The Rat and Mouse Chronicles: Chapter Five In Which Friendly Helps a Witch

Chapter Five: Friendly Helps a Witch

Lightning flashed over the hills surrounding the town of Orflea while Sergeant Gallagher sipped coffee at his desk. His thoughts were concerned with how peculiar the weather had been ever since that evening in early summer when he and Sergeant Smith had to run the strange man in the long black cloak out of town. He smiled to himself as his thoughts strayed to his friends Rat and Mouse, and how happy they were with the new home Beaver had found for them. He was a little puzzled by their strange pale new friend. Friendly, they called her, and she certainly seemed that way.

The ringing of the phone snapped the good sergeant back to the present. The voice on the other end, Farmer Buckstone, was very agitated.

“You’ve got to come quickly,” he yelled, “before the entire forest is blasted to smithereens!”

Gallagher finally got the man calmed down enough to tell his story. In the forest behind his farmhouse, Farmer Buckstone, had earlier seen bright flashes, accompanied by loud crashes. When he went to investigate, he discovered that his neighbour, Hazel Grimly, who lived in a beautiful little rustic cottage in the wood, was in a vicious battle with a strange man in black.

“They are just standing there, throwing fireballs and bolts of lightning at each other,” explained the excited farmer. “I’ve never seen anything like it in all my born days! You’ve got to do something quickly. They’re scaring my cows.”

Sergeant Gallagher reassured the farmer that he and Sergeant Smith would get onto it immediately. Putting down the phone, he dialled his partner and quickly outlined the situation. Both of the sergeants knew from previous experience that when anything weird happened, Rat and Mouse were almost always able to resolve the problem.

Mouse answered the phone on the first ring, and explained that Friendly had just been saying that she felt something strange was going to happen. He promised that the trio would meet the policemen at the Buckstone farm as soon as possible.

On their way to the farm, Rat, Mouse, and Friendly Ghost could see the strange blue lights flashing in the distance. As they pulled into the farmyard and got out of the car, they could hear loud crashes in the near distance. The police had just arrived, and soon the five of them were hurrying through the dark forest towards Hazel Grimly’s cottage.

The sight that met their eyes was reminded Mouse a little of the sequence in Disney’s “Fantasia” called “A Night on Bald Mountain.” A tall man with flowing black robes stood at the edge of the clearing hurling great blue fireballs at the beautiful tall woman who stood near the cottage door. Hazel would hold up her hand, as if to catch the fireballs, and they would burst into brilliant blue fireworks before reaching her. She, in turn, would wave her hand, point at the man in black, and release a brilliant white lightning bolt, which the man blocked with a wave of a wand he held in his hand.

She smiled tensely as she saw the approaching group, and asked them--very politely, considering the circumstances--if they would please stand back out of the way. As she was saying this, the man in black let loose the most vivid fireball yet. Although Hazel tried to block it, the bolt sizzled by her and demolished her beautiful little cottage in an explosion of blue light and thunder.

A piece of wood from the explosion hit Hazel on the shoulder and knocked her to the ground. She lay dazed, while the man in black gathered his cloak around him and started chanting in a strange language. With every word, the night got blacker, and above the man’s head a ball of fierce blue energy grew larger and larger.

Rat and Mouse, forgetting their fear and very concerned for the fallen woman, rushed to her side. Friendly, however, was growling deep in her throat, looking toward the man in black. It seemed to the startled policemen that she was growing larger and paler before their eyes. Suddenly she leapt into the air, changing into a screaming skeleton head as she flew towards the man at the edge of the wood.

The man looked up at the screaming apparition that was rapidly approaching him, and stumbled backwards. As the man fell to the ground, Hazel pulled herself to her feet with the assistance of Rat and Mouse, and pointed her finger in the man’s direction. A bolt of white fire flashed briefly as it hit the man, causing an explosion of glowing white smoke.

When the smoke had cleared, Friendly, now back in her normal form, was unable to find any trace of the man. He had completely disappeared!

Shortly after, when all of them except Farmer Buckstone (who had excused himself saying that he didn’t want to hear about any of these weird goings-on!) were seated in the farmer’s kitchen drinking hot tea, Hazel recounted her strange story.

“As you may have guessed, I am a witch,” she said. “Not a bad witch, but a white witch, who does only good magic. I have been working on a special project for the Queen Witch, who lives far to the north. The Queen has suspected for quite some time now that the forces of evil are gathering for a great assault on the forces of good. I have been using my special powers to try to discover anything that I can about the leader of the dark forces.”

“This evening,” she continued, “just as I thought I was approaching the truth, my crystal ball was shattered by a bolt of blue fire that came through the open window. When I got to the door I saw the man in black at the edge of the forest. I recognized him from long ago. His name is Lazarul, and when he was a good white wizard he was called Lazarul the White. That was long ago however, and it now appears that he has been corrupted by a force much stronger than he.”

“But Hazel,” interrupted Mouse, “isn’t he gone now? Didn’t you vaporize him?”

“I’m afraid not, Mouse,” replied the good witch. “It would take a power much stronger than mine to remove such scum from this level of existence. If it was not for the bravery and quick thinking of Friendly Ghost here, I am afraid that I might have fared much worse in the contest. I suspect that Lazarul has returned to his master.”

“Just now,” she continued, “I am more concerned with resting for a few days to regain my strength. I must then report to the Queen Witch with news of this event, and then continue in my attempts to foresee the evil that is gathering.”

“Officer,” she said, turning to Sergeant Smith, “could you recommend a good hotel in Orflea where one very tired witch could rest for a few days?”

Before Sergeant Smith could answer, Rat, after a quick look at both Rat and Friendly Ghost in which much was said, but not aloud, stood to his feet, bowed graciously and said, “fair lady, my friends and I would be most pleased if you would stay with us at Waterfall Cave for as long as you may wish.”

Hazel, visibly moved by this offer, bend down and kissed Rat on his forehead.

“It has been many long years,” Hazel stated, “since I have received such a welcome offer, and never one so graciously put. I accept with very great pleasure.”

“Well then,” replied Rat, with a nod to his friends, “shall we go home? I believe that the exciting events of this evening can only be put into the proper perspective by the drinking of at least two cups of cappuccino and, perhaps, a small slice of Mouse’s most excellent cake.”

This then, was how the good Witch Hazel (as she came to be called) took up residence at Waterfall Cave.

The Rat and Mouse Chronicles: Chapter Four: A Friendly Ghost

Chapter Four: A Friendly Ghost

The friends had planned their visit to the island at the far end of Long Lake for quite some time. Today was the day that it was actually happening! Rat and Mouse had prepared the picnic basket before they went to bed for the evening, and now it sat, full of tasty promise, in the bow of their small sailboat.

It was a perfect day for exploring, with a gentle breeze to propel the good ship “Water Witch” through the uncharted waters at the southern end of Long Lake. Mouse joined Rat in a verse or two of “The Bay of Mexico,” followed by “The Sloop John B.” The island grew steadily closer as the water gurgled happily under the small boat’s bow.

As they approached the island, Rat and Mouse could see the gables and chimneys of a large house lifting its timeworn shoulders above the surrounding trees. The ruins of an old wharf and boathouse presented the perfect spot for a landing, and the friends soon had their little craft securely moored.

An overgrown path through the trees led up a slight hill towards the abandoned house. Rat and Mouse lugged the lunch basket and oversized flask of cappuccino through the path’s leafy tunnel under the trees, many of which were hung with Spanish moss. Occasionally a bird would call in the distance, but the feeling was very quiet and solemn....almost like being in church. Rat found himself looking over his shoulder quite often, and Mouse’s whiskers twitched nervously as the path opened into a clearing that surrounded the old, and obviously deserted, house.

Some windows were broken, and had shutters hanging at crazy angles from rusted hinges. The three chimneys had gaps where bricks had fallen from them. The front door, across a rickety verandah, seemed solid in its frame, but hung open just a bit, as if daring the friends to enter.

“Let’s leave the basket and coffee on the verandah, Mouse,” said Rat. “I’m not going to feel comfortable having lunch until we have explored this place thoroughly. I feel like I am in the middle of some evil witch’s nightmare!”

Mouse agreed, and soon the pair had pushed their way through the front door and were standing in the middle of a fully-furnished living room that had collected surprising little dust over the years. A stairway curved upwards to the second floor hall, and at the back of the living room, beside an open door that lead to what seemed to be the kitchen, was a wonderful large stone fireplace.

“Hey, Rat,” said Mouse, “if we get a fire going, it will make me feel a lot more comfortable with this spooky place, and will give us a cozy place to have lunch.”

The two soon had enough fallen branches and broken pieces of verandah collected to start a roaring (and comforting!) fire, and were enjoying sandwiches and cappuccino. Their comfort, however, was soon disturbed by a strange moaning sound coming from the second floor.

“A g-g-ghost!” said Mouse, as he sprang to his feet, spilling his coffee.

“Let’s go,” said Rat, running toward the stairs.

Mouse soon followed closely as the pair rushed up the stairs and into the dark hall at the top. The moaning seemed to be coming from an opened door at the end of the hall. As Rat ran into the room, he came to an abrupt halt, and Mouse ran into his back. Sitting in front of them, with its back against a wall, was a pale, and obviously very sad, figure. This ghostly figure slowly raised its head and looked sadly at the two.

“Aren’t you going to run away?” it asked mournfully. “Anyone who comes here always does.”

“Why should we run away?” said Mouse, “we’ve only just got here, and there is still some cappuccino left from our lunch, so why don’t you join us and tell us why you are so sad.”

Soon the three were settled, cappuccinos in hand, in front of the fire, and the pale figure told her story.

She had no idea who she was, she told them, or why she was a ghost, but she knew in her heart that she could not leave the island until someone befriended her and invited her home with them. Many people had visited the island over the long years, but upon seeing her, they would return to their boats in a great hurry, and never return.

“That’s why I was crying just now,” she said. “I just knew that as soon as you saw me, you’d run off too.”

“Well we didn’t.” said Mouse. “It’s not like you are a scary ghost, rattling chains and doing all that frightening stuff.”

“Oh, I can do that too,” said the ghostly figure, “but I don’t really like to. I’d much rather be friends with someone than scare them.”

“A friendly ghost!” cried Mouse. “What a wonderful idea!”

“What a wonderful name,” exclaimed Rat. “That is what we shall call you from now on. Friendly Ghost, or just Friendly for short.”

Friendly lifted her head and smiled for the very first time in many years.

“I like it,” she said. “Friendly Ghost has a good friendly ring to it.”

Rat asked Friendly to excuse them for a minute as they had something they had to discuss in private. He and Mouse went outside and walked slowly through the field while they talked about what they should do about their new-found friend.

It did not take them long to decide, and soon they were back inside explaining their decision to Friendly.

“Friendly,” said Mouse, “if you would like to, Rat and I would be glad to have you come and live with us. We have just moved into a wonderful new home--a cave under a waterfall--and we’ve more than enough room for all of us.”

At this good news, Friendly started sobbing again, but soon the three were sailing back up Long Lake. Their new friend seemed much less pale now that she was away from her island, and she delighted in showing them ghostly tricks she could do. A quick change into a howling sheet-covered figure; a shift into a pale dragon breathing flickering blue fire; a sudden transformation into a grey wolf-like creature that slavered over shining sharp teeth; her ghostly skills were as fascinating to Rat and Mouse as they were frightening.

As the little boat rounded the headland into the river, Mouse pointed out where their cottages used to be before the flood. Ahead, just around the next bend in the river, they could hear the noise of the waterfall. Soon they were moored at the tiny jetty just down from the falls, and escorting their new friend toward the high bank beside the falls. Into the bank had been set the two circular windows that made the dwelling look as if it belonged to Bilbo Baggins rather than Rat and Mouse.

“Friendly,” said Mouse, “welcome home!”

The Rat and Mouse Chronicles: Chapter Two

Chapter Two: The Flood

In the morning the first thing Rat heard as he awoke was the continuing sound of the rain. Mouse joined him as he was soft-boiling some eggs and making the toast for breakfast. The friends were both experiencing a strong feeling of uneasiness that kept their normally vibrant conversation from becoming anything more than minimal.

A pair of sharp explosive sounds from the direction of the river made them hastily don their raincoats and head for the Mouse’s small jetty. Beaver’s rather pudgy form could be seen dragging himself from the river onto the jetty. The sharp cracks had been Beaver’s way of announcing his arrival.

“Beaver,” said Mouse, “what brings you out in weather like this?”

“Weather like this,” responded Beaver, “means very little to a beaver, but bringing a warning to friends would take more than a little rain to turn me back!”

Beaver went on to explain that his magnificent new dam, about a mile up the river, just beyond the waterfall, was about to burst. The unseasonable rain had placed a strain on it that even Beaver’s most capable engineering skills could not relieve.

“I would say,” continued Beaver, “that you have perhaps four hours before the dam goes. That should cause a rise in the river level by about four feet or so. And if the rain continues for another ten hours I would imagine that both of your houses will have the river flowing through the doors.”

Rat and Mouse had always responded well to crises, and after they had thanked their friend Beaver for his kind warning, they started to plan the evacuation of their beloved cottages.

Fortunately the phone lines were still up and working, and Rat called the Orflea Police Station. When Bill answered Rat explained what was happening and Bill promised that help would arrive shortly. Rat suggested that several tarpaulins should be brought under which he and Mouse could store their belonging in case the flood should destroy their homes.

While the friends were awaiting the arrival of help from the town, they organized their belongings into piles, having a pile for things that they really needed, a pile for things they thought they needed, and another pile for things that they did not really need, but would like to keep anyway. By the time they heard the Police car siren in the distance, they had everything in as good order as was possible under the circumstances.

Bill, Sergeants Smith and Gallagher, as well as several more of the townspeople arrived with large canvas tarpaulins, and started immediately to carry the contents of the two houses to higher ground. Fortunately there was a high grassy hill alongside the road behind Rat’s house. Soon the hill was looking very much like an army encampment as the good townsfolk lugged and carried and dragged and pulled everything from the cottages except the kitchen sinks (and the local plumber even volunteered to unhook these!). The houses were soon empty, and the labourers rested and sipped piping hot cappuccino which Bill had been thoughtful enough to bring along in large vacuum flasks.

A sudden gathering roaring, rushing sound from upriver caused everyone’s head to turn towards the river. A massive grey wall of water hit Mouse’s jetty, and caused it to disappear in a cauldron of swirling water. The wave rushed on, to dispel itself in the reaches of Long Lake, but it left behind it a water level that was washing over Mouse’s verandah, and flowing through Rat’s open door. Beaver’s dam had held almost exactly the four hours he had promised.

Rat and Mouse looked at each other, each realizing that their wonderful cottages would soon be no more. They were homeless, and had no idea at all as to what they would do next. And the rain continued.

The Rat and Mouse Chronicles: An Unfinished Work

The Rat and Mouse Chronicles is based upon bedtime stories that I used to tell to Geoff when we lived in Trinidad. They, in turn, were based upon two characters in one of his favourite children's books, Scary Story Night. I had started to put the series down on paper during our New Delhi posting, but, as often happens, life got in the way. Geoff told me the other night that he does not remember anything about the Rat and Mouse stories, so I decided to put the unfinished saga on my Blog...tada! Here is Chapter One.


Chapter One: Rat and Mouse

From his home beside the riverbank Mouse could look back down the road and see the cozy cottage of his friend Rat. The two shared many common interests, such as scary stories, a love of travel, and an interest in magic. Perhaps one of the most complimentary things about their friendship was that Mouse could make a most excellent chocolate layer cake, while Rat excelled at making the tastiest cappuccino outside of Italy.

Many interesting evenings were spent sitting on Mouse’s verandah, sipping a frothy cappuccino while exchanging stories with which each tried to frighten the other. Mouse tended towards an R. L. Stine sort of scary story, while Rat enjoyed telling s Stephen King type of tale. Their days were pleasant, with Rat pursuing his passion for philosophical study, and Mouse researching his family tree and playing each and every new computer game that came out.

One evening the friends were sitting on Mouse’s verandah watching a storm that was rapidly approaching over Long Lake, the lake that was located at the mouth of the river that ran by Mouse’s home. The thunder clouds had been thick over the Green Mountains all day, and now, at last, Mother Nature decided to give them a taste of some of her most exciting fireworks!

Although Rat enjoyed storms, they always made him a little uneasy. He thought that this might be because his father, Cornelius Rat (who had been a great explorer and adventurer), was lost at sea during an autumn storm. He was grateful when Mouse suggested that he spend the night. As the rain started and quickly became a violent downpour, marked by loud claps of thunder and explosions of vivid lightning, Rat suggested a tad more cappuccino.

The friends awoke in the morning with the storm still raging outside the windows. After some discussion over a breakfast of French toast with maple syrup, a glass of fresh orange juice and several cups of cappuccino, they decided that, considering the bad weather, they should take Rat’s car into town to pick up some supplies in case the rain should continue for several days and make the roads impassable.

A quick twenty-minute brought them to the town of Orflea. Mouse was very fond of saying that it was “an Orflea small town,” but Rat refused to laugh at this oft repeated pun. Orflea consisted of a large green park-like common in the centre of the town, flanked on one side by Main Street, with its twenty or so shops and boutiques. On the southern side of the common was a large parking lot and the town’s one cinema, presently showing “Raiders of the Lost Ark” for the third time. The western side held a few pretty, brightly painted houses, and two churches. The garage, supermarket, school and synagogue completed the square that encircled the park.

Rat and Mouse never came to town without stopping at the Police Station to visit with their friends, Sergeants Smith and Gallagher, and Constable Williams, whom they called Bill. In the past Rat and Mouse had assisted the town Police with several extremely strange and mysterious cases that had occurred in and around the town. Rat was fond of teasing the policemen about the poor quality of cappuccino that was available at the Station, while in fact it was quite an acceptable brew.

Today the discussion was centred around the unusual weather that the town was experiencing. Rat commented that he thought the unseasonal weather pattern was caused by the cyclical appearance in the Pacific Ocean of the current called el Nino. Bill, however, felt sure that it was part of an evil spell that had been placed on the town.

“What makes you so sure, Bill?” asked Mouse.

Bill replied, “The strange old wizard that we had to run out of town last week said that he’d get even with us, and I believe that this is his way of doing it!”

Sergeants Smith and Gallagher enlarged on Bill’s story by telling about a strange man in a long black cloak who had been wandering about the town, muttering to himself and frightening children. When strange lights started flashing in the man’s hotel room one evening, the policemen had been compelled to ask him to move on. The man’s parting curse still rang in their ears.

“Strange forces are on the prowl, and your pitiful little town of Orflea will be sorry that it ever crossed Mournfrug of Marivog,” said the dark figure as he walked off down the road to the south with his cloak flapping about his gangly legs.

Rat and Mouse thought about this tale with great interest as they completed their shopping and drove back to the river bank through the pelting rain and the oncoming night. The rain had continued unabated during their visit to the town, and certainly showed no indication of stopping. If anything, it seemed to be raining harder with louder thunder and more frequent lightning than last night. The friends decided to spend the night at Rat’s house, and were soon relaxed in front of a roaring fireplace, discussing what the strange man in black could have meant by his parting words.