Always, Clementine E-Book

Carlie Sorosiak

• Herausgeber: Nosy Crow Ltd
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 261

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A funny, wise and heartwarming story, with a truly one-of-a-kind hero, from the author of the highly-acclaimed I, Cosmo and My Life as a Cat. i>I am an optimist. A very difficult thing to be, sometimes, at three inches tall.i> Clementine is a genius. She can calculate pi to 69,689 places, remembers the exact moment she was born, and dreams in Latin. She's also a mouse. And when she escapes from the lab which has bred her, Clementine discovers that it's not enough to be the smartest mouse in history if she wants to survive in the real world - especially while the scientists who kept her are trying to recover their prize specimen. So, together with her new human friends, Clementine must find a way to earn her freedom - for good. With beautiful writing and a truly wonderful hero who you'll fall in love with from the first page, Always, Clementine is perfect for fans of Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, Flora and Ulysses, and The Queen's Gambit.

Leseprobe

Letter One

Dear Rosie,

There once was a mouse. That’s me. Hello!

As you can probably tell, I’m not sure how to begin. This is my first time writing a letter. And it’s not even writing! It’s more like thinking. I am thinking a letter.

This would be so much easier if I could just see your face: your white chin whiskers, your amber eyes. Did you know that one hundred minutes have passed since we last spoke? You probably do.

Let me start again. My brain is firing in many, many directions – and it’s hard to concentrate my thoughts. This often happens. I will focus them here. Inside a mailbox.

Rosie, I’m stuck inside a mailbox!

Sound it out with your fingers. Mail-box. It’s a place where people deposit their letters, their ideas, their wishes for one another. In this mailbox, every letter is addressed to the same person. The envelopes smell of paper, and taste like – wait a second – oh, they do not taste good. (Pew! I’m spitting them out now.)

Despite everything that’s just happened to me, Rosie, I am an optimist. A very difficult thing to be, sometimes, at three inches tall. But my tail is still curling at the boom-boom-boom of thunder outside. Oh! It’s so shaky! So loud! All I can do is tuck myself into the shadow of a letter, looking up to see – yes, that’s interesting, the stamp is exactly the size of my head.

Are you afraid?

Are you missing me, too?

How long before I see you again?

As I’m tucking, as I’m tail-curling, I’m trying to figure out a way back to you. We’ve never been apart for this long. I am your mouse. You are my chimpanzee. Will you be taller, seconds or minutes or days from now? Will you still let me climb on to your shoulder, up the black hair of your arm? I like that! I like how you laugh when I press my paws to your nose.

Until then, I’ll write these letters. Think these letters. That way, when you lift me again into the bare palm of your hand, all my memories will be right there. And I can tell you everything.

(If I’m not gone forever first.)

Always,

Clementine

Letter Two

Dear Rosie,

It has been seventeen seconds since my last letter. How are you?

Rain is hammering the mailbox! This mailbox is supposed to help protect me. Protect me from what, I do not know. But each rap and drop of rain prickles my fur. My tail stiffens as I tell myself: I am not afraid. Not afraid. Not afraid!

Thunder is the second-loudest noise I’ve ever heard.

We’ll get to the first later. Right now, considering that I’m stuck (and not afraid!), I’d like to busy my brain. Shouldn’t we start at the beginning? I was planning on telling you this someday! My origins. My life before you. I don’t know yours, so I’d like you – at least – to know mine.

I remember the day I was born. Maybe this is strange, to remember the exact moment you entered the world. But I do. It was warm, wood shavings were soft around me, and I thought to myself: Breathe.

Then I thought: Prime numbers are asymptomatically distributed among positive integers, and light travels proportionally through the vacuum of space.

More interesting ideas would come.

Keep in mind, though, I didn’t have any fur yet. My eyes hadn’t opened. My ears – small and velvety pink – couldn’t hear a single noise. That’s why it took me twenty-five days (plus or minus seven seconds) to discover that I was the smartest mouse in history.

“She could be the smartest mouse in history,” said one of the researchers. That was a clue. As was the fact that I understood human language. The other lab mice didn’t follow conversations the way I did. They didn’t sit dreamily at the edge of our cage, forepaws tucked under their chins, and just listen.

Different. I wasn’t sure I was different. How can you really know? You can’t ask the other mice, When you’re drinking from that water bottle, are you solving equations at the same time? If you dream at night, is it in Latin? Do you have a thinking cap (a miniature pompom, from a human’s sweater)?

No.

We cuddled in a pile. We played. Our fur grew in at the same time. I have a heart-shaped spot, just above my tail, and so did one of the other mice. A lab is a place for scientific tests, and we were all a big part of those tests; yet, in most ways, we seemed unalike. My cage-mates peered at me strangely as I threw myself into activities. Waiting around, waiting for the next part of the experiment, is uninteresting. So I saved all my food pellets in the corner of the cage, hiding them beneath the water bottle, then stuffed them in my mouth – all at once. I developed theories about how far my cheeks could balloon. And I noticed that the harder I thought, the more my fur smelled of raspberries. (Apparently this was a side effect of the experiment. Although the rest of the mice just smelled like mice.)

Wait! What was that noise? That noise, right now? Is someone outside the mailbox? Is that a tree branch or a human or just the rain? I lift on to my hind toes, ears vibrating, whiskers whiskering.

Hmm. It’s gone.

Now, where was I?

Oh! The maze.

The maze changed everything.

Lab mice are supposed to follow the jumble of trails. I did that – one time. But why go through the maze, if you can simply … leave? Standing on my hind paws, I wobbled a bit, calculated the trajectory, then sprang over the wall, landing with a gentle thump on the table.

“Did you see that?” a researcher said, grabbing me.

“See what?” asked another.

“This mouse. She hopped out of the maze like some sort of pogo stick! None of the others have done that.” He lifted me in his palm, until he met my stare. My mind was wandering towards electromagnetic waves and the Pythagorean theorem and also Brussel sprouts, which are delicious. “Her eyes look so human. Don’t they look human?”

A human eye is half the size of my body. How odd would I look, if my eyes were that large?

And why didn’t the humans ever ask me questions? Why couldn’t we brainstorm the experiment together? The lab was studying how to increase intelligence in mammals by altering our DNA. I had so many ideas to help! Like, miniature lab coats for all of us mice. And Brussel sprout sandwiches every twenty-six minutes. And improved analytics for their statistical models.

“Just run it another time,” the first researcher said.

In half a second (so quick! Ha! Ha-ha-ha!), I was out again.

That night, new questions arrived. Didn’t the maze bore the others? Why were they so intent on burrowing, when our cage was solid, and could not be burrowed through?

I was missing something. Some important secret about the world.

It was lonely, Rosie.

I was lonely every day, until the night I met you.

Always,

Clementine

Letter Three

Dear Rosie,

In the mailbox, as I’m thinking this letter, I curl up into the tightest ball possible. The safest ball possible. My eyelids slowly blink with the sound of your name. Rosie. Rosie. I miss you.

Do you remember when we met?

Sometimes, as the researchers flicked off the lights in the lab, I’d pick the lock of my cage and tiptoe out. Because I’m a good lab mouse.

Here is what a good lab mouse does:

I taste-test bread in the kitchen, leaving a tiny chewhole in each slice. (Once I heard a researcher say, “Did someone bite my sandwich?” You’re welcome, I thought, paws under my chin, staring proudly at him. You’re so very welcome.)

I help the custodian, whose name is Harry. (You are Harry and I am furry, I giggled to myself, finishing the card game he left out.)

I hide things around a section of the lab – stubs of pencils, pennies, DNA samples – to heighten the maze-like environment for the researchers.

And, finally, a good lab mouse does her best for science. I always do my best. I’ve always believed I’m part of something greater – that the world is greater than I know. So, one night, I decided to explore further than I ever had. Flinging myself off the lab station, I encountered things I’d never sniffed before: sulphur, flower petals, corn chips. My nose tingled. My paws barely made a sound. Across the tiles, round a wastebasket, past the kitchen. (I told you I was good at mazes.)

One more corner, and there you were.

There you were, your fingers curled round the metal of your cage. Had you ever seen a mouse before? I’d never seen a chimpanzee. But when our eyes found each other, I knew that I’d discovered someone just as bright as me. And just as lonely. The wrinkles under your eyes drooped as you gazed in my direction. Whatever you’d asked of me then, Rosie, I would’ve given it.

But you didn’t breathe a word.

Streaking up to you, I stretched my back to peer at your chimp ears, at the magnificent flatness of your face. You smelled large, and sweet like fruit. Like orange slices. Like plums.

Hello!

That’s what I mimed. Though you didn’t understand, not yet. Amber eyes flickering, your body swayed back and forth. How should a mouse greet a chimpanzee? A long, intense stare, eyes bulging? A series of squeaks? I tried both – and then, optimistically, slipped between the bars. There were no wood shavings like in my cage. Only the cold of metal.

It was so tiny in there.

So tiny, even for a mouse.

Still, you managed to scoop me up. No squirming from me! No ounce of fear. Because you didn’t pick me up by the tail. That was a clue; you were kind. You were curious. You lifted me softly, until we were eye to eye. Beneath me was the wrinkled skin of your hands, and I shifted my weight from side to side, a prickle of excitement shimmying down my tail. My hindquarters wiggled. What happens next? I mused. And will it involve Brussel sprouts?

(I always wondered if others liked Brussel sprouts as much as me.)

Black hair glittering, you stroked the top of my head with a single finger. Then you pulled me close to your chest, right where your heart was beating. I could tell that your heart was the same size as me, and I thought for a moment: It’s like a mouse is in there.

One ear to your fur, I listened to the thump.

And forgot all about vegetables.

That is how we became friends.

(There it is! Another noise! Another noise, outside the mailbox.)

Always,

Clementine

Letter Four

Dear Rosie,

Uncurling from my ball, I sniff. And sniff. The tiniest sliver of air filters into the mailbox, and I perk my sensitive ears.

I can always tell when someone is coming.

My ears always know.

One hundred and two minutes ago, I was with you in your cage. Remember? We’d got so used to spending evenings together – and we’d learned to communicate in our own way. It took some effort! I couldn’t hoot like a chimpanzee. You couldn’t squeak like a mouse. But after a while, you started to mirror my moves. Thoughtfully, I’d scratch my chin. Then you’d scratch yours. You’d show me your play face: mouth wide, jaw hanging open, your bottom teeth a dull white.

Soon you began speaking with your hands. When I brought you a leftover slice of fruit from a researcher’s desk, you signed the word orange.

That’s an orange.

This is an apple.

Hello, orange, apple, sad, home, mouse.

Alongside the alphabet, those are the finger-words you taught me. In return, I lent you my thinking cap. Remember how small it was, compared to your head? You licked the pompom, brown nose scrunching in the darkness. Oh! That was so funny! Just so funny. (I think there was a lot of silliness in you, before the lab. If there was a before.)

We could’ve learned more from each other – but, tonight, the lab door swung open.

Footsteps.

Rabbits scrambled in their pens. A beagle howled.

“This is madness,” a human said, voice squeaking with anxiety. “But you’re going to do this! You are. Be brave, be brave, be brave. Don’t think about all the bad things that could happen… Great, now you’re thinking about all the bad things that could happen! Stop!” As he rounded the corner, I saw that he was tall. Thin. Much like Felix, the junior researcher. A black mask covered his face and head. Gloves disguised his shaking fingers.

If I’d known … if I’d understood.

Rosie, I never would’ve left. I would’ve tucked myself into the crook of your back, nestled into your hair, tried my best to disappear. To stay. To be with you! Maybe I could’ve disguised myself somehow? As a rabbit? Or a guinea pig?

Instead, my nose poked outside your cage. I inched forward. Then traveled further toward the commotion. The man was peering into the mouse enclosure, flashlight in hand. “Found you!” he said, lifting one into the air and sniffing his fur. “You have that heart-shaped spot, but you don’t smell like raspberries? Maybe you’re just … not thinking very hard right now? That’s it. That must be it. OK, quick – we’re going to have to be so, so, so quick, because otherwise they’ll find out, and I’ll lose my job, and I’ll go to prison – or worse, they’ll send me back to Canada…” He was still squawking to himself when he glimpsed me.

Politely, I waved.

He didn’t seem to process this.

I tried again with my whole body, wiggling – overexaggerating everything. Did he think the mouse in his hands was me? Couldn’t be! That mouse is duck-footed! He has an overbite!

“No,” the man said. “What?” He shoved the flashlight into his pocket, charged forward, and scooped me up with the other mouse – examining our tails, which are the same, and the heart-shaped spots above our tails, which are the same. “Oh no. Oh no, no. You’re waving, but how do I know for sure… Which one is…? Do you smell like raspberries?”

An alarm began to screeee.

“NOT TO CANADA!” the man declared.

I wasn’t bred for strength! But I used every muscle I had to try to wiggle out of that human’s hands. In fifty-seven areas, I am a genius – and I suddenly realised that I was leaving. Leaving without you. Leaving you behind.

Did you hear my squeaks? Did you see how my ears sagged? I looked back, once more, to you – and caught a glimpse of your fingers clutching the bars of your cage. You were shaking. And you let out a howl, the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. It split right through me.

(Rosie? Do you know what these letters are? I am calling back to you. I’m answering your howl, like I couldn’t then. I’m writing it all down in my brain, all the things I wanted to say, all the things that I will say when we meet again.)

Rosie was the name that Felix called you.

I had no name to give you in return.

So, right before you disappeared from view, I caught your eye and attempted to sign a word, a fruit I’d just learned – clementine, clementine, Clementine, until it became mine.

Letter Four and a Half

I had to stop there. I needed a moment. My brain is trying to pinpoint what I’m feeling – and I think it’s sadness. Mixed with the happiness of our nights together. Mixed with the desire to chew a Brussel sprout. A crisp one. With a softer bit in the middle.

What was I talking about? Quantum dynamics? No, that’s not it.

Let me begin again!

I wish that I could write you real letters, Rosie, like the ones in this mailbox. I wish that I could send you real envelopes, with sticky flaps, and you could rip them open with your fingers. Would you try to eat the paper, too? Could you understand my handwriting? (Do I even have handwriting? Hmm. That’s something to consider.)

Every third afternoon, Felix would plop down at his lab station and write quick letters to his grandma. Poking my nose through the bars, I’d watch the swish of his pen. The crinkle of paper. Words unravelling, memories collecting.

I liked the idea.

I liked it so much that my tail shimmied.

So I will write you imaginary letters, Rosie. They’re helping me. When we reunite, I’ll remember to tell you about the sky. The sky! One thing I’ve always known is: there is an Inside and an Outside. I was an Inside Mouse. Then, in one swoosh of the lab door – air. Openness. Rosie, have you ever seen the sky?

I bet you’d enjoy it.

I bet you’d feel as tiny as me.

Millions and millions of stars, bright like a mouse’s eyes, winking in the blackness. Enormous. Beautiful! They reached down and touched something inside my chest – in the space underneath my ribs, right where my heart was beating. Immediately, I thought of yours, the thumping underneath your hair, and started my wiggling all over again.

Back, I thought.

Back to you.

But the human was running. He was running until he skidded to a halt and threw open a car door. “Seat belt, seat belt – I’m going to strap the seat belt over this travel crate, OK? It’s built for rabbits so it’s much too big for you, but in you go. Don’t worry. I won’t lock it. No more locks. Quickly! Gah!”

He shoved us into the tiny carrier, which was made of metal. Investigating, I stuck my head through one of the large spaces between the wires. An eerie quietness had filled the car. The other mouse was gazing into the distance with a vague, panicked expression. He’d pinned his ears against the grey fur of his head, and his upper lip was curling up slowly, exposing his teeth. Was he preparing to jump out and bite? I didn’t like the idea of biting – but I should’ve thought of it then! I should’ve tried everything possible to get back to you.

Huh, the other mouse said with a squeak, nose twitching. It was a scared huh. It seemed that huh was his entire vocabulary.

He really does look like me, Rosie! Identical ash-grey fur, expressive whiskers, and that heart-shaped spot just above his tail.

In the experiment, there are twelve grey mice. Six of us received the altered genes before we were born. The other six didn’t. I am the only mouse that worked, that became just as intelligent as the researchers hoped. I’ve never felt like I had much in common with the rest of them.

Do you write thought-letters? I asked the other mouse now in our language: a series of squeaks and chirps, undetectable to the human ear. Do you know about chimpanzees?

Huh, he said again. Huh.

Cautiously yet quickly, the human reached into the front passenger seat and jiggled the seat belt, just a bit, making sure the travel cage was secure. “Hold on tight,” he said, then peeled off his hat and mask. So it was Felix! Freckles coated his face, and he had an orange mop of hair that would not have worked on a chimpanzee. Under his eyes were dark patches, as if he hadn’t slept for weeks. “I’m not sure which one of you can actually understand me, but I mean it! Hold on!”

We accelerated. It was very fast.

Beside me, the other mouse sneezed. The noise rattled through his entire body, all the way to his toes. He seemed pleased with this sneeze, saying huh to himself, but then appeared to remember: Oh yes, I am terrified. His ears slicked back once more.

“Now what?” Felix said, his voice growing higher. The lights from the lab had disappeared. “Part of me didn’t think I’d get this far – because who’d actually give me the code to the lab, and who wouldn’t have better locks on those cages? But we’re here, and I was going to take you to the animal clinic? Maybe they could protect you there? Or a lawyer’s office? What about camping in Whisper Creek Forest? Do you think that you could survive in the woods? OK, now one of you smells really strongly of raspberries. Like, I could smell that from a mile away. We’d have to drop you very deep in the woods.”

Felix rolled down his window as I thought: I could probably survive anywhere.

But this wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right! Mice and chimpanzees aren’t natural friends – yet we are friends, Rosie. Otherwise, why would you howl? Why would it feel like something splitting inside me? Every inch we travelled moved me further away from you. And also, come to think of it, from my purpose.

What is a lab mouse without the lab?

My heart beat stiffly, much faster than normal, and the other mouse was close to hyperventilating. He shook. He wheezed. He shoved his face into the corner of the cage, so he couldn’t see – and this worried me, even more, about his breathing.

Above us, out of the window, the tops of trees sped by. Trees for climbing and swinging. Trees that could be for you, Rosie, if you were an Outside Chimpanzee.

What did you do, after I disappeared from sight? Are you still howling? Did you try to squeeze yourself through the bars of your cage?

I thought about this for three-quarters of a second – and then sprung through the cage-wires, then climbed up the interior of the car. A little green tree swayed above my head; it smelled of chemicals. I jumped, grabbed it, and swung, tail rigid.

“Wait, what are you…?” Felix said, right before I flung myself on to the steering wheel. If he could control the car, then couldn’t I?

It was exhilarating, Rosie!

We swerved!

We were turning!

We were –

“Stop it,” Felix said, gripping me lightly and dropping me (with some difficulty) into the travel cage again. “I’m trying to help you! I just don’t know what to do. If I take you to my house, they’ll know it’s me. They’ll check all our houses, and I live with my little sister and my dad, and my dad’s afraid of mice. So is our cat, Snickers. OK, breathe. Breathe, Felix. Remember why you’re doing this. You couldn’t just stand by and watch. That may be her purpose but it’s not OK; it’s not… Is someone following me? I thought I saw headlights. The animal shelter’s still miles and miles away, and I need to drop you somewhere now, right now, but I just don’t know where to go. I—”

He slammed on the brakes.

No one was there to comfort me.

The other mouse squeaked, mouth wide open, holding on to the cage for dear life.

“I’ve got it,” Felix said to us, with confidence this time. “That’s it. I know where I’m taking you.”

And he took us here. To this mailbox. At the last second he scrawled out a note on a gum wrapper – Please protect these mice – and placed it gently by my paws.

“Pop’s a local celebrity,” Felix said, speaking ultra-quickly. “He has a television show, Pop’s Hobbies, and it’s filmed in his garden. You can’t see it now, but the garden takes up, like, twenty acres. Anyway, this is his mailbox. People write in and ask him questions about gardening and stuff. He always answers them in a really friendly way. It seems like he has a good heart, and people turn to him when they need help. If I’m remembering it right, in a few of the episodes, he’s even rescued animals. A donkey, I think? And some rabbits? I know it’s not the animal shelter, but we’re too deep in the countryside and if I’m being followed…” Here, he snuck a peek over his shoulder. “This is the best I can do right now. Leaving you with a nice person. I hope it’s enough.”

Sometimes even geniuses are confused. I was confused!

Actually, many things puzzle me. Thanks to the experiment, I have a solid grasp of astrophysics. And thermodynamics. And mathematics and language and Brussel sprouts. Yet the human things … the simple objects, the simple connections … I don’t always understand.

Whiskers fluttering, I wondered, Protect us from what?

Through the cracked-open mailbox, I watched Felix stumble away. Rain arrived – and fell and startled me. Then we were alone.

Goodbye!

Always,

Clementine

Letter Five

Dear Rosie,

Hello! Rain’s still falling, pitter-pattering on the mailbox, and the other mouse is cowering in the corner. Every once in a while, he gathers enough courage to glance back at me, whiskers wobbling.

Come out, I tell him with a wave of my paw. Come closer.

Yet all he does is blink at me, his eyes immense with worry. Each boom of thunder puff s up his fur.

Then he begins tugging at his whiskers – nervously tug-tug-tugging – until one of them pulls out with a mild pop. He stares at it for a long beat (huh, how did this happen?) before trying to reattach it to his face. One poke. Two pokes. Nope, no – that won’t work. Sulking, he lets the whisker fall to the mailbox floor. If he was you, Rosie, I’d know exactly how to cheer him up: somersaults and arm climbs, night scuttles and nose touches.

Instead, I clasp my front paws together, holding them tightly to my chest. The other mouse and I bow our heads and stare at the whisker, mourning it silently – together, and apart.

The researchers will be looking for both of us, now that we’re gone.

Gone is an important word. I have gone away from the lab. Gone away to a mailbox. Gone away from you.

Mentally, my ears twitching, I map the route here. Several stops. Several turns. How far back to the lab, exactly? With all four paws, I try to push the mailbox door – but it doesn’t budge. There’s only a crack at the top where I can glimpse the damp sky.

So the other mouse and I wait. And wait.

Until someone comes to get us.

Someone is coming to get us, Rosie.

(I can hear them right now! Really, I can!)

Always,

Clementine

Letter Five and a Half

Dear Rosie,

I staggered back, my eyes adjusting to the light.

Because a boy had opened the mailbox.

The rain had stopped. Sunshine bounced off the boy’s dark-brown hair, which was sticking up in a few places, as if he’d recently woken up from hibernation. (Or from a nap?) When he gasped, I noticed that his two front teeth were large – and criss-crossed over each other, just the tiniest bit. His pink ears stuck out considerably at the sides. Like a mouse!

“Whoa,” he said, taking a little step back. A pair of bright orange binoculars jostled round his neck, clashing wonderfully with his green-and-white-striped shirt. So many colours! So much brightness! He didn’t even wear a lab coat!

And he didn’t blink.

No blinking – just staring, through a pair of circular glasses.

Was he afraid? Why should he be afraid of us? We’re just two mice. Two very small mice. Both standing on our hind legs, tails stiff, staring at him intensely. The other mouse tucked his paws to his chest, waiting. The whisker was still lying flat on the mailbox floor, and for a moment, I wondered, Should I offer it to the boy? To show we mean no harm?

At the same time, I thought: Rosie-Rosie-Rosie, your howl still in my ears.

The mailbox door – it was ajar now. I could run back to you!

But before I had a chance to jump, the boy leaned over, binoculars swinging, and finally blinked. His eyes were bright and curious. “Hey, I’ve never seen mice in a mailbox before,” he said. I like his voice, Rosie. It has a lightness to it. A shine. His glasses – held together with a strip of silver tape in the middle – were very shiny, too! I could almost see my reflection in them! What if I tilted my head really fast? Jiggled like this? Shimmied my tail?

“Never seen a mouse do that either,” he mused to himself. Or to me. I’m not entirely sure. Either way, I scuttled forward, peering over the mailbox edge, calculating the jump, and – oh! Oh, crumbs. Felix’s gum wrapper. I’d stepped on it. And the stickiness was latching on to my toes!

“Please … protect … these … mice,” the boy read, deciphering the handwriting between violent flicks of my paws. His mouth slowly spread into a wonky-toothed grin. “Wow. This is like … a real mystery.”

Unstick! I thought in response. UNSTICK!

(Why do humans want to put gum in their mouths? Why aren’t they afraid of it?)

The boy scratched the area behind one of his mouselike ears, and then spun round, binoculars whipping, checking for a stranger. An intruder. Whoever had left us there. He found no one – and that appeared to puzzle him more. “Please protect these mice,” he repeated, dreamily this time.

You could almost see the wheels spinning in his mind as he stood there, hands on his hips. The other mouse tiptoed up behind me, and together we examined the boy. Dirt swirled everywhere, including across his once-white sneakers. His jeans had holes over both of his knees, and there were several scrapes on his palms. With one sweeping movement he brought the binoculars to his face. They dinked against his glasses. He said, “Ow,” then continued, squinting.

Judging by the size of his ears, I think that he’s about eleven? Or eleven and a half? Or eleven and three-quarters. So around 4,288 days old. (I have been alive for forty-seven days. That’s 1,128 hours. That’s 67,680 minutes. That’s 4,060,000 seconds. If you’re a mouse – if you’re anyone – it matters how you measure your life. I prefer seconds. Being little means that little things count.)

Where was I?

Right, binoculars boy. How can I explain it, Rosie? He might be a small human, but he had extraordinary energy. Like he was skipping, although he was actually standing still. There was something so determined about the way he observed the meadows, binoculars whipping back and forth – from the green stalks to the great yellow bulbs.

I couldn’t even see any buildings! We were in the middle of nature. Nature! Wonderful, wonderful nature.

The other mouse took a big, whiskery sniff.