To Scarlett’s infinite frustration, the police were only mildly interested in the break-in. The only thing reported missing was a white mouse, and the apartment was otherwise undamaged and intact. The officers were even skeptical of Scarlett’s claim that she had not left the cage on the floor with the lid off, but her aunt swore the front door had been locked. The scratch marks (said the officers) matched those typically found when someone was trying to open a key lock with a wire or similar device, but was having trouble doing it. The officers took notes, promised to drive by the apartment building more often at night, then left. Scarlett hardly slept the rest of the evening from worry.
“They didn’t even take fingerprints!” she complained to Tananda the following day at school over lunch. “I can’t believe it! They thought it was a joke that someone stole my mouse! Isn’t that like kidnapping or pet-napping or something? Wouldn’t fingerprints help find out who did it?”
“From their point of view, solving a missing mouse case probably doesn’t have the fame potential of solving a triple murder,” said Tananda. She pointed at Scarlett’s tray with her fork. “You gonna eat that brownie?”
“What if Brian did it?” Scarlett moaned, feeling sick. “What if he took my mouse home and did something awful to it? Tan, what am I going to do?”
Tananda eyed the brownie and sighed. “That little bastard Brian must have wanted that mouse pretty bad to do breaking and entering.” She looked thoughtful. “Hmm. If he could break into your place and kidnap your mouse, I wonder if we could break into his house and kidnap him. I bet Beth Ann could do it. She knows a lot about stalking. There was this guy she liked in ninth grade, and she put on this black ninja suit and waited until he was in the shower in phys-ed, and then she—”
“I see Brittany,” Scarlett interrupted, glaring over Tananda’s shoulder. “Maybe she knows if Brian took Roge—my mouse, I mean. Maybe she knows if Brian stole my mouse.”
Tananda gave her red-haired friend an odd look before she turned around. Brittany the buxom blonde had just entered the cafeteria and was heading for the tray line, while tearfully relating a story to a cluster of sympathetic female friends. All of them wore identical cheerleading outfits in Lawndale’s school colors. Before Scarlett could object, Tananda got up and walked over to intercept the blue-and-gold clique. “Hey, Brittany!” Tan called. “Did Brian get that mouse back?”
Brittany sniffed as she looked around. Mascara ran down her face; even her pigtails drooped. “What?” she called back.
“Did Brian get his mouse back last night?” Tananda repeated.
“Oh, who cares about him?” Brittany shouted. “My Kevvy is all gross and ugly because he’s in this stupid science experiment, and Ms. Barch won’t let him be handsome and not-gross again until the experiment is over!” She burst into a new spate of weeping, and the other cheerleaders crowded in to comfort her. The group left without another word.
“Jeez Louise,” Tananda muttered as she went back to the table. She picked up her lunch tray and took the uneaten brownie that Scarlett glumly offered. “I have to go, but I’ll find out what I can,” she promised. “I’ll call you later.”
Scarlett nodded, grateful for the help. She pushed her tray away. “I’m not hungry.”
Tananda left with Scarlett’s tray on top of her own. Scarlett sat alone in the emptying cafeteria, trying to imagine what she could do next—assuming that attempts to save Roger weren’t already too late. She found her hands clasped together in front of her mouth, and it occurred to her that prayer was really all she had left. Prayer it would be, then.
Scarlett felt she had a personal relationship with the Goddess, but it wasn’t the sort of thing where she expected the Goddess would ever do much more for her than send her comfort or make her stronger in dealing with life’s many downturns. This time, things were different. Trying not to look too obvious about it, Scarlett closed her eyes and mouthed the words of her request. If it’s not too much to ask for, please send me a little help, anything You can, so I can save my mouse. A talking mouse has to be special to someone in the world, maybe even to You, and if he is special then give me a clue about where he is, anything at all, so I can—
“Excuse me,” said a voice to her right. Startled, Scarlett opened her eyes and looked up.
“Sorry if I’m butting in,” said the Brain, Daria Morgendorffer herself. “I was eating lunch behind you and thought I heard you say you were looking for a mouse. Is it that mouse from science lab, the one Brittany’s been trying to get for her little brother?”
“Yes,” said Scarlett, too stunned to say more.
“Well, for what it’s worth,” said Daria, “my sister’s been trying to get the local village idiots to contribute to a fund so she can get a nose job—don’t ask—and as a result, someone who uses colored pencils stuck a note to our front door last night saying he was going to contribute lots of money to her nose-job fund as soon as he picked up his reward for getting a mouse for a friend of his. The note was from a younger brother of a friend of my sister’s. You know Sandi Griffin?”
This can’t be true! I don’t believe it! Thank you, Goddess! “The Sandi who’s in that fashion bunch?”
“That’s her. Her brother Chris left the note. I think he’s planning to marry my sister, which is fine with me as long as he gets her out of the house by the end of the month.”
“Did he say who was giving him the reward?” Scarlett asked, her words running together in her excitement.
“No, but I’ve overheard Sandi say that Chris goes to Lawndale Elementary, which is where Brian Taylor goes, I believe. I hope that’s of some help.”
“Yes! Oh, yes, thank you!” Scarlett jumped to her feet and cried “Thank you!” again to Daria (and the Goddess) before she ran out of the lunchroom—and stopped right outside the door in the hallway. Whatever was she going to do next? She could call the Griffins’ house—but no one was probably home, and if she got Chris . . . no, that wouldn’t work. She would have to go there in person, right after school. But who would let her in to get the mouse? Certainly not Chris, if he was out to collect the reward—unless he’d already collected it after taking the mouse to Brian earlier that day!
Heartsick, Scarlett wandered the corridors until the bell rang for the next period. She went through the motions for the next two periods, becoming steadily more depressed about her chances to save Roger—until, on her way to her last-period study hall, she spotted Sandi Griffin walking alone. Sandi’s face was still puffy from cosmetic nasal surgery, but at least the nose splits were off. A desperate plan came to Scarlett, and she headed for Sandi at once.
The beautiful brunette freshman saw her coming. “I’m sorry,” she said with a disdainful glance at Scarlett’s outfit, “but we have no more openings for membership in the Fashion Club. Perhaps next year.”
“No,” said Scarlett as Sandi was turning away, “it’s not about that. Do you know if your brother Chris got a mouse last night?”
“Oh!” Sandi snapped, coming to a stop. Her face filled with sudden fury. “That little retard! I’d strangle him if I could only find someone to do it for me. Last night he said he brought home a mouse he’d found, but then it bit him and he dropped it and it got away and who knows where the little beast went. I could just—”
“I’m a part-time animal-catcher!” Scarlett interrupted, saying whatever came into her head. “I’m really good with animals, all kinds of animals! I can get rid of mice in no time!”
“So can my cat Fluffy,” said Sandi, starting to turn away again. “The problem has doubtless already been solved.”
Oh, Goddess, no! “Wait! If the mouse hasn’t been caught, can I try to catch it? Please? I need the practice!”
Sandi frowned as she stared at the silver ankh on Scarlett’s necklace. “Aren’t you like some kind of witch or Halloween thing or whatever?”
“Trust me, the stuff I know works,” said Scarlett. “You don’t want to take the chance there’s a live mouse in your room tonight, right?”
Sandi hesitated, a look of anxiety crossing her face before she regained her composure. “You have a point. How much do you charge, and how long will it take?”
“The first time’s for free, and it shouldn’t take more than five minutes!”
“We have a deal. Meet me outside the gym doors at two thirty-five sharp, near the parking lot. My date will drive us over.”
Scarlett promised to be there and hurried off to study hall, filled with elation. The minutes crawled by until the final bell rang and she was out of the room and down the hall like a bolt. She skipped going to her locker in her haste to get to the parking-lot door in the back of the gymnasium, where she discovered she was early. Most of the home-bound crowd of students and teachers were already gone by the time Sandi showed up, walking with a guy Scarlett recognized as a junior classman.
“Guy,” said Sandi, “this person is my hired help for the evening. Let her off at my house first, then take me to the mall.”
“Sure thing,” said her date, who then looked Scarlett over. “Hey, aren’t you that ankh girl I’ve heard about?”
“She is,” growled Sandi, “and if you wish the continued pleasure of my company, you’ll keep the rest of your remarks addressed to me alone.” Sandi handed Scarlett a single key. “This is for the front door. The alarm will be off, so let yourself in, do whatever it is you witches do to get rid of mice, and leave the key on the stand with the vase by the front door.” She shivered. “And if you’re too late and Fluffy’s found the mouse first, please clean everything up before I get home.”
Scarlett’s heart sank again. She got into the back of the junior’s Trans-Am, shoving aside piles of library books on dinosaurs and fossils, and buckled in for the ride.
“I had a cool day today,” said Guy, starting the car. “I was in science class giving my report on Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis, and Miz Barch said—”
“Guy,” Sandi interrupted in a loud voice, “what exactly did you agree to do in order to have a date with me?”
“Uh, um . . . no dinosaur talk.”
“And?“
“And, uh, no talking about anything having to do with science or math or history or anything else like that, for the rest of the date, and anytime afterward if you’re around, or you’ll never date me again, ever, period.”
“Precisely. Now, be a good chauffeur and shut up and drive.”
“Okay.” Guy looked in the rear-view mirror at Scarlett. “Hey,” he began, “do you—”
Sandi loudly cleared her throat and gave Guy a killing glare.
“—uh, never mind,” he finished quickly, and he shut up and drove the rest of the way to Sandi’s home, which lay in a large upscale subdivision west of the high school.
Guy pulled over when he reached the Griffins’ two-story, beige-brick home and let Scarlett out on the sidewalk. “If you see either of my two loser brothers,” said Sandi, “tell them you have my permission to be there, and they’d better not bother you or I’ll deal with them when I get home. Good luck finding that damn mouse—and remember to clean up!” Sandi signaled to Guy, and he pulled away from the curb with tires squealing. “Not so fast, damn it!” Scarlett heard Sandi cry as the car roared away.
There was no time to lose. Scarlett ran across the yard and up the front steps, reached the door, and fumbled trying to get the key into the lock. She noticed the keyhole had numerous scratches over it. Perhaps Chris Griffin had been practicing his lock-picking skills on his own home. The key went in and the door opened.
The Griffin residence was posh by any standard, but it also showed signs of being well used by aggressive boys. The walls were smudged, the carpet bore dirty sneaker-prints, and the wooden railing to the stairs going to the second floor was scratched and nicked in dozens of places. Several pictures hung at angles on the walls, and someone had stuck a pencil point-first into the ceiling of the entry foyer.
“Roger!” Scarlett yelled. She hurried to the right into the huge family room. “Roger! It’s me, Scarlett! Where are you? Roger!” Passing through the family room, she passed an open door to the garage and entered a solarium—no Roger—and continued around in a large circle to the left, entering the oversized kitchen next. Though there was no sign of anyone home, the boys had obviously been there, judging from the open cans of soda and half-empty jars of food left out on the kitchen counters. Some of the jars were still cool to the touch. Scarlett resisted the urge to put the food away and moved on—until she saw the pet food dish on the floor by a row of cabinets. Sandi’s cat! “Roger!” she yelled. “Say something!”
“Where the hell have you been?” cried a shrill voice above her. “Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick, get me out of this frickin’ madhouse!”
Scarlett looked up. Four feet above her, clutching a crossbar on a rack made for holding pots and pans, was a small white mouse with panic-filled pink eyes. “Roger!” she shrieked.
“The frickin’ cat’s on top of the refrigerator!” Roger yelled back. “The son-of-a-bitch’s been trying to jump over and knock me off of here for the last hour! Shoot it or something, already!”
Scarlett looked. A large white Persian cat was crouched on top of the refrigerator, just as Roger said, trying to keep tabs on both Scarlett and the mouse at the same time.
“Chase it off!” Roger screamed. “Hurry! This thing is slippery, I can’t hold on forever! And I’m scared spitless of heights!”
A quick look around the kitchen revealed numerous things that Scarlett could throw at the cat, but she balked at physically harming another creature unless there was no other possible option. Then she spotted the spice rack. She darted over, snatched out a bottle, opened the cap, and flung some of the contents at the Persian.
The effect was dramatic. The cat jumped to its feet, hissed loudly—then it sneezed violently, sneezed again even harder, then leapt down from the fridge and raced off through the house, wailing all the while.
“What did you throw at it?” shouted Roger, nose twitching.
“Cayenne pepper!” she said.
“Oh! Oh, no! Ohmigod!” Roger flinched on his perch. “It’s—it’s—I—” The white mouse drew back its head and, as Scarlett watched in horror, gave a mighty sneeze of its own.
And flew backwards off the stainless-steel rack like a tiny white missile.
Scarlett lunged even as she watched it happen and thrust her cupped hands out, but she was a tad short and as she tried to catch Roger her feet tangled and she went off balance and fell forward but she went on tiptoe and stretched on her way down to gain a few extra inches and the mouse landed in her hands but she kept falling and WHOOF!—she was sprawled over the kitchen floor with the wind knocked out of her and a white mouse sneezing up a storm in her hands. She tried to take a breath, but her lungs were full of needles and all she could do was gasp like a fish out of water. Her nose was twitching by now, too, but one cannot sneeze without air in her lungs.
The cat! Dazed, she groaned and got to her knees. It was impossible to speak, but she had Roger and that was all she cared about. There was no time to check him for injuries, so she tucked him in a pocket of her sweater and staggered out of the kitchen for the front door. She remembered only at the last moment to leave the key behind.
The way home was long. As she was crossing the outer limits of the Lawndale Mall’s vast parking-lot system, she found herself too tired to go on. She sat down on a grass-covered island dividing two overflow lots, carefully removed Roger from her pocket, and sat his limp form on her sweater-covered lap. For a frightening moment she thought he was dead, but he stirred, shook himself, and looked up. They gazed at each other in silence.
“‘Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick’?” Scarlett said at last. “Where the heck did you get that?”
“Don’t ever leave me again,” said the mouse. “I mean it.”
“Okay,” she promised, “but that means you’ll have to come to school with me.”
“Maybe somewhere in your backpack,” he said. “Maybe you could fix up a box or something. You could leave me in your locker between classes.”
“This’ll be tough.”
“I don’t care. I’ll do all your homework.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Just don’t leave me behind.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
He fell asleep in her pocket on the way home. She heard him snoring as she walked.
“Did you go out with some friends?” asked her aunt when she got in.
“No. Just went by the mall.”
“That’s nice. I had two more locks put on the front door with a special alarm. No one’s going to break in here now! Want me to order out pizza for supper? What do you want on it?”
“Sure. Anything, I don’t care.”
She put Roger in the cage and watched him crawl into his hutch and fall over, sound asleep again. It was Friday evening. There was nothing to do. She put down her gray backpack and took off her sweater, took a bathroom break, then came out and looked at the mouse cage for a while, thinking.
She was thinking about what he must have been like as a human. If he had been about fifty when he died in the skydiving accident, he would have been as old as her father would have been, had he lived, too. Her father had been a wonderful “little” brother, her aunt always said, a big man but just wonderful.
Her gaze drifted over to her computer. After a moment, she turned it on, waited for it to boot up, then got online. She found a search engine she liked, thought for a couple of minutes, then typed in a few words and hit the return key. She read the results, hit the return key again, then hit it again. She then tried a different combination of words.
Bingo. She clicked on one entry and read the webpage that appeared next, from the website of the local newspaper, the Lawndale Sun-Herald. The article was archived from just over a year ago.
It really happened, thought Scarlett in shock. I kind of believed him before, but he really was telling me the truth. He did get killed! He really is reincarnated!
The private detective’s name was Roger LaSouris. He had been investigating organized crime activity in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and was said to have been closing in on the leaders of an extortion and arson ring. Skydiving was his hobby, though he was a part-time instructor as well. (Why didn't he tell me he was a detective, too? Scarlett wondered.) An investigation was being conducted, but nothing worse than negligence was suspected. The damaged chutes were said to have been packed by personnel at a small county airport just for practice, then were set aside to be taken out for repairs, as the mouse had said. Someone had mistaken the damaged parachutes for normal ones and, without checking them, had put them in a spot where the group of three skydivers had taken and used them.
We each packed our own parachutes, I know that for a fact, Roger had said, and there was nothing wrong with them.
Scarlett read the rest of the article, then did a few more searches. Another article appeared that showed the case had been closed, no charges filed. The skydivers should not have used parachutes they had not packed, said the investigators.
But that wasn’t what Roger had said, and she believed him. It was pretty obvious what had happened. Detective Roger LaSouris—now Roger the mouse—really had been murdered. One or more people in the police investigation must have known the truth but covered it up. It had been an inside job. Maybe the leader of the extortion ring had ordered LaSouris taken out before he got too close. She could find no further mention of the extortion and arson ring he was supposed to have been investigating.
Now Scarlett was the only person who knew the whole truth, other than Roger. She had no one she could talk to about it. Everything was over and done with, and the world had moved on.
She printed off the articles and hid them away. She then looked up the longevity of the average mouse. If it was lucky, a mouse could live to see its third birthday. If Roger had been a mouse for a year now, he had about a year or two left.
She shut down her laptop, thoroughly depressed. Life wasn’t just unfair; at times, it positively sucked out loud.
At least she would be with Roger for a little while. It would be fun to have someone to talk to at school, when time allowed. She had always wanted a friend more than a pet.
When she fell asleep later that night with her headphones on, music playing in her ears and her stomach full of pepperoni pizza, she had an odd dream that she was suddenly as small as Roger the mouse. Someone was chasing them, however, and Roger was trying to protect her as they ran. Then something reached down and snatched Roger away, but this time he was really gone, gone forever.
And then that something came down for her, and as it did she looked up and saw it—a cosmic entity of wickedness that filled the night above her, a thing of absolute evil and infinite size. As it reached down and caught her, she screamed and screamed and screamed.
Last updated 12/23/06