The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary [23]
Ralph scurried across the carpet of Room 215, flattened himself, and squeezed under the door. Once out in the hall, his courage ebbed. The aspirin tablet seemed a very small thing to find in such a vast place. It would be much easier to find the motorcycle. No, thought Ralph, I must not even think about the motorcycle.
Ralph began to feel pretty small himself, much smaller than he had felt during his show of bravery back in the mouse nest. Down in the lobby a clock struck one. There was not a moment to lose. He ran to the next room, squeezed under the door, and searched under the beds and the dresser while the two guests slept soundly. All he found was a bobby pin.
He skipped Room 211 because his enemy, the little terrier, was still there, and ran on to Room 209. A hurried search, frightening because of the loud and uneven snores that came from one of the beds, revealed nothing but a few pretzel crumbs, which Ralph did not have time to eat.
On and on ran Ralph, down the hall, under doors, around under beds and dressers. There was not a single aspirin tablet to be found. In one of the rooms he did see a penny that had rolled under a luggage rack and remembered his mother’s wish to leave a tip for room service, but tonight he had no time for pennies. He must press on and find an aspirin.
A small doubt began to creep into Ralph’s thoughts as he ran down the hall to the last room on the second floor. Maybe there was no aspirin. Maybe he was risking his life and the lives of his family for nothing. But Ralph pushed the thought aside. He would not let himself become discouraged. If there was no aspirin on the second floor, there had to be one someplace on the ground floor. Tonight he was willing to brave the stairs to find it. He flattened himself and squeezed under the last door on the second floor. There was nothing under either of the beds but the things Keith called dust mice. There was no sound but the rattle of the windows in the wind.
Ralph started across the carpet toward the dresser when suddenly a light from the bedside table blinded him. He stopped, rooted to the carpet by fear, even though it was not likely that anyone was going to cut off his tail with a carving knife.
He heard someone slip out of bed and utter a sound halfway between a squeal and a scream. Before Ralph knew what was happening, an ordinary drinking glass had been clapped down over him, and there he stood in a glass trap.
By then his eyes were adjusted to the light and he found himself facing a pair of bare feet. Looking up, he saw that the feet belonged to a young woman in a pink nightgown.
“Mary Lou, wake up,” she whispered to the young woman in the other bed. “Look what I’ve caught.”
“Huh?” said Mary Lou, blinking and raising up on one elbow. Her hair was done up on pink rollers. “Betty, are you out of your mind? It must be past one o’clock in the morning.”
The night was slipping by much too quickly for the trapped mouse. He was terrified and he was desperate. No one in his family had ever been trapped under a drinking glass before. Worst of all, he was failing Keith and endangering his family.
“Wake up, Mary Lou, and look,” insisted Betty. “I was getting up to stop the rattle in the window and caught a mouse!”
This news roused Mary Lou from bed, and the two young women knelt on the carpet to look at Ralph, who promptly turned his back. He did not care to be stared at in his misery, but it was no use. The women moved around to the other side of the glass.
“Isn’t he darling?” said Betty.
“Just look at his cunning little paws.” Mary Lou leaned closer for a better look.
“And his little ears. Aren’t they sweet?” Betty was delighted.
It was disgusting. It was bad enough to be trapped and stared at, but to have this pair carrying on in such a gushy fashion was almost more than Ralph could stomach. Cunning little paws indeed! They were strong paws, paws for grasping