Secrets at Sea Read Online Free Page A

naturally. Always Lamont, thoughtless with death at every turn. The haystack. The barn. The hovering heads. The pouncing cats. The brimming river and the busy road. The rain barrel.
    I’d be worried into an early grave for trying to keep him out of his .
    And now the Upstairs Cranstons, off to the ends of the earth, without a backward glance. Louise was bound to be lost without Camilla. Without Camilla she would droop and lose interest.
    Two matchboxes over, Beatrice snuffled in her sleep. I say less about her, but she was a worry too. Meek to a fault was Beatrice. And though I didn’t want to say it—a little bit mousy.
    Wonder and worry like to crowd me out of my bed. But I may have drifted into a dream then. I must have, because there before my sleeping self rose an enormous sunlit Stilton cheese, seething with snakes.
    But any little thing will bring me around. I heard a familiar skitter. Louise was back. She slipped under her scrap quilt. The night vibrated with her thoughts. She was all a-tingle, the way she gets.
    She knew I never really sleep. “Well, it’s all happening,” she said, quiet because of Beatrice. “And sooner than we thought.” She muttered near my ear. I felt the faint breeze of her breath. “They have ordered new hatboxes, and brought the steamer trunks down from the attic.”
    We pictured that: the steamer trunks being bumped down the stairs from the batty attic.
    â€œThey’re to have new clothes from the skin out,” whispered Louise. “As Mrs. Minturn said, they haven’t a stitch that will do. Even corset covers. Everything. Seamstresses will come and sew night and day. The Upstairs Cranstons are going to London, England, and so they will need ball gowns. Even Mrs. Cranston.”
    Mrs. Cranston in a ball gown? I hoped she wouldn’t show her bare shoulders to the world. They are very beefy, Mrs. Cranston’s shoulders.
    â€œOff they will go to the far side of creation,” Louise sobbed slightly into my ear. “And leave nothing behind but empty rooms.”
    I did not reply, of course. What was there to say? Then Louise slept, and whimpered in her sleep. And there was I again with only my worries for company.
    I tossed and turned on the human-hair mattress of my matchbox. Mrs. Flint suffered from thinning hair, and so there were always stray strands drifting around the kitchen floor—more than enough to stuff four mattresses. How handy we mice are for keeping things tidy. I would hate to think of the world without us.

    She folded back her scrap quilt, and up she rose.
    A thought occurred to me as it often does. Though I have my pride, it is not a foolish pride. I can go for advice when I need it—to Aunt Fannie Fenimore, of course. Where else? She was called the wisest mouse in both Westchester and Dutchess counties. Though she was no picnic to be around.
    Still—once I’d made up my mind to go to Aunt Fannie, I may have drifted into a fitful sleep. I must have slept, because I seemed to dream. In this dream, Beatrice sat silently up, two matchboxes over. Beatrice! She folded back her scrap quilt, and up she rose, slipping out of her nightdress. Then she was gone like a puff of smoke.
    But how could this be a dream since we mice dream of nothing but cheese and time running out?

CHAPTER FIVE
    Two Futures
    I T WAS ANOTHER busy week before I could tear myself away for a visit to Aunt Fannie Fenimore. Mrs. Cranston nagged Mr. Cranston until he had one of the new telephones installed under the front staircase, where it rang its head off. Another express wagon was forever bringing up a parcel from off the train. Bolts of fine silks. And cambric and lawn for new petticoats, long ones and short ones. Paper patterns. Buttons on cards. Skeins of ribbon.
    We were buried alive in all this newness that smelled of the shop.
    A chattering, complaining army of seamstresses fell on us, all sent by Mrs. Minturn. Pincushions on