Ralph S. Mouse - Beverly Cleary [10]
Ralph intended to rest there while he plotted to get his motorcycle away from Ryan, but his full meal made him drowsy, and instead he fell asleep. Awaking to the sound of school buses, he ran back to Room 5 just in time as his former friend was hanging up his parka.
Ralph ran up the leg of Ryan’s jeans and onto his shirt. “You gimme my motorcycle,” he demanded, trying to sound fierce.
Ryan quickly faced the corner so no one could see Ralph. “Be quiet. You’re not supposed to be here,” he whispered. “Like I said, I’ll give it to you after you run the maze.”
“Who says I’m going to run it?” Ralph was sullen about this whole affair.
“I do.” Ryan tried to speak without moving his lips. “If you want your motorcycle back.”
“Where is it?” Ralph wanted to know.
“Right here.” Ryan removed the motorcycle from his parka and placed it in one of his shirt pockets. “Now go back to your boot.”
“Don’t call it my boot,” said Ralph. “It’s dusty and smelly.”
“Will you be quiet if I let you stay in my pocket?”
“Sure.” A shirt was warm and soft and had a good view of the classroom if a hole was nipped in the pocket.
As he dropped Ralph into his pocket, Ryan said, “And another thing. Don’t chew any more holes in my pockets. Mom didn’t like it when she saw holes in the new shirt I wore yesterday.”
We’ll see about that, thought Ralph, determined not to let the lub-dub of Ryan’s heart lull him to sleep again until he figured out how to get that motorcycle back. For a better view of Room 5, he bit a careful peephole—one thread down and one thread across—in Ryan’s pocket.
Ralph watched with puzzled interest while the class worked with numbers and words. Late in the morning the children formed a double line, something Ralph had never before witnessed, and walked quietly to the library, where they selected books to read. Why can’t mice behave like that? Ralph wondered.
When Ryan had found the book he wanted, he took the little red motorcycle out of his pocket and amused himself by running it back and forth across a table while softly going, “Pb-b-b-.” The sound was enough to break a mouse’s heart.
The most interesting part of the day turned out to be late in the afternoon when the class worked on their projects for what the children called the Great Mouse Exhibit. Miss K read a poem that Ralph found difficult to understand, something about a “wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie” while the class worked with crayons and paper. Ralph saw strange pictures of himself beginning to emerge. They were making him look very big except for one boy who drew a cat that filled up the whole paper and then added a tiny mouse down in one corner.
Other boys and girls bent over their paper, writing, pausing to gnaw their pencils, writing again. Others behaved strangely, nodding their heads, tapping their pencils, and softly chanting ta-dum, ta-dum, ta-dum or ta-ta-dum, ta-ta-dum. The noises sounded something like an Indian war dance in an old movie on TV, thought Ralph, puzzled.
Ryan and Brad worked with glue and some old cartons on a table at the back of the room. They moved around so much and Ralph’s peephole was so small he could not get a very clear idea of what they were building. Apparently they did not have a very clear idea themselves, for they argued about the way to make the partitions of the maze stand up, about the height of the partitions (“We don’t want him to be able to see over them, even if he stands on his hind legs”), and the length and number of the blind alleys. Mostly they argued about the difficulty of the maze.
“Let’s make it really hard,” said Brad.
Ralph decided he did not like Brad with his tousled hair, grubby T-shirt, and unfriendly ways.
“Not too hard,” said Ryan.
“Aw, come on,” said Brad. “Making tunnels and trapdoors would be fun.”
“Real mazes aren’t like that, and it wouldn’t be fair,” protested Ryan. “He’s just a little mouse. Besides, we haven’t figured out how to make the partitions stand up.”
“You’re scared he can’t do it,” said Brad.
“Of course, he