Ralph S. Mouse - Beverly Cleary [9]
Ryan tried to speak without moving his lips. “And have you riding all over school? Not a chance. You’d get lost or get into trouble or someone would see you.”
“It’s my motorcycle,” squeaked Ralph at the top of his lungs. “You give it to me. Now.”
Ryan was last to leave the room. “We’ll see about that,” he said, as he bent over to speak to Ralph, “after you run the maze on Friday.” With that ultimatum, he snatched his backpack off the hook and hurried away to catch the bus that would take him back up the mountain to the hotel.
Ralph was so angry he sank his teeth into Melissa’s boot. Ugh. It had a nasty taste—half rubber, half dust. And he had thought Ryan was his friend. Not anymore. He was mean, he wasn’t fair….
Ralph felt terrible, but he was not going to run that maze in front of Room 5. Ryan couldn’t make him. Maybe he would even hide and refuse to be guest of honor. Ryan would learn not to try to order him around then.
Ralph sat in Melissa’s boot and sulked. Without his motorcycle, he felt mad at the whole world. Of course, he was a smart mouse. Why should he have to prove it? Ralph felt as if nothing was fair and nobody loved him.
4
Life at School
Dusk began to fall in Room 5, making the inside of Melissa’s boot even darker, when suddenly Ralph heard music, the lights were turned on, and a man with a transistor radio fastened to his belt came into the room and lifted chairs onto tables. He began to sweep with a wide broom while the radio poured forth sad songs about lonely highways, broken hearts, and jail.
The songs made Ralph feel gloomy as well as sulky. He began to feel sorry for himself—the long hall so perfect for motorcycle riding was dark and empty, his heart was broken over the loss of his motorcycle, and he might as well be in jail as in this old boot.
When the man swept his way to the back of the room, he unexpectedly set Melissa’s boots upright side by side, tumbling Ralph down to the foot, where he sat trembling with nerves and self-pity until his ears told him the man had replaced the chairs on the floor, turned off the lights, and left.
Because he was a mouse, Ralph found sleeping at night almost impossible. Without the grandfather clock to mark the hours, the night seemed endless. Why should I sit here in this smelly old jail of a boot when everyone is so mean to me? Ralph asked himself. And with the cruelty of the world as an excuse for breaking his promise to Ryan, he used his sharp claws to climb the boot lining. Quickly he leaped out and squeezed under the door of Room 5. Nobody was going to stop him from exploring the Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School.
After a long and wistful look at the lonely highway of the hall, Ralph found exploration more interesting and profitable than he had expected. In Room 4, he discovered strange-looking pictures spread out on the floor beneath the blackboard. They were made by gluing different kinds of seeds to heavy paper and had been left on the floor to dry. Ralph made a nutritious meal of split peas, rice, and lentils before moving on to another room where he found an open jar of library paste—delicious! Another room, furnished with long tables and benches, was near a kitchen, where Ralph chewed into a bag of sugar and enjoyed a fine dessert.
After this gourmet meal, Ralph walked rather than scampered down the hall, that perfect place for riding his motorcycle if Ryan had not been so mean, to a room with a carpet and bookshelves about the walls.
A boring place for a mouse, Ralph decided, until he discovered something interesting on a bottom shelf behind a big desk. It turned out to be a book inside a bag made of two layers of brown paper. A tear in the outer layer revealed something unexpected in the lining.
Ralph could not believe the treasure he had found. Between the layers of paper was ready-chewed mouse nest! Ralph pulled out some of the nest to examine its delicate texture—first quality, grade-A mouse nest. He made the hole in the bag still larger, crawled