The janitor was still fumbling for the light switch when the ballerinas sprang from beneath the locker and began bouncing toward him. They moved in perfect unison and made not the slightest sound. It was like a silent ballet, with Miss Tiptoe conducting unseen from the rear.
The General was issuing commands through the bars. “GO! Ambush him now!”
“Stop squeaking!” the janitor muttered, finally finding the switch. As he turned on the light, the ballerinas all bounced straight for him on their pogo sticks, soaring like a flock of birds toward the huge key ring in his left hand.
The Nutmouses and Miss Tiptoe shook with fear. But the dancers were much too agile for the janitor. As they rose into the air, they raised their left paws from their pogo sticks and grabbed at the keys as they sailed by, jerking them from his hand. The whole bunch crashed to the floor, with the ballerinas dropping down silently behind.
Before the janitor had time to look down, the ballerinas had dragged the key ring under the shelf at the back of the cupboard. The Nutmouses were waiting.
“This one!” Tumtum cried, finding a small red key.
“Didn’t the gerbils say it was a green key, dear?” Nutmeg asked anxiously.
“No, no—they said it was red,” Tumtum replied. He wrestled furiously to unhook it, sweat pouring down his nose.
“Oh, hurry, Tumtum! Hurry!” Nutmeg squawked as the janitor got down onto his hands and knees, searching in bewilderment for his keys. He still had no idea what had hit him.
Finally, the red key fell free.
“Quick! Divert him!” Tumtum shouted to the ballerinas.
Each one of them had a long lace looped around her waist, borrowed from the shoes left in the lockers opposite. Tying one end to the key ring, and attaching the other to their pogo sticks, they all bounced out of the cupboard and made off down the corridor, with the keys clanking and clattering behind them.
The janitor looked on in astonishment as the ballerinas bounced higher and higher, and faster and faster. He thought he must be seeing things. And yet there they were, as clear as day, thirteen bouncing mice dressed in beige tutus!
By the time he had gathered his wits and chased after them, they had bounced nearly as far as the gymnasium.
Meanwhile, the gerbils lowered the ladder, and Tumtum and Nutmeg scrambled up with the red key. “Hurry up there!” the General said. “What the devil’s taken you so long? Come on. Come on!”
The key was nearly as long as he was, and as Tumtum pushed it into the padlock his paws were shaking. He was normally such a calm mouse, but all the excitement had unnerved him.
Nutmeg placed her paws on his to steady him, and together they tried to turn it in the lock. But though they wriggled it and jiggled it, it wouldn’t budge. “Oh, do move along!” the General bullied, rattling the bars in frustration.
The gerbils were crowded behind him, desperate to get out. But there was nothing the Nutmouses could do. “We’ve got the wrong key!” Nutmeg said in despair.
The General turned green. He could hear the other keys clattering farther and farther away down the corridor, and with them his only hope of freedom. “Get them back!” he shouted.
Tumtum skedaddled down the ladder and ran recklessly after the ballerinas. “Come back!” he cried—and hearing him they all obediently turned and raced back down the corridor, pulling the keys behind them.
The girls were at Tumtum’s side in seconds. He quickly found the green key and tried to unhook it. But it was wedged tight, and he couldn’t pry it off the ring. He could hear the janitor thundering back up the corridor. He would be upon them in seconds.
“Quick! Tie the whole bunch to the ladder, and we’ll pull them up!” shouted the General, monitoring events from the cage.
Trembling, Tumtum tied the keys to the end of the straw ladder with one of the shoelaces. Then the prisoners hoisted them up to the shelf, and Miss Tiptoe and Nutmeg dragged them to the cage.
“This one!” Nutmeg cried, finding the green key. She and Miss Tiptoe seized hold of it and heaved it up into the lock. Then they wrenched it clockwise, and finally the padlock gave way.
But at that moment a shadow fell over the cage, and, to their horror, the animals saw the janitor peering in at them. He shot out a hand to snap the padlock shut—but the prisoners moved too fast for him.
“Charge!” the General cried, and before the janitor could secure the lock they all stampeded the door together—a dozen gerbils and their commanding officer bursting free with a great, victorious squeal.
They leaped straight onto the janitor and started scrabbling along the arms of his sweater, then cascading down the legs of his pants. He swatted at them wildly, but they clung on tight. On reaching the floor they spread into the corridor, hurtling all over the place.
“Scatter!” the General shouted. “Run for your lives!” The plan had been to retreat through the air vent, but in his excitement the General had forgotten where it was.
Chaos ensued as ballerinas and gerbils flew about the floor, with the janitor trying to stamp on them with his enormous boots. The gerbils moved like tornadoes, amazed at how fast their legs could carry them after their long months in captivity. But the General was so full of chocolate that he was less nimble. “Give me a pogo stick!” he panted, but there were none to spare.
Tumtum and Nutmeg and Miss Tiptoe crouched under a locker, looking on in dismay. They had promised the General they would follow his orders, but they couldn’t understand what he was up to. The operation had descended into chaos.
“Why doesn’t he beat a retreat through the air vent?” Tumtum asked hopelessly. “If this goes on much longer, someone’s going to get trodden on.”
Miss Tiptoe decided to take charge. “He is not fit to lead,” she said sharply, marching out into the corridor.
“Girls! Gerbils! This way, please,” she cried, pointing under the locker with her walking stick. “Follow me through the vent.”
The girls at once obeyed and bounced straight toward her. But the gerbils dithered, their loyalties torn. For while they thought the General rather ridiculous, he was an officer, after all, and he was still telling them to scatter.
But then they saw the janitor’s boot looming over them— and without dithering a moment longer they all bolted for cover.
At that moment, Miss Short reappeared.
“They’ve multiplied!” she shrieked, seeing the animals fleeing under the locker. And then all the classroom doors opened at once, as teachers and children poured into the corridor wondering what the commotion was about.
“You’ve let them out!” Miss Short raged at the janitor. “The whole school will be infested!”
And yet even as she spoke the animals were all escaping through the vent—or at least all but General Marchmouse, for he was so busy shouting commands that he didn’t notice the others leaving.
“It’s my mouse!” Arthur cried delightedly, seeing the General rushing back and forth in his underpants.
Miss Short let out another shriek as he darted over her shoe.
“Scatter!” the General cried again, wondering where the others had gone.
“Here, General! Follow us!” shouted Tumtum as he helped Nutmeg wriggle out through the vent.
“How dare you leave the battlefield without my permission!” the General retorted. But then he looked up and noticed for the first time the huge pairs of feet—dozens of them crowded all around him. And suddenly he didn’t feel quite so brave.
“Wait for me!” he whimpered, and ran full speed after the others.
The children all cheered, delighted that their gerbils had escaped being sent to the pet shop.
But Miss Short was furious.
“You may think it’s funny now, but just you wait until they multiply!” she snarled. “They’ve doubled overnight—I saw at least two dozen of them, and by tomorrow there’ll be four dozen, and by Monday there’ll be sixteen dozen, and in a few weeks time there’ll be thousands and thousands and thousands of them! And they’ll be everywhere! You’ll find gerbils writhing in your shoes, and burrowing in your pencil cases, and nesting in your coat pockets! They’ll take over your desks and your bags! And when they die, you’ll find their corpses rotting in your food!”
The children looked alarmed, for much as they liked their gerbils, the thought of thousands and thousands and thousands of them was rather unsettling. And the school food was disgusting enough already, without dead gerbils flavoring it.
For a moment, they were all silenced. But then Lucy noticed something going on outside—it looked as if there were lots of rubber balls bouncing across the playground. She turned and pressed her face to the windowpane.
“It’s the gerbils,” she said in astonishment. “They’re bouncing!” In fact, it was the ballerinas who were bouncing— the gerbils were running by their side. But they were already too far away for Lucy to tell the difference.
The children crowded around the window to look.
“They’re on pogo sticks!” one of them said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Miss Short snapped. “Gerbils do not use pogo sticks.” But the children sensed that this was not her area of expertise. And from that day on the story of the fantastic bouncing gerbils was to become quite a legend in the village school.