Mousetales: Stories for Children and Adults of All Ages

By Robert Fedorchek

The Mousetales are a group of whimsical, playful episodes that tell of children who are aided in nighttime distress by dedicated mouses of the Children?s Mouse Brigade. Henry and Ginger and their fellow Brigade members are involved in adventure after adventure as they ensure that children not suffer sleepless nights or fear of the dark. The Brigade accomplishes its missions through inventive approaches, prompted by unique mousevision and mousememory that calm the children, thereby making them feel safe. They are ably assisted in their efforts by a mousenet piggybacked to the humans? net; by their comprehension of English and, for some members, of French (although they cannot speak either language, only their native mousespeak); and, for travel, by the US Postal Service, on whose trucks the mouses hitch rides.

Mousetale 1 relates the history of the Brigade and introduces Henry, the principal male mouse, and his training and first mission. Mousetale 2 recounts Henry?s introduction to Ginger, the principal female mouse, a connection that unfortunately gets off on the wrong paw for them but ends well for several children. Mousetale 3 tells of Henry and Ginger?s engagement and marriage and the children saved owing to Ginger?s intervention. Mousetale 4 introduces us to a little girl who is in distress on account of her father (and 4 is significant because we make the acquaintance of four identical baby mouses, all girls). Mousetale 5 and Mousetale 6 take us to the next generation as Henry and Ginger?s daughters also become members in good standing of the Children?s Mouse Brigade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532007897

Robert Fedorchek

Robert Fedorchek is a professor emeritus of modern languages and literatures at Fairfield University; he holds a BA, MA, and PhD. In addition to his first novel, The Translators, he has published eighteen books of translations of Spanish and Portuguese literature. He and his wife live in Fairfield, Connecticut.

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Mousetales

Stories for Children and Adults of All Ages

Also by Robert Fedorchek

Novels:

The Translators

The Choice

The Oldest Son

The Beach

Translation from the Portuguese:

Alves & Co., José Maria Eça de Queirós

Translations from the Spanish:

Alone and Other Stories, Armando Palacio Valdés

The White Horse and Other Stories, Emilia Pardo Bazán

Moral Divorce and Other Stories, Jacinto Octavio Picón

Legends and Letters, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

The Nail and Other Stories, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

Death and the Doctor, Antonio de Trueba et al

The Nun and Other Stories, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

Ten Tales, Leopoldo Alas, Clarín

Sweet and Delectable, Jacinto Octavio Picón

Doña Luz, Juan Valera

Stories of Enchantment from Nineteenth-Century Spain, Fernán Caballero et al

The Garden with Seven Gates, Concha Castroviejo

Don Álvaro, or the Force of Fate, Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas

Juanita la Larga, Juan Valera

The Illusions of Doctor Faustino, Juan Valera

Commander Mendoza, Juan Valera

Pepita Jiménez, Juan Valera

The Green Bird and Other Tales / El pájaro verde y otros cuentos, Juan Valera

The Memoirs of the Marquis of Bradomín: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Sonatas, Ramón del Valle-Inclán

The Troubadour, Antonio García Gutiérrez

The Duchess of San Quintín, Benito Pérez Galdós

The Student of Salamanca / El estudiante de Salamanca, José de Espronceda y Delgado (forthcoming)

Mousetales

Stories for Children and Adults of All Ages:

The Adventures of Henry and Ginger of the Children’s Mouse Brigade

Robert Fedorchek

MOUSETALES

Stories for Children and Adults of All Ages

Copyright © 2016 Robert Fedorchek.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The images on the cover and the interior pages were provided by Shutterstock. Stock imagery © Shutterstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0788-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0789-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915651

iUniverse rev. date: 10/10/2016

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In memoriam:

John Martin Fedorchek

Jack

brother and friend

And for:

Theresa Margaret Fedorchek

who encourages and delights in

whimsy and fantasy

Contents

Mousetale 1: A House Mouse

Mousetale 2: Henry Journeys to Maine

Mousetale 3: Lovemouses

Mousetale 4: Four of a Kind

Mousetale 5: Double-Double

Mousetale 6: Quadruplets x Two

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Mousetale 1: A House Mouse

F our-year-old Sally Brooks had to change bedrooms, and she cried and clutched her stuffed bear because she didn’t want to go to a strange new room. She had named her bear Big White, and again and again asked Big White how she would ever fall asleep again.

And you won’t be a help, she said to him, because no matter what, you’ll fall asleep as soon as Mommy leaves, like you always do. If only Daddy didn’t need more space.

But Daddy did need more space. Daddy was a syndicated cartoonist and needed more space to display the serial drawings that he sketched and then executed for lots and lots of daily newspapers.

I know that Mommy and Daddy love me and want me to be happy, she confided to Big White late one afternoon, "because they’re painting my new room, and buying me a new bed and Mommy’s working hard to make new curtains. But what about the mouse that I saw yesterday on the floor by the radiator pipe? He must have come in through that old mousehole that Daddy thought was plugged. Anyway, when I ran to tell Mommy, she hurried back with me and he—although maybe it was a she, you know, a she mouse—had disappeared, and Mommy thought I imagined it ’cause I’m sad. But I didn’t, I didn’t. How will I fall asleep with mouses in my room? And I’m going to miss watching the squirrels play on the high branches. Another thing. This new room of ours is on the ground floor and all we can see is that funny-looking, abandoned old building on the other side of the road."

Unbeknownst to Sally and Big White, and of course to Laura and Tom Brooks, the basement level of that funny-looking, abandoned old building had for some time been the training headquarters and dormitory of the Children’s Mouse Brigade, a volunteer force dedicated to making children feel safe and secure. Through the Brigade’s network of neighborhood pipes, Lizzy and Marty Mouse, in charge of the novice mouseketeers, had learned of Sally’s predicament from one of the runners who kept an eye on the houses in the Brookses’ block. Lizzy in particular was fussing like a nervous hen, because Sally would be Henry’s first assignment, and even though he had come through the training with high marks from the retired mouseketeers who wrote reports on the novices, Henry was a free spirit, and she hoped and prayed that he would follow the prescribed code of behavior. Besides, family pride was involved: Henry was her nephew.

Henry was an eighteen-month-old mouse (that’s almost six years in human time) with a light gray coat, soft whiskers, a long tail that he could coil like a rope, and eyes as bright as two shiny copper dots. Even though he had graduated first in his class, he knew that he would be observed—it was Brigade policy—on his first two visits and would have to go by the book. But afterward, if necessary, he was determined to take the bull by the horns, that is, to improvise. He and Uncle Al, one of the senior mousemasters, had already explored the surroundings of his soon-to-be charge.

Yesterday, though, when he had returned by himself, he had lingered a tad too long in order to isolate her smell from that of the fresh paint, and before he could begin his descent into the labyrinth of the neighborhood’s pipes, his new charge spotted him and ran after her mother. Henry, already improvising when the rule book clearly called for a retreat, had decided to duck between the radiator’s tubes to observe. What better opportunity to store the mother’s scent as well! And now that he had Sally’s, he knew he would pick up on her mother’s in a trice, because a mouse’s sense of smell is fifty times more sensitive than that of a human. He had instantly noted the mother-daughter likeness and he had instantly heard the warmth and love in the mother’s voice, because a mouse’s sense of hearing is fifty times more acute than that of a human.

Thank the Grand Mouse for Aunt Lizzy’s class, thought Henry. Aunt Lizzy tutored all the novices in the nuances and inflections of mothers’ voices. Sally did not see him and therefore poured her heart out to her mother, and Henry, young and inexperienced though he was, realized that he had his work cut out for him. It was not going to be as easy as he had thought.

A week later the runner reported to Brigade Headquarters that Sally would sleep in her new bedroom for the first time the following night. That didn’t give Aunt Lizzy and Uncle Marty much time; usually they had more advance notice. Well, they would just have to make allowances and schedule a special appointment for Henry at Grooming Services. So the afternoon of that night Henry’s coat was combed and brushed, his whiskers were smoothed with the Brigade’s own pomade, and—in a special ceremony that puffed Henry’s chest with pride—his tail was fitted with the traditional ring fashioned from a cat’s claw, a ring signifying that he was a Brigade regular and in service. And, it being his inaugural, he passed through the dress parade of the