The Mouse Family Robinson by Dick King-Smith Page A

sure he’d like to know , and he hurried along one of the runways beneath the kitchen floor.

    â€œMr. Brown,” he said, when he had found his neighbor, “Janet’s had six babies. I thought you’d like to know.”
    â€œCongratulations, John!” said Mr. Brown. “Got names for them?”
    â€œI have,” said John. “Ambrose, Beaumont, Camilla, Desdemona, Eustace, and Felicity What d’you think?”
    â€œBrilliant!” said Mr. Brown. “Three boys and three girls, eh? It’s a start. Twenty more babies and you’ll have finished your first alphabet of names.”

    Gosh! said John to himself. To think that his neighbor had seventy-eight kids!
    Even as he thought this, they heard, through the floorboards above their heads, the squeak of the cat flap.

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    At the sound the two mice froze, even though they were quite safe under the kitchen floorboards. They looked at one another and Mr. Brown sighed deeply.
    I know what he’s thinking , said John to himself. How dreadful if such a thing ever happened to my
Janet. If only that horrible cat didn’t live here.
    â€œI must be getting back to my family, Mr. Brown,” he said after a while.
    â€œOf course,” replied Mr. Brown. “I’d love to come and see them when they’re a little older. Could I?”
    â€œPlease do,” said John.

    The mousekins had been born naked and blind, but later on, when they had grown coats of fur (gray, of course) and had opened their beady little eyes, John invited Mr. Brown around. Proudly he and Janet stood on either side of their six children while the old mouse looked them over.

    â€œThey’re lovely!” he said. “I do congratulate you both.”
    â€œThank you,” replied Janet, and “Thank you, sir,” said John.
    â€œWhen they’re a bit older,” said Mr. Brown, “perhaps they’ll come and visit me?” and, a few weeks later, one of them did.

    Beaumont was the brightest and the most adventurous of the six mousekins, and he was the first to venture out of the nest and start to explore the spaces under the kitchen floor. Soon he came upon a mouse run that led upward and, following it, stuck his head out of a hole in the molding. He found himself staring across the kitchen floor. Beside the stove, he could see, was a basket.

    Beaumont was not only bright and adventurous, but also curious. I wonder what’s in that basket? he thought.
    He was halfway across the kitchen floor when two things happened. First, he heard a voice coming from the hole he’d just left, a frantic voice that cried, “Come back! Come back! Quickly! Quickly!”
    Then he saw a face—a face that rose above the rim of the basket—a fearsome furry face with yellow eyes, which were fixed upon him.
    Beaumont turned and dashed back toward the hole in the molding just in time. Above him, he heard the scrabble of the cat’s claws as it scratched at the mousehole. Before him, he saw an old mouse.

    â€œOh!” squeaked Beaumont. “Was it you who called me back?”
    â€œIt was,” replied Mr. Brown. “That was a narrow squeak, young fellow. What’s your name?”
    â€œI’m Beaumont Robinson.”
    â€œOne of John’s children?”
    â€œYes. Who are you?”
    â€œI’m Mr. Brown.”
    â€œOh, you’re Dad’s friend.”

    â€œI like to think so.”
    â€œThe one who came to visit us?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHave you got any children?”
    â€œSeventy-eight,” replied Mr. Brown. Though goodness only knows how many are still alive , he thought.
    â€œGosh!” said Beaumont (a word he had learned from his father). “My dad told us your wife got eaten by the cat.”
    â€œShe did, Beaumont,” said Mr. Brown. And so would you have been , he thought, if I hadn’t happened to look out just in time. Yours would have been a very