Every eye of every mouse was fixed upon the bulldozer.
The machine struck Gray House, its great blade smacking the structure squarely with a horrendous crunching sound. The porch collapsed. The front wall of the house caved in. Glass windows shattered in a storm of tinkling—like wind chimes gone mad. The attic floor dropped. The roof buckled. Cedar shingles popped, flying in every direction as if they were wet watermelon seeds. A cracking and snapping filled the air, like a fusillade of firecrackers. And over it all a great plume of dust bloomed in the shape of a blossoming flower.
Even then the bulldozer did not stop. With a shudder and shake and an increased roar of its engine, its exhaust tailpipe billowing black smoke, it pushed on. For just a moment it seemed to strain, trembling—until, with an appalling, ear-blasting crack, the old house—or the heap that it had become—snapped off its foundation. That achieved, the bulldozer gathered new momentum and plowed on. The mountainous mass of misshapen house, which now looked more like a gigantic overturned bird’s nest, began to slide along the ground, the entire pile heading for the Old Orchard.
The mice, standing in what was once the front yard of the house, watched in awestruck silence.
The bulldozer was anything but quiet. Roaring, spewing ghastly fumes, it shoved the mangled wreckage until the great heap went hard up against an old apple tree. There the machine churned and stopped its forward movement. With a final barking burst of noxious fumes, the engine sputtered, gave a terrible shudder, and produced an enormous belch before at last falling into a profound hush.
In the absolute silence that followed, nothing—no mouse, no bird, no leaf—dared move.
Poppy, having witnessed the entire event, could think of nothing but whether anyone else had noticed what she had: that Ereth, Junior, and Mephitis were in the driver’s cab.
The answer came quickly. Into the deep and painful silence came Lungwort’s bellowing, hacking voice: “That machine was driven by a porcupine!”
Poppy ran for the bulldozer.
CHAPTER 33
Introductions
WHEN THE BULLDOZER FINALLY CAME to a stop, Ereth gave a woozy shake of his head. “I don’t know what to say,” he muttered. Junior, Mephitis, and he stared out from the cab. The broken bits that had once been Gray House lay in a colossal heap before them. From it a curl of dust rose like a twist of frayed ribbon.
“Wow,” muttered Junior, “that was freaking nasty.”
“Awesome,” agreed Mephitis, trying not to look at Junior. “Did you hear that machine belch?”
“Ultimate wicked!” said Junior, but he quickly turned to Ereth.
“Uncle Ereth?” he said.
Ereth shook his head. “What?”
“Please don’t tell my mama.”
Junior and Mephitis finally looked at each other. When they did, they started to laugh—and could not stop. Mephitis laughed so hard, he fell down, rolled over, stuck his stumpy legs into the air and churned them as if he were galloping. Junior, shrieking “Was that bad, or was that really bad,” leaned his head against the cab well, held his stomach with one front paw, and wiped away tears with the other. Then he reached toward the skunk and cried, “Dude, that was the baddest doings in the whole wide universe!”
Mephitis slapped Junior’s paw with a resounding smack. He was so excited he jumped onto the engine cowling, turned upside down on his front paws, and sent a cloud of stink over the bulldozer!
“Frosting on the cake!” shrieked Junior. “Frosting on the cake!” He was shaking so hard with laughter, he fell down backward.
“No one is going to believe this!” said Mephitis as he crawled back into the cab. “No one!” He and his buddy slapped paws anew.
“Stop that!” screamed Ereth. “Don’t you realize what’s happened?”
“We’ve . . . blown . . . the house . . . down!” sputtered Junior through his laughter.
“Demolished it—completely,” said Mephitis, struggling to keep from laughing and failing. “I mean there’s . . . nothing left.”
“Nothing!” cried Junior.
“Let’s just hope no one was inside,” said Ereth.
“Oh my gosh,” said Junior, laughing no more. “Do you think there might be?”
“Could be.”
“But . . . that would be awful,” said an equally sober Mephitis.
Next moment a voice called to them from below. “Ereth! Junior! Mephitis! What have you done with this horrid machine?”
They looked down. It was Poppy. She was standing by the bulldozer’s side and looking up.
“Done?” said Ereth. “What do you think, fly fidget: I was trying to stop it.”
“Trying to stop it?” cried Poppy. “Do you understand what you’ve done?”
“Me?” said Ereth. “What makes you think it had anything to do with me?”
“You are the responsible adult.”
“I am?”
“Of course you are!”
Ereth looked at Junior. Junior looked at him. The young mouse was clenching his teeth tightly to keep from breaking into laughter again. Mephitis turned away.
“Ereth,” cried Poppy. “Can’t you see that you’ve completely destroyed Gray House!”
“Hey, Mama,” Junior managed to say. “I thought it was going to happen anyway.”
“But not by you,” cried Poppy. “Erethizon Dorsatum, why are you even here?”
“Guess why, fudge whiskers. To protect you.”
To keep from laughing, Junior had to stuff a paw into his mouth.
Exasperated to the point of speechlessness, Poppy turned away and scanned the wreckage. Atop the pile she spied her old Log Cabin Syrup can, badly dented. “Unbelievable,” she whispered, as much to herself as anyone. “Unbelievable.”
“Miss Poppy . . . ,” muttered Mephitis.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Poppy managed to say.
“Come on, Mama,” said Junior, coming to his friend’s defense. “You said you wanted to be cool, didn’t you? You don’t think we meant to do it, do you?”
By this time the other mice, still in shock but sensing that the danger from the machine had passed, had begun to gather around both the wreckage and the bulldozer. They stared at it in silence.
“That’s a ridiculous, irresponsible response,” said Poppy, gazing at the wreckage. “A disaster. Totally . . . one hundred percent unacceptable!” She wrinkled her nose. “And what’s that stench?” she demanded.
“Mephitis got a little excited,” said Junior, giggling.
“Excited!”
“Sorry,” muttered Mephitis a second time, while making sure he did not look at Junior.
“How did you even get this machine to move?” Poppy
