The Adventures of Henry Whiskers Read online

  QUEEN MARY’S DOLLHOUSE

  PREFACE

  1. NARROW ESCAPE

  2. WHO CAME FIRST?

  3. THAT TIME OF YEAR

  4. WARNING SIGN

  5. TOO LATE

  6. PRECIOUS CARGO

  7. A FRIEND IN NEED

  8. PICKING UP THE TRAIL

  9. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

  10. ON THE WAY HOME

  11. RAT ALLEY

  12. ON THE COUNT OF THREE

  13. SAFE PASSAGE

  14. TITUS

  15. MOUSE ON THE MEND

  16. FINISHING TOUCHES

  17. MOUSE MASQUERADE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ‘THE LONG WAY HOME’ EXCERPT

  ABOUT GIGI PRIEBE AND DANIEL DUNCAN

  For David, Haley, Chelsea, and Hunter.

  How did I get so lucky?

  I love you more than you will ever know.

  PREFACE

  IN A DIMLY LIT ROOM, inside a castle, perched high on a hill above the River Thames in England, sits a dollhouse. This dollhouse isn’t for dolls. It isn’t even for children to play with. It has four floors, forty rooms, two working elevators, hot and cold running water, and electricity. There’s a grand marble staircase, a kitchen with shiny copper pots, a garage filled with luxury cars, and toilets that really flush. There are even crystal chandeliers that twinkle, a grandfather clock that chimes, and a phonograph that plays records.

  This dollhouse is like no other—and it was never meant to be. It was made for the queen of England, who loved collecting miniature objects and tiny things. Hundreds of the country’s finest craftspeople were called upon to create dollhouse-size copies of everything found in the grandest homes of England. Nothing was overlooked; no detail was too small. Even the books in the library were written by England’s best-known writers and poets.

  The dollhouse is more than eight feet long, four feet wide, and five feet tall—and it was made to travel. When it was finished and moved from place to place, its precious furnishings were safely stowed in little cedar drawers built into its base. Its first trip was to London, and then it was taken throughout the English countryside and put on display. When its traveling days were over, it came to rest in the dimly lit room at Windsor Castle, where it lives today.

  The castle has sky-high towers and turrets and is surrounded by a moat. The dim room, on the first floor of the castle, has decorative molding and dark wood floors. In its center, the dollhouse sits on its base, elevated to eye level so visitors can easily look inside.

  Nearly a million people come to see the dollhouse year in and year out. But what they can’t see are the drawers in the base hidden from view. Emptied of their contents and tucked safely out of sight, they make the perfect place for a family of mice to call home.

  1

  NARROW ESCAPE

  IN THE BLUISH-GRAY LIGHT OF early dawn, a young mouse slept soundly, cupped in the cushion of an old leather armchair. His long, sleek tail dangled limply over one side while a front paw draped across his charcoal brow. On the floor at the foot of the chair lay a book with its pages opened to a picture of a medieval knight dressed in a suit of armor.

  Henry Whiskers felt as if he were a thousand miles away, floating in a dream. It was a happy dream, and he began to chuckle—until something interrupted it.

  “Psst! Henry! Henry! Wake up!”

  Henry didn’t budge.

  “Henry! You have to get out of here!”

  Henry slowly opened one sleepy brown eye, then the other. He smiled and yawned. He uncurled himself and stretched, shaking out his paws. Just before he closed his eyes once more, he noticed the form of a familiar mouse in the distance. Jeremy.

  “Henry!” pleaded the squeaky voice. “It’s getting light out, and Warden will see you! Run!”

  This time, Henry’s heavy eyelids snapped open and he bolted upright. Warden was a tour guide. Panic gushed through him, and he scrambled off the chair and scurried across the floor.

  “The book, Henry! Pick up the book!” Jeremy waved his big paw frantically through the air.

  At that very moment, Henry saw a light flick on in the surrounding exhibit room. He almost somersaulted over himself as he skidded to an abrupt stop and turned around. His heart sank to his feet. He’d forgotten to put the book back on the bookshelf. And now Warden was at the entrance to the exhibit room.

  Henry dove onto the floor and slid over to the book on his soft, white stomach. At that same moment, Jeremy retreated up the dollhouse chimney and out of sight.

  In one swift move, Henry lassoed the book with his tail and raced up the shelves. He jammed the book back into the empty-toothed gap it had left and raced back down.

  Crouched under a footstool, Henry waited for Warden to put out the wooden sign letting visitors know that the famous dollhouse exhibit was open. When his cue came, Henry made a run for it. And as he ran, he promised himself over and over that he’d never sneak into the library again as long as he lived.

  Henry could hardly breathe by the time he met up with Jeremy near the fireplace.

  “Did he see you? What happened out there?” whispered Jeremy.

  “No. I mean, I don’t know,” gasped Henry, panting hard.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know?”

  “I don’t know. It was all a blur.”

  A long silence followed as they thought about the possibilities.

  “We better get home,” Jeremy said, “or someone will definitely notice we’re missing.”

  Henry cast a quick glance back over his shoulder. The hair at the back of his neck bristled, and he clamped a paw to his mouth.

  Jeremy followed Henry’s gaze. “Is that . . . ?” squeaked Jeremy.

  Henry nodded, and then, as if Jeremy was reading his mind, the two of them high-tailed it out of the library, down a long hallway to a back set of stairs. Just before they plunged down the steps, they held each other back with a forepaw. A four-legged shadow with an upright tail slowly crept across the floor just below them. They spun around and darted through the pantry, leaped out of the house, and streaked across the exhibit room floor. They dove through a heating grate on the far wall and dashed down toward the ancient tunnels that weaved through their world beneath Windsor Castle.

  2

  WHO CAME FIRST?

  JEREMY WAS ONE OF HENRY’S cousins, and there were a lot of those in the Whiskers family—149, to be exact! Keeping track of who was related to whom was confusing. All Henry knew was that he and Jeremy were best friends and both related to Great-Great-Grandfather Whiskers, who’d lived a long, long time ago.

  “How did you know where to find me?” asked Henry, zigging and zagging through a tunnel with Jeremy.

  “Where else do you go at night?” squeaked Jeremy, leading the way.

  It was true, Henry thought, remembering the first time his father had taken him to the library to read him a bedtime story.

  The Whiskers lived aboveground in the storage drawers of the dollhouse. Other families of mice nested in the underground, below Windsor Castle, where they spent their days sniffing and scavenging for food, stuffing and fluffing their nests, and meeting up at the King’s Crumb or, if they were young, the Neighborhood Nibble. Luckily, cracks in the floorboards were wide enough to slip through to reach the underground, which made it easy to see friends and relatives. But there was one serious rule of caution in Henry’s family. Until the castle was closed at the end of the day and no visitors or wardens were around to discover them, Mother Mouse insisted that Henry and his siblings stay out of the dollhouse—including the library!

  “Good point,” said Henry as he and Jeremy followed the out-of-the-way trail
back to Jeremy’s.

  “Besides, you were supposed to spend the night at my house, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess I fell asleep.”

  “Obviously!” Jeremy said, rolling his eyes and smiling. “It’s not exactly the first time,” he panted. “You better watch out, Henry, or one of these days, you’re going to get caught.”

  Henry paused to think about what would have happened if Jeremy hadn’t come looking for him. He shuddered. Mother Mouse always warned them: “If they find one of us, they will look for all of us.” The thought of being “the one” to cause a mouse hunt was too much. Henry forced himself to think about something else.

  “Hey, Jeremy, do you know the story about the very first Whiskers to live in Queen Mary’s Dollhouse?”

  “I kinda forget,” said Jeremy. He could add and subtract faster than just about anyone, but remembering things like history wasn’t one of his stronger skills. “Tell me again.”

  As the two mice scurried toward Jeremy’s house, keeping a careful eye out for any early-morning rat risers, Henry began to tell Jeremy the story of their famous ancestor.

  “You know why he was called Henry Whiskers the First, don’t you?”

  “Because somebody had to be the first?” Jeremy replied hopefully.

  “Sort of,” said Henry. “It was actually because Henry was the first mouse to ever live in the dollhouse.”

  “I knew that,” said Jeremy, perking up as he began to remember the story. “Wasn’t he the queen’s pet or something like that?”

  “He was her son’s, Prince George’s. The prince loved him so much that when he grew up and moved away, he secretly placed Henry in the dollhouse to live for the rest of his life. The prince knew that Henry would be grateful and take good care of it. And every generation of Whiskers afterward became the caretakers of the house,” Henry explained.

  “Which are you?” asked Jeremy, pausing to pick up a crumb. “How many Henrys have there been?”

  “I’m the twenty-fifth,” said Henry.

  “But how did the prince expect Henry the First to take care of that mouse mansion all by himself?”

  “I guess Prince George thought that Henry the First would find a Mrs. Henry to help.”

  Henry and Jeremy stopped talking and slowed down. They’d reached Rat Alley, the border between mice and rats. Henry never understood why, but he’d been told that “mice live in the castle’s Upper Ward and rats live in the Lower Ward. That’s just the way it is!”

  They began to tiptoe and pay closer attention. They tried to quiet their breathing so they could hear if anyone might be lurking in wait for two unsuspecting mice. Henry cocked his ears back and forth as they crept along in suspicious silence.

  This new tunnel gave Henry the shivers. It seemed particularly dark, and the stench in the air told him that they were well beyond their normal boundaries. “I don’t like this,” Henry whispered. “We should turn around.”

  “Don’t worry so much,” said Jeremy, waving away the idea with his paw.

  Henry kept following. He held a paw to his nose and tried to ignore the knot in his stomach.

  “How can they stand the smell?” Jeremy said, half gagging.

  Henry carefully picked his way through slimy food scraps and smelly garbage that littered Rat Alley. Trying to sidestep some of it, Henry lost his balance. All four paws flew up in the air, and he landed on his back with a thwunk.

  “Did you hear something?” Jeremy whispered over his shoulder, not even noticing Henry.

  “What gave you that idea?” muttered Henry, scrambling to his feet and scurrying to catch up with Jeremy. “I really think we should turn around.”

  “Why? We’re almost . . .” But Jeremy’s words were suddenly drowned out by a horrifying, high-pitched, ear-shattering screech that pierced the air behind them.

  “Run!” squeaked Henry, turning to see two enormous ratty eyes racing toward them.

  Without hesitation, Jeremy and Henry picked up their tails and darted through the tunnel. The snarling sound grew louder as the giant rat gained on them.

  In their panic, Henry and Jeremy made a wrong turn. By the time they realized it, it was too late to go back. Stealing a quick glance over his shoulder, Henry saw that Jeremy was falling behind and that the rat was only ten mouse-lengths away.

  “The pipe!” yelled Henry. “Run for the pipe!”

  With only a few inches between them and the rat’s razor-sharp teeth, Henry lunged into an old drainpipe and Jeremy scrabbled in right behind him. They slid to the bottom and flew out the end, landing back in mouse territory.

  “Mouse munch!” hissed the rat after them.

  With his heart pounding in his ears, Henry looked back up the black iron pipe and saw that the rat was stuck, too fat to fit through its opening.

  “Whew! That was close!” Jeremy said, exhaling loudly and wiping his sweaty brow.

  Just out of the corner of his eye, Henry thought he saw something move, but when he turned to look, there was nothing there. “Did you see anything?” he whispered, placing a trembling paw on Jeremy’s shoulder and nudging him away from the spot. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We can’t go home looking like this,” said Jeremy, pointing a black sooty paw at the filth that now coated Henry’s fur.

  “We could go to the Local Drip and clean off,” suggested Henry. “It’s not too far from here and on the way to your house.”

  “Yeah. Let’s go,” squeaked Jeremy, taking the lead again.

  Even though there was barely enough water to get clean, it was enough to wash off the worst of the grime.

  “We just need to dry off a bit,” said Henry.

  “Run around in circles for a minute!” said Jeremy. So they made a game out of chasing each other’s tails while they air-dried.

  “Good enough!” hollered Henry just as Jeremy was about to grab his tail. The two inspected each other from head to paw and then took off for Jeremy’s house.

  3

  THAT TIME OF YEAR

  THE SMELL OF CRUMB CAKES caught Henry’s attention as he sat in Jeremy’s bedroom, gently rubbing the stiff spots on his body and inspecting his bruises.

  “Your house always smells like something good to eat,” he said, carefully stretching his hind legs.

  Jeremy stuck his nose out from under his covers, where he’d been dozing, and sniffed the air. He sprang to his paws announcing, “We’d better get some before they’re all gone.”

  Henry smiled to himself. Jeremy was never one to miss out on a chance to eat when nibbles were near. Scootching to the edge of his chair, he cautiously placed one paw on the ground and then another, slowly testing his sore limbs before following Jeremy into the kitchen.

  “What’s the matter with you?” squeaked Aunt Begonia, wiping her paws on her apron and tousling Henry’s hair as he passed by.

  Henry loved Aunt Begonia like a second mother. She always liked to spoil him with attention and extra helpings of everything. He could hardly remember a time when she wasn’t wearing her polka-dot apron around her plump white belly, mixing munchies and sampling sweet temptations in her kitchen. Most went with Uncle Charlie to be sold at the King’s Crumb, but she always kept some for family and friends.

  “We need to put some meat on your bones,” she squeaked as she waddled over to him and held a platter of fresh crumb cakes in front of her.

  “Fine by me,” he said with a smile, wondering if she’d noticed how late he and Jeremy had gotten home. He helped himself to a pawful of his favorite cakes oozing with blueberries and sat down quickly to sink his teeth in before she could ask any questions.

  While Henry and Jeremy quietly gobbled down their breakfast, Uncle Charlie appeared after a long night’s work at the King’s Crumb. “Just saw your mum, Henry,” he announced when he saw Henry sitting at the kitchen table. “She stopped in for some of my famous cheese balls.”

  “Whose?” Aunt Begonia teased.

  “Yours, my love. And
aren’t they scrumptious.” Uncle Charlie winked at Henry.

  He tossed his tweed hat on the table and was just about to pull up a stool beside Henry when Aunt Begonia stopped him short. “They make hooks for hats, dear, now please set a good example for our boys.”

  Uncle Charlie cupped a paw around his mouth and tilted over toward Henry and Jeremy. “She’s got eyes in the back of her head, boys. Can’t get away with anything anymore.” He chuckled, went to hang up his hat, and then sat down next to Henry.

  “Where was I?” He scratched his head. “Oh, yes. Your mum.” Then he pounded a paw on the table and started to laugh out loud. “She had Tudor and Thomas with her doing some early morning errands. She sure does have her paws full with those two terrors, doesn’t she?” he asked of no one in particular. “I don’t know what they did this time, but that mother of yours grabbed each one by an ear and marched them out of the Crumb as quick as they came.” Uncle Charlie paused. He began twisting his whiskers thoughtfully, as though trying to figure out where Thomas and Tudor went wrong.

  “I wouldn’t want to disappoint that one, if you know what’s good for ya,” he said, chuckling again, and slapped Henry on his aching back. He meant Mother Mouse. She expected her children to behave, be kind, be helpful, and stay out of trouble. “Which reminds me to remind you for her that you’ve got some chores to do at home, so you’d better not dillydally around here too long.” And with that, Uncle Charlie’s whole face seemed to disappear as he bit into Aunt Begonia’s blueberry crumb cakes.

  Henry rolled his eyes. “It’s that time of year again,” he mumbled through a mouthful of cake.

  Uncle Charlie smiled knowingly, poured himself a hot cup of mint tea, then stirred it two times to the right and once to the left before plucking some crumbs from his whiskers.

  “Time for what?” mumbled Jeremy through bulging cheeks.

  “How could you forget?” squeaked Henry. “It’s time for the queen’s royal birthday banquet and the Whiskers’ Annual Mouse Masquerade.” It was the one time of year when it was safe for the Whiskers to throw a party in the dollhouse. While the queen and her guests partied upstairs in the castle’s ballroom, the Whiskers could open their doors to friends down below.