Young Fredle - Louise Yates [19]
And then, after he had answers to all those questions, he might give Bardo a good snap on the snoot, just to let that faithless field mouse know what he thought of him.
Fredle ate until he was full and then he began the journey back, back past the garden fence and across the strip of uneven dirt, with its ruts to slip down and high ridges to scramble over, back at a run across the cut grass to take shelter and catch his breath behind the garbage cans, back to the first lattice wall and then, this time at a slow creeping pace, all around the steps until—at last—he scrambled through his own lattice wall to the safety of his own little nest. The soft lining of grass that he had put into it welcomed him and he curled up in its comfort. Loneliness was all around him, like the air, but he ignored it as best he could and dropped off into an uneasy sleep.
Fredle was awake. His heart beating fast. It was dark and he didn’t know what had jerked him up out of sleep. Then he heard it. What was that?
He lay still and listened. It sounded almost as if hundreds of mice were running back and forth just beyond the lattice wall.
Because it didn’t sound exactly like mice, he lay for a long time, listening.
All the little noises, each separate but also all mixing together—were ants attacking the house? Did ants know a way inside? That question got Fredle out of his nest and over to one of the openings in the lattice.
He looked out into a black darkness through which silver things were falling, falling down through the air, maybe in long lines, maybe just little silver speckles—Fredle couldn’t see them clearly enough to know for sure. What had Bardo said? Looks like rain. Bardo had said that when he looked at the gray air, and Fredle thought that these falling things might be rain, falling out of the sky, making little sounds when they hit the ground. Bardo hadn’t said rain was dangerous, so Fredle stuck his head out through the lattice.
Wet! It was wet and—he stuck his tongue out and then drew it quickly back into his mouth, tasting—it was water, just like the water on the stalks of grass, just like the drops of water on the pipes under the sink.
Fredle was thirsty, so he spent a while with his head stuck out through an opening, using his tongue to catch the water. Then he pulled his wet head back inside. He was cold now; his ears, especially, felt wet and cold. Inside, at home in his own family nest, Fredle had never been cold. Sometimes, out in the kitchen in the dead of night, he had felt a little chilly, but as soon as he got back behind the pantry wall it was warm, and by the time he scrambled into the nest and curled up next to his brothers and sisters, he couldn’t even remember what chilly felt like. Here, outside, it was different. The cold started with his ears and then spread to his paws and his tail, even though they weren’t wet. Here, the dirt under his paws grew damp and chilly. Moreover, now that he had reminded himself of home, there was a coldness inside of him, too, growing larger, as if it planned to meet up with the coldness outside and turn Fredle into a total misery.
Just what had Bardo been up to, bringing him food but then leaving him out on the compost?
Fredle was alone outside, alone and cold, alone and frightened, alone and hungry. There was nothing he could do about it, he realized, and that realization was colder than even the night rain, more frightening even than went. So frightening—
Fredle ran away from it. He didn’t think, he couldn’t think, his feet just moved as fast as they could, as if he could run away from his own ideas. He ran across to the hard back wall and scraped his nose all along it, searching for an opening. There had to be an opening. He’d make one, with his claws. He scratched and scratched against the hard surface, but after a while his paws started to hurt and he hadn’t made any progress at all, and he knew he never would. So he ran, again. He ran until he hit a wooden wall and then he ran back along the lattice, hoping to find