The Mouse Family Robinson Read Free

time, for a car came roaring down the road, only just missing Mr. Brown.

    â€œOh, 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.”

    â€œDon’t talk to me like that!” said John angrily. “Come on outside and we’ll see who’s the better mouse.”
    â€œCalm down, John,” said Mr. Brown from the floor below. “He can’t come out anyway, he’s in a cage.”
    â€œJust as well for him,” said John.
    â€œYes, but just as well for us, too,” said Mr. Brown.

    He turned to Janet.
    â€œYou’ve been very clever in your choice of house,” he said. “One of the giants here keeps mice as pets, it would appear, so the place must to be free of cats. Well done, my dear Janet.”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Brown,” Janet replied. I can’t call him by his first name, she thought, because I don’t know what it is, and I don’t really want to ask him. Perhaps we’ll never know what it is.

    â€œThere’s lots of food around, too,” she said.
    â€œWhich means,” said John, “that there’ll be lots of other house mice around,” and at that very moment, a mouse came out through a hole in the molding.
    â€œYou’re right, mate,” he said to John, “but there’s plenty for all of us. The giants here are lovely people, especially the smallest one of the three. No cats—as you can smell—no dogs, no traps, no poison, and they leave food all over the place. You’ve struck lucky, you lot. Welcome to Liberty Hall!”

5

    â€œHe seemed a happy sort of chap,” said John to Janet as the mouse disappeared down its hole. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Brown?”
    â€œI think,” said Mr. Brown, “that he and his fellows have plenty to be happy about. He’s right—we have struck lucky.”
    For the rest of that night, they all explored the
Mousery. None of the fancy mice were as rude as the first pink-eyed white buck had been, but all were a bit standoffish.
    â€œShouldn’t we get moving?” asked Janet as the first light of dawn came in through the window. “We don’t want one of the giants to come and find us in here.”
    â€œWhy not, Mom?” asked Beaumont.
    â€œBecause they might not want nine more mice in their house,” said Janet. “Let’s all go down that hole in the molding and find where it leads.”
    So they all did. As they made their way down, their sharp ears heard a lot of mouse noises. There were runways through which came sounds of mice, above and below them. They came at last to the cellar of number 16, in which there were a good many mice, all of whom greeted the
newcomers in a friendly fashion.

    Above their heads, Bill Black came into the Mousery in his pajamas (his bedroom was next door) to give his pets their breakfast. He filled the food dish in each cage with canary seed, made sure that all the mice had clean water to drink, and, of course, talked to the occupants of every