Bark vs. Snark Read online

  What was so hard to understand? It was time for this guy to get in his car and drive off, preferably to somewhere far away. Wasn’t China far away? I remembered hearing that. Drive off to China! Go on! Scat!

  But this bothersome—what to call him? A former guest? That sounded right. This bothersome former guest showed no sign of driving off to China. Instead he did some rattling of the doorknob, followed by “Hey! Open up!” and then a knock-knock KNOCK-KNOCK, followed by what might have been a kick.

  “Ouch!” he said.

  Yes, a kick for sure. Finally he thought to press the little button beside the door. That made the chimes chime, a sound I’m not fond of. I drew back behind the umbrella stand.

  Footsteps sounded on the back stairs that led up to the family quarters. Bare feet, light-stepping, and sure-footed, Mom. She came into the hall, turned on a light, went to the door. The chimes chimed again.

  Mom called through the door. “Who is it?”

  “Me!” said the man.

  One of Mom’s eyes narrowed slightly. That would not be a good look on most people, but it didn’t take anything away from Mom’s beauty, only showed how supersmart she was, as well as beautiful. Was there a smarter human out there? Well, the twins’ pal Maxie Millipat was supposed to be very smart. The last time I’d seen him—at the village green on kite day—he’d gotten tangled up in his own kite, a kite shaped like a huge rat, by the way, and gotten lifted right off the ground. So my money’s still on Mom in the smart department. I actually have no money, but also don’t need it. My eyes are like glittering gold coins, as people often remarked.

  Meanwhile Mom was saying, “Do I know you? I don’t recognize your voice.”

  Then came a surprise. When the man answered, his voice had changed, turning feeble and scratchy—although my ears could still hear the real voice underneath, if you get what I mean. And if you don’t, well, too bad.

  “Norman Ware, of course,” he said. “From the … the Daffy Duck Room or whatever you call it.”

  Mom opened the door. “Why, Mr. Ware, didn’t you say you were in for the night? Otherwise I’d have given you the key.”

  “Why all these stupid rules?” said Mr. Ware, pushing past Mom and entering the hall.

  Mom closed the door and gazed at Mr. Ware, who was now on his way up the stairs. “It’s the Daffodil Room,” she said, her voice like ice. Could I somehow meow in an icy way? I looked forward to giving it a try.

  Mr. Ware did not answer, just went up the stairs and out of sight. Mom’s gaze followed him until he was gone. Then she headed into the small parlor, which led to the back stairs and the family quarters. I went the other way, through the kitchen and down the basement stairs.

  Hunting mice—well, not hunting, let’s just call it playing with my little buddies—is one of those hobbies that never gets old. For one thing, there are always new mice to meet. You may be thinking, what happens to the old ones? Perhaps I’ll have a chance to get to that a little later.

  The basement at the Blackberry Hill Inn is very big and has two parts. There’s the newer part with the furnace room, storeroom, sports equipment room, laundry room, broken-furniture room, and wine cellar with no wine in it, and there’s the old cellar, with a dirt floor, lots of cobwebs, and rusted farm equipment from long ago. Way back in one corner stands the huge old boiler, which had heated the whole house at one time, Mom said, but now just walled off a little space where mice would feel safe. They never learn, which is the most important fact to know about mice.

  I made my way around to the back of the old boiler. Everything was shadowy. Did the mice think I was just another shadow? That would be a typical micey thought, the kind of thought they would cling to until it was too late. And now came a micey smell, not so different from the smell of peanuts, but dustier and with a hint of squirrel. I moved toward the smell, so silently I couldn’t even hear myself. Hunting-type things were happening, but slowly, which was often the case at first. I heard the scritch-scritch of mouse paws up to something, followed by a faint lippy sort of sound that meant my soon-to-be mouse buddy had found something to nibble on. I glided closer, and then through the small coal chute window high in the wall, where coal had been delivered in the old days, came a silvery moonbeam.

  I saw my mouse, a surprisingly fat specimen, sitting up and munching on some sort of crumbs. At the same moment, my mouse saw me. A surprisingly fat mouse, but also surprisingly quick. In no time at all, he’d scrambled straight up the wall, leaped onto the coal chute, and was darting toward the small window where … where there was still a hole in one of the windowpanes! Hadn’t Elrod fixed that hole yet? What was a handyman for? How would I go about getting him fired?

  But that thought was for the future. Right now my little playmate was shooting through the hole in the windowpane and out into the night. I sprang onto the coal chute, squeezed through the hole, and followed.

  And there he was, tiny legs churning as fast as they could, although he was actually advancing quite slowly—not yet even halfway across the side lawn, which led to the woods and the possibility of many hidey-holes and a lot of tedious work for me. You can be quick without being fast—an interesting fact about mice. I’m both, as I’m sure you already know.

  I ran after my fattish friend, not my fastest, since the outcome was not in doubt, more of a lope. I’m not much of a TV watcher, but once I’d caught a show about tigers. Their lope is something like mine—on a bigger scale, no doubt, if not quite as graceful, which I mention merely to keep you in the picture.

  Loping along on a moonlit night, one bound or two from the prey—well, let’s not put it that way—how about a teammate in a game he didn’t yet know we were playing: Life was good. I took one last lope, then bounded, launching myself into the night air.

  Normally not much happens in these midair moments, except a lovely feeling of good cheer coming over me. But this time things were different. First, my little teammate turned his little head and saw me. That was unusual, since my movements are silent, especially in midair. Around then was when I heard a strange sound from above. It reminded me of the fwap-fwap the ceiling fan in the Big Room made before Elrod fixed it. Well, not fixed, since the ceiling fan ended up in pieces in the storage shed. But at least we no longer had to deal with the annoying fwap-fwap.

  I only mention the ceiling fan to give you an idea of the sound coming from above. My mousy pal’s gaze rose up in that direction and I saw terror in his eyes. Very satisfying, of course, but then came a big surprise, quite close to a real shock. It turned out that the mouse wasn’t afraid of me! Well, I’m sure he was, but that fear was being dwarfed by another one. An instant later a huge white owl swooped down—right before my eyes—and snatched up the mouse in its enormous claws, fwap-fwapping back up into the night sky.

  I’m a hunter of birds, but small ones. Cardinals, finches, robins, that sort of thing. Certainly not owls. I’d seen owls, always in daytime. Once Harmony had pointed to one, sleeping on a high branch and looking peaceful. “Watch out for owls, Queenie,” she’d said. I don’t pay much attention to what humans say, but I make an exception for Harmony.

  The next thing I knew, I was scrambling up the vine-covered trellis on the near side of the inn, leaping from there onto a second-floor balcony, almost … almost like … like I’d had a fright. And even … even panicked, the slightest bit.

  But no! Impossible! Queenie does not have frights, and would never panic. Or scramble! Good grief, what an awful idea! Me? Scrambling? I got a grip. Then I hissed, a hiss that said, “I am Queenie, large and in charge.” Except for the large part. The point was I’d regained my composure, if in fact I’d ever lost it, and who would believe that? Not me, my friends.

  The balcony led to a sliding door, partly open on a summer night. Beyond the slider was one of the guest rooms, the walls yellow. Yellow walls meant the Daffodil Room. I peered in.

  Mr. Ware sat at the makeup table. He opened the package the woman in the car had given him and
took out a small green ball.

  “Green?” he said. “What’s the matter with her?”

  He gazed at the green ball with distaste, and then stuck it on the end of his nose. Humans could surprise you, almost never in a good way. Now we had a series of unpleasant surprises. First, Mr. Ware pulled off his wild white hair—a wig, I believe, is the name—and then tugged off one of his shaggy white eyebrows. He was raising his hand toward the other eyebrow when he caught sight of me. For a moment he looked alarmed, but then his expression changed.

  “Well well,” he said, with no trace now of the old man voice. “You’re still quite the beauty, aren’t you?”

  True, but somehow, coming from him, it didn’t please me.

  “Maybe more so than ever,” Mr. Ware added, which didn’t quite make sense to me. “Come on in. Why don’t we get to know each other a bit. Maybe I could scare up a treat of some sort.”

  I gazed at him: a dark-haired guy with a thin brown eyebrow and a shaggy white one, also wearing a green ball on his nose. Had he been a guest here before? I thought so, but that didn’t mean I wanted to get to know him. I slipped between the balcony railings, pitter-pattered down the trellis, came down on the lawn.

  Then, from high above: Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!

  A big, empty flowerpot lay on its side in the strip of garden by the house. I stepped into it and curled up.

  WAKEE-WAKEE, ARTHUR. IT’S THE big day!”

  I opened my eyes, found that I was in Bro’s bedroom, lying comfortably on his pillow. Bro himself seemed to be already up and about, in fact standing over me, fully dressed and with that green Frisbee in his hand. Oh, no. The green Frisbee? Not again! I wriggled deeper into the pillow and closed my eyes.

  “C’mon, Arthur. Last chance for a little practice. Mr. Salming says practice makes perfect.”

  Mr. Salming? The baseball and hockey coach, also the mailman? What could he have meant by practice makes perfect? Did mail carriers practice delivering the mail? I had no idea, and realized right away I’d come to a dead end. I’m fine with dead ends. I rolled over, had a nice stretch, made some sort of sighing sound—no idea why—and dropped down into dreamland.

  “Arthur! Step it up! You’ve had enough sleep. Let’s move!”

  What was this? Bro still around? Didn’t he have chores to do? As for sleep, how did you know if you’d had enough? The answer came to me: You only knew if you’d had enough sleep if you couldn’t get back to sleep! Wow! My own mind had figured that out? Was this the start of something big? Was I going to be brilliant from here on in? Suddenly I sprang out of bed! Maybe not actually springing, but I did sort of tumble down onto the floor.

  “Hey! Arthur! Good boy!” Bro had a big smile on his face. I’d … I’d pleased him! That was nice. I wondered how. If only I knew, I could do it again. I followed him downstairs and onto the lawn, tail held high. I felt strong, fast, smart—like a million bucks! Whatever those were.

  “Okay, one last time,” Bro said, and he scaled the green Frisbee into the air.

  One last time until what? I was a bit confused.

  “Go, Arthur, go!”

  I ran back into the house. When Bro says go, I go. Who’s a good good boy?

  “Oh, Arthur!” he said. Or something like that. I couldn’t be sure on account of this commotion that seemed to be happening, commotion involving me and Bertha. Have I mentioned Bertha yet? She’s the cook. Since we only serve breakfast here at the inn, Bertha’s only around in the mornings. It took me quite some time to put that together, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got it now. And here’s something really amazing: If Bertha’s around then it must be morning! I know what you’re thinking: Wow, that Arthur! Am I right?

  Bertha’s a big strong woman of the no-nonsense kind. She has a boyfriend named Big Fred. He’s the boss of the volunteer fire department, bigger and stronger than just about anybody, although Bertha calls him Freddie, like he’s a little kid. The reason I mention Big Fred is that I spotted him in the background, munching on a slice of sausage. I recognized the smell right away. Big Fred’s a fan of a certain kind of sausage with a yellow label, a kind that I’m a big fan of, too. And what was that sticking out of his chest pocket? It sure looked to me like the top of a package with a yellow label.

  Spotting Big Fred was what led to all the commotion, because I took my eye off where I was going, which happened to be straight into Bertha. Somehow I got all tangled up in her apron, and untangling me, she got tangled up in it, too, and maybe even started to lose her balance. But Big Fred was suddenly right there to catch her, one arm around her waist. He even caught me! By the scruff of the neck, as it turned out, and not the waist, maybe not possible in my case, since there was a chance I didn’t have a waist. Meanwhile, Big Fred and Bertha were exchanging an interesting sort of look.

  “Thanks, Freddie,” she said.

  “Any time,” said Big Fred.

  Bertha laughed.

  “And what’s with you, my friend?” Big Fred said, putting me down. “Never seen you move so fast.”

  “He’s actually not getting with the program this morning,” Bertha said.

  “What program?” said Big Fred.

  Bertha pointed out the doorway. Bro was standing in the yard, the Frisbee at his feet. Bro’s head was down and he looked kind of … unhappy. Were programs something on TV? Was I supposed to be on TV? Only one way to find out: I headed for the Big Room, where a TV hung on the wall in one corner. Wow! I’d solved a problem, and all by myself.

  From behind, I heard Big Fred say, “Hey, Bro, come over here for a sec. And bring that Frisbee.”

  The moment I entered the Big Room, I sniffed a nice surprise in the air. You can’t see air, but all sorts of things are going on in it all the time. For example, here in the Big Room we had what you might call a tiny stream of Cheez-It aroma flowing right up to the tip of my nose. It was a snap to follow the stream to its source, which was under the red leather chair near the fireplace, where I’d had successful fishing expeditions in the past.

  I got down on my belly and wriggled my way under the red leather chair. And there, next to one of the chair’s feet—a claw-foot, I believe they’re called, somewhat threatening in appearance—I found a lovely Cheez-It, a bit dusty but otherwise undamaged. I snapped it up.

  After that, I lingered under the chair for a while, licking my muzzle and … what was the expression? Enjoying the day? That was it. I licked my muzzle and enjoyed the day until it suddenly struck me that I’d come to the Big Room for some reason other than finding a Cheez-It. What could that reason have been? I searched my mind. It happened to be rather empty at the moment, so the search was nice and quick. I turned up nothing.

  Therefore I’d come to a dead end. When you come to a dead end—and I’m sure you know this already—there’s only one thing to do, namely give yourself a real good shake. Get those ears flapping around, whap whap whap, upside the head. That’ll clear your mind, and pronto!

  With just about the clearest mind I’d ever had in my whole life, I trotted out of the Big Room. Down the hall, Big Fred was handing Bro the green Frisbee, now wrapped in a plastic bag.

  “Keep it in the bag,” Big Fred said.

  “Why?” said Bro.

  “Gave it some mojo,” Big Fred told him. “Wouldn’t want to waste it.”

  “Arthur! Watch where you’re going!”

  Uh-oh. On my way out of the Big Room, had I come close to tripping up Harmony, who seemed to be headed toward the front door with Queenie in her arms? Yikes! There was even a chance it was my fault. I followed them, my mind fixed on making things better, possibly by licking Harmony’s foot, or something of that nature. I inched closer, stuck out my tongue, and—and Queenie, suddenly popping up on Harmony’s shoulder, her golden eyes on fire in a way I never like to see, hissed in my direction. Actually right at me, a hiss that’s very hard to describe. But it makes my hair stand on end. And her hair stands on end when she does it! Which is a very scary sight. Mix that in with
the scary sound of the hiss, and … and I dropped way back. The foot licking would have to wait for another time.

  I dropped way back, but not entirely out of the picture. Hard to explain why, but it had something to do with Queenie being carried. Arthur likes being carried, too! Were folks somehow missing that? How could I help them understand?

  Soon we were on the side lawn, me at a safe distance. No sign now of Bertha or Big Fred, but Bro was still there, now looking much more chipper. He stuck the green Frisbee in his backpack and was hoisting it on his back when Harmony said, “Hey, Bro—help me give Queenie a bath.”

  “She hates water,” said Bro.

  “Which is why I need your help,” Harmony said.

  “She keeps herself pretty clean, like on her own.”

  “Bro! It’s a beauty contest!”

  A beauty contest? Was I in it? If Queenie was, then I had to be, too. That was only fair. We play hard in this family but we play fair. “When you cheat, you’re cheating yourself most of all.” That was something Mom said. I think it’s about being fair, but if I’m wrong, skip this part.

  Meanwhile we were all headed toward the pond—not the Lilypad Pond near the patio, where guests often had a cool drink at the end of the day, but the big pond beyond the old barn, where we sometimes went for a swim, me and the twins, the twins swimming and me steering them back to shore. They love when I do that! Even if they pretend not to. What characters they can be sometimes!

  Soon we were all down by the pond. Harmony, still carrying Queenie, kicked off her flip-flops and waded in up to her knees. Queenie didn’t move a muscle, but the hot look in her eyes heated up even more.

  “Remember her last bath?” Bro said.

  “This will be different,” said Harmony. “I’ve done some research. First we make Queenie feel totally at ease.”

  “How?”

  “By stroking her gently and saying nice things.” Harmony began stroking Queenie’s back. “Nice Queenie,” she said. “Who’s the nicest cat in the whole wide world?” She turned to Bro. “Now you.”