FIFTEEN

Squash You Flat!

Fortunately for Magnus, there was no traffic about when he first reached the road. For one thing it was early, and for another it happened to be a Sunday. Anyway the twisty lane didn’t really lead to anywhere much except Jim’s cottage and a couple of farms. He pressed on therefore on the crest of the road surface, in the gravest danger from any vehicle which might come along. Though he was quite unaware of the risks he was running, someone else was not, for he soon heard a voice that he recognized.

‘Crazy boy,’ said the hare, hopping along on the other side of the fence and staring sideways at him with its huge mad eyes, ‘get off the road.’

Magnus increased his pace. ‘Going to find Mummy and Daddy,’ he said.

‘You’ll never make it, crazy boy,’ said the hare, lolloping easily in the field beside. ‘You want to know why?’

‘No,’ said Magnus firmly. He broke into a gallop, but he could not escape the remorseless voice of his escort.

‘Then I’ll tell you,’ said the hare, and he began to intone:

‘Mouse or hedgehog or stoat or rat

Go on the road and they’ll squash you flat!

Snake or lizard or frog or toad

They’ll squash you flat if you go on the road!’

again and again and again, until Magnus’s mind began to spin at the relentless chanting and he ran even faster in his efforts to be free of it.

‘Squash you flat . . . squash you flat . . . squash you flat . . . went over and over in his brain so that he heard nothing of the van as it swung round the sharp corner. Then there was only pain, and blackness, and silence.

For a moment Jim the Rat could not force himself to get out of his van and look. I’ve squashed him flat, he thought in horror. When he did get out, a movement caught his eye in the field beside the lane, but it was only a hare which ran away in a series of great leaps and buckjumps, stopping every now and then to stand upon its hindlegs and shadow-box furiously with an imaginary opponent.

Beneath and behind the van, the surface of the road was empty. Feverishly, Jim the Rat began to search amongst the tangle of weeds and brambles on the verge.

Inside, the travellers conversed in nervous whispers.

‘Oh, Markie, Markie, what’s happened?’

‘A minor catastrophe, I imagine.’

‘Oh, Uncle Roland, what’s he mean?’

‘There’s been a small accident.’

Then they heard the driver’s door open again. There was the rumble of the man’s voice – ‘Thank goodness . . . he’s breathing . . . can’t see anything broken . . . no blood . . . must have caught him a glancing blow . . . let’s get home quick’ – and then the sound of the engine starting.

As soon as Jim the Rat reached his cottage he carried Magnus carefully inside. He put a cushion on the kitchen table and laid the unconscious King Mouse tenderly upon it. He ran back out to the van and picked up the rabbit hutch. Because he was anxious to get back to Magnus, he brought it into the kitchen and dumped it on the table. At the sight of the figure on the cushion Roland’s red eyes positively bulged.

‘Got to bring him round,’ said Jim the Rat, ‘but how? I know! Smelling salts! That’s what Mother used to use when Grandma felt faint . . . little dark blue bottle . . . got it somewhere . . . bathroom cupboard, I think,’ and he dashed upstairs.

‘Madeleine! Marcus Aurelius!’ called Roland. ‘Quick! Come and look! It’s Magnus!’

Madeleine shot out of the sleeping compartment, Marcus limping hurriedly after her.

‘Oh no!’ she wailed. ‘He’s dead!’

‘I think not, Maddie dear,’ said Marcus excitedly. ‘Observe his respiration!’

‘His what?’

‘He breathes,’ said Roland.

‘Oh, my precious baby!’ cried Madeleine, and she popped through the wire and scuttled across the table.

At that moment Jim’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.

‘Cave hominem!’ called Roland urgently, and when Madeleine took no notice of the warning he gave a tremendous alarm-thump with his hind legs, a thump so loud and reverberating that it would have woken the dead. In fact, it woke the living.

‘Mummy?’ murmured Magnus dazedly and, ‘Mummy’s here, my baby!’ cried Madeleine, and into the kitchen came Jim, the smelling salts in his hand.

At the sight of an ordinary little brown house-mouse on his kitchen table, a house-mouse moreover with the cheek to sniff at his precious King, the ratcatcher reacted instinctively. Ordinary mice, like ordinary rats or any other kind of ordinary vermin, were, for him, creatures to be killed, without cruelty if possible but also without a second thought. He picked up a rolling-pin from the dresser.

Afterwards neither Marcus Aurelius nor Roland could exactly remember what occurred in the next few seconds. Did Madeleine shoot underneath Magnus for protection? Or did he somehow rouse himself to cover her little body with his giant one before the threat of the upraised rolling-pin?

But what neither Marcus Aurelius nor Roland could ever forget was what happened next. They saw Jim start his downward stroke and then, horrified, stop it. They saw Magnus rise to his feet upon the cushion, stiff-legged, his coat-hair on end, his black eyes focused once more and snapping with fury. They waited for the old cry of ‘Nasty! Bite you!’

Instead, to their amazement, there burst from Magnus Powermouse a gush, a stream, a positive raging torrent of words.

‘Now look here,’ he cried angrily, staring up at Jim the Rat. ‘Just what exactly do you think you’re doing? I don’t pretend to understand what’s been happening – last thing I remember was running along a road looking for my parents – can’t think how they and Uncle Roland got here – but that’s not the point. The point is that you were just about to hit my mother on the head. My mother! The dearest, kindest, sweetest little old mother any mouse ever had! What’s the idea – treating me like a king, giving me all that marvellous grub –’ and he licked his lips even in the middle of his tirade ‘– and then you want to bash my old mother’s brains out! If you ever try to do such a nasty thing again I shall, without the shadow or semblance of a doubt, that is to say indubitably, bite you. Or my name’s not Magnus Powermouse! Which it is.’

He paused for breath. From under his bulk Madeleine crept, her mouth open, her eyes on stalks.

‘You mark my words,’ said Magnus.