Mouseheart

  To the kids on “The Grit,” who make summer feel more like magic: Will and Julia Erickson, and Matthew, Christopher, A. J., and Brian Carbone.

  Hey, A. J. . . . here’s your story!

  PROLOGUE

  Some time ago, in the tunnels beneath Brooklyn, New York . . .

  THE YOUNG RAT PRINCE knew he was taking a monumental risk. He knew that his father, the emperor, would be livid should he ever learn that he had ventured out into the Great Beyond.

  But he did not care. The morning began with the usual pomp and circumstance: a formal breakfast with His Majesty the Emperor Titus, in which the emperor, Zucker’s father, ignored both Zucker and Zucker’s mother, the beautiful empress Conselyea. After the silent meal the young prince accompanied Titus to a meeting of his royal advisors, and then they went directly to the armory, where his father, with a critical eye, watched him at fencing practice.

  The prince was, as always, lithe and lethal. His instructor was pleased and complimentary, but Titus could not be bothered to praise his son’s talent.

  After fencing Zucker was ushered off to the schoolroom.

  Ordinarily he would have complained, but today he didn’t mind. This was the crux of his plan of escape.

  As expected, the prince’s elderly tutor only managed to drone on for about three minutes before the old rat dozed off into a deep sleep.

  This gave the prince the opportunity he needed. He quickly changed out of his elegant vest and breeches and slipped into a shirt made of coarse fabric, which he’d borrowed from one of the servants the day before and hid in the corner of the schoolroom. Then he grabbed his rapier and tiptoed out of the classroom, through the royal apartments, and out into Atlantia.

  He kept his head low so as not to be recognized as he darted through the market square to the main gate; with a little luck he’d be able to sweet-talk whichever cat was guarding the gate that morning into letting him through.

  Make that a lot of luck.

  He stopped short at the sight of a young feral he’d never seen before. The big orange beast looked as though he’d recently been in a fight . . . and lost. His gashes were crusting over to scabs, and there was a festering wound on his tail that looked like a bite mark.

  The unfamiliar guard hissed. “What do you want?”

  “My father has sent me to roam the tunnels and scavenge for wares to sell at market,” Zucker lied.

  The cat smirked. “What if I decide not to let you out?”

  “I think that’s a bad idea,” Zucker said, his hand instinctively moving to the handle of his sword. “You’re new. Who are you?”

  The cat answered with a cocky toss of his head. “The name’s Cyclone. I was named after the roller coaster at Coney Island. ’Cause I’m fast and scary.”

  “Never heard of Coney Island,” the prince shot back, matching Cyclone’s attitude.

  “You tunnel rats don’t know nothin,’ ” scoffed Cyclone. “I used to live upland, but my humans had a problem with me clawing stuff.”

  “Like their furniture?”

  “Like their legs. And arms, and the occasional cheek and forehead.” Cyclone laughed.

  Without warning, the cat swung one plump orange paw, smacking the prince hard into the wall and knocking the wind out of him.

  Dazed, the prince reached for his sword, but before he could draw it, the cat had snatched him up, holding him so that they were nose to nose.

  “I don’t particularly enjoy rat flesh,” said Cyclone, his reeking breath hot in the prince’s face. “But in your case, I might make an exception.”

  The prince writhed in Cyclone’s grip, but the cat held fast. His teeth were slick with drool, and those stagnant-green eyes glowed.

  And then . . .

  Thwap!

  The stone flew from the darkness and smashed into the cat’s cheekbone, immediately raising a welt. As Cyclone wobbled, the prince wriggled free and jumped to the ground.

  “Hurry up!” came a voice from outside the gate. “While he’s dizzy. Run!”

  The prince didn’t bother to question the logic of running toward an unknown voice beyond the safety of the wall—he just did it.

  One razor-sharp claw came down upon his tail, pinning him to the spot; the prince fell forward and landed hard on his face. He struggled, hind paws scraping up clouds of dust, front ones reaching, reaching . . .

  The prince looked back and his heart lurched as he saw the cat’s open mouth, pink tongue, and jagged teeth coming straight for him.

  Unable to watch, he whipped his head away, and to his shock, standing before him was a little brown mouse.

  A little brown mouse . . . with a very big sword!

  The mouse reached over the prince’s head to plunge his blade into the cat’s paw. The cat let out a shriek, and the prince was free. He ran for the gate with the mouse right behind him.

  “When I shout, ‘Now,’ ” cried the mouse, panting as he ran, “we slam the gate closed! Together. You got me?”

  “Gotcha!”

  They cleared the gate just as the hissing feline went into his crouch. The prince and his unknown rescuer took hold of the bars.

  Spitting, sputtering, eyes flashing, the cat launched himself into the air.

  “Now!”

  The prince heaved.

  The gate closed just as Cyclone began his descent, his face connecting with the knifelike point of one of the iron bars—piercing, puncturing.

  Cyclone jerked his head back and let out a sickening wail.

  The prince and the mouse gaped in revulsion as blood spurted from the cat’s eye socket.

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” breathed the mouse. “Honest!”

  As the cat continued to howl in agony, the young prince thought he might be ill, but he managed to collect himself.

  “You didn’t do it,” the prince corrected. “He did. And besides, you heard him—he would have eaten me. This was self-defense, plain and simple!”

  The prince pressed his face to the iron bars and shouted, “Hey, Cyclone! I think from now on you’re gonna be called Cyclops!”

  The cat moaned in pain, pressing both his front paws to his ruined eye. “And if yer thinkin’ about getting even, think twice. You picked the wrong rat to mess with!”

  Cyclone opened his remaining eye and hissed.

  The prince lifted his chin. “I’m His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of the House of Romanus! And if you ever so much as attempt to pluck one whisker from my royal face, you can kiss all nine of your pathetic lives good-bye!”

  Cyclone grunted.

  The mouse stepped forward and addressed the wounded cat.

  “I believe what you’ve just done is a violation of the Accord between Queen Felina and Emperor Titus,” he said calmly. “All the prince has to do is tell one of his father’s soldiers, and you’ll be swinging from your tail in the town square before lunchtime. However . . . I believe we might be willing to make a deal with you.”

  The prince grinned. This mouse had guts.

  Cyclone brought his bloody face closer to the bars. “What kind of deal?”

  “From now on the prince can come and go as he pleases. Any time of the day or night. And you don’t say a word. To anyone. Ever. Now, if you’ll agree to that one simple condition, we’ll agree not to go running back to the palace right now to, if you’ll pardon the expression”—he glanced at the prince—“rat you out!”

  Cyclone let out another miserable meow, but he nodded.

  With that, the rat and the mouse took off into the tunnel.

  When they reached the first bend and Atlantia was out of sight, the prince turned to his new friend.

  “Thanks for saving my life,” he said.

  The mouse shrugged. “All in a day’s work.” Then h
e held out his tiny paw to shake. “By the way, I’m Dodger.”

  chapter one

  THE CAGE LID CLOSED with a hollow clang.

  It was followed by the metallic zip of the lock sliding into place.

  Hopper pressed his soft muzzle to the bars. The shopkeeper had just filled their bowl with a meal of pellets and lined the cage with a fresh sprinkle of aspen shavings and a handful of shredded paper; now the space was clean and almost cozy. Hopper listened as his brother, Pup, burrowed happily into the crisp, new wood curls. Pinkie, their sister, found no such comfort as she clawed at the shiny metal clasp that held the cage lid in place.

  Pinkie clawed whenever she could. Pinkie was like that.

  “Closing time,” Keep muttered, humming off-key as he went about his chores. Hopper watched sleepily as beyond the big window, Brooklyn had begun to fade into twilight and shadows.

  The other mice who shared their cage were already piled into a white-and-brown heap in the corner. Young, and new to the shop, they tired easily. In seconds Hopper could hear the gentle snuffles and sighs of their collective slumber.

  Keep’s gravelly voice rumbled from the back of the shop. “Birds . . . check. Felines . . . check. Reptiles and amphibians . . . check, check.”

  This was Keep’s end-of-the-day litany—checks and reminders and grumbled complaints about ill-smelling feed and dirty cage bottoms. Hopper knew the routine by heart, but he took little joy in the familiarity of it. He hated the darkling hours.

  Their mother had disappeared at dusk.

  Now Keep returned to the mouse cage. He gave the clasp a tug to see that it was secure.

  “Rodents . . . check.”

  Lucky for Keep, he pulled his chubby thumb away just before Pinkie could sink her teeth into it.

  And that was the last of it. Hopper knew all that remained was for Keep to turn the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. This would inform the patrons on the other side of the big window that there would be no more adoptions today; it was time for the animals to rest. Keep would take his leave, sweeping a chill blast of air into the shop as he opened the door. The bell on the handle would jangle fitfully as the door swung wide; then it would close with a loud, metallic clack as Keep locked it with his key. After that, the shop would fall silent but for the bubbling of the aquariums and the sleepy chirping sounds of animals dreaming of a far-off future in a place called home.

  But not Hopper. He only ever dreamed one dream. And it was not so much a dream but a memory of his mother on the last day he had ever seen her. It was vague and hazy, but buried deep inside it was the image of her lovely brown face and her twinkling eyes, filled with love.

  In the memory Hopper and Pinkie and Pup had been no larger than pebbles, pressed against their mother’s warm, silken fur. The sun outside the big window had been setting when Keep had approached the cage. And something in Hopper’s mother’s eyes had turned to ice.

  She knew. Somehow she knew.

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” Hopper had asked.

  Pinkie had been curled around Pup, sound asleep.

  A creaking sound . . . The cage lid being lifted . . .

  His mother’s heartbeat against him, her eyes glittering with tears as they’d darted back and forth between Hopper and Keep. “Find the Mews,” she’d whispered. Her voice, ordinarily sweet and calm and wise, had been frantic. “Find the Mews, Hopper. You must.”

  But Keep had had her by the tail, and in the next moment Hopper’s mother had been dangling above him, her arms stretching out to him desperately.

  Hopper had heard her utter a word that might have been “below.” But he had been too terrified to comprehend. Then she was gone.

  He had watched from sun to sun, seeing the light change the sky outside the big glass, but his mother had not come back.

  When at last Pinkie had been certain that their mother was lost to them forever, she had turned on him.

  “You didn’t do anything to stop it!” she had seethed.

  “What could I have done?” he’d asked in a small voice.

  “Woken me, for starters! I would have known what to do. I would have fought for her.”

  The disdain in her eyes, the scorn in her voice, had caused Hopper to burrow into the aspen shavings in shame.

  Pup had come and cuddled beside him. Pup had been even tinier then . . . so delicate and fragile. His ears had been smaller and pinker than Hopper’s, nearly transparent.

  “Maybe Mama went home,” he’d said in his hopeful way. “Maybe that’s what happened, Hopper.”

  Hopper had nodded, but there was a lump in his throat. “Yes, Pup. That’s probably it.”

  “So we should be happy for her, then.”

  Hopper had smiled at his brother but hadn’t replied. He had seen his mother’s eyes when Keep pinched her tail and jerked her out of their cage. She had not been adopted, brought to a better life. She had been violently stolen. Hopper knew it in his gut. Find the Mews. The phrase haunted him as much as the image did. He still couldn’t be certain that’s what she’d said as she’d bobbed above him, her paws reaching for her babies even as the hand pulled her from their lives. But he would never forget the tone of her voice. It was a promise, a warning, a plea . . .

  Find the Mews.

  Sometimes in the memory Hopper could almost feel the warmth she’d left behind in the nest of paper and wood. She was there and she was gone. And in the dream he could do nothing but watch her go.

  And always Hopper would awaken with his eyes damp and his heart aching.

  Hopper closed his eyes and listened, first for the whine of the money machine being put to bed, then for the bell on the door that would signal Keep’s departure.

  But the sounds didn’t come.

  Hopper waited.

  Still no machine. Still no bell.

  He opened his eyes, his pink nose twitching with awareness. What was Keep waiting for?

  Suddenly Keep’s booted feet stomped across the shop to the counter, and he angrily muttered something under his breath.

  Curious, Hopper peered through the bars, but all he saw was his own reflection in the glass tank next to his cage.

  Same old Hopper: small and brown, with a white ring around his right eye; slender paws and long, smooth tail, tapered to a point at the end like a whip. Bright black eyes, and dainty, oval ears, flickering now as he listened to Keep’s movements.

  Coins rattled as the money drawer banged open, then closed again. The machine let out one last long beep and the shop went still.

  But then the door flung wide—the bell jingled madly as the shop was assaulted with a rush of cold wind. A lanky boy wearing a snug woolen cap and a black jacket stood in the doorway. His face was thin and pale, and his eyes narrowed as he locked his gaze on Keep.

  Worst of all was the long, slithering horrible thing he carried, draped around his neck.

  Hopper’s heart thudded and his blood went cold as one word and one word only trembled on his tongue.

  Snake!

  chapter two

  HOPPER DID NOT KNOW how he knew that word—perhaps he wasn’t even saying it properly, but he knew it . . . knew it in his bones, from the tips of his whiskers to the point of his tail. It was a knowledge born of instinct.

  Without thinking, Hopper scampered across the papery floor of the cage and threw himself in front of Pup and Pinkie.

  “What are you doing?” Pinkie hissed.

  “Shhh,” said Hopper. He was quivering now, watching with wide eyes as the skinny boy marched himself across the shop to Keep’s counter. The snake clung to his bony shoulders, moving like something from another world. Its flattened, diamond-shaped head darted from side to side, a forked sliver of tongue flicking in and out between long, curved fangs.

  “What is that?” Pup whispered from behind Hopper. His wispy little voice was filled with terror.

  “It’s a snake, you runt!” snapped Pinkie.

  A jolt of anger shot through Hopper. He had asked Pinkie a hundred
times not to call Pup “runt.” But now was certainly not a time for reprimands.

  “Where’s my feeders?” the boy demanded.

  “You’re too late,” said Keep, shrugging his stooped shoulders. “I told ya, I close at five—I already rung out.”

  The boy frowned. “It ain’t my fault the trains were late tonight.”

  Keep laughed. “You took that monster on the subway? Boy, I bet you gave a lotta folks the fright of their life!” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Imagine that! A boa on the Brighton line!”

  Boa.

  Hopper had heard that word before, and it shot into his ear like a poison dart.

  Boa. As in boa constrictor.

  Keep had had one once. It lived in a heavy glass tank on a sturdy shelf in an area of the shop Hopper and the other mice could not see from their cage. But he’d heard people talking about it, describing it—they’d called it “a hideous slithering rope of a thing, with scales and sharp teeth.” They called it “fierce” and “frightening.”

  Now that Hopper was seeing one with his own eyes, he knew they’d been right.

  He turned his attention to the counter, where the boy was tapping his foot, ignoring Keep’s laughter. He stroked the snake’s scaly neck. “I need feeders now.”

  Pup turned to Pinkie. “What’s a feeder?” he asked quietly.

  Pinkie’s answer was a grim look.

  “I told ya,” Keep said, “I’m closed. The register’s computerized, so I can’t open it again till tomorrow morning. Come back then.”

  Then Keep smiled.

  “But you can have a peek at ’em,” he told the boy. “Whet the beast’s appetite, so to speak.” With a pudgy finger he pointed across the shop.

  Directly at Hopper.

  The boy gave a little grunt. With his snake writhing on his shoulders, he crossed the floor to the mouse cage.

  Drawing himself up to his full stature, Hopper spread his arms wide to shield his family, pressing Pinkie and Pup against the back bars of the cage, shivering as boy and snake moved closer. And closer.

  “Jeesh,” the boy huffed. “No aquarium?” He poked a scrawny finger between the bars of Hopper’s cage and tugged. “This thing’s practically an antique!”