when you never know what’s going to jump out at you? That’s something I do beautifully, by the way. I was first in my class jumping out from dark corners.’
‘Please excuse me,’ Manxmouse apologised, ‘but you see, I haven’t been here for very long and perhaps don’t know how.’ Which was quite true, since the ceramist had forgotten to put fear into him.
The Clutterbumph tried a different tack. He said, ‘Let’s be sensible. You’re a mouse, aren’t you?’
‘I think so,’ said Manxmouse.
‘Well then,’ cried the Clutterbumph triumphantly, ‘you ought to be afraid of Cat. Ha! Wait till you see the kind of cat I can be. Made the Honour Roll for it – glowing eyes, cruel claws, sharp teeth, lashing tail and frightful growl. How about that?’
‘But I’ve never seen a cat,’ Manxmouse said.
‘You’re not being at all co-operative,’ and a plaintive note crept into the voice of the Clutterbumph. ‘Here I am, out on a job, one of the best of us, if I may say so – graduated with honours, with a gold medal for my appearance as a bogey, and I can’t take shape and get on with my work unless you imagine me. Come on, now, there’s a good mouse. Think up something simply awful.’
Manxmouse obviously wished to help and tried very hard, but nothing would come since, as he had already told the Clutterbumph, he had not been there for very long. And the truth is that no one is ever born frightened or fearing anything.
At last, after a period of awkward silence, the Clutterbumph moaned, ‘All right, I give up. Forget about it. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. What will they say back at the office, when they find out? A Clutterbumph who couldn’t frighten a mouse! Oh dear, oh dear!’
‘Do forgive me,’ said Manxmouse.
The mouse was so plainly distressed, that the Clutterbumph said, ‘That’s all right. I shan’t hold it against you. But if you wouldn’t mind me giving you a little piece of advice …’
‘Oh, no, not at all,’ said Manxmouse. ‘It would be very kind of you.’
‘Well,’ said the Clutterbumph, ‘I see you’re a Manx Mouse.’
Since the Clutterbumph was invisible and, in fact, actually wasn’t there, it was difficult to understand how he could ‘see’ anything. Nevertheless, Manxmouse replied, ‘Am I?’
‘Oh, yes, undoubtedly. Anyone with half an eye, or even with no eyes like myself can see that. Well, my advice is Beware the Manx Cat.’ And with that he flew off into the night with his ‘Grrrrs’ and ‘Booos’ and ‘Arrghs’ growing fainter and finally dying out altogether.
Manxmouse wondered what it was the Clutterbumph had meant, but he was growing tired and so he went on in the direction of the country smells until he came to the edge of Buntingdowndale where the pavement ended.
He walked on for a little while longer, enjoying the feel of grass and leaves and earth and twigs beneath his feet. Just as the moon was beginning to set and the stars to pale, Manxmouse found a soft spot under a hedge, curled up and went to sleep.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. The sun had been shining long enough to dry the dew from the grass and the flowers. It was warm and comfortable. As Manxmouse emerged from under his hedge, he saw that he was at a road junction with an old signpost leaning slightly askew. One fingerboard pointing to the right was marked LITTLE GREAT MUNDEN, and the other pointing to the left was lettered, NASTY. A Billibird perched on top of the signpost, manicuring its fingernails.
A Billibird carries a tail light, can fly backwards as well as forwards and sideways, and knows a great deal about a lot of things, but not everything.
The Billibird stopped doing its nails and said, ‘Hello, a Manx Mouse! Or am I dreaming?’
It was strange, Manxmouse thought, how everyone he encountered seemed to know what he was, when he was not at all sure himself. He knew that he was a mouse, but not that kind of a one. For it must be remembered that as yet he had not seen himself.
‘I was just wondering which way to go,’ Manxmouse said.
‘Well,’ said the Billibird, ‘you have a choice of one or the other. And you needn’t worry, there’s no Manx Cat either way. Little Great Munden has five houses in the Little part and six in the Great part, and its own post office. Nasty has only four houses and the post office is in the kitchen of the last one.’
‘Is there really a place called Nasty?’ asked Manxmouse.
‘Well, it says so, doesn’t it?’ replied the Billibird, indicating the signboard. ‘So I suppose there must be. I know some villages with even funnier names. There’s one called Pity Me and another Come-to-Good. And then there’s the one you ought to know about. It’s called Mousehole, although they pronounce it Mouzle. The villagers try to pronounce Nasty as Naystie, but it’s Nasty all right, and there’s nothing they can do about it.’
‘It must be horrid, then,’ Manxmouse suggested.
‘Oh, no, on the contrary, it’s delightful – timbered houses with thatched roofs, early Elizabethan style, I take it; the most charming gardens and a pretty little pond. Nice people, too. I often go there myself.’
‘Then however did it get that name?’ inquired Manxmouse.
‘Now that is one of the things I don’t know,’ replied the Billibird, ‘and there aren’t many. Someone just called it that, and there it is.’
Manxmouse made up his mind. ‘Then that, I think, is where I shall go for I’m getting hungry.’
‘Mind,’ said the Billibird, ‘there’ll be cats. But they’re well fed and oughtn’t to bother you, except maybe old One-Eye or Street Cat. But of course it’s really Manx Cat you want to watch out for.’
The Billibird resumed its manicuring and as Manxmouse thanked it and went off down the road in the direction of Nasty, he heard it say, ‘I’m not dreaming. I know I’m not. It actually is a Manx Mouse. Poor thing!’
Manxmouse wondered why, ‘Poor thing’? For he was quite happy.
THE STORY OF THE HAPPENINGS IN NASTY
Nasty was really exactly as the Billibird had described it: four charming cottages, the dark timbers showing bravely against the white plaster, and the eaves of the roofing thatches descending almost to the windows. The flowers in the gardens were just starting to bud.
The houses stood in a line on one side of the road and the pond the Billibird had mentioned was on the other, a blue patch of water with lily pads and rushes.
It was still early in the morning and no one was about. But the people of Nasty seemed to be the trusting kind, for two of the front doors were open and Manxmouse slipped into the first.
Following the good news told him by the odour in his nostrils, he had no difficulty in finding
