Shelter (44 page)

    "Oh. Mommy, can I have a mouse?"

    "Sure," Meredith said. "Which one do you want?"

    "A girl mouse. They're prettier."

    He picked out a small white mouse with brown spots; Meredith collected a fish tank, cedar chips, water bottle, exercise wheel, and mouse food. Constance paid for it all, beaming. "See, Nicky, you're already keeping this little mouse safe from snakes. Now she won't get eaten."

    Meredith was getting a headache. "Snakes have to eat too, Mom."

    "Well, they don't need to eat this little mouse. So, Nicholas, what's her name? Have you decided yet?"

    He thought a moment. "Patty. Because that's what she'd be to a snake." He giggled. "Patty-cake. She'd be a cake to a snake. Or a burger to a booger. Or—"

    "Or a friend to Nicholas," Meredith said firmly. "Right?" He scowled. "That doesn't go with her name, Mommy."

    Think fast. "Yes, it does, because you'll pat her, because she's so pretty and soft. Right?"

    He squinted up at her. "Maybe, Mommy. If she'll hold still."

    Seventeen

    PATTY didn't hold still all afternoon. She ran energetically on her exercise wheel, chewed a toilet paper roll to shreds, scampered about with bits of seed and lettuce. Constance went home; Meredith tried to show Nicholas how to pick Patty up by the base of the tail, but her wiggling seemed to unnerve him. Holding the tiny creature firmly in her hand, tail pinned between thumb and index finger while the miniscule heartbeat thundered against her palm, Meredith guided Nicholas's outstretched finger along the mouse's back. "See, Nicky? See how soft she is? Such nice soft fur."

    "She's scared."

    "Well, that's because everything here is new. She has to get used to us."

    Meredith thought of Nicholas's ceaseless crying the day he came home, and felt a pang of pity for all small, frightened things. "When she learns that we're the people who feed her and give her water and pat her and clean her cage, she won't be scared of us anymore."

    "Put her back, Mommy. She's scared."

    "Okay," Meredith said, and slipped Patty back into her cage, where she promptly dashed to the exercise wheel. Meredith wondered if the mouse thought, in the starry brightness of her minute brain, that all that movement would carry her away from here. "Do you want to watch her some more? What do you want to do?"

    "TV," Nicholas said, his thumb in his mouth, and Meredith picked him up and carried him into the den. He never willingly lay down for naps, but he often fell asleep on the couch while watching television. In the matter of Nicholas and sleep, Meredith's credo was to use what worked.

    She settled him on the couch with a plastic sheet and a blanket, put on a Gaia Network tape about bees he'd always liked, and went into the kitchen to program dinner. When she checked on her charges a few minutes later, both were fast asleep, Patty curled into a small furry ball half covered by cedar chips and Nicholas nestling in his blanket, thumb in mouth, while on the television screen the bees buzzed soporifically. She sat down on the other end of the couch, savoring the peace of the moment, and watched the bees circle in their quivering dance.

    * * *

    "Mommy," Nicholas said. "Mommy, wake up! Look!"

    Meredith jerked awake, her neck stiff and her eyes gritty. How long had she been asleep? What time was it? "Mommy!" Nicholas said again, and she remembered that she was on the couch, that she'd settled Nicky down with his bee show and then had sat down herself, and—

    "Look at this show, Mommy!"

    She blinked, rubbed her eyes, peered at the screen. The bees were gone. The tape must have ended, and now the television featured an all-too-familiar woman in a leotard. She was holding up a bot. She was dancing with it. "The bot tried to take her apart," Nicholas said excitedly. "It had knives. She made friends with it, Mommy. She gave it apples to cut up instead, and she ate the apples, and now she and the bot are friends. She gave it something good to do with the knives."

    Meredith sat up straighter, realizing in a series of small befuddlements that Nicholas hadn't screamed himself awake, that he wasn't trying to slam his head into anything, and that the woman on the screen was Zephyr, who had finished her yearlong jail sentence and was back to her old tricks.

    "I like that lady," Nicholas said decisively. "What show is this, Mommy?"

    "The Performance Network," Meredith said, around a burst of what she recognized as completely irrational jealousy. "It's for grown-ups, Nicholas. "

    "Oh. What are they doing now, Mommy?"

    "Grown-up things," Meredith said. Zephyr had put the bot down on the floor and was straddling it, her pelvis pumping. "Nicholas, let's go see how Patty is, okay?"

    "Can we feed her some apples?"

    You don't, Meredith thought, want to think too much about the symbolism here. "Sure. I don't know if mice like apples, but we'll find out."

    As it turned out, Patty thoroughly enjoyed her slice of apple, from which she took dainty nibbles. Nicholas, nose glued to the side of the cage while he watched her eat, said, "You make friends with monsters by giving them something else to eat. Right, Mommy? If they want to eat you, you give them something else."

    "I guess you could," Meredith said warily. "Do you want to take some apples to bed with you tonight, Nicholas? To feed the monsters?"

    "Maybe. Mommy, what's the snake eating?"

    "What snake, honey?"

    "The snake who was going to eat Patty before we brought her home from the store."

    Oh. "Well, sweetheart, that snake's probably eating another mouse. One of the ones we didn't buy. One of the ones we left in the store. But Patty's safe here with us, and she's very happy with her apple. She likes her new home."

    "She's not getting eaten by a snake," Nicholas said.

    "That's right." She reached out to tousle his hair. "She's safe here. And so are you. You didn't dream about monsters in front of the TV, Nick, did you?"

    Maybe she'd said the wrong thing, even though he hadn't screamed himself awake, because his face clouded. "No, Mommy. I didn't dream about the monsters."

    "Aren't you happy about that, Nick?" Maybe he'd gotten sad again because she'd reminded him ..

    "Yes," he said, but he still looked sad. "I didn't dream about the monsters because of Patty."

    "Great," Meredith said, and tousled his hair again. "That's great, Nicholas!" She'd have to tell Constance. Round one to Grandma. "Hooray for Patty!"

    "Hooray for Patty," he said, and started to cry.

    * * *

    She chalked it up to fatigue, to the overstimulation of the pet shop and the excitement of bringing Patty home, to Zephyr's evil influence. She told herself that maybe Nicholas was having some body memory, triggered by the mouse's arrival, of having cried as a baby when he was moved from a familiar environment to this alien, much larger one. She held him, rocked him and sang to him and gave him warm milk, and by the time Kevin got home, the crisis was safely past: Nicholas sat in the middle of the living room building one of his block towers while Patty scampered on her wheel. All was well with the world.

    And, amazingly, Meredith slept through the night. There were no screams, no terrified cries; when she looked in on Nicholas in the morning, he slept sweetly, hand tucked beneath his cheek, face and sheets both dry. Meredith, marveling, quietly left the room, lest she disturb him, and went downstairs for coffee.

    Kevin was already up, sitting at the kitchen table. "Quiet night," he said. Meredith slid into a chair next to him and gave him a kiss. "I know. Amazing, isn't it? Hooray for Patty."

    Kevin sighed. "Hooray for Patty. Meredith, listen, I went to feed her and, um—"

    Meredith's heart sank. "Oh, shit," she said, already out of her chair and heading toward the cage. "What is it?" The mouse was dead, poisoned by apple seeds. The mouse had hung herself between the bars of her exercise wheel. The mouse had somehow drowned in a leak from her water bottle.

    "Well," Kevin said behind Meredith's shoulder, "she isn't there. At least, I can't find her."

    "Oh, no!" Meredith said, peering into the cage. No Patty. She removed the mesh top and prodded various corners of the cage, thinking that perhaps Patty had burrowed underneath cedar chips or cardboard shavings. No Patty. "Oh, Gaia. Poor Nicholas! Kevin, how could she have gotten out? Was the top on the cage?"

    "It was a little loose."

    "It wasn't loose last night! I checked it before I went to bed."

    "I know."

    "Well, she couldn't have climbed up the sides of a glass aquarium, could she?" Meredith peered into the cage again. "Could she have stood on top of the exercise wheel and gotten out? But the top was latched down."

    "Merry, it doesn't matter how she got out. She's out."

    Meredith, feeling ill, pushed back a memory of Squeaky. "We have to find her before Nicholas gets up. Kevin, why didn't you wake me?"

    Kevin sighed. "I wanted you to get sleep. You've been sleep-starved for four years, ever since Nicholas came home. I thought you deserved one night—"

    "Oh," Meredith said, stricken. "Oh, Kevin, thank you. But the mouse—we have to find her."

    "Well, she has to be in the house, right?"

    "I don't know! If you ask me, she has to be in the cage! If we put food out—"

    "Well, I tried that. Some crackers, some apples. Nothing. And you can't call them, can you? Like a cat or dog? You're the animal expert."

    Meredith thought furiously. If I were a mouse, where would I go? If Nicholas finds out she's gone, he'll be—"Hey, Kevin! Do you think the house system could tell us? Does it have a, a, I don't know, pest-sensing capability or something? I mean, most people don't like it when there are mice in their houses, right?"

    "There's an idea. Come on." He led her to the terminal in his office—their tiny third bedroom—and scrolled rapidly down help menus and topic indices as Meredith looked over his shoulder. "Vermin; here we go. About vermin, discouraging vermin, locating infestation ... good. This must be it. "

    He hit the button. They waited, watching the antiquated hourglass on the screen, until the display told them in demure letters, "No infestation located. Your house is free of vermin!"

    "Maybe it wouldn't consider one mouse an infestation?" Meredith asked forlornly.

    "Damned ifl know. Probably would, though. Now what?"

    "Um ... does it keep a record of what happens in the house? Security stuff-maybe it's got Patty's escape on film?"

    "And it's been following her around with a little mouse cam ever since, and she's being featured on ScoopNet even as we speak. Right. Merry, we disabled the internal security cameras, remember? You didn't want them, because you didn't want anyone to be able to hack in. Everything's concentrated on the grounds and perimeters."

    "Okay, okay, but the infrared sensors are on and mice are hot, Kevin, I mean they have really fast metabolisms, and—"

    "Right. Got it. Infrared scan, although that's probably how the vermin scan we did just worked, so I doubt it's going to find anything. Here we go."

    The internal infrared scan showed themselves and Nicholas, still curled in bed. "Do an external," Meredith said.

    "Won't help," Kevin said. "Too many birds and squirrels and field mice and voles and stuff. You'll never sort it all out. If Patty's outside, we're not getting her back. Honey, listen, I have to get to work. You'd better start thinking about how to break this to Nicholas."

    "Oh, Kevin!"

    "I know." He stood up and kissed her, caressing the small of her back. "But all things are possible with a good night's sleep."

    "If we don't find Patty, this may be the last one I get."

    "I know." He kissed her again. "Good luck. Let me know what happens. I'll get another mouse on my way home if you want. Bye."

    "Bye," Meredith said, feeling dangerously close to tears, and sat down in the chair he'd just vacated. Meditate. Meditate. You have to be calm for Nicholas, and maybe if you can clear your head you'll figure out where Patty might be. Visualize mouse. Happy mouse. Healthy mouse. Mouse eating a mouse treat somewhere we can sneak up on her and get her back in her cage, with a hermetic seal on the top this time.

    "Mommy," said a small voice. Meredith opened her eyes and found Nicholas, looking impossibly little, standing in the doorway to Kevin's study. She swallowed, knowing she had to keep her voice calm. and cheerful.

    "Good morning, sweetheart! You certainly had a nice long sleep!" "Yes," Nicholas said. "Can I sit in your lap, Mommy?"

    "Of course you can." She'd thought he'd want to see Patty again as soon as he woke up, but she was getting some kind of reprieve, thank Goddess. "I'm glad you slept well, Nicky. Were the monsters gone?"

    "Yes."

    "I thought they were, because you didn't wake up in the middle of the night. It must have felt good to sleep so well." And now she was going to have to give him bad news. It wasn't fair.

    He nodded. "It felt good. Mommy, do you still love me?"

    What? What new hell was this? She hugged him fiercely and said, "Of course I love you, Nicky. Of course I do. What made you think I didn't?"

    "That's good. Can I have another mouse, Mommy?"

    Another mouse? Did that mean that he knew Patty was gone? Maybe he'd already looked in the cage? But then surely he'd ask Meredith where she was. Or maybe he just wanted another mouse as company for Patty? And if he didn't already know about Patty, where in all of this was she going to tell him? Well, when in doubt, ask. "Why do you want another mouse, Nicky?"

    "Because of the monsters," he said.

    Which didn't exactly answer the question. Did he know, or not? If he didn't know and found out Patty was gone, he'd think the monsters had gotten her. Great. "Nicholas," she asked carefully, "how many mice do we need to keep the monsters away? How many mice will work?"