The Orphan and the Mouse (13 page)

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.

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.' ”

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.

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.

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.”

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.