Runaway Ralph (4 page)

Aunt Jill lifted Ralph's cage up onto a shelf in the corner near a window. “Catching a mouse in a butterfly net is certainly doing something,” she remarked. “I think Garf should take care of the mouse.”

Ralph made up his mind not to budge. If he stayed perfectly still, sooner or later they would all go away and let him enjoy peace and quiet in his nice safe cage. Then maybe Garf would come back. He might even think of bringing a corner of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then Ralph would simply explain to Garf that he needed to get out of the cage because he had to take care
of his motorcycle. He was quite sure that Garf could understand, for he looked like the kind of boy who was interested in speed and motorcycles and who would know how to make a miniature motorcycle go.

W
hen Ralph awoke, the camp was dark. Crickets chirped in the weeds outside the craft shop. In the distance frogs croaked, were suddenly silent, and croaked again. Timidly Ralph began to investigate his new home. Someone had supplied him with food and water. A piece of paper had been dropped thoughtfully into one corner. Knowing that he was safe from the cat, Ralph nibbled at some dried corn and a
lettuce leaf until his stomach was full. Then he shredded the paper, which was somewhat harder to chew than the Kleenex he had enjoyed at the Mountain View Inn, and spread it around his cage before he summoned enough courage to explore his exercise wheel.

Ralph climbed cautiously onto the wheel, which swung back and forth so alarmingly that he jumped off. He ran around his cage examining the wheel from every angle. Deciding that the worst that could happen to him was falling off, Ralph tried again. This time he stayed on the wheel, and when he became accustomed to the swinging motion, he tried a few cautious steps. The wheel spun pleasantly beneath his feet.

Ralph ran faster. The wheel increased its speed. Ralph raced as hard as he could run, and then stopped. To his astonishment, the
wheel continued to spin, and Ralph was carried completely around the circle so that for an instant, before he began his descent, he was upside down at the top of the wheel. This ride was fun! When Ralph had coasted to a stop, he began to run again so that he could spin around the full circle once more. Round and round went Ralph as the shadows in the craft shop faded. Spinning on a wheel was as dangerous and as exciting as riding a motorcycle.

His motorcycle! Ralph leaped from the wheel to the side of the cage nearest the window. The rays of the rising sun slanted through the bamboo, but no matter how hard Ralph strained his eyes he could not catch even a glimpse of chrome or red metal. If only he had some way of knowing his motorcycle was still hidden beneath the bamboo husk.

An alarm clock went off in a lodge
nearby, and a boy in rumpled pajamas stumbled out to blow the rousing bugle notes that brought the camp to life. Ralph busied himself scattering his shredded paper about his cage, nibbling his food, and racing on his wheel. While the campers were in the dining hall eating breakfast, Garf slipped into
the craft shop, checked on Ralph's food and water, and slipped out again so quickly that Ralph only had begun to summon his courage to speak. That's funny, Ralph thought. The boy acts as if he's doing something wrong.

After breakfast Aunt Jill and several boys and girls straggled into the craft shop and settled down to make pictures by gluing dried rice, peas, beans, and corn to scraps of plywood. Mosaics, they called them. Such a waste of good food, thought Ralph, recalling some of the hard times he had gone through with his family back at the Mountain View Inn. Those campers were ruining enough food to keep a mouse family healthy for weeks.

Before long the mosaic makers discovered Ralph, who obliged them by racing on his wheel.

“Hey, look at him loop the loop!” said a boy named Pete.

“Isn't he darling!” cried a girl. Apparently
all girls called mice, at least mice in cages, darling.

Ralph could not resist showing off by looping the loop once more, and when many hands pushed bits of the mosaics into his cage, he nibbled greedily. At least there was no scrounging at Happy Acres Camp.

The next time Garf slipped into the craft shop while everyone else was in the dining hall, Ralph gathered his courage to speak. “Say—” he began in a timid voice, but the boy must not have heard, because at that moment he began to sing uncertainly to himself:

Ralph was stunned by the words Garf sang. What kind of boy would sing such a
wicked song? Certainly not a boy a mouse could trust. Frightened and disappointed, he scuttled to the farthest corner of his cage and turned his back.

As Ralph sat trembling in his corner, he listened and was puzzled. Garf, with obvious pleasure, was singing the same words the campers were singing in the dining hall, but the tune was different. When their voices went up, Garf's went down. When their voices went down, Garf's went up. Sometimes his voice did neither, but wavered someplace in the middle.

Ralph was bitterly disappointed by the
whole turn of events. Garf was not interested in speed and motorcycles. He was interested in singing and in banging field mice on the head.

The hot summer days droned on. Ralph was supplied with more food than he could possibly eat, and his exercise wheel kept him in trim. Whenever Catso sneaked into the craft shop and showed an interest in Ralph's cage, someone snatched him and shoved him out the door.

Life was safe, comfortable, and not unpleasant. From his cage near the window, Ralph had a good view of the camp. To the left through the bamboo he could see the boys' lodges. To the right were the girls' lodges. Before him lay the dining hall, the camp office, a trampoline, a swimming pool, and a circle of benches and old school desks in front of a platform that held a piano. Off to the right beyond the shade of the walnut
trees, a pasture shimmered in the summer heat. Counselors, who were college students like the summer help at the Mountain View Inn, led the activities of the campers, and one counselor lived in each lodge with eight or ten campers.

Ralph always found something interesting to watch—campers spreading their sleeping bags out in the sun to air, counselors leading singing and directing skits around the campfire in the evening, boys racing to be first in line when the bell was rung to announce meals, boys and girls in cowboy boots or English riding boots going off toward the barn for riding lessons.

Boys and girls played and kittens romped under the walnut trees. Catso discovered a small hole in the craft shop's rusty screen door, which he explored with a paw as if it were a mousehole, but faithful old Sam always arrived to tell him to move on.

Never once did Garf forget to care for Ralph, and when he was not singing in his strange voice, he sometimes spoke. “Hi, little fellow,” he would say, as he quickly detached the water bottle from the cage and refilled it at the sink. He even offered Ralph a sunflower seed with his fingers.

Ralph was so lonely he was tempted to accept the seed for the sake of companionship. Then he remembered the song about mice getting banged on the head and retreated to the corner of his cage.

One afternoon, when Ralph was particularly lonely, he decided that a boy who fed a mouse three times a day could not be so bad after all, and that the next time a sunflower seed was offered, he would venture out and accept it from the boy's fingers.

However, when Garf finally came, he began to sing again. This time the song was different from the one the campers were
singing over in the dining hall. It provoked Ralph's curiosity, because he had heard others sing it but had been unable to catch the words. The campers never sang this song when Aunt Jill was around, which made Ralph even more curious about the words. He was under the impression that they were not fit for grown-up ears, which of course made the song all the more interesting.

Garf sang and Ralph listened.

That was enough for Ralph! In his haste to hide he bumped into the spout of his water bottle and flooded one side of his cage. He found refuge behind a lettuce leaf, where he sat trembling with nerves and
fright while he refused to listen to another word of that fearsome song. Why, the next line might be about mice! Ralph stayed hidden behind the leaf for a long, long time. He was now certain that there was no hope of ever communicating with Garf. Chopped-up baby parakeet! Garf actually relished the dreadful words.

Then one day not long after Ralph had concluded that he was doomed to loneliness, a freckle-faced girl wearing a baggy sweatshirt, shorts, and cowboy boots came into the craft shop carrying a cage at least ten times the size of Ralph's cage. She set it on the table in the nature corner. “Hi, Aunt Jill. I'm back, and here's Chum again,” she announced. “I brought his box of food and bag of cedar shavings.”

Aunt Jill dropped the strands of the lanyard she was demonstrating to hug the girl. “Well, hi, Lana! Welcome back! It's good to
see you again. Chum will have a friend this year. A mouse one of the new boys caught in a butterfly net.” She lifted the big cage onto the shelf beside Ralph's cage.

Ralph sat on his wheel to get a better look at the new occupant of the nature corner, a cranky-looking animal with tan and white fur. Ralph, who had never seen such an animal, watched silently while the creature, whatever it was, shoved and pushed and stomped at the cedar shavings in his cage. He seemed to have difficulty arranging them to his satisfaction. Next he went through his food dish, picked out a number of small green pellets, and shoved them outside his cage. The cedar shavings still did not please him, so he went back to shoving, pushing, and stomping. From time to time he paused to gnaw noisily at the bars of his cage with his long curving teeth.

Finally, when the bell had rung and the
campers had gone off for their noon meal, Ralph, in his eagerness for companionship, could no longer remain silent. “What are you anyway?” he asked. “Some kind of fancy gopher?”

The animal spat a green pellet out of his
cage before he shot Ralph a withering look of scorn. “Fancy gopher, indeed!” he sniffed.

“Well…” Ralph faltered. “I didn't know. You can't blame me for asking.”

“I am a hamster,” said the animal. “A
golden
hamster. I am clean, odorless, and alert.”

“You don't look gold to me,” said Ralph. “You look tan and hairy.”

At that response the hamster turned his back on the mouse.

Ralph nibbled a kernel of corn before he made up his mind to try again. “Pretty nice place we have here,” he remarked. “Plenty of food and water. Interesting things to watch.”

The hamster climbed on his exercise wheel and sat swinging to and fro while he stared at Ralph. When Chum remained silent, Ralph continued, “It's safe from the cat, too.”

Chum appeared never to blink his eyes. “Maybe,” he said.

Ralph's whiskers trembled. That one word spoken by the hamster hinted at evils unknown to Ralph. Here was an animal who was wise in the ways of the world. Well, go on, thought Ralph impatiently, tell me more. Chum was silent.

Finally Ralph was forced to say, “How come that girl brought you here to Happy Acres?”

“It's a long story,” said Chum.

“I'm not in any hurry,” said Ralph. “Go on.”

Chum spat the hull of a sunflower seed into the bottom of his cage. “I was one of thirteen hamsters, six girls and seven boys, born in the back room of a pet store.”

“Thirteen.” Ralph was awed. “That's bigger than my litter. What was it like, living in a pet store?”

“We had a happy, carefree childhood there in the cage in the back room,” Chum continued. “There was plenty of food and water and fresh cedar shavings in the bottom of the cage. We slept all day, all thirteen of us, in a warm and cozy heap. Then at night as we grew older we would play. Oh, the fun we had those nights in the pet shop.” Chum
paused, a faraway look in his eyes.

“Go on,” urged Ralph.

“Where was I?” asked Chum. “Oh, yes—the frolics we had at night. And then…and then…” Chum's voice shook with emotion.

Ralph waited quietly until the hamster was able to continue. “One day I was sound asleep in the corner of the cage. By then we had grown a lot, and I was on the bottom of the heap, but I didn't feel squashed. I felt safe and cozy there beneath my brothers and sisters, when suddenly—” Chum stopped, unable to go on.