The Mouse Family Robinson (2 page)

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Authors: Dick King-Smith

BOOK: The Mouse Family Robinson
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“Mr. Brown,” he said, when he had found his neighbor, “Janet's had six babies. I thought you'd like to know.”
“Congratulations, John!” said Mr. Brown. “Got names for them?”
“I have,” said John. “Ambrose, Beaumont, Camilla, Desdemona, Eustace, and Felicity What d'you think?”
“Brilliant!” said Mr. Brown. “Three boys and three girls, eh? It's a start. Twenty more babies and you'll have finished your first alphabet of names.”
Gosh!
said John to himself. To think that his neighbor had seventy-eight kids!
Even as he thought this, they heard, through the floorboards above their heads, the squeak of the cat flap.
At the sound the two mice froze, even though they were quite safe under the kitchen floorboards. They looked at one another and Mr. Brown sighed deeply.
I know what he's thinking
, said John to himself.
How dreadful if such a thing ever happened to my
Janet. If only that horrible cat didn't live here.
“I must be getting back to my family, Mr. Brown,” he said after a while.
“Of course,” replied Mr. Brown. “I'd love to come and see them when they're a little older. Could I?”
“Please do,” said John.
The mousekins had been born naked and blind, but later on, when they had grown coats of fur (gray, of course) and had opened their beady little eyes, John invited Mr. Brown around. Proudly he and Janet stood on either side of their six children while the old mouse looked them over.
“They're lovely!” he said. “I do congratulate you both.”
“Thank you,” replied Janet, and “Thank you, sir,” said John.
“When they're a bit older,” said Mr. Brown, “perhaps they'll come and visit me?” and, a few weeks later, one of them did.
Beaumont was the brightest and the most adventurous of the six mousekins, and he was the first to venture out of the nest and start to explore the spaces under the kitchen floor. Soon he came upon a mouse run that led upward and, following it, stuck his head out of a hole in the molding. He found himself staring across the kitchen floor. Beside the stove, he could see, was a basket.
Beaumont was not only bright and adventurous, but also curious.
I wonder what's in that basket?
he thought.
He was halfway across the kitchen floor when two things happened. First, he heard a voice coming from the hole he'd just left, a frantic voice that cried, “Come back! Come back! Quickly! Quickly!”
Then he saw a face—a face that rose above the rim of the basket—a fearsome furry face with yellow eyes, which were fixed upon him.
Beaumont turned and dashed back toward the hole in the molding just in time. Above him, he heard the scrabble of the cat's claws as it scratched at the mousehole. Before him, he saw an old mouse.
“Oh!” squeaked Beaumont. “Was it you who called me back?”
“It was,” replied Mr. Brown. “That was a narrow squeak, young fellow. What's your name?”
“I'm Beaumont Robinson.”
“One of John's children?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I'm Mr. Brown.”
“Oh, you're Dad's friend.”
“I like to think so.”
“The one who came to visit us?”
“Yes.”
“Have you got any children?”
“Seventy-eight,” replied Mr. Brown.
Though goodness only knows how many are still alive
, he thought.
“Gosh!” said Beaumont (a word he had learned from his father). “My dad told us your wife got eaten by the cat.”
“She did, Beaumont,” said Mr. Brown.
And so would you have been
, he thought,
if I hadn't happened to look out just in time. Yours would have been a very short life.
“Well,” said Beaumont, “isn't there any way we can get rid of the beastly thing?”
“Alas, no,” said Mr. Brown. “Cats can kill mice, but, unfortunately, mice can't kill cats.”
“Oh,” said Beaumont. “So we have to wait till it dies of old age, do we?”
“That might be a long time,” said Mr. Brown.
“What can we do, then?”
“Nothing, I'm afraid, Beaumont. The giants have got a cat, and we have got to live with it
.”
Have we?
thought Beaumont.
What if
… ?
No
,
I'd better ask Dad first.
“Got to go,” he said. “Nice talking to you, Uncle Brown.”
When he got home, he said, “I've been talking to Uncle Brown, Dad.”
“Have you indeed?” said John.
I bet the old chap's pleased at being called that
, he thought.
“Yes,” said Beaumont. “He saved my life, Dad. I went up into the kitchen and the cat nearly got me!”
“Gosh!” said John.
“Uncle Brown says we just have to live with the beastly thing.”
“Well, he's right, Beaumont. We have no choice.”
“Yes, we have, Dad,” said Beaumont. “If the cat won't leave us, we can leave the cat.”
“What d'you mean?”
“We can move to another house, one without a cat. We can emigrate, Dad,” said Beaumont.

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