Ralph S. Mouse (7 page)

In the hall, Mr. Costa was sweeping up popcorn with his broad broom while his transistor radio sang a sorrowful song about a broken-hearted man trying to hitch a ride on a lonely stretch of highway while the coyotes howled in the night.

After Mr. Costa left, the school was a silent, deserted place. The next morning the children did not return. Ralph, who did not understand that there was no school on Saturday and Sunday, had never been so alone in his life. He stood in the cold and empty hall and squeaked as loud as he could, but his tiny voice could not even raise an echo. All weekend he roamed the desolate halls and classroom, halfheartedly nibbling whatever he could find to eat, going
pb-b-b
because he missed his motorcycle so much, and wondering if he was doomed to roam forever the lonely corridors of the Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School. Why didn't the children return?

Ralph thought of the old hotel with its shabby lobby warmed by a crackling fire. He missed the reassuring tick of the rasping old clock. He missed watching television and the activity in the lobby—the arrival and departure of guests and the arguments among the staff. He missed old Matt, his protector, and supplies of peanuts and popcorn from the Jumping Frog Lounge. He wondered if his plan to make the little mice leave the lobby had worked and if Matt still had his job.

Ralph discovered he even missed—sort of—his little brothers and sisters and cousins. He wondered if the littlest one still fell over his own feet and became tangled in the fringe of the carpet. He wondered what they would say if they could see him now, cold and lonely, in the vast empty school. He also wondered what they would say if he went home with Ryan without his motorcycle. Something like, “Yah, yah! Serves you right for not wanting to give us rides.”

The scoffing of his relatives was something Ralph could not face. Never. As he walked slowly back to the book bag in the library, he heard a dog bark in the distance and was reminded of the coyotes that howled in the night in the song about the lonely man trying to hitch a ride on the highway. What a sad world he lived in.

S
ometime late Sunday night the weather changed. Snow began to melt. By Monday morning, the fleet of school buses came sloshing through slush. Boots and waffle stompers tracked mud and icy water into the halls of Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School, where the wearers were met by Mr. Costa holding a large mop.

Ralph, whose weekend had been so long and so lonely, felt such a surge of joy and relief at the sound of school buses that he skittered back to Room 5 in a forgiving mood. There he hid in the old mitten. Anything,
anything
was better than that long, cold, miserable weekend, and perhaps Ryan had found a way of repairing the motorcycle.

Miss K's class arrived in a grouchy mood. Snow was fun; slush was not. There was more confusion than usual as the children peeled off their wraps and kicked off their boots. Many were carrying clippings from the
Cucaracha Voice
. Miss K was not in the room to welcome them, which did not help.

Gordon told Melissa, who was wearing wet shoes and carrying her boots, that he was sure static electricity would not hold a mouse to a sock. Melissa told Gordon he had no imagination.

Brad arrived with his arm in a sling. Instantly a rumor started that Brad had hit Ryan so hard he had injured his hand. Sides were taken; arguments began.

Ryan glared at Brad. “You owe me a motorcycle for the one you broke. Serves you right if you hurt your hand.”

“That motorcycle you said was Ralph's,” scoffed Brad. “What would that stupid mouse do with a motorcycle?”

Someone dropped a clipping, and before it was picked up, Ralph was able to glimpse a picture of himself looking small and frightened in the goldfish bowl. The picture was not bad; in fact, it was quite good. His eyes were bright, and each hair was distinct. Ralph congratulated himself on being such a handsome mouse and wondered if Matt back at the inn—if he still worked there—would see the picture, recognize, and perhaps miss him.

As the last bell rang, Miss K hurried into the room with a worried look on her face. Instantly she was surrounded by excited children, waving clippings from the
Cucaracha Voice
and trying to talk at once. “It wasn't like that at all!” they said. “That reporter got it all wrong!” “It's a bunch of lies!” “They didn't even put our picture in the paper.” Most puzzling was, “Ralph isn't that kind of mouse. He's nice!”

They're behaving like a bunch of little mice, thought Ralph. At the same time, he wondered uneasily what the paper had said about him. That he wasn't nice? Impossible.

Miss K stood without speaking at the front of the room. Gradually the class grew quiet. “That's better,” said Miss K.

Amazing, thought Ralph. The teacher had silenced the class without using a single bad word. He was even more ashamed of the way he had treated his little relatives.

After the class recited liberty-and-justice-for-all (But not for me, thought Ralph), Miss K said, “Class, we have a lot to talk about this morning, and we can't talk if we all speak at once. Brad, suppose you begin by telling us what happened to your arm.”

Brad looked embarrassed. “Aw, I just sprained it when I tried to ride my bike in the mud. I was trying to get ready for the first motocross race this spring.”

The class respected what Brad had tried to do, and Ralph was struck by a sudden thought: Brad was exactly the sort of boy who could understand a mouse who rode a motorcycle.

To change the subject, Brad asked, “Is Ralph going to try to run the maze again?”

“How about it, Ryan?” asked Miss K. “Did you bring Ralph to school today?”

“He's lost.” Ryan sounded worried. “He got mad because…Well, he got mad Friday afternoon and disappeared.”

“I am not lost,” Ralph said to himself. “I know where I am, right here in this mitten.”

A sigh of disappointment ran through Room 5. The class liked Ralph. Besides, watching a mouse in a maze was more fun than social studies or spelling.

“Miss K,” said Gordon, “even if Ryan finds Ralph, I don't think he should have to run the maze again. He proved there was a better way to get the peanut butter than running into dead ends.”

Why, he's right, thought Ralph, perked up by Gordon's support. I'm smarter than I thought I was.

“Class, do you agree?” asked Miss K, who liked her pupils to think.

The class thought. Brad was first to speak. “In motocross racing, it's against the rules to get off your bike. I think he cheated.”

Several people were quick to point out that testing intelligence with a maze was not the same thing as racing on a bicycle, even a BMX.

“Maybe he was too a-mazed to do it right,” suggested Melissa with a giggle.

“Well, I think he proved he was Gifted and Talented.” Gloria spoke as if she had ended the discussion by using words the school used to describe children such as herself.

Miss K asked for a show of hands. Twenty-one children agreed that Ralph had found a better way to run the maze. Five felt he cheated. Case settled. Ralph was an unusually smart mouse, something he had doubted only once in a while.

“Speaking of solving problems,” said Miss K, “do you think fighting is a good way to settle arguments?”

“No!” chorused the girls.

Ryan defended himself. “Brad pushed me first. Besides, it wasn't a fair fight, because I had Ralph in my pocket and didn't want him to get hurt.”

“What do you have to say, Brad?” Miss K asked.

“He made me mad, always bragging about how smart his mouse is and then trying to make the maze easy.” Brad slid down in his chair. “Anyhow, how was I supposed to know he had his old mouse in his pocket?”

Ryan muttered to Brad, “Just because you get to come to school in a tow truck you think you're so big.”

“Just because you get to live in a hotel you think you're better than anybody,” mumbled Brad.

These remarks were lost to the class because the girls, bored with the scuffle discussion, were waving their clippings from the
Cucaracha Voice
. “Miss K,” said Gloria, “I think that reporter was unfair. What she said about us was all wrong.”

Some members of the class, protesting that their families did not subscribe to the
Voice
, demanded to know what the article said.

Miss K read the headline aloud.
Class Nabs Sneed Invader
.

What's she talking about? wondered Ralph, moving from the mitten to Melissa's overturned boot for a better view. What invader?

Miss K continued. “Under Ralph's picture, the story reads, ‘Friday afternoon the fifth-grade class of Miss Bambi Kuckenbacker at Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School exhibited a mouse, thought to be one of many mice overrunning their school. They also discussed the harm rodents do to crops and food supplies and the rapidity with which they multiply.'”

There was a murmur of disapproval from the class as Miss K read on. “‘When informed of the mouse plague at the monthly meeting of the school board Friday evening, Superintendent Clyde R. Crossman promised a full investigation of conditions at Sneed.'”

The class sat in outraged silence. Ralph was aghast. One tiny mouse an invader overrunning the whole school all by himself?

Suddenly everyone had something to say. “Our exhibit wasn't like that at all.” “We were having fun, and she made our school sound terrible.” “Poor little Ralph didn't invade us. Ryan brought him to school.” “She made our school sound dirty, and Mr. Costa works hard.” “She was mean not to put our picture in the paper.” “She stayed about two minutes and didn't understand what we were doing.”

Gordon felt he was to blame for the story. “I didn't mean to get Ralph investigated,” he said. “I just wrote facts I found in library books. I didn't mean that Ralph personally ran around harming crops.”

Just how am I going to be investigated? Ralph was beginning to wonder.

Brad was pleased that someone else was in the wrong. “I think that reporter is a rat fink,” was his contribution to the discussion.

Miss K asked if he couldn't find a better way of expressing himself.

After a moment, he said, “I think that reporter just said what she wanted to say and didn't care about us.”

One boy said, “My father says bad news sells more papers than good news.”

Everyone agreed that the reporter's saying bad things about their school in order to sell more copies of the
Cucaracha Voice
was mean, unfair, and just plain sneaky. They did good things at their school, and she should have said so.

Melissa said, “I think we should all write letters to the paper and say the story wasn't true and that there is, or was, only one mouse here.”

“A splendid idea, Melissa,” said Miss K, always eager for a new project. “We can write letters for our Language Arts class. However, I think we should be careful that
we
tell the truth.”

Of course, Room 5 would tell the truth. Room 5 always told the truth, except when they fibbed a little.

Miss K continued. “Can we be sure that Ralph was the only mouse in school? Our principal told me that this morning, after reading the article in last night's
Voice
, the cafeteria workers reported a hole in a bag of sugar and tail tracings in the spilled sugar. The fourth-grade teacher reported that seeds had disappeared from the mosaics her class had made, the librarian said the shredded material from the bags that books are mailed in has been scattered on the carpet, and the first-grade teacher said she found tooth marks in a jar of paste.”

This information silenced the class but left Ralph burdened with guilt. He was just a little mouse trying to get along in the world. He had not meant to cause so much trouble.

Melissa spoke out. “Maybe if there are other mice and we can catch Ralph again, we could find him a girlfriend and have a mouse wedding.”