing to make the Scapists believe I been all this time friends wi' the original Gilda but hid the fact to honor her wishes. I told 'em a being in the room wi' Gilda when The Matrix and her man, Dex, talked of her failed spearmint and how he wanted to make more mice wi' human genes but never once did they discuss how we could talk though she mentioned she thought we were trying. Nor did she once say that she'd an inkling Charlie Ruiz and a marauding raccoon turned us loose.

I was not so well thought of on the beach after that. Socrates said Gilda's wisdom was more important than her privacy, and my duty was to all my kind and not one old doe.

I defended myself, saying I would never had the chance to listen in on The Matrix had I not swore to respect Gilda's privacy. I compared myself to a man on teevee, who went to prison rather than tell his friend's secret about the payroll heist.

"You watch too much teevee," was how Socrates responded.

After that June-June invited me into the Make-Out Parlor and tried to console me after the scolding I got, but, as luck would have it, I was coming into season and the effect of the place near made me have a hizzy, as they say on teevee, especially when June-June started singing mouse ditties in a way none had ever sung to me.

I scampered out a there, propelled by Gilda's last words, the ones about shooing my family out a Ramback house, which were joined in my mind wi' Socrates words on owing more allegiance to all mice and not just one.

As I scampered across the sand June-June was right behind me, and then alongside me, telling me he'd no humped any doe since he made up his mind to take me as his mate.

"June-June, I want to be your mate, but I done a terrible thing and I have to go home to make it right."

"You've got to lead us to Gilda's body, too, so we can bury her."

"Promise you won't jump my bones."

He said, "How can I, I'm hanging on the ropes. I never felt this way before."

And so it went, but I'll not relate the details, only that from my leaving Jason's room to my getting back to Ramback house, two days passed and I was in that state of high anxiety, as that twit said on teevee, worried that what could happen actually did.

Right as rain, right as rain.

##

My family was gone. At first I thought they'd taken warning from something they detected about Jason and fled fer safer ground, but I was wrong. I sneaked up to Jason's room and discovered the truth, which was as awful as any you may imagine: in the middle of his bedroom floor stood a big cage, big as four or five of the ones I saw in The Matrix's lab, and there were my kin, looking at me from behind bars, Brack trying to chew through them, and Grandpa Scootch ca'd out ta me,

"Don't you come a step closer, Grandochter, fer we been captured by the lad, Jason, and he be looking fer you, soon as he can lay hands on Katy and her pups."

"Oh God," I cried.

"Did you get any wisdom from that old doe on the beach?" Brack said.

"She's dead," I replied.

"I think you were over there getting your jollies with June-June," Brack said. "I can smell the odor a your heat from here."

"There be none a that," Poptart said. "Flee, Daughter, we be done fer."

"It's all my fault," I wailed.

Then there was whistling on the stairs and Grandpa Scootch yelled, "Flee!" and I did.

##

The pups had barely opened their eyes, and there was no hushing 'em at that age, specially since Katy was paralyzed wi' fear and her milk gone dry. I told her to let them suckle even if they got no milk, 'twould keep 'em busy whilst I scouted fer a place to take 'em they'd be safe. But I was scooching out under the laundry room door when I heard a cry from Katy and knew the Jason had discovered her.

So there be my whole family—four generations, including my wee nephews and nieces—caught by the man I thought might become the savior of Mousedom.

I ran fast as I could round the swimming pool no one ever swam in 'cept Frac, to 'scape Cat, and climbed up in the camellia bush to think.

First thing I thought, I no could live without my family. So I must either find a way to free them or give myself up and be caged like a common lab rat.

Then I thought, If I am caged, I can ne'er rescue 'em.

And could I associate wi' them, fer what must they think a me? What reason could there be fer a feckless lad like Jason to be hunting down and capturing a score a mice and caging 'em in his bedroom, 'cept the mouse so long keen on him had defied the Prime Directive.

Fer a second time I thought a killing myself, using the autos on Wide Boulevard as my weapon, in the manner of Great-uncle Butkis. I was ashamed, not the shame a limping and being fat, a deeper shame what wrung my heart. Made me wonder how I ne'er seen the bomber pilots in the war movies buried in shame, or how Wyatt Earp dint perish from the burden of all his killings. I felt the burden a being a Talker like I never felt afore, fer if I were a Field Cousin, a Mute, I'd be trappt or no, caged or no, and not ken the difference.

If only I knew where those mice went didn't follow Gilda into Secret Chambers but struck out the night a the Great Escape. They were no in Subdivision, that's sure. Maybe they perished in the search fer a home, but maybe they were beyond Subdivision. Maybe that's what I should a done rather than pining over Jason, searched the wide world fer those who escaped but dint take the safe way.

I thought a June-June and a Joaquín, sun shining through their sleek fur, and wanted more than anything to have a mate to lean on, but knowing that thinking a two bucks I was getting desperate.

I sat in the camellia bush till sundown, thoughts appearing and disappearing in my mind till my dilemma boiled down to this:

I couldna stand the thought of abandoning my kin but I could not stand the thought of being scorned by them as stupid and willful to boot.

My love fer Jason, I reckoned, had a mind of its own, fer it turned to hatred in no time flat.

But then I thought, maybe he thinks he be doing the best fer 'em, maybe out buying treats or mouse vittles at stores sell such. Maybe all the Musts are feared a Jason fer no reason.

How do I find that out?

### chapter 30: Why

I was trying to be everwhere at once. In the living room Pop sat in front of the teevee, in the recliner that seen so much kissing and pawing, seen Jason wi' the pilfered whiskey, me sitting neath the footrest watching John Wayne and Joel McCrea. He sipped often on a highball, tinkling the ice now and then, looking like the zombies in the zombie movies, minus the dripping gore. He was watching the early news. He wirna getting a word the pretty lady said.

Mum was in the kitchen, glass of red wine at her elbow. She was stirring something on the stove and humming the tune to "Pony Boy." She was sipping in rhythm wi' her mate, and fore I moved on, to spy out the twins and Jason, I saw her tip more wine from bottle to glass and take a sip so big a bit splashed on her upper lip. She pickt up the hem of her apron and wiped her mouth, something I ne'er imagined her doing.

Twins were in Apollo's bedroom, on the bed hip to haunch, watching a movie wi' Bruce Willis. They were on their stomachs, smooth, tan arms supporting their pretty heads, except Apollo be playing with a ringlet a Artemis's hair.

Whilst I be surveying the scene in their room, Jason came out a his and galumphed downstairs, no more the listless mourner, whistling softly... the tune ta "Pony Boy." You can believe my jaw droppt. I watched him down the stairs and then I ran into his room, right past all the Musts in their jail, and climbed the cord to the desk lamp. I couldn't look at my family. I shut my ears against their words, some imploring some unkind, Brack calling me traitor a the first order. I went to the keyboard, hit the return key to clear the latest screen saver, and typed, right in the middle of something he was typing, "why"

I hid behind the monitor and looked about fer himself, and when he no came I went back to the keyboard and typed:

"why ha yoo dun this turrbl thng ta ma famly if yoo 1nt take me in sted I am tha 1 can tawk noon a them can just me"

I shinnied down the lamp cord and plucked up my courage, heart going a mile a minute, and edged up to the cage, which was smelling louder'n the Mustt nest ever did.

They stared at me, two score shiny black eyes boring into me, and they dint ha' ta say it, but Grandpa Scootch at last did, "Why?"

"I thought—"

"—No, ye dinna. Donna lie: if ye thought a second we'd no be in this fix. Noon a yer kin talked wi' Jason, e'en cast in durance vile. Ye broke the Prime Directive, shattered it into a million pieces, and ha' broke all these hearts in this prison to boot."

I said, "I'll somehow make it right, Grandpa."

He said, "Can ye ever? The cat is out a the bag, the jig's up, the hour a reckoning is at hand."

"You screwed the pooch but royally," Brack added.

Mumsy said, "She thought she was doing right, fer in that Big heart somewhere is good feelings, or he no would mourn Dudley so. 'Tis that she no saw the other side a him."

"There was good reason fer the Prime Directive," Grandpa Scootch started, but then we all felt the vibration in the floor said Jason was coming back.

Silence.

I lit out fer the first place I could see. Neath Jason's bed were three drawers in a wooden frame and one was ajar. I dove in. I found myself midst socks, made into balls, smelling perfumy.

"I heard chattering as I came up the stairs, little micey. I know you were talking among yourselves. Why won't you talk to me?"

Silence.

I was struck by the sing-songy tone a Jason's voice. From hearing many a lad talk love to Mariah Hellion while having The Notion in mind, I knew deceit when I heard it. Sounding like honey, meaning gall.

"I know I can't understand you yet, but believe me, little micey, I'm already thinking of a way to make your words understandable. And when I do, we can parley. Parlez vous human? I'll never understand Mouse, but maybe you can't talk Mouse any more either—hmm?"

Hearing nothing, he added, "Oh well, I'm young. I have time."

Then he turned to his computer and put his fingers upon the keys when he saw my note in the middle of his writing. He glanced up at the _New York Public Library Desk Reference_ , hoping to see me, but not.

"Microchip. Microchip. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Ollie Ollie Oxen Free."

How did he know the immortal words a Gilda except reading my diary? Or was it something all humans knew?

I recollected Gilda's story a how she knew that phrase, hearing The Matrix herself say it. Seems she and Dexter both had The Notion but there was a graduate assistant hanging about and The Matrix told her to disappear until called back. And after they did The Deed on her desk, she straightened herself and opened the door to the hall, calling out 'Ollie Ollie Oxen Free.' So may be that it means a broad number a things, only Jason used it, so I thought, the way Gilda had.

Course I was as silent as my kin.

"I'm going make a machine, little Microchip, that will make your pips and squeaks intelligible to any oaf with two functioning ears. I've already thought of the way. You can't do it, even with your thumbs, but I can. It's really easy, you know. I just digitalize your sounds and run them through an audio editor, just like I do on my MP3 to make Bach sound like merry-go-round music. I'll lower the pitch and slow down the frequency, and, voilà! Mouse into English.

"You should play along with me, Microchip. We'll be famous. I'll reduplicate Dr. Godwyn's experiments and have plenty of mice to experiment on. Find out how the vocal chords are changed, find out how your brains have changed.

"I've already taken the GED exam and they'll take their time sending me the results, but it's really easy stuff. I'm glad I skipped most of high school. I think I can convince Dr. Godwyn to get me working in her lab doing all the boring undergraduate stuff.

"Oh, I'll have to take a shitload of courses at the undergraduate level, but in the mean time I'll be doing research in her lab.

"Think of the uses of talking mice. Gad!"

And here he spellt out all the dreadful things the Scapists predicted as ways humans would use intelligent mice: spies, inspectors in tight quarters, studies in biology, genetics, microbiology. I shuddered at the thought that my kin heard the same words and could grasp in a thrice the enormity a my blunder.

Jason went on: "Stedwell Institute will make me an honorary fellow, like Princeton made Einstein, pay me money—whatever they give honorary fellows—and give me my own laboratory space. People will not only consider what I say important, they'll ignore my patch of pony hair. Girls will think it's cute. Men won't even notice."

I wanted to shout out, If you ha' gone ahead wi' a normal life and ne'er felt sorry for yourself, if you'd weathered the jibes of Spike and Sissy, and no doubt your classmates, rose above, Jason, the lassies would all ha wanted to stroke your cheek and giggle at how soft 'twas the mouse fur. At university, as a regular student, not one getting by because a my blunderous directing you to Talkers, the fellows would ha ignored the patch a fur. They'd a thought the better of you for ignoring it yourself and getting on wi' life.

But no, you had Dudley to sop up your sorrow and whiskey to dull you to a stupor, and endless teevee which taught mice a great deal more than it taught you, but not how to read a human heart.

I stufft a wee toe of a sock in my mouth to keep from crying out, but there was nothing to stop the tears.

END

~~~~

###

### Making sense of it all, chapter 1: of The Scrivener's Tale, Book two of the Mustt Adventures

Context.

Associations.

Connections.

The simple part of this tale is what forms the story line—how I came to shepherd Dorothy Mustt's words onto the printed page. The harder part is trying to make sense of a world that, since the day before yesterday, isn't the world we're used to. The old world—absurd in part, complex as hell—was still coherent and yes, in its high-tech way, even ordinary. Through publication of _Pool of Tears,_ the world has come to know a very unusual soul, Yeats's "rough beast" if you will. Miniaturized and limping rather than slouching, Dorothy is still a soul so startling that our world's coherency has fled and the ordinary become extraordinary.

"We are not alone," the tag line of the movie, _Contact_ , has become true in quite an unforeseen way. There are no aliens "out there," light years removed. There are creatures in our midst who still must be classified in the order Rodentia, and even the genus, Mus, but are no longer the noisome species _mus musculus_. They are, rather, _mus sapiens_.

That taxon, _sapiens_ , joins humans to Dorothy Mustt and her kin more closely than to chimpanzees and gorillas.

How I came to understand this "rough beast," and gain her trust isn't the main story: I'm merely a medium, a channeler, a scribe. Dorothy is the story. I'm reporting a change in our world more telling than the recent discovery of Stone Age Hobbits in Indonesia. The hardest part—the reader's part—requires looking into your own soul and deciding to set aside prejudices and become as supremely rational as our bankers, industrialists and generals have demonstrated we humans can be.

In approaching this new species, we—you and I—must search for a context beyond history and religion, beyond constitutional protections, beyond biology. As your guide, I must make connections among the pieces of the story that give insight into the players and how they could be any of us—or nearly any.

You may have read _Pool of Tears_ as fairy tale, and that's how those who sought so long to block its publication would like you to take it. In fact, since failing to block publication of _Pool of Tears,_ they now try to use ridicule as a means to trivialize it's message. Meanwhile, they haven't given up on trying to use these sapient mice as instruments of war. They're still out there, looking.

You may laugh along with the mockers but, I assure you, the last laugh is enjoyed by a bunch of mice sitting around their hearths in terra incognita, sharing a reminiscence of the heroic Dorothy Mustt and her journey to enlightenment.

_(You can access_ The Scivener's Tale **here.)**

