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By Root 200 0

to sleep in the best protection he could find when he was tired, he enjoyed all the scents of the field and stream, the calls of the birds and the humming of insects, the blue or gray of the sky, the green of the grass, and even the blackness of crows. At night, although he could not enjoy the screeching of raptors or the cries of their victims, he could see the stars and moons. The night a full moon shone in the sky, Fredle stayed still for a long time, watching, while the silvered stream whispered beside him. Had he been lucky? Or had he been brave? Or only clever? A little of all three, he decided, staring at the flat white circle whose light made darker shadows than the sun ever did. Fredle wondered if there really was only one moon—but how could it change itself? That would be as if Fredle could shrink from a whole mouse to, for example, half a mouse and then just a mouse tail, and then could grow back to being his entire self again and after that—strangest of all—diminish again.

But was that any more improbable than several different moons appearing only one at a time? Fredle watched and wondered.

Although it was the more dangerous time for a mouse out in the wild, Fredle preferred traveling by night, with the stars so beautiful overhead and the shadows all around so mysterious. He was the most anxious and afraid traveling by night, but also the most awake.

He trudged on and on. He grew tired of the taste of ramps, and of the bitter green watercress leaves, too. He wondered if there were other wild plants a mouse might eat, but didn’t want to risk trying what others hadn’t assured him was safe. Others were not always right and they were not always wrong; they didn’t always know what was true and they didn’t always tell the truth. But Fredle had come to prefer first listening to what others had to say and then deciding for himself. He would, he thought, be an easier mouse to get along with when he got back home.

One afternoon, he knew. He breathed in, and knew. He had been scrambling along the side of the stream, listening to the contented watery gurgling beside him, the sharp cries of crows, and then, unexpectedly, unquestioningly, he knew.

Home was off this way. He could hear nothing familiar, could see nothing familiar, but he knew. He turned in this direction, entering a field. These tall stalks were not grass. They were higher and narrower and not as green as grass. He didn’t know what they were, but they were the way home.

It was a good thing he was sure of his direction, because with the dense stalks waving over his head as well as slowing his progress, he had no way to see what lay ahead. The day wore on and Fredle was both thirsty and hungry, but he did not stop. There was, after all, nothing to drink and nothing to eat there in that field.

He came to its end and peered ahead, and recognized the dark gray mass of the barn up ahead. A wide, muddy patch of ground with fence poles along it lay between him and the barn, but that didn’t bother him because he knew now exactly where he was. He skirted the fence, sticking close to whatever cover he could find, dashing from post to post and then scurrying in close to the wall of what he knew must be the woodshed.

Now he could begin to worry about those barn cats, and he did. Ahead of him lay the wide, grassy distance between woodshed and garden that he would have to cross in order to make his way back to the garbage cans, and the way in. The barn cats patrolled that area. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t be patrolling it now. If he was unlucky …

Cautiously, Fredle rounded the corner by the open front of the woodshed. There he hesitated, trying to see in late-afternoon shadows if there were cats on the prowl. He saw nothing. He heard nothing from the woodshed mice. One of the roaring machines roared into the barn and then fell abruptly silent. Fredle knew from experience that at the approach of one of those machines all creatures, even the dogs, retreated to shelter. So he judged that it was safe—or at least safe enough—to make a move. He took two small steps