The Mouse Family Robinson Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  Copyright Page

  FOR LOUISE AND THE FAMILY GENEREAUX

  —N.B.

  1

  John Robinson and Mr. Brown were next-door neighbors. That is to say, they both lived under the kitchen floor, for John Robinson and Mr. Brown were house mice.

  John was a young chap. He was respectful toward his neighbor, who was very old, and always addressed him as “Mr. Brown.” Mr. Brown, John knew, now lived alone because his wife had been eaten by the cat.

  There came an evening when John’s young wife, Janet, told him that he was to become a father for the first time. She was tearing up bits of newspaper to make a comfy nest.

  “Gosh!” said John.

  “You mean you’re going to have a baby?”

  “Babies,” said Janet.

  She has gotten fat lately, come to think of it, said John to himself.

  “When?” he asked.

  “Very soon.”

  “Gosh! How many?”

  “How do I know, you stupid mouse?” said Janet. “Now push off and leave me in peace.”

  As John was hurrying under the kitchen floor, he met his neighbor coming back home.

  “Good evening, Mr. Brown,” he said.

  “Evening, John,” said Mr. Brown. “How’s life?”

  “Wonderful!” replied John. “I am going to be a father.”

  “For the first time, eh?”

  “Yes. I believe you’ve had a large number of children, Mr. Brown, haven’t you?”

  “Dozens. So many that I’ve gone and forgotten most of their names. My late wife and I used to rely on the alphabet.”

  “The alphabet?” said John.

  “Yes. Start with A—Adam, let’s say, or Alice—and keep going till you get to Z. That gives you twenty-six names.”

  “You mean you’ve had twenty-six children, Mr. Brown?”

  “Seventy-eight, actually, John. We went through the alphabet three times.”

  “Gosh!” said John.

  “Xs and Zs,” said Mr. Brown, “are the hardest ones to put names to, but we managed. Why don’t you try the same trick?”

  “I will, I will,” said John. “Thanks, Mr. Brown, that’s a good idea.”

  The young mouse and his elderly neighbor chatted for a while, mainly about food. A nest under the kitchen floor, as both knew well, is the best place for mice to live. Those clumsy giants called humans were always dropping bits of food on the floor, and if a mouse was bold enough, there were lovely things to eat in the pantry.

  Talking about food made John feel hungry, and after a while he said, “I must be going, Mr. Brown, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Of course, John,” Mr. Brown replied, “and I’m so pleased to hear your good news. Please give my regards to your wife.”

  “I will,” replied John, “and thank you.”

  Poor old fellow, he thought, remembering what had happened to Mrs. Brown.

  Now evening had turned to night, and the giants had all gone up the stairs to bed. John Robinson popped out of a mousehole and began to search the kitchen floor, all his senses alert, especially for the squeak of the cat flap.

  He was in luck. Someone had spilled half a dozen cornflakes: not much for a giant, but a feast for a mouse.

  His hunger satisfied, he made his way home.

  Will Janet have had the babies yet? he wondered.

  How many will there be? How many will be boys; how many girls?

  The answers to these questions, John found, were “yes,” “six,” and “three of each.”

  “What should we call them?” John asked.

  “You can choose, if you want,” said Janet.

  I’ll use Mr. Brown’s alphabet method, thought John. Six kids, that’s A to F. Let’s see now … I must think up some unusual names because I’m sure my children will grow up to be unusual mice.

  John Robinson spent the rest of the night deciding what to call his newborn sons and daughters. As dawn broke, he knew he had found six perfect names. And, he said to himself, I must tell Mr. Brown. I’m sure he’d like to know, and he hurried along one of the runways beneath the kitchen floor.

  “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.

  2

  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-ei
ght,” 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.

  3

  “Emigrate?” said John to Beaumont.

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “But … how will I know if another house has a cat or not?”

  “If it has a cat, it’ll smell of the beastly thing. If it doesn’t, it won’t. Simple, Dad.”

  “It’ll take me an awfully long time to inspect every house on the street.”

  “It would if it was just you, Dad,” said Beaumont, “but what if we all helped, eh, Mom?”

  “I certainly will,” said Janet, “but you kids are too small to take the risk.”

  “We’re not,” said Beaumont, turning to the other five mousekins, “are we? We can help, can’t we?”

  And with one voice, Ambrose and Camilla and Desdemona and Eustace and Felicity cried, “Yes!”

  Janet looked proudly at her six children.

  “All right,” she said, “but not just yet. Wait till you’ve grown a lot bigger.”

  “And a lot faster on your feet,” added John. “There’ll be other cats in other houses on the street, and dogs, too, and then there’s all the traffic. Wait till you’re as big as Mom and me.”

  “But that’ll be ages, Dad!” said Beaumont.

  “Do as your father says,” said Janet sharply, and in unison, Ambrose and Beaumont and Camilla and Desdemona and Eustace and Felicity muttered, “Yes, Mom.”

  In fact, a month went by before John and Janet allowed the six mousekins out of the house.

  John had established a route—from under the kitchen floor through a runway that led down into the cellar, and from the cellar up and out through a grating onto the sidewalk outside.

  Janet made a plan of action. Their house was number 24, even-numbered like all those on that side of the street. Each night she and the three girls would work their way down the road, somehow making their way into number 22, then number 20, and so on, while John and the three boys would be inspecting each house up the street—numbers 26, 28, 30, and so on.

  “Let’s just hope they don’t all have cats in them, Janet,” said John. “I don’t fancy having to cross the road.”

  But luck was on their side.

  On the fourth night, Janet and the girls explored number 16 and came home excited and delighted to report that there was no smell or sign of cat or dog in that house.

  “All we could smell,” said Janet, “was mice

  “Great!” said John. “We’ll emigrate there.”

  Five of the mousekins squeaked with joy, but Beaumont said, “What about Uncle Brown?”

  “What about him?” said the others.

  “He’ll be lonely without us.”

  “Beaumont’s right,” said Janet. “He might like to come too, don’t you think, John? Why don’t you ask him?”

  Of course we must, thought John. He saved Beaumont’s life.

  So one of the girls—Felicity, it was—was sent to fetch Mr. Brown.

  “We’re moving, Mr. Brown,” said John when the old mouse arrived. “To get away from the cat.”

  Just what I was thinking, said Mr. Brown to himself.

  “We’re going to number 16; there’s no cat there,” said John.

  “We wondered if you’d like to come with us,” said Janet.

  “It’s very kind of you, Mrs. Robinson—”

  “‘Janet,’ please,” she interrupted.

  “—very kind of you, er, Janet, as I was saying, but I’m sure you’d rather be on your own as a family. I’ll miss you, of course.”

  “No, you won’t, Mr. Brown,” said John in a masterful voice. “I insist that you come with us. Please do.”

  “We can’t go without you, Uncle Brown,” said Beaumont quietly.

  Uncle, thought the old mouse. How nice. Some of my seventy-eight children must, I hope, be alive and well, but I never see any of them. They’ve all gone off somewhere, so why don’t I run off too?

  “Please come, Uncle Brown!” squeaked the other mousekins.

  “Pleeeease!”

  And then they heard the sound of the cat flap as the cat, attracted by all the noise, came into the kitchen.

  Mr. Brown looked at Janet and John and at Beaumont and the five other youngsters.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’d love to.”

  4

  Number 16 Simple Street did indeed smell quite strongly of mice, and the family who lived there wouldn’t have dreamed of having a cat.

  There were three giants (as mice thought of them): Mr. Black, Mrs. Black, and their son, a boy called Bill.

  Bill Black had always been keen on pet animals, especially mice, and, once he was old enough, his parents let him keep some. These were pet mice, fancy mice, of course, not ordinary house mice like the Robinsons and Mr. Brown.

  Bill had mice of several different colors: he had white ones with pink eyes and white ones with black eyes and chocolate ones and fawn ones and plum-colored ones and mice with special black markings called Dutch.

  By the time Bill was ten years old, he had so many pet mice that his father and mother let him use a little spare room (which he called the Mousery) to keep all his different-colored mice in their neat cages. By the time that Janet Robinson and her daughters had come into number 16 to have a sniff around, there were thirty pet mice in the Mousery, not counting babies, so that the smell of them was pretty strong.

  No matter, thought Janet. There’s not the faintest smell of cat.

  At the next full moon, all the migrants made their move down the street from number 24.

  John Robinson—after politely asking the advice of old Mr. Brown—had decided that though traveling in bright moonlight might be risky, it would alert them to any cats or other dangers on the way, and at midnight the emigration began.

  John led the file of mice: behind him came Beaumont and Eustace and Ambrose. Next came Mr. Brown, followed by Felicity and Desdemona and Camilla, while Janet brought up the rear.

  After they’d gone a little way, Beaumont said to his father, “I’m just going to drop back to make sure Uncle B’s all right.”

  It was just as well he did, for at that very moment, a dog barked loudly from inside number 22, and Mr. Brown, frightened by the sudden noise, slipped off the sidewalk. He seemed to be about to cross the road.


  “Come back! Come back!

  Quickly! Quickly!” cried Beaumont, and the old mouse obeyed just in time, for a car came roaring down the road, only just missing Mr. Brown.

  “Oh, thank you, Beaumont, my boy!” Mr. Brown panted as he scrambled back over the curb. Another narrow squeak, he thought. I save him from the cat; he saves me from the car.

  After that, they passed numbers 20 and 18—cat smells coming from both of these houses—and mercifully arrived safely at number 16 and made their way in. The scent of mice was everywhere, but the nine travelers from number 24 soon found the room where it was strongest: the Mousery.

  The cages in which Bill Black kept his fancy mice stood on top of two long, low tables. John Robinson shinnied up the leg of one of them and found himself in front of the first cage, staring into the red eyes of a mouse that was otherwise pure white. It was a buck, John could tell from its scent, and a bad-tempered buck at that. Coming close to the bars of its cage it said in a sneery voice, “Get lost. We don’t want common house mice in here. These cages are for well-bred fancy mice only, so sling your hook, ugly mug.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that!” said John angrily. “Come on outside and we’ll see who’s the better mouse.”

  “Calm down, John,” said Mr. Brown from the floor below. “He can’t come out anyway, he’s in a cage.”