“Now, let’s see,” Cinderella said as she read her favorite cake recipe. “We need flour, sugar, vanilla, and butter—good, we’ve got all that! And eggs and milk . . .” She paused. “Well, I can go out to the barn and milk the cow so that we’ll have fresh milk for the cakes. But I need someone to go out to the henhouse and collect the eggs. Are there any volunteers?”

“Let’s all go,” Gus suggested. “We need lotsa paws to carry lotsa eggs!”

“Good idea,” Cinderella agreed. Then she picked up a large wooden milking pail and headed out to the barn. “I’ll be back soon!” she called over her shoulder. “Thanks, everybody!”

Gus and Jaq hopped off the table to rush out to the henhouse. But before they even reached the door, Mert grabbed hold of their tails.

“Hold it right there,” he squeaked. “How are we going to carry all of the eggs when they’re almost as big as we are?”

“Mert’s right,” Perla said. “We need a plan!”

“All we need to do is think of the fastest and easiest way to get the eggs from the henhouse to the kitchen,” Bert said practically. “That shouldn’t be too hard!”

There was silence in the kitchen as each mouse tried to come up with a plan.

“Maybe we could run back and forth carrying an egg each trip,” Perla finally suggested.

Luke shook his head. “Too dangerous. What if Lucifer saw us and pounced?”

“We could roll the eggs across the courtyard,” Jaq said.

“I don’t think that will work,” Luke said. “What if as we rolled them they cracked?”

The mice looked at each other nervously. And Bruno didn’t have any ideas. He’d fallen asleep under the kitchen table!

It suddenly seemed like getting the eggs from the henhouse to the kitchen was going to be very hard for the little mice.

Gus stared out the window at the henhouse. There just had to be a way to do it. Then he noticed the clothesline that was strung between the henhouse and the kitchen. Suddenly Gus had a great idea!

“The clothesline!” Gus cried. “We can put the eggs in the pockets of the clothes, then pull on the clothesline so that the eggs travel across the courtyard—right to the kitchen!”

“What a good idea!” Suzy exclaimed. She ran over to Gus and gave him a big hug—making him blush bright red!

The mice put Gus’s plan into action right away. They ran through the henhouse, gathering the large eggs. Soon they had collected all the eggs they needed. Jaq grabbed a ladder, and the mice worked on carefully tucking the eggs into the pockets of the clothes hanging on the line.

“Okay, everybody,” Gus said. “The eggs are ready to go to the kitchen. We have to be very, very careful that they don’t fall—or we won’t have enough eggs for the cake!”

The other mice nodded. They did not want to let Cinderella down!

“Jaq, Luke, and I will go to the kitchen and pull the clothesline,” Gus continued. “Mert will toss the eggs to Perla, who will put them in a basket. Suzy and Bert will push the other end of the clothesline. Everybody ready? Let’s go!”