Runaway Ralph - Beverly Cleary [26]
8
Ralph Strikes a Bargain
Lana was the one who discovered that Ralph was missing. The morning after Ralph’s escape she came running ahead of Aunt Jill to the craft shop. She stopped short when she looked through the screen door and saw the litter of nails, seeds, and plastic strewn about the worktable and on the floor.
“Aunt Jill! Aunt Jill!” she shrieked, even though Aunt Jill was directly behind her. “Burglars have been here, and somebody stole Garf’s mouse!”
Ralph crouched out of sight behind a fluff of dust in the angle where the brace joined the studding. He heard campers coming.
“Garf! Garf!” called Lana. “Your mouse is gone! Somebody stole your mouse!”
“Hey, look at the mess!” said Pete.
“The mouse cage is all bent,” observed Garf. “A thief wouldn’t have to bend the cage to open it.”
“First a watch, now a mouse,” said another camper.
“A thief in our midst!” cried Lana, eager for excitement and mystery.
“All right, boys and girls, let’s pick up the nails and seeds and roll up the plastic.” Aunt Jill’s voice was calm. This crisis was not the first she had met at Happy Acres, nor would it be the last.
Then Ralph heard Garf’s voice saying, “Look at that hole in the screen door. It’s big enough for a cat to squeeze through.”
Good thinking, Garf, said Ralph to himself. He had picked up this phrase from the many schoolteachers who had stayed at the Mountain View Inn while on their summer vacations.
“I’ll bet Catso got my mouse,” said Garf, adding sadly, “and he was such a good mouse, too.”
Ralph could not help being pleased by this compliment, and a little sad, too. Of course, he was a good mouse. He had known that fact all along, but hearing himself spoken of in the past made him feel that the world would have been a sadder place without him.
“Garf, you’re a good detective,” said Aunt Jill. “Catso must be the guilty one.”
“Aunt Jill, you don’t think Catso—ate the mouse, do you?” Lana was awed by the enormity of such a crime.
“I hope not, for Garf’s sake,” said Aunt Jill.
What about my sake? thought Ralph indignantly.
“We’d better look around,” said Aunt Jill. “Perhaps the mouse is hiding someplace.”
Instantly a mouse hunt was organized. Butterfly nets were seized, jars and boxes moved, craft materials lifted.
“Here, mousie, mousie,” called Lana. “Here mousie, mousie.”
As if I would come running, thought Ralph, huddled behind a dusty cobweb in the dark shadows.
“I guess he’s gone,” said Garf at last. “The first and probably the last mouse I’ll ever have.”
“Garf, I’m putting you in charge of repairing the hole,” said Aunt Jill. “Get a piece of screen and some wire from Uncle Steve, and we’ll make sure Catso won’t come in here again. We wouldn’t want him to annoy Chum.”
At that point the fur along Ralph’s spine began to tingle.
“There’s Catso now!” cried Lana. Ralph felt the slam of the screen door jar the building as Lana ran out. “Bad cat, Catso! Bad cat!” he heard her shout. The scolding did Ralph’s heart good.
Later that morning after his riding lesson, Garf returned with a piece of screen and some wire to repair the hole. His work was frequently interrupted as campers left the craft shop and drifted off to other activities. When Aunt Jill left, Ralph came down from his hiding place in a series of leaps. Through the screen door he watched Garf sitting on the step weaving the wire patch to the screen with a piece of thin wire, before he said, “Say, Garf, about my motorcycle—”
Startled, Garf looked up from his work. “You’re alive!” His obvious pleasure was most gratifying to Ralph. “I thought Catso got you.”
“How come you believed Catso got me when you wouldn’t believe Catso stole the watch?” demanded Ralph. “I can run and jump, you know, and a watch can’t.”
“It just isn’t logical for a cat to steal a watch,” Garf insisted.
“If I show you where the