8
You Can Talk!
Edwin lay huddled in his sleeping bag, still trying to blot those evil, leering features from his mind. Mum had assured him it was a just a chunk of carved wood, but he’d seen it move. And so had Bryony.
Edwin wasn’t sure whose evil leering features he found more troubling. How he hated that girl; even more now she knew he was scared of the dark.
Well, not scared exactly; more like petrified.
Still, he knew just how to get back at her.
He had the letter.
The thought of revenge cheered Edwin up a little. But he was still worried about Stubby.
The mouse had been safe in Edwin’s pyjama pocket, but what had happened to it when they fell through the ceiling? Edwin preferred not to dwell on that too much; the poor mite was surely crushed to death.
Oh Stubby! Edwin’s only friend in the entire world, gone!
“What are you snivelling at?” asked a shrill voice.
Edwin sat bolt upright, grey eyes swivelling as he scanned the room. “Who said that?”
“Who do you think, cloth-head?”
There was no-one in sight. Edwin shrank back into his sleeping bag. He wasn’t used to voices from nowhere. Someone at school had heard them, and he’d been carted off in an ambulance. Edwin couldn’t remember if it was the Maths or Science teacher.
“Down here, thicky.”
Edwin followed the sound of the voice, and jumped when he saw the small, fluffy brown form on the floor. “Stubby!”
“Must you insist on calling me that?” asked the mouse. “It’s not a very elegant name. Couldn’t you have chosen something grander? Like Montmorency? Or Algernon? Or Horatio? Or…”
“Aaaarrgghh!” shrieked Edwin. “You can talk!”
“Of course I can talk,” said Stubby. “Or do you think these noises are just a symptom of acute indigestion?”
Edwin took a deep breath, struggling to maintain his composure. “But how? Why?”
Stubby stood up on his hind legs, and stared at Edwin with his shiny black button eyes. “The ‘how’ is tricky to explain at present. The ‘why’ is altogether more simple. I can talk because you wanted me to.”
“I did?” Edwin’s shock was replaced by wonder. “I did, didn’t I? I always wished that you could talk to me.”
“And so did I,” revealed Stubby. “The times I’ve listened to you pouring out your heart and soul to me. How I longed that I could respond, how I wished I could speak and tell you…”
“Tell me what?” asked Edwin, eagerly.
“To put a great big sock in it, that’s what.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you go on,” groaned the mouse. “On and on and on, moaning about this, snivelling about that. No-one likes me! I can’t do my geography homework! I don’t want to wear those purple underpants Auntie Kath gave me! Moan moan, snivel snivel… it’s more than any mouse should have to take.”
Edwin was taken aback by Stubby’s tirade. “Sorry. I don’t mean to go on like that. But life can be hard.”
“Hard? You don’t know the meaning of the word. Hard is having to spend every hour of the day stuffed up in some boy’s smelly pocket, eating nothing but left-over sandwiches and having to listen to him going on and on without being able to tell him to belt right up.”
“It’s not my fault you couldn’t talk back to me,” protested Edwin. “Anyway, I tried to communicate with you in your own language.”
“Oh, that’s what all those silly squeaks and nose twitches were supposed to be? I thought you were having some sort of seizure.”
“So it wasn’t Mouse?”
“More like Hamster, actually.”
“Isn’t that close enough?”
Stubby shrieked with outrage. “Mouse is a much more sophisticated language than Hamster. All hamsters have to worry about is running around in plastic wheels and how much cardboard they can chew in a day. Mice have a much broader horizon, hence a richer vocabulary. You’d never be able to master the grammatical intricacies of Mouse. I reckon Intermediate Slug would be about your limit.”
“Intermediate Slug?”
“It’s basically dribbling. You’d be a natural.”
Edwin was beginning to regret the fact that Stubby could talk. “I said I’m sorry. But if you’d told me all this before, I might have known how you felt.”
“That’s just the point. I couldn’t talk before. Not until we came here. I believe the house has something to do with it.”
“This house? How come?”
“I’m not sure, but think about it. Wychetts is old. Really old. It must have been built ages ago.”
Edwin nodded. “You mean in the seventies? When Mum was born?”
Stubby sighed and shook his little head. Edwin had never heard a rodent sigh before, and the sound was actually quite unnerving.
“The house is much older than your mother. And your grandmother, and even your great-grandmother’s grandmother. Wychetts was built hundreds of years ago.”
Edwin gazed at bedroom’s cracked walls, bowed floor and sagging ceiling. “I suppose you must be right. But I still don’t see what that has to do with you being able to talk.”
The mouse scuttled closer, lowering his voice to an almost imperceptible whisper. “I think this place has some kind of power.”
“No.” Edwin shook his head. “Hasn’t got any power. Or gas, for that matter. And the tap water looks a bit dodgy, too.”
Stubby sighed again, this time louder. “I don’t mean electricity, pea-brain. I’m talking about magic power. Magic that makes your wishes come true.”
“Magic?” Edwin threw his head back and laughed. “Oh don’t be ridiculous. And who are you calling pea-brain? You’re just a mouse. I’m a human. My head is twenty times bigger than yours.”
Stubby nodded. “Which would explain the rattling noise when you walk.”
“Huh?”
“There is a magic power in this place,” continued Stubby. “An ancient power that has lain here for centuries. A power that can be used for good. Or evil.”
“Oh come off it,” chuckled Edwin. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit over dramatic?”
A woman’s scream rang out from downstairs. Stubby’s ears swivelled. Edwin jumped out of his sleeping bag. “Mum!”