Blinker began to cry. Silversides held him with one paw and cuffed him a few times across the ears with the other to make him stop squealing.
“It’s about time we got together,” she sneered, making sure her teeth were visible. “Now, quickly, what is going on?”
“Going . . . on?” Blinker stammered.
Silversides gave the mouse another cuff. “You heard me. There have been a lot of you vermin going into this old store. I want to know why.”
“Please, I just want to go home,” Blinker whimpered.
“You’ll be lucky if you go anywhere,” Silversides snapped. “Talk fast or I’ll bite your head off. Once more, what are all you mice doing in there?”
“It’s . . . it’s an old bookstore,” the thoroughly frightened mouse said.
“Are you suggesting that you mice are going there to read?” Silversides hissed. “You’re much too stupid. Hurry up! I want the truth!”
“You’re hurting me,” Blinker squealed.
“You won’t feel anything unless you answer my questions,” Silversides snarled.
“It’s Ragweed . . . and Clutch,” the mouse said haltingly. “He’s setting up a new—”
“Ragweed?” Silversides interrupted. “Who’s Ragweed?”
“He’s . . . he’s a golden mouse. He arrived in Amperville only recently.”
Silversides’s eyes gleamed as brightly as her sequined collar. “So that’s his name! Suits him! And I’ll bet anything that this Clutch has green hair. Am I right?”
“Y-yes,” Blinker replied, even more frightened by what Silversides already knew.
“Are they friends of yours?”
“I . . . think so.”
“Of course they are. You’re a gang. A conspiracy. Go on. What are you plotting?”
“We’re . . . we’re not plotting. It’s . . . just a new club for the mice,” Blinker managed to say.
“A new club!” Silversides cried. “How dare they! They should be staying home and taking care of their filthy children.”
“Silversides,” Blinker pleaded. “Please, I don’t know anything about it.”
The cat, her paws still holding Blinker down, said, “Look here, Blinker, you want to live, to go home. And I suppose you want those two particular friends of yours to live, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, please,” Blinker pleaded, “you mustn’t hurt them. They’re so kind. So nice—”
Silversides gave Blinker another swat. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect your friends. But first you’re going to get back to this club and find out how I can get inside.”
“Oh, no,” the mouse cried in horror, “don’t make me do—”
Silversides struck Blinker anew. “You either act as I say or your two friends will become cat food, do you understand me?”
“Oh, yes, but I—”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
With her teeth Silversides plucked up the mouse by the scruff of his neck and carried him, dangling, back to the girl’s house, where she dropped him by the still-locked door. “The girl left it open for you, mouse. Not me. Now get inside and make sure she sees you. Do you understand? But I expect you to make your first report about the club tomorrow night. Right here. In the yard. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Blinker murmured.
Silversides leaned against the cat door. It opened just wide enough for a trembling Blinker to crawl through.
He went up the stairs of the house and into the girl’s room. Once there, he took a deep breath, feeling a great sense of comfort and security. He was home.
He had started for the girl’s bed when he fully realized what he had just agreed to do for Silversides. Dread engulfed him. “But at least Clutch and Ragweed won’t be hurt,” he whispered to himself. “The cat promised.”
Instead of getting on the bed, Blinker went to the window, where he looked out into the world. It was dawn. The tears that fell along his cheeks were almost as big as he.
Silversides, meanwhile, made her way to Graybar’s sewer home. When she arrived, the vice president of F.E.A.R. was deeply immersed in a meal consisting of the remnants of a double cheeseburger—with soggy pickles—along with a packet of french fries so limp they might have been spaghetti. Ketchup was smeared over a large portion of his face.
“What’s up?” he asked when Silversides appeared. “Come for a decent meal?”
“I’ve got something going,” Silversides announced grimly, ignoring Graybar’s words. “Something big.”
Graybar’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“We can wipe out a lot of mice in one blow.”
“Whatever you say,” Graybar replied with his usual indifference. “Sure you don’t want some eats?”
“No. And Graybar,” Silversides said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m the head of F.E.A.R.”
“What am I supposed to do, salute?” Graybar said with a shrug.
Silversides returned to the girl’s house, found a makeshift place to sleep among the bushes in the backyard, and nodded off. But before she slept she reviewed her goals:
Get rid of the three mice.
End F.E.A.R.
Leave Amperville.
Never come back.
CHAPTER 22
Blinker Makes a Report
ONCE THE GIRL SAW that Blinker had returned alive, she sought out Silversides in the backyard and told her she could return home. But when the girl failed to apologize for her false accusation, a proud Silversides refused. She preferred to remain outside.
With the cat out of the house, Blinker was free to roam at will. For most of the next day, however, he remained buried deep beneath the wood chips in his cage, where he slept fitfully or lay moaning in despair. Quite often he wept. Over and over again he wished he had never left the cage, the room, the house. How he wished he had never met Ragweed. Even more did he wish that he had never met Clutch.
“Oh,” Blinker sighed, “I’ve fallen in love with the most amazing mouse in the whole world, only to be so weak that I’ve put her life in danger. The only way of saving her is by sacrificing the rest of the mice. But if Clutch learns about that, she’ll hate me forever, anyway.”
On the night after his return, Blinker, as he’d been told to do, crept out of the house and met Silversides.
“What I need,” the cat said, “is complete information about what kind of security they’re setting up.”
“I . . . don’t know how to get there,” Blinker whispered in anguish.
“I’ll escort you,” Silversides assured him.
After leading Blinker back to the street where the new club
