The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary [20]
Ralph stuck his head out of the knothole. “Anything wrong?” he asked.
“Oh, hi,” answered Keith listlessly. “I feel sort of awful.”
“Say, that’s too bad.” Ralph ventured a little farther out of the knothole. “I know what you mean. Thinking about the motorcycle makes me feel awful, too.”
“It’s not that kind of awful,” said Keith. “I feel awful in a different way. Sort of in my insides.”
“Think you’ll make it to dinner?” asked Ralph.
“Oh, I guess so.” There was no enthusiasm in Keith’s voice. “Anything I can bring you?”
“Whatever is handy,” said Ralph, who hesitated to place an order when he could see Keith did not feel like going to dinner at all. “We are…sort of depending on you. The housekeeper found all those sheets I had to chew through to get out of the hamper, and I understand she got pretty excited about mice. We are lying low until the whole thing blows over.”
A smile flickered across Keith’s face. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you down. I saved you some peanuts. I thought they might be handy for storing.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Ralph.
Keith got slowly off the bed and poked the peanuts, one by one, through the knothole. When he had finished Ralph popped out again and said, “Thanks a lot.”
Keith smiled feebly and flopped down on the bed once more. Ralph went to work moving the peanuts away from the knothole to make room for whatever dinner Keith brought. He felt it would be fun to be surprised by the menu this time.
It was something of a shock to find that dinner, which was stuffed through the knothole much earlier than Ralph expected, consisted of a couple of broken soda crackers.
Ralph poked his head out to see if more was coming, but Keith was getting into his pajamas.
“Aren’t you going to bed pretty early?” asked Ralph, realizing he had not heard Keith’s parents come in.
“I felt so awful I couldn’t eat so they told me I had better come up and go to bed.” Keith tossed his shirt on the foot of the bed and pulled on his pajama top. When his head emerged, he said, “I’m sorry about your dinner. It was the best I could do. All I had was a little soup.”
“That’s all right.” Ralph was beginning to be concerned. If the boy could not eat, neither could the mice. Keith fell into bed and Ralph ran off to report the news to his relatives.
“What a shame,” said Ralph’s mother. “The poor boy!”
“Oh dear, whatever shall we do?” cried Aunt Dorothy. “Our very lives depend on him.” The little cousins huddled together, big-eyed and frightened.
“Yes, what about us?” asked Uncle Lester. “How are we going to manage if he doesn’t bring us our meals? It isn’t safe for us to go out pilfering when the housekeeper has declared war on mice.”
“I knew it was a mistake to depend on people,” said Aunt Sissy.
“We’ll manage somehow. We always have.” Ralph’s mother was trying to be brave, but Ralph could see how worried she was. “After all, he did bring us a supply of peanuts. We should be grateful for that.”
“He didn’t bring many peanuts.” Uncle Lester did not sound the least bit grateful. “The greedy fellow is probably ill from stuffing himself with nuts he should have saved for us. Serves him right.”
“Now Lester,” fussed Ralph’s mother. “The boy had a right to eat his own peanuts, but I do wish he hadn’t been quite so hungry.”
Ralph returned to the knothole. Keith was lying in bed with his sports car in one hand. “How do you feel now?” asked Ralph.
“Awful,” answered Keith.
Before Ralph could reply, footsteps in the hall warned him that Keith’s parents were coming. He drew back inside the knothole where he could observe without being seen. Mrs. Gridley paused by her son’s bed and laid her hand on his forehead. “He does feel a little warm,” she remarked.
“He’ll probably be all right in the morning,” said Mr. Gridley. “He just hiked too far in the sun this afternoon.”
“I hope so.” The boy’s mother sounded less certain.
Mr. Gridley filled a glass at the washbasin and brought it to Keith.