The Schoolmouse Read online

  As for the survivors, they ran about the school as though they owned the place, squeaking with glee at their new-found freedom.

  Foolish behaviour like this was bound, sooner or later, to threaten the safety of all the other schoolmice, and, in fact, it was one of Flora’s remaining brothers, a scapegrace by the name of Sweet William, who did the deed that was to lead to unhappy endings for so many.

  If there’s one thing that mice love, it’s chocolate, and Sweet William had come upon a dusty red Smartie that some child had dropped under a desk in the Top Junior classroom.

  This was the class that the Headmistress taught, and after his meal Sweet William climbed up on to her desk and began to clean his whiskers. Whether it was on account of the rich meal he had eaten or whether he did it out of bravado, we shall never know, but Sweet William positioned himself on top of the big blue class register that lay on the desk, and in the middle of it he did several rather sticky droppings.

  At first, when the Top Juniors came into their classroom next morning, no one noticed, but then a sharp-eyed boy spotted the little browny-yellow objects.

  ‘Hey, look everybody!’ he called.

  ‘What is it?’ said everybody.

  The discoverer pointed proudly.

  ‘Mouse poo,’ he said, ‘all over the register.’

  ‘Ugh!’ cried several, and then there was a chorus of voices.

  ‘She’ll go mad when she sees them!’

  ‘Put them in the waste-paper bin then.’

  ‘No, you’re not allowed to touch the register.’

  ‘Leave them, leave them, see what she says!’

  ‘Sssh! Look out! She’s coming!’

  Everybody rushed to their places as the Headmistress came in and closed the classroom door. Every eye was on her. No one moved a muscle. As she sat down at the desk and put out a hand to open the register, you could have heard a pin drop. Then she saw what Sweet William had dropped.

  As she looked, an expression of disgust on her face, the tension in the Top Junior classroom was electric, and when someone giggled, it set them all off.

  ‘Be quiet!’ snapped the Headmistress, and instinctively she looked at the naughtiest boy in the class.

  ‘Tommy,’ she said, ‘come here,’ and when he came she pointed at the blue cardboard cover of the register and said, ‘What do you know about this?’

  ‘Please, miss,’ said Tommy. ‘It’s mouse poo.’

  ‘Did you put it there?’

  ‘No, miss. I never. Honest.’

  ‘Then who did?’ said the Headmistress.

  She looked round the class again and picked on the most sensible of the girls.

  ‘Heather,’ she said, ‘who did this?’ and Heather, sensibly, answered, ‘A mouse, miss,’ and the giggles broke out again.

  At morning break the news flashed around the playground, and soon everyone had heard, everyone, that is, except the schoolmice. They were not to know that, thanks to Sweet William, the Headmistress was at that moment on the phone to the local authority, demanding to speak to the Pest Control Officer.

  Because the old school was so small, the Headmistress’s office was just a corner of the staffroom, in which at that moment there were no teachers but only, though she did not know it, eleven mice.

  Ragged Robin had found Hyacinth an excellent, snug nesting-place, under the staffroom floorboards, and in it lay Robin, Hyacinth and nine new babies, safe and comfortable and practically under the Headmistress’s feet.

  The two adult schoolmice listened dozily to the human voice above, but of course without understanding the significance of what was said.

  ‘I need you to send someone out here immediately,’ the Headmistress was saying. ‘No, I have no idea how many mice. All I know is that there were mouse droppings on my desk this morning, and the Christmas holidays are almost upon us, and if nothing is done before the start of the next term, we shall have a plague of the creatures. What’s that? You’ll send a what? A Rodent Operative? When? Not until after the end of term? Why not? I see. All right. Thank you. Goodbye.’

  And goodbye it would have been for every schoolmouse in the place, had it not been for Flora and her newfound skills.

  On the first day of the Christmas holidays, a man arrived at the school and was admitted by the caretaker.

  ‘You the rat-catcher then?’ he said.

  ‘Rodent Operative,’ said the Rodent Operative, a trifle huffily.

  ‘Fuss about nothing,’ said the caretaker. ‘You always get a few mice in a building as old as this, right out in the fields like it is.’

  ‘I’ll soon get rid of them,’ said the Rodent Operative.

  ‘Traps, is it?’ said the caretaker.

  ‘No, no. Something tasty for the little devils to eat. That’s why I didn’t come earlier after it was reported. Don’t want kids picking the stuff up and putting it in their mouths. You got a cat or a dog?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Right, I’ll get on with it if you’ll show me round.’

  In every room of the old school, the Rodent Operative laid his baits. He opened a number of sachets and out of each sprinkled a quantity of little blue pellets on to a piece of card. When a sachet was empty, he put the polythene envelope in his pocket. By chance he came to the Infant classroom last, and because he was chatting to the caretaker for a moment before taking his leave, he forgot about the final empty sachet and left it lying on the teacher’s desk. It lay there, under the gaze of two sharp eyes from the hole in the wall above.

  When the men were gone and the school silent again, Flora ran down on to the desk and looked curiously, first at the piece of card on which was a cluster of strange little blue pellets, and then at the polythene sachet. There were words printed on it. Flora read them.

  First, in big letters, it said

  What does that mean? thought Flora, and she read on.

  WARNING. KEEP MUSMORS AWAY FROM CHILDREN, AND FROM DOGS, CATS AND OTHER DOMESTIC PETS. IF TAKEN IN ERROR, CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY.

  MUSMORS IS DEATH TO ALL MICE!

  FOUR

  In Which Flora Saves the Day

  ‘Thank goodness I have learned to read,’ said Flora, ‘or else I might well have sampled these attractive-looking blue pellets.’

  But then the thought occurred to her that perhaps there were other poison baits in other parts of the school that other mice might come upon. Even now her mother and father might have found a heap of Musmors. And neither of them could read!

  ‘There is no time to be lost,’ said Flora, and she scuttled out of the Infant classroom as fast as she could go.

  Never before had Flora ventured out into other places in the school, and even had she known her way about, she had no certain idea where her mother and father might be.

  Then suddenly she remembered her father’s words.

  ‘I’ll try the staffroom first,’ he had said. That then was the most likely place to find them. But wherever was the staffroom?

  Running along a passageway, Flora came to an open door and, peeping in, could see, by the number of tables and chairs and the blackboard and a teacher’s desk like the one below the hole in the wall, that it was another classroom.

  It was, though Flora could not know this, the Lower Junior classroom, and on one of the tables, she could see, was a mouse. It was sitting up on its hunkers, and in its paws it held something blue!

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ squeaked Flora, and running up the leg of the table, came face to face with her brother, Sweet William.

  ‘Hello, Flora,’ he said, picking up another pellet. ‘Long time no see.’

  ‘Oh stop!’ cried Flora again. ‘How many of those things have you eaten?’

  ‘Quite a lot,’ said Sweet William, ‘but don’t worry, there are still plenty left. Help yourself.’

  ‘No, no!’ said Flora.

  Oh, oh, she thought, Musmors is death to all mice. Poor Sweet William, there is nothing I can do for him now. But what about my pa
rents? I may still be in time.

  ‘Mother and Father,’ she said. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Sweet William, munching on yet another pellet. ‘Matter of fact, I haven’t set eyes on any of the family for yonks. Why?’

  ‘I must find them,’ said Flora.

  She looked sadly at her brother.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said softly, but Sweet William was too busy gorging himself to answer.

  On the opposite side of the corridor was another classroom, that of the Top Juniors, and there Flora found a spine-chilling scene.

  There were two separate heaps of blue pellets, each on its piece of card, and each surrounded by a group of schoolmice, all busy stuffing themselves with Musmors.

  Hastily Flora ran round them, looking, but her mother and father were not among them. She could, though, see four more of her brothers and sisters, and to them, though she knew it was already too late, she cried, ‘Don’t eat that stuff!’

  ‘Push off!’ growled several older, strange schoolmice, and one of them made a dart at her, threatening to bite.

  Frantically Flora continued her search and everywhere the scene was the same. In the hall, in the library area, in the kitchens, in every corridor and passage, there were little heaps of the poison bait, each with one or more schoolmice in attendance.

  In one passage she found two doors. Both were shut, but each carried a notice that she could read. BOYS, one said and the other, GIRLS. Is Father in one and Mother in the other, she thought? Oh, where could they be? Would she be in time?

  And then at long last she came upon a door, an open door, on which was written STAFFROOM. Flora dashed in. In one corner of the room was a big desk. On it was the usual card with its heap of blue pellets. And on it too was a mouse, an untidy-looking mouse with a battered ear and a tipless tail, who even at that moment was approaching the bait.

  ‘Father!’ squealed Flora in an agony of mind. ‘Wait!’ and she rushed across the staffroom floor and up on to the desk and put herself between Ragged Robin and certain death.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Robin.

  ‘I’m your daughter. Flora. You know, the one that stayed behind in the hole in the wall. Oh, thank goodness I got here in time!’

  ‘Time for what?’ said Robin.

  ‘To save your lives,’ said Flora, for she could see that this pile of blue pellets was as yet untouched.

  What is she talking about? thought Robin, scratching his good ear with a hind foot, and as usual when things had got too much for him, he handed the matter over to his wife.

  ‘Hyce!’ he cried, and from under the floorboards a voice replied, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come up here,’ called Robin. ‘It’s our Flora. She says she’s come to save our lives.’

  In a moment or so Hyacinth appeared at the mouth of the hole in the skirting-board and made her way up on to the desk-top.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said grumpily. ‘I’ve got nine children to feed, you know, and what are you doing here, young lady, and what’s all this about saving our lives, and what’s that heap of blue pellets?’

  ‘They’re poison, Mother,’ said Flora.

  ‘Poison?’

  ‘Special stuff for killing mice. My brothers and sisters have eaten it and they are going to die, and if you and Father eat it, you will both die, and then all your nine new mousekins will die, and last of all,’ cried Flora dramatically, ‘I shall die! Of a broken heart!’

  ‘Pull yourself together, child,’ said Hyacinth. ‘How do you know this stuff kills mice?’

  ‘I read it,’ said Flora. ‘On the packet. I told you, I’ve learned to read, just like people do. You wouldn’t believe me before, but please believe me now, Mother. I don’t want to be an orphan!’

  Hyacinth sniffed at the blue pellets.

  ‘They look attractive,’ she said. ‘Smell nice too.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Flora. ‘That’s what all the other schoolmice are saying, and soon they’ll be dead! You just wait and see.’

  ‘Load of nonsense,’ said Ragged Robin. ‘They look good, those things. The child doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Let’s try some, Hyce.’

  ‘No!’ said Hyacinth sharply. ‘We’ll do what Flora says. We’ll wait and see. We’ll wait a day or so and then we’ll see if one single mouse in the school has died from eating this stuff. And if by any chance it has, then I shall begin to believe in this “reading” that Flora’s always on about. How long’s it supposed to take this stuff to work?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Flora replied. ‘It just said “quickly”.’

  ‘Load of nonsense,’ said Robin again.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Hyacinth. ‘In the mean time, don’t you touch it. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, Hyce,’ said Robin.

  ‘And as for you, young lady,’ said Hyacinth, ‘you look to me as if you could do with a good day’s sleep. Off you go now, and we’ll have a meeting here in the staffroom tomorrow.’

  On her way back to the hole in the wall, Flora passed the open door of the Lower Junior classroom, and saw that Sweet William was no longer on the table that had held the Musmors. Nor were there any pellets left on it. He had eaten the lot.

  But somewhere in the classroom someone was groaning, horribly.

  Flora fled.

  FIVE

  In Which Flora Goes Up a Class

  The meeting in the staffroom next day was a grim one.

  Flora had run all the way from the Infant classroom, not daring to look into either of the others as she passed. But she couldn’t help noticing, as she crossed the hall, that the pieces of card there were bare of bait. It had all been eaten.

  In the staffroom her worst fears were confirmed by her father. Hyacinth had sent him out on a tour of the entire school and he had not long arrived back.

  ‘We are alone!’ Flora heard him saying in funereal tones.

  ‘No, we’re not,’ said Hyacinth briskly. ‘Here’s Flora coming.’

  ‘That is not what I meant,’ said Ragged Robin. ‘We – that is, you and me and Flora and the nine mousekins – are alone in the school.’

  ‘What?’ said Hyacinth. ‘Has everymouse else scarpered?’

  ‘Everymouse else,’ said Robin, ‘is dead.’

  There was a silence. Robin had said his piece, Flora had nothing to add, and Hyacinth was thinking.

  At last she spoke.

  ‘Flora, my girl,’ she said, ‘I owe you an apology. You have indeed saved our lives.’

  ‘It’s just lucky that I can read, Mother,’ Flora said.

  ‘Read something for us now,’ said Hyacinth.

  Flora looked around the staffroom. On one wall there was a board with a great many notices pinned on it. But it was too far from the office corner for her to read the print. However, on the wall immediately behind was a card with two large words on it, in red.

  Flora pointed her muzzle at it.

  ‘See that?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ they answered.

  ‘Well, that says NO SMOKING.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ they asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Flora. ‘But I dare say I shall find out one day. There are an awful lot of things I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you something that I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt,’ said Hyacinth, ‘and that is that we are leaving school.’

  ‘Leaving?’ said Ragged Robin. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ said Hyacinth, ‘the people here obviously think that the only good schoolmouse is a dead schoolmouse, and they won’t rest till they’ve killed us too. In another few days the mousekins will be old enough to travel, and then we’re off. All of us. Understood?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Robin.

  ‘No,’ said Flora.

  ‘What was that?’ said Hyacinth.

  ‘No, Mother,’ said Flora. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not coming. I’ve only had one term at school and I’ve got a great deal still to learn
.’

  ‘I’ll say you have,’ said Hyacinth sharply. ‘I told you once before, my girl, you think too highly of yourself. You just do as I tell you.’

  ‘No, Mother,’ said Flora.

  Hyacinth rounded on Robin.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Have you no control over the child?’

  Robin looked thoughtful.

  ‘No, Hyce,’ he said.

  ‘For the last time, Flora,’ said Hyacinth, ‘are you coming with us or not?’

  ‘No,’ said Flora.

  ‘Right!’ snapped Hyacinth. ‘On your own head be it! I now declare this meeting closed,’ and she disappeared into the hole in the skirting-board.

  Before the Christmas holidays ended, two things had happened.

  First, the Rodent Operative paid a return visit to the school.

  And second, the staffroom was once more free of mice. Hyacinth, Ragged Robin and their nine new mousekins had emigrated.

  ‘I’ve been picking up dead mice everywhere,’ said the caretaker when he let the Rodent Operative in. ‘That stuff of yours did the trick all right. They lapped it up, they did. It’s all gone, barring two baits, one in the staffroom, and one in here, in the Infant classroom, which weren’t touched.

  ‘Funny,’ said the Rodent Operative.

  He tipped the uneaten Musmors into an envelope. Then he caught sight of the hole in the wall above the teacher’s desk. He put his nose to it and sniffed.

  ‘One in there?’ said the caretaker.

  The Rodent Operative nodded. He opened the cupboard doors and, looking in, saw the other entrance to Flora’s hiding-place.

  ‘Watch out inside here,’ he said, and he took from his pocket a long thin gadget like a buttonhook and poked it hard into the hole in the wall. But when he pulled it back out again, all it brought with it was a tangle of old nesting material. Flora had gone up a class.

  Not until the caretaker had picked up the corpses, including that of poor Sweet William, had she been able to force herself to enter the Lower Junior classroom. But she was determined to continue with her education, and she reasoned that it was time for her to move up in the school. After all, she thought, I am older now.