Runaway Ralph Read online

  Ah-h. Ralph curled himself into a cozy ball. The leaves beneath him were springy. The husk above him was smooth and silky and curled protectingly around him. Ralph had not been so comfortable for a long, long time. A delicious fragrance of hotcakes drifted from the dining hall, reminding Ralph of the dining room of the Mountain View Inn. The campers began to sing:

  “The horses stand around,

  Their feet are on the ground.

  Oh, who will wind the clock,

  While I’m away, away.”

  Ralph wondered if Matt had wound the clock in the lobby. Perhaps Matt was searching for a broken motorcycle in the shrubbery at the foot of the steps of the Mountain View Inn. Well, he wouldn’t find it! Now all Ralph wanted was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…. Ralph slept more soundly than he had ever slept before.

  The next thing Ralph knew a weight was pressing him into the bamboo leaves. He squirmed, but the weight pressed harder. He heard a cat’s voice say, “Now watch carefully. This is the way to handle a mouse.”

  That greeting opened Ralph’s eyes in a hurry! He saw to his horror that he was pinned to the leaves by the paw of a coldhearted tomcat and was surrounded by a mother cat and a litter of wide-eyed kittens. Ralph simply closed his eyes again and tried to pretend he was not there. He could not believe what was happening. Cats were something that happened to other mice, not to Ralph. Now he wished he had listened when his mother had tried to warn him, as she so often did, about cats, owls, people, traps, poisoned grain, and vacuum cleaners.

  “Children, pay attention,” said the mother cat to her kittens. “A live mouse is an interesting and instructive plaything.”

  Ralph felt quite miserable enough without having to be educational as well.

  “Now watch this,” said the tomcat.

  The weight was removed from Ralph’s body. A paw scooped him up and tossed him into the air. Nothing like this ever had happened to Ralph before. He landed on his feet and stood, frozen with terror, facing the cat. He waited with every muscle tense for the cat to pounce but nothing happened. The cat, who wore an interested expression on his horrible furry face, simply sat and watched. Ralph was aware of the campers leaving the dining hall and scattering to different parts of the camp, but he dared not look at them. If he watched his chance he might be able to make a run for it. The cat, apparently distracted by a butterfly, glanced away. Ralph leaped for freedom only to be brought to earth by a paw.

  “That’s the way to do it,” said the tomcat. “Mice are stupid creatures who are easily fooled.”

  Ralph lay limp and still, the cat’s evil claws curling around his body. If Ralph moved even a hairsbreadth, he would be stabbed in five places. Maybe if I play dead they will go away, he thought. Children walked in and out of the screen door nearby, but no one came to the rescue of the small, brown mouse behind the bamboo.

  “He’s trying to play dead,” explained the tomcat, “but I can feel his heart beating beneath my paw.”

  Unfortunately, there was nothing Ralph could do about his heartbeat. If he ever got away from this cat, he would be a better mouse. He would listen when his mother warned him about cats, owls, people, traps, poisoned grain, and vacuum cleaners. He would set a good example for his little brothers and sisters and cousins.

  “Children, forget that butterfly and watch closely,” instructed the mother cat.

  “This is the scoop-and-toss play,” explained the tomcat, and the next thing Ralph knew he had been scooped up by the cat’s paw and tossed into the air. He managed to land on all fours in the bamboo leaves, but he was too terrified of that clawed paw to move. The attention of the kittens, he was pleased to see, had wandered. One rolled over and tried to catch his tail. Another scampered off after a leaf. A third trotted after a girl, who picked him up and carried him away. The tomcat appeared to lose interest in Ralph and sat calmly, his tail curved around his feet, looking up at the leaves fluttering on the bamboo stalks.

  He thinks he’s got me fooled, thought Ralph. If he moved, the cat was sure to pounce. If he did not move, the cat would pounce anyway. There was no way Ralph could win. He was doomed—doomed to be a mid-morning snack for a cat.

  Luckily, Ralph did not have to make a decision. There was a sudden whacking noise on the fallen leaves, and a cloud of something light and soft settled over him. Then he found himself being tumbled about as he was lifted from the ground.

  “Good for you, Garf,” said a woman’s voice. “What kind of butterfly did you catch?”

  “It isn’t a butterfly,” answered the boy. “It’s a mouse. I rescued him from Catso.”

  By now Ralph had managed to get his feet down and his head up and could see that he was suspended in the air in some sort of net. Through the mesh he could see a plump, cheerful woman, who was wearing slacks and a blouse. He also could see the boy, the same boy who had clumped through the Mountain View Inn in new cowboy boots, who was now holding him so ignominiously in the butterfly net.

  Better a net than a paw, thought Ralph philosophically, because he felt that where there was a boy, there was hope. Boys liked mice.

  “A mouse!” exclaimed the woman. “You caught a mouse in a butterfly net?”

  “Yes,” answered the boy, “and I’m going to keep him.”

  Where? wondered Ralph. In his pocket? He hoped so. A boy’s pocket was apt to be warm and dark and full of crumbs. The cat, cheated of his prey, stalked off with his tail in the air, trying to pretend in a most dignified manner that he did not want a mouse anyway.

  “Good,” said the woman enthusiastically, surprising Ralph. All the women he had known—the housekeeper, maids, and guests of the hotel—referred to mice as nasty creatures or pesky rodents and from Ralph’s point of view spent their time trying to outwit perfectly harmless little animals. “We can find a place for him in our nature corner,” suggested the woman, who Ralph decided must be the Aunt Jill Sam had mentioned. “Come on into the craft shop. I’m sure we have an old cage somewhere.”

  Ralph was disappointed. He had looked forward to a dark and crumby pocket. At the same time he was anxious. If he was to be trapped in a cage, how could he get back to his motorcycle?

  The screen door creaked as it was opened, and Ralph found himself looking through the net at a room with long worktables and walls lined with shelves full of boxes, jars, and odds and ends. Seated on a bench were three girls, who were busy braiding with long thin strips of colored plastic. They appeared to ignore the boy until the woman rummaged around on the shelves and produced a small wire cage with an exercise wheel inside and a bottle for water fastened at one end. Suddenly the girls were interested.

  “What’s the cage for, Aunt Jill?” asked one of them, as all three jumped up from the bench.

  “Garf caught a mouse in his butterfly net,” explained Aunt Jill. “He wants to keep it.”

  “In a butterfly net!” The girls found this feat funny. “Let me see! Let me see!” they begged.

  Ralph found himself being poked out of the net and into the cage. The door was closed behind him and fastened. He scurried behind the exercise wheel, where he sat trembling, partly from fright and partly from relief at being safe from the cat.

  “Isn’t he a darling?” cried the girls, their faces large and close to the cage bars. “Isn’t he sweet? Those teeny-tiny ears. Look at those itsy-bitsy paws!”

  Ralph looked for help toward the boy, who had stepped aside and now stood scowling beside the screen door.

  “Aunt Jill, can we feed the mouse?” begged the girls. “Please, let us feed him.”

  Ralph turned his back and curled up into the smallest possible ball.

  “The mouse belongs to Garfield,” said Aunt Jill. “He gets to feed his own mouse.”

  “Skip it.”

  Ralph thought Garf sounded angry. He heard the boy’s footsteps leave the craft shop and the screen door screech and slam as it opened and closed.

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked one of the girls, who sounde
d as if she did not really care.

  “Girls, do you know what I think we should do?” asked Aunt Jill. “I think we should all help Garfield enjoy camp. This is his first time away from home, and he doesn’t know anyone here. I think he’s lonely.”

  “But he’s mean,” protested the girl with the sunburned nose. “He just stays off by himself.”

  “There’s nothing mean about that,” Aunt Jill pointed out.

  “I know….” admitted the girl. “But he…oh, I don’t know. Anyway, Garf is a funny name.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t think so,” said Aunt Jill.

  Ralph could feel one of the girls trying to poke her finger through the bars of his cage.

  “At meals he won’t talk or sing,” she said, jabbing Ralph with a stick. “He just eats and then he gets up and walks out.”

  Ralph tried to draw himself into a tighter ball.

  “See, he’s outside just standing there,” said another girl. “He practically never talks to anybody.”

  Aunt Jill lifted Ralph’s cage up onto a shelf in the corner near a window. “Catching a mouse in a butterfly net is certainly doing something,” she remarked. “I think Garf should take care of the mouse.”

  Ralph made up his mind not to budge. If he stayed perfectly still, sooner or later they would all go away and let him enjoy peace and quiet in his nice safe cage. Then maybe Garf would come back. He might even think of bringing a corner of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then Ralph would simply explain to Garf that he needed to get out of the cage because he had to take care of his motorcycle. He was quite sure that Garf could understand, for he looked like the kind of boy who was interested in speed and motorcycles and who would know how to make a miniature motorcycle go.

  4

  Chum

  When Ralph awoke, the camp was dark. Crickets chirped in the weeds outside the craft shop. In the distance frogs croaked, were suddenly silent, and croaked again. Timidly Ralph began to investigate his new home. Someone had supplied him with food and water. A piece of paper had been dropped thoughtfully into one corner. Knowing that he was safe from the cat, Ralph nibbled at some dried corn and a lettuce leaf until his stomach was full. Then he shredded the paper, which was somewhat harder to chew than the Kleenex he had enjoyed at the Mountain View Inn, and spread it around his cage before he summoned enough courage to explore his exercise wheel.

  Ralph climbed cautiously onto the wheel, which swung back and forth so alarmingly that he jumped off. He ran around his cage examining the wheel from every angle. Deciding that the worst that could happen to him was falling off, Ralph tried again. This time he stayed on the wheel, and when he became accustomed to the swinging motion, he tried a few cautious steps. The wheel spun pleasantly beneath his feet.

  Ralph ran faster. The wheel increased its speed. Ralph raced as hard as he could run, and then stopped. To his astonishment, the wheel continued to spin, and Ralph was carried completely around the circle so that for an instant, before he began his descent, he was upside down at the top of the wheel. This ride was fun! When Ralph had coasted to a stop, he began to run again so that he could spin around the full circle once more. Round and round went Ralph as the shadows in the craft shop faded. Spinning on a wheel was as dangerous and as exciting as riding a motorcycle.

  His motorcycle! Ralph leaped from the wheel to the side of the cage nearest the window. The rays of the rising sun slanted through the bamboo, but no matter how hard Ralph strained his eyes he could not catch even a glimpse of chrome or red metal. If only he had some way of knowing his motorcycle was still hidden beneath the bamboo husk.

  An alarm clock went off in a lodge nearby, and a boy in rumpled pajamas stumbled out to blow the rousing bugle notes that brought the camp to life. Ralph busied himself scattering his shredded paper about his cage, nibbling his food, and racing on his wheel. While the campers were in the dining hall eating breakfast, Garf slipped into the craft shop, checked on Ralph’s food and water, and slipped out again so quickly that Ralph only had begun to summon his courage to speak. That’s funny, Ralph thought. The boy acts as if he’s doing something wrong.

  After breakfast Aunt Jill and several boys and girls straggled into the craft shop and settled down to make pictures by gluing dried rice, peas, beans, and corn to scraps of plywood. Mosaics, they called them. Such a waste of good food, thought Ralph, recalling some of the hard times he had gone through with his family back at the Mountain View Inn. Those campers were ruining enough food to keep a mouse family healthy for weeks.

  Before long the mosaic makers discovered Ralph, who obliged them by racing on his wheel.

  “Hey, look at him loop the loop!” said a boy named Pete.

  “Isn’t he darling!” cried a girl. Apparently all girls called mice, at least mice in cages, darling.

  Ralph could not resist showing off by looping the loop once more, and when many hands pushed bits of the mosaics into his cage, he nibbled greedily. At least there was no scrounging at Happy Acres Camp.

  The next time Garf slipped into the craft shop while everyone else was in the dining hall, Ralph gathered his courage to speak. “Say—” he began in a timid voice, but the boy must not have heard, because at that moment he began to sing uncertainly to himself:

  “Little Rabbit Fru-fru

  Hopping through the forest

  Scooping up the field mice

  And banging them on the head.”

  Ralph was stunned by the words Garf sang. What kind of boy would sing such a wicked song? Certainly not a boy a mouse could trust. Frightened and disappointed, he scuttled to the farthest corner of his cage and turned his back.

  “Down came the Good Fairy and she said,

  ‘Little Rabbit Fru-fru, I don’t want you

  Hopping through the forest

  Scooping up the field mice

  And banging them on the head.’”

  As Ralph sat trembling in his corner, he listened and was puzzled. Garf, with obvious pleasure, was singing the same words the campers were singing in the dining hall, but the tune was different. When their voices went up, Garf’s went down. When their voices went down, Garf’s went up. Sometimes his voice did neither, but wavered someplace in the middle.

  Ralph was bitterly disappointed by the whole turn of events. Garf was not interested in speed and motorcycles. He was interested in singing and in banging field mice on the head.

  The hot summer days droned on. Ralph was supplied with more food than he could possibly eat, and his exercise wheel kept him in trim. Whenever Catso sneaked into the craft shop and showed an interest in Ralph’s cage, someone snatched him and shoved him out the door.

  Life was safe, comfortable, and not unpleasant. From his cage near the window, Ralph had a good view of the camp. To the left through the bamboo he could see the boys’ lodges. To the right were the girls’ lodges. Before him lay the dining hall, the camp office, a trampoline, a swimming pool, and a circle of benches and old school desks in front of a platform that held a piano. Off to the right beyond the shade of the walnut trees, a pasture shimmered in the summer heat. Counselors, who were college students like the summer help at the Mountain View Inn, led the activities of the campers, and one counselor lived in each lodge with eight or ten campers.

  Ralph always found something interesting to watch—campers spreading their sleeping bags out in the sun to air, counselors leading singing and directing skits around the campfire in the evening, boys racing to be first in line when the bell was rung to announce meals, boys and girls in cowboy boots or English riding boots going off toward the barn for riding lessons.

  Boys and girls played and kittens romped under the walnut trees. Catso discovered a small hole in the craft shop’s rusty screen door, which he explored with a paw as if it were a mousehole, but faithful old Sam always arrived to tell him to move on.

  Never once did Garf forget to care for Ralph, and when he was not singing in his strange voice, he sometimes spoke. “Hi, little fellow,” he woul
d say, as he quickly detached the water bottle from the cage and refilled it at the sink. He even offered Ralph a sunflower seed with his fingers.

  Ralph was so lonely he was tempted to accept the seed for the sake of companionship. Then he remembered the song about mice getting banged on the head and retreated to the corner of his cage.

  One afternoon, when Ralph was particularly lonely, he decided that a boy who fed a mouse three times a day could not be so bad after all, and that the next time a sunflower seed was offered, he would venture out and accept it from the boy’s fingers.

  However, when Garf finally came, he began to sing again. This time the song was different from the one the campers were singing over in the dining hall. It provoked Ralph’s curiosity, because he had heard others sing it but had been unable to catch the words. The campers never sang this song when Aunt Jill was around, which made Ralph even more curious about the words. He was under the impression that they were not fit for grown-up ears, which of course made the song all the more interesting.

  Garf sang and Ralph listened.

  “Great green gobs of greasy

  grimy gopher guts,

  Stimulated monkey feet,

  Chopped-up baby parakeet—”

  That was enough for Ralph! In his haste to hide he bumped into the spout of his water bottle and flooded one side of his cage. He found refuge behind a lettuce leaf, where he sat trembling with nerves and fright while he refused to listen to another word of that fearsome song. Why, the next line might be about mice! Ralph stayed hidden behind the leaf for a long, long time. He was now certain that there was no hope of ever communicating with Garf. Chopped-up baby parakeet! Garf actually relished the dreadful words.