Ralph S. Mouse - Beverly Cleary [12]
Probably all mothers found something to fuss about, Ralph decided, even though his own mother was a poor housekeeper. He wished Melissa were fussier as he retired to the dark and dirty tunnel of her left boot. He missed the lulling lub-dub but found staying awake in class and paying attention to Miss K much easier. The next day someone dropped a woolly mitten, and it made a restful change from the boot.
Thursday afternoon Miss K said, “Ryan, don’t forget to bring our guest of honor tomorrow.”
“I won’t forget,” promised Ryan, as if he did not know Ralph was lurking at the back of the room.
The next morning, after his usual night of enjoying all that the school had to offer a lonely mouse, Ralph stayed awake to groom himself because he wanted to look his best when he was the honored guest. The members of Room 5 also wanted to look their best for their picture in the newspaper, and they came to school looking neater than usual. Even Brad was wearing a clean T-shirt. Ryan brought the finished maze to school and placed it on the table at the back of the room far above Ralph’s head.
Drat, thought Ralph, and he ran up Ryan’s leg in hopes of a glimpse of the test that lay ahead. Ryan quickly popped Ralph into his pocket before he had a chance to look.
Just before the last period, when the Great Mouse Exhibit was about to take place, Ryan pulled Ralph out and took him to Miss K. “Welcome, Ralph,” she said. To Ryan, she said, “Put our little guest of honor in the fishbowl on my desk. Then everyone can see him.”
To Ralph’s horror, he found himself placed in a slippery glass bowl. Frantically he scrabbled about, trying to find a way out. When he found there was no way to escape and no place to hide, he sat quaking with indignation, a wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, just as the poem said.
As the bell for the last period rang, the guests arrived. They were Mr. Tanner, the principal; Mrs. Seeger, the librarian; Mr. Costa, the custodian; and Room 5’s room mother, who brought twenty-six little bags of popcorn for a treat. The Great Mouse Exhibit was about to begin.
“Where’re the reporter and photographer?” someone asked.
“I’m sure they’ll be along soon,” answered Miss K, and she welcomed the visitors. Then she introduced the guest of honor, who turned his back and tried to become invisible. She pointed out all the pictures of Ralph above the blackboard. As if I looked like those, thought Ralph with a sneer.
Then Miss K said some members of the class had stories and poems about mice they wanted to share with their guests. She called on Brad, who slouched to the front of the room, announced that he wasn’t much good at poems, and that his poem was sort of dumb. He read:
“Ralph is a mouse.
He’s stupid, he’s dumb.
He’s as bad as a louse.
He belongs in a slum.”
With a triumphant look at Ryan, Brad slouched back to his seat.
“Thank you, Brad,” said Miss K, who seemed uncertain as to an appropriate comment. “That was—very amusing.”
Ralph thought of several impolite things she could have said as he walked nervously around his prison, wondering how much longer before he would have to run that maze. He sniffed to test his sense of smell. Enclosed in glass, all he could smell was himself.
A girl named Janet was next. “My poem is a limerick,” she told the audience and read:
“A mouse once came to our school
And quickly broke every rule.
He got stuck in our paste
For he liked its good taste,
So he said, ‘I’ll just sit here and drool.’”
The audience laughed, and Janet, flushed with pleasure at her success, returned to her seat.
That’s a lie. I didn’t go near Room 5’s paste, thought Ralph, as he trotted nervously around the fishbowl to make sure his legs worked.
Gordon, the boy who did not like to write stories and poems, was next, but before he could begin his essay, the door opened and a young woman entered, followed by a man hung with cameras. “Sorry to be so late. We had to cover a big story about a truckload of