Authors: Nancy Krulik

Be Nice to Mice (6 page)

BOOK: Be Nice to Mice

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But that wasn’t going to be easy. The gym was so big. And the mice were so small. How would Katie ever find them?

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh! A mouse!” a second-grade boy cried out.

That was how!
She would just follow the screams.

“There he is, Selena!” Bryce shouted, leaping over one of the tables. And racing toward the second-grade solar system projects. “I’ll grab him.”

“Careful, Bryce!” Katie shouted out. “You’re going to knock over that . . .”

Too late!
Bam!
Bryce bumped into the solar system made of fruit. The planets tumbled to the floor.

Katie spotted the mouse hiding under the table. She took a step toward him and . . .
squish.
She stepped on a tomato.

“You just crushed Mars!” the second-grader screamed. He began to sob. “Waaah!”

“Don’t cry,” Katie told him. “You can get another tomato from the cafeteria.”

The second-grader cried harder. His teacher bent down and tried to help scoop up the squashed tomato. The mouse ran off.

“Selena, over there!” Zack cried. “Near the model volcano!” He ran over and reached across the volcano table to catch the mouse.

KABOOM!

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion as the third-grade volcano project erupted, spitting lava high up in the air.

“Boys! What have you done?” Mrs. Derkman shouted.

Katie looked over at her old third-grade teacher. Mrs. Derkman had been standing right next to the volcano when it had erupted. She was covered in ooey, gooey fake lava!

“This is not funny,” Mrs. Derkman scolded the boys.

“It wasn’t us,” one of the third-graders said. He pointed to Zack. “That sixth-grader hit the remote control button.”

“Sorry,” Zack apologized to Mrs. Derkman. “I was trying to catch a mouse. It wasn’t my fault.”

Katie looked around at the soda puddle on the gym floor, the squished tomato, the broken fossil, and the flowing volcano lava.

Zack was right. It wasn’t his fault. It was her fault.
All
of it.

Just then Mr. Kane walked over to Katie. “Here you go, Selena,” he said, handing Katie one of the mice. “I caught him under the radiator.”

“Thank you,” Katie said sincerely. She looked at the big, egg-shaped bump above the principal’s eye. “Sorry about your head.”

“I’ll be okay,” he assured her. “Just put this mouse in its cage before anything else happens.”

“Well, at least you got two of them back,” Mickey said to Katie as she placed the mouse in its cage and closed the lid.

“I wonder where the third mouse is?” Zack asked.

Just then, George came running over. He was huffing and puffing really hard. “Selena, I just saw your mouse go out into the hallway. I tried to catch him, but he was too fast. Boy, I hope he wasn’t going into class 4A.”

“Why?” Mickey asked him.

“We have a snake in our classroom.”

“So?” Mickey asked.

“Snakes
eat
mice!” George sounded very proud to know something a sixth-grader didn’t.

Katie gulped. What if the mouse really was heading for her classroom? She had to save him!

Quickly, she raced out of the gym.

Chapter 13

“If I were a mouse, where would I hide?” Katie wondered as she walked through the empty hallway.

Before Katie could figure that out, she felt a cool breeze blowing against the back of her neck. Seconds later, the breeze turned into a full-fledged tornado that was spinning only around Katie.

The magic wind blew harder and harder. It whistled wildly in her ears, and blew Serena’s long brown hair in her eyes.

And then it stopped. Just like that.

Katie Carew was back.

And so was Selena. She was standing in the hallway next to Katie. “How did I get out here?” she asked. She sounded very confused.

“You were looking for your mouse,” Katie told her.

“Oh, yeah, I remember. Or at least I think I do. It’s all kind of fuzzy,” Selena said quietly.

“Two of the mice are back in their cage,” Katie told her. “We just have to find this one.”

“I kind of remember letting the mice out of their cage,” Selena muttered. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?” Katie asked her.

“Because I would never do that,” Selena explained. “I always take good care of my pets.”

Katie’s eyes shot open wide. “Your
pets
?”

Selena nodded. “My mice. Larry, Moe, and Curly. I’ve had them for six months now. And I always keep them safe. At least I did until today.”

Suddenly, Katie felt extra-bad. The mice were Selena’s
pets
. She obviously loved them a lot. And now Katie had lost one of them. Maybe even for good!

“My poor little mouse,” Selena said. Her eyes welled up with tears. “He’s probably scared, and hungry, and thirsty.”

Hungry.
“That’s it!” Katie exclaimed. There was only one place in the school where the mouse would find plenty of food and water. “I’ll bet I know where your mouse is, Selena. Follow me!”

The cafeteria was empty when Katie and Selena arrived. As Selena checked under the tables and chairs, Katie went back to where Lucille, the lunch lady, had set up the food for today’s lunch. The hot food was being kept in the warming trays. The sandwich meats and cheeses were in the refrigerated section.

Katie looked over to where the triangular slices of yellow and white cheese were laid out under plastic wrap. Sure enough, there was a little white mouse standing over the cheese.

Katie stayed very still. She didn’t want to scare him away. After all, she might never find him again. Slowly, she reached toward him.

The mouse’s little ears shot up at attention. He turned and scampered away. But Katie was fast and determined. She reached out with both hands and . . .

Bam!

The tray crashed to the ground. There were pieces of Muenster, American, and Swiss cheese all over the floor.

Katie didn’t care. She’d apologize to Lucille later. She may have dropped the cheese, but she’d caught the mouse!

“Selena!” she called out. “I’ve got him!”

Chapter 14

“Katie, where have you been?” Emma W. asked as Katie walked into the gym. “I’ve been looking all over for you. The flashlight works after all! We just had the batteries in the wrong way.”

Phew!
Katie was relieved. After all the excitement, she had totally forgotten about the flashlight.

Katie looked over at Selena’s table. A crowd of kids had formed around her. Katie hoped Selena was okay. She decided to go over and find out.

“Your mice sure caused a mess,” Justine told Selena as Katie walked over to the table.

“It wasn’t their fault. They were just acting like mice,” Selena defended them.

“That’s right,” Katie said, stepping up beside Selena. “If everyone hadn’t been screaming and jumping all around, everything would be fine. You people scared them away.” Suddenly Katie wasn’t so afraid of the sixth-graders. She felt very brave. Especially now that she and Selena were on the same side.

“Don’t blame us,” Justine argued. “Selena is the one who let them out of their cage.”

Katie bit her lip. She knew that wasn’t true.

Just then, Mr. G. walked over. Mrs. Hauser came up behind him with a fresh soda for Bryce’s tooth experiment.

“Katie, you’d better get back to your lightning bug,” Mr. G. said. “The parents will be here any minute.” He frowned slightly at Selena’s sad expression. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Everything’s okay now.”

Mrs. Hauser nodded in agreement. “The fossil is glued back together. The tooth is in a fresh cup of cola. Lucille is going to the cafeteria to get a new tomato for the solar system, and the third-graders have put fresh lava into their volcano,” she said. “But you need to go set up your mazes.”

“I can’t ask my mice to run through mazes now,” Selena told her teacher. “They’re too tired. They’ve been through too much!”