The Orphan and the Mouse Read online

  Mary conceded the point. “I see.”

  “Also, he was not very skillful and always got caught,” Andrew went on. “But Mr. Valenti, in spite of his heavy boots, was a kind man. When Mario’s mama told him Mario was having trouble in school, Mr. Valenti offered to help him with his reading. Since there were no schoolbooks at the newsstand, Mr. Valenti taught him by using newspaper headlines.”

  “What are newspaper headlines?” Mary asked.

  “The words at the top of each newspaper story, the title,” Andrew explained. “Over and over, Mr. Valenti read Mario the words in the headlines, and Mario repeated them. After a while, I noticed how often the same words appeared—words like Truman, who is the chief director of the human territory in which our colony is located; and Korea, which is another territory, one that’s very far away; and war—well, every mouse knows what war is. Because the headlines were simple and the words repeated, I began to recognize some of them. From this, I saw where our auditors had gone wrong.”

  “Where?” asked Mary.

  “All along, the auditors had assumed the marks were pictures. What I realized was that each mark represents a sound, and then the sounds combine to form words. After that, the marks, which are actually called letters, started to make sense.”

  Mary knew just enough about reading to see how this might be true. “And after that you could read?” she asked.

  “Not as well as I thought I could,” Andrew said. “The more I studied, the more I realized that reading is more complicated than just knowing each letter’s sounds. Sometimes there are tricks and a letter makes no sound at all. Sometimes letters represent one sound in one word, and a different sound in the next. Take o,u,g,h, for example. It might be ooh, as in through, or oh, as in thorough, or aw, as in ought, or uff, as in rough and tough.”

  Mary nodded . . . even though he had lost her completely.

  “Also,” Andrew went on, “when you think about it, why is there a g in there at all? If reading English made any sense, o,u,g,h would be pronounced owg, and yet it never is.”

  Thoroughly confused, Mary nodded again. “How very true. But”—she hoped she was not asking too big a favor—“can you show me?”

  Andrew seemed gratified to be asked. “I will,” he said, “just as soon as the newspaper arrives in the morning. Does the boss still keep it in her office?”

  Mary nodded. “Jimmy brings it in and puts it on her desk. But it’s too heavy for us to steal, and the boss would certainly notice it was gone.”

  “We don’t need all of it, only a small piece,” said Andrew. “Trust me, the boss will never notice it’s gone.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Shortly after sunrise, Mary and Andrew watched from behind the crack in the baseboard as Jimmy laid the newspaper on the boss’s desk. When he left, they scurried across the oak floor and the deep-piled rug before making the climb up the steep face to the plateau above. As thieves of the colony, both were thoroughly familiar with the desktop and its landmarks. For her part, Mary couldn’t help thinking how much her life had changed since the last time she’d been there.

  This was no time for reflection. There was hardly time for a deep breath. By Mary’s calculations, they had only about a quarter hour to carry out their mission.

  In the hours before morning, the two thieves had planned each maneuver and practiced. Now, without so much as a squeak, they bit down on opposite corners of the front page, then pulled and yanked till the newspaper had unfolded and lay flat.

  Next came the hard part, flipping the entire paper over.

  This was because—according to Andrew—the back page was less important than the front. Thus it would be even less obvious to the boss if the missing square came from the back.

  Working together, Mary and Andrew bit the right top corner and scooted backward diagonally, pulling the corner with them. By this time, Mary had regained full strength in her wounded shoulder still the work was exhausting. At last she felt the weight of the paper shift, and . . . they had done it! The back page was on top.

  Now it was up to Andrew to choose the square he wanted, so Mary sat back as he studied the markings. Was he really reading? She would soon know. When he pointed his nose at a spot near the page’s edge, Mary went to work.

  Nothing gnaws like a mouse, and soon the square Andrew wanted was detached. Flipping the newspaper was easier the second time; then Andrew took a moment to align it with the edge of the desk. There was, unfortunately, no way for the mice to refold it in two. They would just have to hope the boss had other things on her mind.

  With her nose, Mary pushed the square off the edge of the desk. Once it had floated safely to the rug, Andrew leaped from the desk—the show-off—and Mary slid down the cord attached to the black talking box. To carry the paper back to the portal, the two mice balanced it across both their backs, bent their tails over the top to keep it in place, and ran across the room, their noses side by side.

  By now the sun was well up, and they could hear Mrs. Spinelli’s footfalls in the kitchen. They had worked efficiently. There should be time enough to complete the mission as planned.

  Beginning to breathe easier, Mary squeezed through the portal and waited in mouse territory for Andrew to slide a corner of the paper under the baseboard. When it appeared, she gripped it in her teeth and tugged, but then—oh, no! Were those the footfalls of the boss in the corridor? What was she doing downstairs so early?

  Andrew must have heard the sound as well, because he squeezed through the narrow portal, gripped an edge of the paper between his teeth, and—alongside Mary—pulled with all his might. The paper had to be safely hidden before the boss entered. Should she see it sliding under the baseboard, whom could she blame but mice?

  Yank-yank-yank, and . . . success!

  Just in time, too. The creak of the hinge told the mice the boss was in her office. Mary sat back on her haunches, closed her eyes, and heaved a sigh of relief. When she opened her eyes, she saw that Andrew was smiling at her.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Andrew Mouse was smitten with Mary. She was not only attractive and accomplished, she was so conveniently available. If only she had been smitten with him, too, but alas, she’d made it obvious she was not.

  Reading was his chance to impress her, a chance he did not want to lose.

  “I need to see clearly to read aloud,” he said when at last they had the paper laid out before them. “Is there a place with better light?”

  Mary thought for a moment. “I believe there is a spot quite near the directorate where the daylight shines through a chink in the mortar. Will that do?”

  Andrew nodded. “We can roll up the paper to carry it. But do you want to sleep first? It’s awfully late, and we’ve been up for hours.”

  “I’m much too excited to sleep,” Mary said. “To think, I am going to witness a mouse reading!”

  Mary’s enthusiasm made Andrew nervous. What if he disappointed her? What if he stammered? He didn’t think he could bear it if she laughed.

  Using their paws and noses, the two mice rolled the paper into a neat cylinder and set out. The journey to the nursery required a climb up the plumbing and a trek the full length of the second-floor corridor. Andrew found it awkward traveling in a confined space with a roll of paper between his teeth. Finally—after almost half an hour—the two arrived at the well-lit location that Mary had remembered.

  “Will this do?” Mary asked.

  Andrew assessed the spotlight of sun on the dusty floorboards. “Admirably,” he said.

  Together, the two mice unrolled the paper, now frayed and dirty, and Andrew studied the print before him.

  “Well?” Mary said impatiently. “What does it say?”

  Andrew knew exactly what it said but prolonged the suspense to make a greater impression. Finally, he harrumphed a couple of times, straightened his ears, and—indicating each word with the tip of his tail—spoke in a resounding squeak: “ ‘Baby Boy Taken.’ ”


  Chapter Thirty-Three

  When Caro awoke Thursday morning, she had all but forgotten Miss Grahame’s insult. In fact, she was happier than she had been in a very long time. In her mind’s eye was the face of a tiny baby: Charlie!

  But when she asked Matron Polly about him at breakfast, she got a rude surprise.

  “You won’t be taking care of him today after all,” said Matron.

  Caro felt as if she’d been slapped. “Why not?”

  Matron did not look her in the eye. “Because you can’t,” she said.

  Feeling her stomach twist, Caro pushed her oatmeal away and asked to be excused. Then, instead of returning to the intermediate girls’ dormitory, she continued down the corridor beyond it to the baby nursery. As she approached, she could tell that something was wrong. It was dead quiet, and the nursery door was closed. She opened it a crack, peeked inside, then pushed the door wide.

  The bassinette was empty.

  At first, Caro tried to reassure herself. Maybe Mr. Donald or Mrs. George had simply taken Charlie outdoors for fresh air?

  But then she noticed something else. The diaper pail was missing and the changing table, which had been stocked with diapers and a few tiny T-shirts, was bare.

  Involuntarily, Caro cried out.

  Charlie was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Andrew had been almost done with the story when he was interrupted by a human cry from the nursery. It was a single, guttural note of anguish—terrible to hear, even if you didn’t yourself happen to be human.

  “My stars—which one is that?” he asked Mary.

  Mary knew her rescuer’s voice. “Caro,” she said. “Come on.”

  The two mice trotted north a few mousetails to an unused electrical socket. Through its slots they could see Caro staring into the bassinette.

  “The newborn pup is missing,” Mary said. “Andrew—is it possible that pup is the same one from the story you’ve been reading to me?”

  This had also occurred to Andrew, but he played dumb in the interests of improving relations with Mary. “What an idea!” he said. “And how very clever of you to come up with it.”

  Upset by Caro’s distress, Mary did not even note the compliment.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Caro’s head swam, and she reached for the crib railing to steady herself. The sudden heartbreak over Charlie’s disappearance recalled an earlier catastrophe, and sensations from the night her mother died intruded with hallucinatory intensity: her hand and arm burned; she could swear she heard screaming.

  Caro closed her eyes and was overwhelmed: Smoke, heat, light. Searing pain in her lungs. A poisonous taste in her mouth. Beyond that—a blur. What she knew about that night was what she had been told: She had ignored her mother’s cries and saved herself. She had run. She had burned her hand on the searing-hot metal of the doorknob as she twisted it to free herself, to escape. She had failed her mother, the only person in the world who loved her. She was a coward.

  Caro had lived with this guilt for five years. And for five years she had tried to atone by being perfect.

  But now she had failed again, failed to save Charlie. She remembered the inconsistency between forceps marks and abandonment on the doorstep of a police station. Something did not make sense.

  “Oh, there you are.” Matron Polly’s voice made her jump. “Mrs. George said you’d be here.”

  “What happened to Charlie?” Caro’s voice rasped.

  “Why, Caro, child, what’s the matter?” Polly asked. “You’re crying!”

  Caro wiped her face with the back of her hand, sniffed back her tears. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “Now, now. Mrs. George is wanting to tell you all about that. She’s in her office.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Mrs. George was on the telephone when Matron Polly brought Carolyn into her office. By this time, the headmistress had already been at work for several hours, her day having begun before breakfast when she met Miss Grahame’s baby nurse in the foyer. With Polly’s help, she had transferred the infant boy; his few blankets, T-shirts, and diapers; and the official birth and adoption documents provided by Judge Mewhinney.

  In exchange, the nurse had given Mrs. George a sealed envelope of gratifying heft. If Joanna Grahame wondered why Mrs. George asked for cash instead of a personal check, she didn’t mention it. Perhaps she knew that in certain matters of a confidential nature, cash—being more difficult to trace—was preferable.

  Now, still on the telephone, Mrs. George gestured for Polly and Carolyn to come in.

  “A week from Monday simply won’t do,” she told the secretary at the exterminating service.

  “Well, that’s our first opening,” the woman replied.

  “I’m sure Mr. Philips-Bodbetter would appreciate it if you could alter your schedule,” said Mrs. George.

  “Mr. Philips-Bodbetter?” The secretary was obviously impressed. “Well, in that case . . . Please wait one minute. . . . Perhaps this Saturday?”

  “Saturday morning is fine,” said Mrs. George. “Nine o’clock.”

  Without saying good-bye, she returned the receiver to its cradle.

  Polly did not mask her dismay. “The exterminator’s coming Saturday? But that hardly gives us time to make arrangements for the children.”

  Mrs. George held up a torn scrap of paper. “I found this on the floor clear across the room.” She indicated a spot by the baseboard. “And would you look at this?” She held up her newspaper, which had a hole in the back.

  Polly frowned. “What would mice want with newspaper, ma’am?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what mice want,” said Mrs. George, “but their vile little tooth-marks are everywhere. So, while I apologize for the short notice, it can’t be helped. Now”—she sat down and smoothed her hair—“while you see that the girls are getting on with their chores, Carolyn and I will have a little chat.”

  Polly said, “Yes, ma’am,” but Mrs. George could see by the woman’s squint—more pronounced than usual—and by her heightened color that she was unhappy. Would she make trouble? She never had before, and she was well compensated for her services. Mrs. George even kept bottles of beer for her in the refrigerator of her private apartment, allowed her to take her break from the children there each afternoon. Surely her generosity would count for something.

  And Polly didn’t like mice any more than Mrs. George did.

  “Sit down, dear,” Mrs. George said to Carolyn after the matron had left. “I’m sorry there was no chance for you to say good-bye to the infant. What was it you called him? Charlie?”

  “It was my father’s name,” said Carolyn.

  Mrs. George felt a pang that surprised her. Surely, she wasn’t thinking of her own father? “Ah. Well, this little boy has been adopted by a very fine mother . . . that is, family. And now he will have every advantage. He’s quite lucky.”

  “But where is he?” Carolyn asked. “And why did he have to leave so quickly?”

  It wasn’t like Carolyn to ask difficult questions. “You’ve been here long enough to know how it is in matters of adoption, Carolyn,” said Mrs. George. “I can’t give out any information, not even to you. Some people blame an orphan for his unlucky origins, and we would never want any of our children to carry that shame.”

  Carolyn persisted. “Mrs. George,” she asked, “who brought Charlie to the home?”

  Mrs. George opened the top drawer of her desk to signal that their interview was over. “The police did, dear. I already explained. Now, I’m sure Matron Polly needs—”

  “Because something’s confusing me,” Carolyn went on. “Charlie had marks from a forceps on his head. I know that’s what the marks were. I’ve seen them before.”

  Mrs. George closed her desk drawer but didn’t look up. Oh, dear.

  “And you said,” Carolyn continued, “that he was abandoned at the police station. But I don’t see how that can be if he was delivered with forceps by a doctor.
Mothers who deliver in hospitals don’t abandon their babies. There’s a record of the birth, so they’d be caught. The only mothers who drop off their babies that way are ones who deliver babies by themselves at home, or . . . or someplace else.”

  Mrs. George’s thoughts were racing, but she spoke slowly. “For a child your age, you know quite a lot about a very delicate subject.”

  “We all do, ma’am,” Carolyn said. “I’m sorry if it’s not right for children to know, but we can’t help it.”

  Mrs. George sighed. “I suppose not. Well, in this case, perhaps there was some mistake in the story the police officer told me.”

  “That must be it,” Carolyn said thoughtfully, but she did not sound convinced. “Did you talk to Mr. Kittaning?”

  “Not necessary,” said Mrs. George.

  “Because he might know more about where—” Carolyn continued, but Mrs. George had had enough.

  “Carolyn!” She spoke more sharply than she intended. “The infant is gone. Your speculation is not helpful. Now, please. I have work to do.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Andrew and Mary had left the second floor for the boss’s office at the same time Matron Polly and Caro did, but their route was longer and their legs shorter. By the time they arrived at the baseboard portal, Matron Polly was leaving.

  Rapt, the two mice watched the boss and Caro conversing. They did not understand everything. But they saw that Caro, Mary’s rescuer, was upset and suspicious about the newborn pup’s disappearance. And they saw that the boss was angry and disdainful.

  “I think the boss is hateful!” Mary told Andrew after Caro had been dismissed.

  “She is,” said Andrew.

  “We need to tell Caro what we know,” said Mary.