Young Fredle - Louise Yates [13]
Fredle almost didn’t dare to lift his nose up and through the hole, and when he did he was sorry he had. Everything was different. Everything had changed. Everything was ruined. All the stalks were lying flat, cut off, never to stand upright again, and the air was filled with their scent. Fredle drew back to his place, and did not know. All he could think was, it couldn’t be good.
Because he was watching so warily, he saw the shadow moving across the openings. Once again, fear conquered him. He froze in watchful terror as the shadow filled up one opening and then thrust itself in.
“I bet you’re glad to see me,” it said, in a voice that was almost familiar.
It was a mouse.
5
Bardo
Fredle’s legs gave way beneath him and he sank down onto the soft floor.
“You’re frightened,” the other mouse remarked, amused, and that irritated Fredle, so he stood up, tail high. “Wouldn’t you be?”
“Not if I was you,” the mouse said. “If I was a fat, strong house mouse like you? I wouldn’t be afraid of anything. Especially not of me.”
Now that Fredle had calmed down a little, he noticed that this was the scrawniest mouse he’d ever seen, and that the little brown fellow had an orange peel under his front paws. Fredle relaxed. “Are you the one who’s been bringing me food?”
“I sure am. You house mice don’t know anything about finding food, so I’m helping you out, since winter’s over and starvation isn’t a problem for the rest of us.”
“Then thanks,” Fredle said. “Except for that I just had those stalks for—”
“Stalks?”
“The ones just outside the wall. The wall you came through.”
“That’s a lattice, not a wall.”
“Oh. A lattice. OK,” Fredle said. “Just past the lattice, then, there used to be stalks but now they’ve all been cut down and—”
“Grass,” said the little mouse. “It’s grass. You have to be pretty desperate to eat grass.”
“I was sick.”
“You know? I’ve seen dogs do that. Eat grass. And I’ve heard it said—but everybody says it’s one of those old stories, you know—that when dogs eat grass something’s wrong with them.”
“I think it made me feel better,” Fredle said.
“Name’s Bardo,” said the other mouse. “What’s your handle?”
“Handle?”
“What you go by? What they call you and you answer? Your name.”
“Oh. Fredle.”
This was a strange encounter and Fredle felt that he didn’t understand what was going on. All he could do about it, however, was learn new words. “What’s winter?” he asked.
“Winter’s cold, there’s snow covering the ground. It’s almost impossible to forage in winter, besides the usual dangers like the cats, or some raptor.”
“Raptor? What’s a raptor?”
“A bird of prey,” Bardo answered, with a long, patient sigh. “You know, owls or hawks, eagles. You know what a bird is?”
Fredle didn’t say anything.
Bardo sighed again. “Birds.” He thought. “Birds are covered in feathers—but you probably don’t know what a feather is.”
Fredle didn’t.
“Feathers,” Bardo said. “Feathers cover birds, like our fur covers us. It’s like if we had blades of grass all over our bodies.”
That sounded impossible to Fredle, but he didn’t say so.
Bardo went back to take a quick look out through the lattice wall. Peering out, he said, “Birds have two legs, like the humans, but they don’t just go along the ground. They mostly go up into the air.”
“They jump?” Bardo was shaking his head as he turned around to come back to where Fredle stood.
“No, birds have wings, long, flat, broad things, one going out at each—I’ll show you, there’s always some crow around, a crow’s your typical bird. The point is that birds fly through the air, which means they can come at you out of the air, down from the sky. The raptors have long talons for catching mice.” He turned