Ralph S. Mouse: Chapter 6–Epilogue

Ralph shook his paws in a last desperate attempt to limber them.

By the time the teacher said, “On your mark,” Ralph was completely muddled. He crouched, waiting for the starting gun, which did not go off.
“My caps are stuck,” said Brad.

At last Brad fired his cap gun. Bang!
“Go, Ralph, go!” shouted the class.
The noise was enough to unnerve the bravest mouse.

My motorcycle, he thought in despair, I’ll never get my motorcycle back if I don’t do it right.

Nimbly he leaped to the top of the partitions, caught a whiff of pure peanut butter, and took off across the top edges of the maze.

“Who wants a smelly old mouse?” scoffed Brad. “You stink, and so does Ralph D. Mouse.”

“You shut up,” said Ryan.
“Make me,” said Brad.
Ralph was terrified by the sound of scuffling.

With great effort, he freed his jaws and managed a muffled squeak. “Me! I’m here in your pocket! Don’t let him hit me!” His voice was so smothered by the parka that no one could hear him, but Ryan must have remembered. He cupped one hand over his pocket, which left only the other hand for protecting himself.

“Boys!” Miss K’s usually gentle voice cut through the commotion. “Hurting people does not solve anything. It only makes things worse.”

Ryan, flushed and humiliated, turned on his friend. “I don’t care if your motorcycle is broken,” he informed Ralph. “It serves you right for not doing what you were supposed to...."

“Some nice guy,” said Ralph with a tiny snarl. “Wouldn’t even let me have my own motorcycle, and now look at it. Busted...."

All weekend he roamed the desolate halls and classroom, halfheartedly nibbling whatever he could find to eat, going pb-b-b because he missed his motorcycle so much, and wondering if he was doomed to roam forever the lonely corridors of the Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School.

Ralph thought of the old hotel with its shabby lobby warmed by a crackling fire. He missed the reassuring tick of the rasping old clock.

The class sat in outraged silence. Ralph was aghast. One tiny mouse an invader overrunning the whole school all by himself?

The class sat in outraged silence. Ralph was aghast. One tiny mouse an invader overrunning the whole school all by himself?

Ralph saw nothing to be amused about. What would the investigation mean? Cats? An exterminator with traps and poisons? Fumigation with deadly fumes seeping through the halls? That new electronic mouser that made a noise only mice could hear and sent them screaming into the night?

Ralph was tired of skulking about, hiding in mittens and boots, scrounging glue-flavored seeds from fourth-grade mosaics, and eating sugar, which he had overheard children say rotted teeth.

Ralph was tired of skulking about, hiding in mittens and boots, scrounging glue-flavored seeds from fourth-grade mosaics, and eating sugar, which he had overheard children say rotted teeth.

He slipped behind a row of textbooks on health in a bookcase under the window and sat there, pondering large problems such as the unfairness of life and the shortage of liberty and justice for well-meaning mice.

Ralph longed to return to the inn, but he knew that even if he found a way to get there, he could never face the jeering little relatives.

“You—you thug!” said Ralph. “You broke my motorcycle, my only way of getting out of this place. I’m too little to wade through slush, and anyway walking isn’t as much fun as riding my motorcycle, especially through puddles.”

“Wow!” breathed Brad. “A mouse with a motorcycle! Can you ride it?”
“Not when it’s broken,” said Ralph. “Now put me down and go eat your lunch. I need a little rest. Mice are supposed to be nocturnal, you know, and I need my sleep in the daytime.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” answered Ralph. “It all depends.” With that noncommittal reply, he flattened himself and slipped under the door into the empty classroom.

Later, when Mr. Costa came in to sweep, he listened to the radio sing a mournful song about a lonely truck driver in jail who longed for his eighteen-wheel rig and the open highway.

If someone had trouble spelling a word, that person asked Miss K about it. She then wrote the word on the blackboard in case someone else wanted to use it. Outrageous and ridiculous were the first words she wrote.

Then, as Ralph had hoped, the little mice must have moved upstairs, where they would be unable to taunt him about losing his motorcycle.

“Wow! A Laser XL7, just like you said,” breathed Ryan, as Brad set a miniature sports car on the floor and pushed it carefully through the highest part of the arch at the bottom of the clock. The car was low enough, if maneuvered by a skillful driver, to slip through. “See that, Ralph?”

“‘Retraction,’ it says here above this picture,” said Matt.
“What’s retraction?” asked Brad.
“It means they take back something they said,” explained Matt.

“He’s back!” said one.
“And he’s got a car,” said another.
“A sports car,” said a third.
Instantly there was clamor and confusion. “Give me a ride!” “Me first!” “Stop shoving!” “I should be first because I’m oldest.” “Get off my foot.”

But he was humble enough to admit that he had learned from the children too, even though he never did find out where Miss Heidi Kuckenbacker kept her toothpaste.