Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck Read Free Book Online Page A

three or four long tables—yardsticks supported by alphabet blocks. A hundred and fifty mice, at least.
    A major infestation.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Dinner Is Served
    A LOW CHEEPING SOUND of dinner conversation ceased. Three hundred eyes looked up at us newcomers. We hung in the glow of their gaze, embarrassed to death. We met so few new mice in our little life.
    Cecil, the headwaiter, scanned up and down the yardsticks for somewhere to seat us. Young mice waiters with perky black bow ties bustled among the diners, stepping neatly over their tails, serving the soup course.
    I know. I know. I couldn’t believe it either.
    â€œA great many mice travel with their ’uman families. The better families,” Nigel explained. “Yank—American mice. British mice ’eading’ome. We ’ave the entire chorus of The Nutcracker returning to the London stage. We’re traveling full this trip, what with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee coming up.”
    Our heads whirled. Before we knew where we were, we’d been seated down at this end of a yardstick. Thimbles of a clear soup were set before us. As it turned out, we kept just a course behind the humans in the dining saloon above.
    We must have thought we were the last of the latecomers. But like the crack of doom, the headwaiter’s voice rang out: “All be upstanding for Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cheddar Gorge!”
    The what?
    A hundred and fifty mice pushed back from their yardsticks and rose to their feet. A hundred and fifty-four.
    We’d been sitting on small spools. But next to me at the head of the yardstick was a miniature chair of English bone china, white with hand-painted rosebuds. The motto in gold on it read:
    SOUVENIR OF SLAPTON SANDS
    Cecil appeared, sweeping back the chair and dusting it off with the hemstitched towel. A mouse of a certain age strode up with the aid of a matchstick cane, gold-topped.
    A Duchess? A royal one? How could she be? I never heard of such a thing among mice. But everybody at our yardstick curtsied or bowed. We did our best. She was seated right there at my elbow just a whisker away.
    She wasn’t as old as Aunt Fannie Fenimore, but she was getting there. A bit of bent wire seemed to be caught in the fur between her ears. A crown?

    A mouse of a certain age strode up.
    No, a tiara.
    â€œWe rarely dine in public,” she announced in a carrying voice. “But we thought it might be amusing on the first night.” She spoke just over our heads.
    My land, she was grand.
    She drew herself up, though she was rather bent. “I am Mouse-in-Waiting to Her Royal Highness, the Princess Louise, fourth daughter of the Queen. In the British Empire, Mice-in-Waiting assume a royal rank. It is tradition. Royalty has never made a move without their mice. We came over with William the Conqueror. My mother was a Roquefort. Who might you be?”
    She observed me. Her teeth were terrible, and her breath would kill flies. But she was very sharp-eyed.
    â€œI am Helena,” I said, squeaking, petrified. “This is my sister Louise.” I nudged her.
    â€œThen that little shrinking creature on her other side—the one before the boy—must be Beatrice.” The Duchess of Cheddar Gorge indicated her.
    Here we go again, I thought. “Yes,” I said. “Vicky and Alice drowned in the rain barrel.”
    â€œHow sensible of your mother to name you for the Princesses of the Royal Blood, the daughters of the Queen. It gives you something to live up to.”
    The Duchess leaned nearer me. Her breath took mine away. My whiskers drooped. “After a tour of the colonies, the Princess Louise and I are returning to London for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Sixty years upon the greatest throne in human history!”
    My stars, I thought.
    â€œAnd who are your humans?” Her whiskers were tangled and her tiara was rusty, but you better have an answer for her.
    â€œOur humans