Runaway Ralph - Beverly Cleary [10]
Better a net than a paw, thought Ralph philosophically, because he felt that where there was a boy, there was hope. Boys liked mice.
“A mouse!” exclaimed the woman. “You caught a mouse in a butterfly net?”
“Yes,” answered the boy, “and I’m going to keep him.”
Where? wondered Ralph. In his pocket? He hoped so. A boy’s pocket was apt to be warm and dark and full of crumbs. The cat, cheated of his prey, stalked off with his tail in the air, trying to pretend in a most dignified manner that he did not want a mouse anyway.
“Good,” said the woman enthusiastically, surprising Ralph. All the women he had known—the housekeeper, maids, and guests of the hotel—referred to mice as nasty creatures or pesky rodents and from Ralph’s point of view spent their time trying to outwit perfectly harmless little animals. “We can find a place for him in our nature corner,” suggested the woman, who Ralph decided must be the Aunt Jill Sam had mentioned. “Come on into the craft shop. I’m sure we have an old cage somewhere.”
Ralph was disappointed. He had looked forward to a dark and crumby pocket. At the same time he was anxious. If he was to be trapped in a cage, how could he get back to his motorcycle?
The screen door creaked as it was opened, and Ralph found himself looking through the net at a room with long worktables and walls lined with shelves full of boxes, jars, and odds and ends. Seated on a bench were three girls, who were busy braiding with long thin strips of colored plastic. They appeared to ignore the boy until the woman rummaged around on the shelves and produced a small wire cage with an exercise wheel inside and a bottle for water fastened at one end. Suddenly the girls were interested.
“What’s the cage for, Aunt Jill?” asked one of them, as all three jumped up from the bench.
“Garf caught a mouse in his butterfly net,” explained Aunt Jill. “He wants to keep it.”
“In a butterfly net!” The girls found this feat funny. “Let me see! Let me see!” they begged.
Ralph found himself being poked out of the net and into the cage. The door was closed behind him and fastened. He scurried behind the exercise wheel, where he sat trembling, partly from fright and partly from relief at being safe from the cat.
“Isn’t he a darling?” cried the girls, their faces large and close to the cage bars. “Isn’t he sweet? Those teeny-tiny ears. Look at those itsy-bitsy paws!”
Ralph looked for help toward the boy, who had stepped aside and now stood scowling beside the screen door.
“Aunt Jill, can we feed the mouse?” begged the girls. “Please, let us feed him.”
Ralph turned his back and curled up into the smallest possible ball.
“The mouse belongs to Garfield,” said Aunt Jill. “He gets to feed his own mouse.”
“Skip it.”
Ralph thought Garf sounded angry. He heard the boy’s footsteps leave the craft shop and the screen door screech and slam as it opened and closed.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked one of the girls, who sounded as if she did not really care.
“Girls, do you know what I think we should do?” asked Aunt Jill. “I think we should all help Garfield enjoy camp. This is his first time away from home, and he doesn’t know anyone here. I think he’s lonely.”
“But he’s mean,” protested the girl with the sunburned nose. “He just stays off by himself.”
“There’s nothing mean about that,” Aunt Jill pointed out.
“I know….” admitted the girl. “But he…oh, I don’t know. Anyway, Garf is a funny name.”
“Maybe he doesn’t think so,” said Aunt Jill.
Ralph could feel one of the girls trying to poke her finger through the bars of his cage.
“At meals he won’t talk or sing,” she said, jabbing Ralph with a stick. “He just eats and then he gets up and walks out.”
Ralph tried to draw himself into a tighter ball.
“See, he’s outside just standing there,” said another girl. “He practically never talks to anybody.”
Aunt Jill lifted Ralph’s cage up onto a shelf in the corner near a window. “Catching a mouse in a butterfly net is certainly doing something,” she remarked. “I think Garf should take