Runaway Ralph - Beverly Cleary [1]
Pb-pb-b-b-b! Ralph rode across the lobby and into the hall. Up and down the hall zoomed Ralph, and the joy of speed made up for the long hours of hiding in dusty corners waiting for night to come.
Up and down the hall rode Ralph until he was too tired to take another big breath. Then he parked his motorcycle in a shadowy corner, hung his crash helmet on the handlebars, and flattening himself, slipped under a door into his favorite room in the inn. It was a stuffy room, never very light even in daytime, and locked when the last person left it at night. It was furnished with small tables and a row of high stools. The room was Ralph’s favorite because he always could find peanuts on the floor, sometimes popcorn, and once in a great while a stuffed olive. Tonight he gobbled his fill of peanuts, wishing he had a little grape jelly to go with them, and managed, in spite of being somewhat fatter than when he had entered, to squeeze out again.
Pb-pb-b-b-b. Daredevil Ralph rode perilously close to the dangling hand of the night clerk sleeping on the couch before he tore the length of the hall. Ralph was exhilarated by speed, danger, and his own daring. Pb-pb-b-b-b! Back to the lobby!
As Ralph paused to take another deep breath his sharp ears caught the approaching squeaks of his little brothers and sisters and cousins, who rarely ventured into the lobby because they were afraid of the stuffed deer heads on the walls and the stuffed owl on the mantelpiece of the stone fireplace. “Drat!” swore Ralph softly to himself. Ralph was in the process of taking a deep breath, so he could make a fast getaway, when his mother and Uncle Lester scurried from under a chair in front of him. Ralph’s deep breath came out in a poof, and his motorcycle stopped.
“Ralph,” said Uncle Lester, “it is time we had a talk.”
Ralph did not answer. He did not want to talk. Neither did he want to listen, but he knew that he could not avoid his uncle’s lecture. He only hoped it would end before the little mice managed to get down the stairs.
“You can’t go on living like this,” said Uncle Lester, “running around the lobby, watching television all day, and tearing around on that motorcycle all night.”
“Yes,” agreed Ralph’s mother, a most fearful mouse whose whiskers trembled constantly with fright. She was afraid of people, vacuum cleaners, owls, cats, traps, and poisoned grain. She quivered at the slightest sound.
Ralph stared at the carpet.
“Look at you,” said Uncle Lester. “Lint all over your whiskers.”
Ralph brushed at his whiskers with one paw.
“And you’re getting fat from eating peanuts you pick up in that—that place,” continued Uncle Lester. “A bar is no place for a young mouse.”
“You will fall in with evil companions,” said his mother. “They will lead you into trouble.”
“Nobody can lead me anyplace,” said Ralph, “because I can go faster on my bike.”
By now the little brothers and sisters and cousins had gathered to listen, wide-eyed with interest and pleasure.
One cousin, braver than the rest, said, “He thinks he’s big, calling a motorcycle a bike.”
“Ralph, you are sure to break your neck if you keep on riding that thing,” said his mother.
“You said I could ride it,” said Ralph sullenly. “You said I could if I wore my crash helmet and kept both paws on the handle grips.”
“I know,” admitted his mother with a sigh. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking of.”
The grandfather clock began to grind and groan. All of Ralph’s family was alert, and when the clock began to strike they disappeared under chairs and behind draperies—all except Uncle