The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail by Richard Peck

Author:Richard Peck [Peck, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101592267
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Snatched and Dispatched

EVENING DREW ON, and the tea tent was struck. As darkness climbed the trees, their cheeping grew louder, and a silky sighing came from on high.

The roustabouts had long since wound up the clockwork yacht. Now it had sailed away through the mysterious mist, low in the water, as Prince Bruno Havarti was filled to the brim with scone crumbs and fresh strawberries.

I was myself more than ready for dinner.

The Yeomice mess hall was deep down among the roots of a tree that had undermined the ruined potting shed. And so it was rather low-ceilinged and noisy. I was hungry as a Havarti, but the meal hadn’t been up to much, though long. A shred of underdone venison, then foot of rabbit. The pudding was a beetle flambé with a flaming sauce that looked like butterscotch, but wasn’t.

Still, it was very well served by mice orderlies in paper hats, back and forth to the kitchens. I’d never been served before and quite liked it.

Following the cheese and biscuit crumbs, we were all upstanding to toast Queen Victoria on this, the eve of her Diamond Jubilee.

“To Her Human Majesty,” we squeaked, whole-hearted and full-throated.

As the orderlies cleared our crumbs, I wondered when I’d eaten last.

Back in the Mews, it must have been, in the manger, scarfing up the oats and carrot bits from Peg’s breakfast. How long ago. How far away. It made me think.

“I ought really to be getting back to the Mews and my horse,” I remarked to Ian. “It will be parade time in the morning before we know it.” They were serving the coffee now, in scooped-out acorns. “I’m quite determined to have a word with Queen Victoria about who I might be. I’ll be very grateful for any insights Her Majesty cares to share.”

I don’t know how much I myself believed in this scheme. It was a ramshackle plan with more holes in it than a Swiss cheese. But you know how you are at that age. And it helped to say it aloud, to Ian. It made it more real.

“Really?” he said, watching me over his steaming acorn. “Are you under the impression that you can communicate with a human?”

“She isn’t human.” Didn’t Ian know that? “Her powers are magical and unexplained. And…a touch of her hand will cure warts.”

“My dear chap,” Ian said, “I thought that old warts nonsense went out with Queen Ann. Queen Victoria is quite human, all too human, and nothing whatever to do with you.”

I thought this a bit harsh on both the Queen and me. But Ian wasn’t finished. “Besides, you are not free to scamper off to the Mews or anywhere else. You have hardly been a Yeomouse long enough to earn leave. In any case, you and I are on sentry duty tonight. We have a stretch of garden wall to walk. Our names are on the roster.”

The roster? Really? I didn’t see a roster. Still, if Ian said so, it must be true.

He

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