The Orphan and the Mouse Read Online Free PDF Page A

mouse in the colony would emigrate, including her own pups. She would be left behind. It was a sad fate made sadder still by the impending visit of the exterminator. Effectively, Mary had been sentenced to death.

Chapter Eleven

    Coming as a bolt from the blue to every mouse in the colony, the emigration order was met initially with confusion and pockets of defiance. These Randolph overcame by giving every mouse a job to do, thus uniting them to face the crisis.
    With no time to waste, scouts departed and fanned out across the neighborhood, visiting alternative shelters one after another until at last they identified one that met the criteria for habitation: no existing rodent population, no residual extermination poisons, and minimal resident predators, all well fed.
    It went without saying that the shelter must also be inhabited by humans because humans provide mice with all their essential comforts: comestibles, nesting materials, and winter warmth.
    With the scouts’ report complete, the directors approved preparations for settlement, and spies were dispatched to assess the human inhabitants’ conversation, foragers to begin stocking the larders, builders to develop nests and pathways, garbage managers to identify sites for refuse, auditors to learn where stories were told, and, of course, an art thief to locate the source of pictures.
    The thief, young and untried, had previously served as a scout. He had the agility required for the job, and no one doubted his intelligence, but his temperament was an open question. For his part, he would have liked to interview the colony’s only living thief, Mary Mouse, to learn from her experience. But this Randolph forbade absolutely.

Chapter Twelve

    On Sunday night another resident of the Cherry Street Children’s Home—this one human—tossed and turned in her bed. This resident had lately learned there were mice sharing her roof, but that wasn’t what disturbed her. Rather, Mrs. Helen George was apprehensive about the visitor expected in the morning.
    It took a lot to impress Helen George. In her role as headmistress of an institution founded by prominent members of Philadelphia society, she was accustomed to meeting well-to-do people. But tomorrow’s visitor was special, a bona fide movie star under contract to Paramount and featured only five months before on the cover of
Silver Screen
magazine.
    Joanna Grahame was a hometown girl, born Gianna Garibaldi in South Philly, where she graduated from Catholic schools and then—to her parents’ consternation—moved to New York City to become an actress. When a Hollywood director happened to see her in a bit part on Broadway, her career took off. That had been fifteen years before. Since then, she had starred in two dozen movies, had been linked romantically to multiple leading men, and had been married and divorced twice—once to a screenwriter (he drank) and once to a war hero (he drank, too).
    Ordinarily, a celebrity’s visit to the Cherry Street Home was exploited by both parties for its publicity value. After all, what Page 1 editor could resist the combination of cute orphans and glamor? But this visit was being kept quiet, at least for the time being. Both Miss Grahame and Mrs. George had their reasons. It might be that, if everything went well, there would be some future opportunity for mutually beneficial flashbulbs and mentions in the gossip column.
    Helen George was beautiful but no longer young. At her dressing table early Monday morning, she concealed the effects of her insomnia with a deft application of face powder, fixed her silver hair into a French twist, aimed an aerosol can of hairspray, closed her eyes, and depressed the button.
    Napping on the pink satin bedspread, her tabby cat heard the
sssss
, awoke, and swiped his paw across his nose, annoyed by the nasty smell.
    Mrs. George caught sight of the cat’s reflection, which reminded her of another