A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [89]
Cici accepted the screwdriver with an odd look. “I haven’t been in that pantry since we moved in. Are you sure that’s where you found it?”
“Okay, this is starting to get weird,” said Bridget, and Lindsay hummed spooky music under her breath.
“Maybe you accidentally tossed out the ham when you were clearing the table,” Cici suggested.
“And maybe you were sleepwalking in the pantry,” Bridget said.
They looked at one another for a moment, baffled. And so they remained, until the night of the mouse.
Cici was just snuggling into bed in her flannel pajamas, glasses perched on the end of her nose, breathing a sigh of sheer pleasure as she turned the first page of a brand-new issue of Home Remodeling and Decor magazine, when there was a tap on her bedroom door. She looked up as Bridget poked her head inside. Her eyes were big.
“I think there’s something in my room,” she said, half whispering.
Cici removed her glasses. “You think? You don’t know?” “It’s making noises,” she said urgently. “It might be a mouse. Will you come check?”
Cici said. “Me? I don’t know anything about mice.”
Lindsay’s face appeared at Bridget’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”
With a last longing look at the magazine, Cici tossed aside the covers and thrust her feet into slippers. “Bridget has a mouse.”
Lindsay grimaced and made a small eek! sound.
“I told you storing those nuts would attract rats,” Cici said as they crossed the wide hall to Bridget’s room.
There was alarm in Lindsay’s voice. “Rats? I thought you said a mouse.”
“Nuts in the barn don’t cause mice in the house,” Bridget said firmly, but she didn’t look as confident as she sounded as she eased open the door to her room.
The three women stepped inside, standing carefully away from baseboards where mice liked to run, and looked around. Bridget’s room, with its cabbage rose wallpaper and lace-trimmed counterpane, was quintessentially Bridget. There was a Queen Anne writing desk and a silk wing chair with a pie table drawn up before the fireplace. Neither one hid a mouse. There was a gorgeous rose-patterned wool rug—which once had been the centerpiece of her formal living room—anchoring a brocade chaise and a skirted lamp table. Lindsay bent to peek under the chaise, and Cici flicked aside the ruffled table skirt. No mouse appeared.
Suddenly Bridget lifted her hand. “Listen!” she whispered.
Lindsay said, “I don’t—”
And then everyone heard it. A squeaking, shuffling sound, followed by what sounded like a basketball bouncing directly overhead. All three sets of eyes turned toward the ceiling.
“That’s no mouse,” Lindsay said softly.
“It’s in the attic,” Bridget whispered.
“Could be a raccoon,” said Cici, “or a possum.”
Bridget said, “We can’t just let it stay there.”
Lindsay looked uneasy. “Why not?”
This time the sound they heard was more of a rhythmic thumping, occasionally punctuated by a crackling, crunching sound, like something trying to chew or claw its way through the ceiling. Bridget’s eyes were filled with horror. “Because I can’t sleep in here, that’s why!”
“You can sleep in my room,” Lindsay offered.
“Good. Glad that’s settled.” Cici turned to leave the room, but Bridget caught her arm as something clattered overhead, louder than any of the sounds that had occurred before.
“Cici, we can’t just ignore that!”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
Bridget scrambled in her nightstand and came up with a flashlight, which she handed to Cici. “Go up and have a look?” she pleaded.
Cici looked at her for a moment, then snatched the flashlight away. “Why do I have to do all the hard stuff?” she demanded.
“Because you’re the bravest,” Bridget said.
“And you know how to use tools,” Lindsay added.
“We’ll come with you,” Bridget added quickly, clutching Lindsay’s arm.
Cici gave the two of them a withering look. “On one condition. If it is a raccoon, we are not adopting it.”
“Promise.”
“Absolutely.”
On the way out of the room, Bridget grabbed an umbrella from the closet—“For self-defense,” she explained—and they made