Secrets at Sea Read Online Free

for that copperhead’s dinner, and all to give my brother a chance at his tail.
    â€œRun for it, Lamont!” I shrieked, making a large circuit of the barn lot. And here Lamont came, with the end of his tail unfurling from his mouth.

    At the last second, I swerved away, defying death.
    We ran till we couldn’t, up the slope of the lawn. We were out of breath by the rain barrel, but that was no place to pause. In the shadow of the spirea we keeled over, gasping in the grass. But we could not tarry long there out in the open. The scudding clouds above us threw cat-shaped shadows across the yard.
    â€œLamont, this cannot go on. Even a cat has only nine lives, and we don’t have that many.” I was breathing hard. “I cannot keep saving you from yourself. The barn. The haystack. Where did you go as fast as you could scamper? Where, Lamont?!”
    He hung his head. But he could make no answer, not with his tail in his mouth.
    Â 
    I MARCHED HIM home, and straight to my workbasket. Tying my apron about me, I rummaged for a needle and thread while Louise and Beatrice stood by, speechless. It was quite a long needle. All needles are long in the hand of a mouse.
    â€œBend over, Lamont,” I said.
    And I sewed his tail back on him, while he squealed the house down.
    You do what you can. But I have to say, that tail never really worked right again.

CHAPTER FOUR
    When Night and Darkness Fell
    A FTER SUCH A day, how could I sleep a wink? Louise and Beatrice and I shared a bedroom just over our dining room. Lamont had his own room, hollowed out next to ours and very messy. I stared at the ceiling. If I dropped off, I’d dream. And mice dream about only two things: cheese and time running out.
    Maybe I dozed, because floating there before my sleeping self was a giant wedge of Stilton cheese, richly pale against a red sunset. A lovely, creamy Stilton—blue-veined, so it was about six weeks old. But my sleeping self looked closer. It was no Stilton cheese at all. It was no such thing. It was the haystack in the last red glow of sundown. And lurking in that haystack: unblinking eyes and hovering heads and one scaly coil after another.
    I trembled awake. Something besides fear had stirred me. I looked to the matchbox beside me, Louise’s bed. There is nothing wrong with our eyesight. We see better in the dark than you do in daylight.
    Louise eased back her scrap quilt and carefully, carefully slipped out of bed. She should know any little thing will wake me. I hardly sleep.
    Her nightdress caught on her ears as she pulled it over her head. Now she was stepping around her chamber pot. It is a thimble with a dime for a lid. We have all sorts of uses for thimbles. That’s why they so often go missing from the workbaskets of humans. Lose a thimble? I expect we have it.
    Stealthy Louise lifted her tail to keep from knocking over anything as she made for the door. I knew where she was going. On her little mouse feet she was heading up the walls to Camilla Cranston’s bedroom. Where else?
    She’d shinny up the dust ruffle on Camilla’s bed. Then she’d show her little pointed face there at the foot. And they’d have one of their midnight chats. I saw her with my mind’s eye: Louise, listening, her tail arranged around her on Camilla’s counterpane.
    I knew where Louise went when night and darkness fell. And she knew I knew, and she knew I didn’t like it. Of course, we’re all family. They were Cranstons Upstairs. We were Cranstons down here. But nothing good comes of too much mixing. And it isn’t fair. We understand their speech. They don’t understand a word of ours. Not a syllable. We hear all about their joys, their sorrows. They hear nothing of ours. Nothing.
    Besides, I had joys and sorrows to share with Louise. Why was that not enough for her? Why was I not enough? I stared at the ceiling, and all my worries crowded round my matchbox.
    Lamont,