The Cricket in Times Square (3 page)

“Imagine!” Tucker exclaimed. “Trapped under roast beef sandwiches! Well, there are worse fates.”

“At first I wasn't too frightened,” said Chester. “After all, I thought, they probably come from New Canaan or some other nearby town. They'll have to unpack the basket sooner or later. Little did I know!” He shook his head and sighed. “I could feel the basket being carried into a car and riding somewhere and then being lifted down. That must have been the railroad station. Then I went up again and there was a rattling and roaring sound, the way a train makes. By this time I was pretty scared. I knew every minute was taking me farther away from my stump, but there wasn't anything I could do. I was getting awfully cramped too, under those roast beef sandwiches.”

“Didn't you try to eat your way out?” asked Tucker.

“I didn't have any room,” said Chester. “But every now and then the train would give a lurch and I managed to free myself a little. We traveled on and on, and then the train stopped. I didn't have any idea where we were, but as soon as the basket was carried off, I could tell from the noise it must be New York.”

“You never were here before?” Tucker asked.

“Goodness no!” said Chester. “But I've heard about it. There was a swallow I used to know who told about flying over New York every spring and fall on her way to the North and back. But what would I be doing here?” He shifted uneasily from one set of legs to another. “I'm a country cricket.”

“Don't worry,” said Tucker Mouse. “I'll feed you liverwurst. You'll be all right. Go on with the story.”

“It's almost over,” said Chester. “The people got off one train and walked a ways and got on another—even noisier than the first.”

“Must have been the subway,” said Tucker.

“I guess so,” Chester Cricket said. “You can imagine how scared I was. I didn't know
where
I was going! For all I knew they could have been heading for Texas, although I don't guess many people from Texas come all the way to Connecticut for a picnic.”

“It could happen,” said Tucker, nodding his head.

“Anyway I worked furiously to get loose. And finally I made it. When they got off the second train, I took a flying leap and landed in a pile of dirt over in the corner of this place where we are.”

“Such an introduction to New York,” said Tucker, “to land in a pile of dirt in the Times Square subway station. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

“And here I am,” Chester concluded forlornly. “I've been lying over there for three days not knowing what to do. At last I got so nervous I began to chirp.”

“That was the sound!” interrupted Tucker Mouse. “I heard it, but I didn't know what it was.”

“Yes, that was me,” said Chester. “Usually I don't chirp until later on in the summer—but my goodness, I had to do
something!
”

The cricket had been sitting next to the edge of the shelf. For some reason—perhaps it was a faint noise, like padded feet tiptoeing across the floor—he happened to look down. A shadowy form that had been crouching silently below in the darkness made a spring and landed right next to Tucker and Chester.

“Watch out!” Chester shouted. “A cat!” He dove headfirst into the matchbox.

FOUR

Harry Cat

Chester buried his head in the Kleenex. He didn't want to see his new friend, Tucker Mouse, get killed. Back in Connecticut he had sometimes watched the one-sided fights of cats and mice in the meadow, and unless the mice were near their holes, the fights always ended in the same way. But this cat had been upon them too quickly: Tucker couldn't have escaped.

There wasn't a sound. Chester lifted his head and very cautiously looked behind him. The cat—a huge tiger cat with gray-green eyes and black stripes along his body—was sitting on his hind legs, switching his tail around his forepaws. And directly between those forepaws, in the very jaws of his enemy, sat Tucker Mouse. He was watching Chester curiously. The cricket began to make frantic signs that the mouse should look up and see what was looming over him.

Very casually Tucker raised his head. The cat looked straight down on him. “Oh, him,” said Tucker, chucking the cat under the chin with his right front paw, “he's my best friend. Come out from the matchbox.”

Chester crept out, looking first at one, then the other.

“Chester, meet Harry Cat,” said Tucker. “Harry, this is Chester. He's a cricket.”

“I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Harry Cat in a silky voice.

“Hello,” said Chester. He was sort of ashamed because of all the fuss he'd made. “I wasn't scared for myself. But I thought cats and mice were enemies.”

“In the country, maybe,” said Tucker. “But in New York we gave up those old habits long ago. Harry is my oldest friend. He lives with me over in the drain pipe. So how was scrounging tonight, Harry?”

“Not so good,” said Harry Cat. “I was over in the ash cans on the East Side, but those rich people don't throw out as much garbage as they should.”

“Chester, make that noise again for Harry,” said Tucker Mouse.

Chester lifted the black wings that were carefully folded across his back and with a quick, expert stroke drew the top one over the bottom. A
thrumm
echoed through the station.

“Lovely—very lovely,” said the cat. “This cricket has talent.”

“I thought it was singing,” said Tucker. “But you do it like playing a violin, with one wing on the other?”

“Yes,” said Chester. “These wings aren't much good for flying, but I prefer music anyhow.” He made three rapid chirps.

Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat smiled at each other. “It makes me want to purr to hear it,” said Harry.

“Some people say a cricket goes ‘chee chee chee,'” explained Chester. “And others say, ‘treet treet treet,' but we crickets don't think it sounds like either one of those.”

“It sounds to me as if you were going ‘crik crik crik,'” said Harry.

“Maybe that's why they call him a ‘cricket,'” said Tucker.

They all laughed. Tucker had a squeaky laugh that sounded as if he were hiccupping. Chester was feeling much happier now. The future did not seem nearly as gloomy as it had over in the pile of dirt in the corner.

“Are you going to stay a while in New York?” asked Tucker.

“I guess I'll have to,” said Chester. “I don't know how to get home.”

“Well, we could always take you to Grand Central Station and put you on a train going back to Connecticut,” said Tucker. “But why don't you give the city a try. Meet new people—see new things. Mario likes you very much.”

“Yes, but his mother doesn't,” said Chester. “She thinks I carry germs.”

“Germs!” said Tucker scornfully. “She wouldn't know a germ if one gave her a black eye. Pay no attention.”

“Too bad you couldn't have found more successful friends,” said Harry Cat. “I fear for the future of this newsstand.”

“It's true,” echoed Tucker sadly. “They're going broke fast.” He jumped up on a pile of magazines and read off the names in the half-light that slanted through the cracks in the wooden cover: “
Art News—Musical America.
Who would read them but a few long-hairs?”

“I don't understand the way you talk,” said Chester. Back in the meadow he had listened to bullfrogs, and woodchucks, and rabbits, even a few snakes, but he had never heard anyone speak like Tucker Mouse. “What is a long-hair?”

Tucker scratched his head and thought a moment. “A long-hair is an extra-refined person,” he said. “You take an Afghan hound—that's a long-hair.”

“Do Afghan hounds read
Musical America?
” asked the cricket.

“They would if they could,” said Tucker.

Chester shook his head. “I'm afraid I won't get along in New York,” he said.

“Oh, sure you will!” squeaked Tucker Mouse. “Harry, suppose we take Chester up and show him Times Square. Would you like that, Chester?”

“I guess so,” said Chester, although he was really a little leery of venturing out into New York City.

The three of them jumped down to the floor. The crack in the side of the newsstand was just wide enough for Harry to get through. As they crossed the station floor, Tucker pointed out the local sights of interest, such as the Nedick's lunch counter—Tucker spent a lot of time around there—and the Loft's candy store. Then they came to the drain pipe. Chester had to make short little hops to keep from hitting his head as they went up. There seemed to be hundreds of twistings and turnings, and many other pipes that opened off the main route, but Tucker Mouse knew his way perfectly—even in the dark. At last Chester saw light above them. One more hop brought him out onto the sidewalk. And there he gasped, holding his breath and crouching against the cement.

They were standing at one corner of the Times building, which is at the south end of Times Square. Above the cricket, towers that seemed like mountains of light rose up into the night sky. Even this late the neon signs were still blazing. Reds, blues, greens, and yellows flashed down on him. And the air was full of the roar of traffic and the hum of human beings. It was as if Times Square were a kind of shell, with colors and noises breaking in great waves inside it. Chester's heart hurt him and he closed his eyes. The sight was too terrible and beautiful for a cricket who up to now had measured high things by the height of his willow tree and sounds by the burble of a running brook.

“How do you like it?” asked Tucker Mouse.

“Well—it's—it's quite something,” Chester stuttered.

“You should see it New Year's Eve,” said Harry Cat.

Gradually Chester's eyes got used to the lights. He looked up. And way far above them, above New York, and above the whole world, he made out a star that he knew was a star he used to look at back in Connecticut. When they had gone down to the station and Chester was in the matchbox again, he thought about that star. It made him feel better to think that there was one familiar thing, twinkling above him, amid so much that was new and strange.

FIVE

Sunday Morning

The next morning Mario came back to the newsstand with his father. Usually he slept late on Sunday, but today he was up before either of his parents and kept urging Papa Bellini to hurry.

They lifted off the cover and Mario dashed inside. He held up the matchbox and looked in. There was Chester, lying on the Kleenex. The cricket wasn't asleep though—he had been waiting for Mario. He chirped once.

Papa smiled when he heard the chirp. “He must like it here,” he said. “He didn't run away in the night.”

“I knew he wouldn't,” said Mario.

For breakfast Mario had brought a crust of bread, a lump of sugar, and a cold Brussels sprout. He wasn't quite sure what crickets liked, so he decided to try him out on everything. Chester jumped over Mario's little finger into the palm of his hand where the food was. Back in the meadow his usual diet was leaves and grass, and every now and then a piece of tender bark, but here in New York he was eating bread and candy and liverwurst, and finding them very tasty at that.

When Chester had had as much as he wanted, Mario wrapped what was left in a piece of wax paper and put it inside the cash register. Then he slipped the cricket back inside the matchbox and took him over to one of the lunch counters.

“Look,” he said to the counterman. “This is my new pet. He's a cricket.”

The counterman's name was Mickey. He had red, curly hair. “That's a fine cricket,” he said, peering in at Chester.

“May he have a glass of water, please?” asked Mario.

Mickey said, “Sure,” and gave him the glass. Mario held Chester by the hind legs and lowered him carefully until his head was just above the water. Chester dunked his head in and had a big drink. Then he pulled it out, took a breath, and went in for another.