Do you speak mouse? Well, you may want to learn after reading this tale of narrow escapes, excitement, and discovery. Joey is born an ordinary little mouse-the eighth of nine ordinary little mice-in an old barn on a dark and stormy night. Lightn
JOEY the MOTOR HOME MOUSE
By Jack E. TetirickiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Jack E. Tetirick
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4759-3703-9Contents
Foreword: Instructions for the Use of This Book.............................................ixAdventure Number 1: Joey Is Born............................................................1Adventure Number 2: Joey Meets (Some of) His Extended Family................................5Adventure Number 3: Joey Is Caught by Billie Joe............................................11Adventure Number 4: Joey Goes to Disney World!..............................................19Adventure Number 5: Billie Joe's Story......................................................26Adventure Number 6: Joey Goes for a Ride in a Police Cruiser................................33Adventure Number 7: Joey Visits a Prairie Dog Town..........................................44Adventure Number 8: Miss Sara Kirby's Visit.................................................52Adventure Number 9: Joey Travels Deep into the Bob Marshall Wilderness......................60Adventure Number 10: Joey Makes Headlines in The San Francisco Examiner.....................81Adventure Number 11: Joey Travels to the End of the Earth...................................87Adventure Number 12: Joey Decides It is Time to Start a Family..............................95
Chapter One
Adventure Number 1: Joey Is Born
It was a dark and stormy night when Joey was born. Thunderclouds billowed in the blackness, and jagged streaks of lightning ignited; then the roar of thunder was heard, followed by silence—except for the swishing of windswept rain. Joey was the eighth little mouse out of a litter of nine, so you see, he very nearly missed being born at all—or at least not until the next time.
The thunder was so loud it could be heard inside the ball of paper and feathers that served as the mouse family's nest. The ball lay deep underneath a pile of loose straw that had been left, forgotten, in the corner of the barn.
The thunder actually shook the little ball with every blast, but Joey's mother only moved softly to make room for her newest baby. Little did she realize that this tiny little fellow was destined to be one of the greatest mice that ever lived: widely traveled, well educated, and as famous as any mouse could ever hope to be ... but that is information for further on in the story. For right now, he was just a little mouse, hungry and frightened. He didn't know it, but he was very happy that he didn't have to be famous or brave yet; all he had to do was wriggle in among his brothers and sisters to keep warm and to get something to eat. Which he did.
The storm raged on; the huge bolts of lightning raced across the sky and were quickly swallowed by huge claps of thunder. The rain continued in wavering sheets, smashing against the aged wood of the old barn, spraying through tiny cracks and clattering against the rusty metal roof.
At the far end of the barn, old Buck, a huge golden retriever, stood up and shook himself thoroughly. All of the noise irritated him. It was tough to be on guard duty with all of that noise! Anything could be going on! He shook again briefly and lay back down, but he kept an eye open, watching the flashes of lightning through the cracks in the sagging doors.
In the manger to the side, a feed trough was filled with stale hay, ignored now that there were no horses. In it was a much larger nest, one that would have filled a market basket—and it was filled with cats! Even in the very dim light, there peered five pairs of softly glowing orange-yellow eyes.
This was Billie Joe's family: her daughter, Charlie, and her three grand-kittens, King, Fred, and Ruby.
Right now they weren't thinking about their names at all. They had missed their supper up at the farmhouse because of the rainstorm. They had had a dousing before they could scramble back to the nest, and after they crawled in, the hay had become all damp and sticky. They were, to be blunt about it, beginning to get into a bad mood.
Fred, the middle cat in the litter of Charlie's kittens, was the most adventurous. Even when he was in a bad mood, as he now was, he was very rarely mean about it; mostly he was just ornery, as he was about to be now.
Peering down through the dimness from the food trough, Fred could barely see Buck's big tail lying on the barn floor. It was a huge tail, about the size of a baseball bat, except that it narrowed to a point at the end. Buck was very proud of his tail; he had seen it admired often and been told how beautiful it was. As a result, he waved it around a lot. Right now, though, the tail was lying quietly on the dusty floor and barely moving, except at the precious tip.
All in all, this was just too much for Fred to resist. He eased over the rough wooden edge of the food trough and coiled into a crouch. Then, in a great arching leap, he stretched across the gloom, landing squarely on the tail, giving it a quick nip and two lightning-fast raps with the claws of his left paw (Fred is left-handed). He then darted off to the side.
"Arrough!" went Buck, loud enough to shake the barn—if it had not already been shaking from the rainstorm. Buck leaped to his feet and spun around twice in a tight circle. "Rrough!" he said again, but not quite as loud because he had just seen Fred crouched in the corner. Buck took a big breath, almost like a sigh. "Doggone it, Fred, I wish you wouldn't jump on my tail like that, particularly when there is all of this noise outside, and I'm supposed to be guarding this barn!"
"From what?" asked Fred. He was still in a bad mood.
"Well," replied Buck, slightly puzzled, "from someone stealing something!"
"In this dump?" asked Fred.
Buck nodded, angling his head down toward a long stretch in the dimness, where there gleamed a beautiful motor home. He waved his tail twice to make certain it wasn't damaged. "Someone might try to steal that," he suggested.
"No way," countered Fred. "There's no gas in it, and the battery is dead. It takes your pal a week just to get it ready, remember?"
"Just the same," argued Buck, "that's my job, and I try to do it right. And you don't help a bit when you scare me like that. What if I had snapped at you and hurt you?"
"You're too slow, Buck," said Fred in a matter-of-fact tone. "You're big and you're tough, but where cats are concerned, you're too slow."
Fred's curiosity, like that of all cats, was easily aroused. So now he was interested in the monstrous machine, so silent in the dim light. He started to move down along it, placing each foot where the last one had landed to avoid raising the dust as much as was possible. Soon, he walked right past the mound of hay where the family of mice was wrapped tightly in its ball of feathers and soft fur.
In there, Joey was very, very young. Fred had not the slightest idea that, in the neglected pile of old straw, was his future best friend, a mouse who would later become a very famous mouse. In mouse time, which is how this story will be told, Joey was, at that moment, very close to zero.
Chapter Two
Adventure Number 2: Joey Meets (Some of) His Extended Family
It was a warm spring day when Joey began to learn about his larger family—cats, dogs, people, that sort of thing. His first encounter came very close to being a bad experience because it was still early in his mouse time, and he had not learned to always be very careful, especially in broad daylight.
Joey was working his way slowly along...
