Not
here,
either!
Not
here!
A MOUSESTASTIC
IDEA!
?!?
Luckily, Hercule was quick on his paws.
FAST
as a falling meteorite, he dashed
away from my cave and waved for me to
follow him.
“
Watch this
,
Geronimo!” he said
with a chuckle.
Then he took a
deep breath and
cried, “Emergency
at Gossip Radio!
There’s been
a break-in!”
A second later,
Let’s get out
of here!
We have to help!
Sally’s henchmice darted out of my cave and
hightailed
it to Gossip Radio. Bones and
stones, what a relief! Hercule and I scurried
into my cave as soon as the coast was clear.
“
Hurry!
” my friend instructed. “When
those stonesnouts figure out there’s no
emergency
, they’ll be back in the twitch
of a whisker!”
I quickly checked to see if my
interview
was safe. I was shaking with nerves from
the ends of my ears to the tip of my tail! But
it was still in its
hiding place
under my
pillow, wrapped inside a palm leaf.
Whew!
The tablets were stacked like a book, and
on the cover I’d written “
Songsnout
Interview
.”
“Prehistoric Parmesan! What are we going
to do now? Sally’s henchmice are
going to be back any
minute,” squeaked
Hercule, twisting
his tail. “Come on,
Geronimo.
Think!
”
“Um, let’s see . . .”
“Well? Come on.
What’s the plan?”
“
Cave rats!
”
I said, annoyed.
“Hercule, if you
It’s
here!
Songsnout
Interview
keep interrupting, I’ll hit
you on the
snout
with
my book of Greasella
Stonyfur’s most famouse
recipes!”
Hearing that, Hercule
looked at me with a
smile
. He picked up
the book of recipes from the
table.
“Of course! That’s a mousestastic
idea
!”
Huh? What was he squeaking about now?
“These recipe
Tablets
are the same
size as the tablets you used to chisel the
interview,” Hercule went on. “Look!”
I examined the two books of tablets very
closely.
Fossilized cheese crumbs!
Hercule was right. The size and shape
were
identical
!
GREASELLA
STONYFUR’S
FAMOUSE
RECIPES
“Listen carefully, Geronimo. We’ll
swap
the covers! When Sally’s
henchmice come back, they’ll take the
wrong thing!” Hercule squeaked excitedly.
“They’ll grab Greasella’s recipes instead of
the
interview
!”
I had to admit, it was a
FABUMOUSE
idea. It just might save our fur!
Grinning, we switched the covers.
Then we wrapped the recipe book (with
“
Songsnout Interview
” on its cover) in
the palm leaves and left the actual interview
(with the cookbook’s cover) in plain sight
on the table.
We left my cave feeling as
proud
as
prehistoric peacocks.
“
Yoo-hoo
, Geronimo! Hercule!”
someone called from the road. “We’re here!”
It was Clarissa! She, Benjamin, and Trap
were back from the dentist’s office with a
new
riddle
in their paws.
It said:
Paint your fur red —
make no mistakes!
Then scamper to where
the latest news breaks.
AS RED AS
FOSSILIZED HOT
PEPPERS!
Wait one whisker-loving minute!
“Paint ourselves
red
?” I cried. “Sticks
and stones! That’s impawssible!”
The
red
ochre mine that is the source
of all cavemice dye was thousands of
tails
away! It would take us a day to get there
and back.
How many
seashells
would I have to paw
over to get what we needed from the citizens
of Old Mouse City to paint ourselves red? It
ruffled
my fur just thinking about it!
“I know what to do,” Clarissa
squeaked
,
before I could get my tail in too much of a
twist.
Where is it?
We all
LOOKED
at her,
intrigued. What could she have
in mind?
“We’ll paint ourselves
red
with one of my new inventions!”
she squeaked. “Come on, follow
me!”
With that, we followed the
fabumouse and
brilliant
mouse to her cave. There,
she showed us her stone
tub, where water
from the Great
Gurgling Geyser
bubbled
,
super-pure and
super-hot
.
Clarissa went
over to her
dresser and began rummaging through
drawers of
jars
, vials, and perfume
bottles, until she finally said, “
Found it!
Super-concentrated Jurassic beet juice!”
“
What is that?
” I asked. I had no clue
what her plan was!
Clarissa opened the bottle, poured the
contents into the tub, and . . .
by the
Great Zap
! The gurgling water instantly
turned
BRIGHT RED
and fizzled with
mousetastic bubbles!
“So . . . do we have to go in there?” I
asked,
worried
.
Clarissa didn’t bother answering. Instead,
she gracefully jumped into the water. When
she came out, she was bright red from head
to tail. Ah,
Clarissa
— what an amazing
mouse!
“Hooray!” exclaimed Hercule, Benjamin,
Um
Come on,
Geronimo!
Woo-hoo!
and Trap. Following Clarissa’s exa
mple,
they
dove
into the tub.
But I hesitated.
“Um, is the water very hot? What if the
color
doesn’t ever fade from our fur?
What if my poor
paws
get boiled?”
Trap and Hercule finally dragged me into
the tub,
kicking and squeaking
.
When I climbed out of the water, I was as
red
as a hot lava pepper!
“What are we waiting for?” said Clarissa.
“Let’s hightail it out of here!”
Since the riddle said that we should
“scamper to where the latest news breaks,”
we ran straight to Gossip Radio. When
Sally
SPOTTED
us coming, she hastily
hid something behind her back. Holey
boulders — it looked exactly like the
palm
leaf
–wrapped book that I’d left in my cave!
Sally’s henchmice had fallen into our
trap — they’d stolen the
recipes
instead
of the real interview!
“What do you know?” Hercule
whispered
with a grin. “Our plan worked!”
Pretending we didn’t notice the tablets,
As straight as arrows, the
sentinels circle around.
Nothing breaks them, not even
a stone from the ground!
Hee, hee,
hee!
Oops!
we asked Sally for the next riddle.
She handed us a tablet that read:
WHAT DOES THAT
MEAN?
We were more determined than ever to
figure this out and finish the treasure hunt.
We got to work on the
riddle
right away.
“Sentinels . . . hmmm,” Clarissa said.
“What do sentinels do?”
“They protect or keep
WATCH
over
something,” Benjamin responded.
Clarissa nodded. “Okay, so what could
sentinels standing
STRAIGHT
as arrows be?”
“The riddle also says, ‘
Nothing breaks
them, not even a stone from the
ground
,’” Benjamin added. “What does
that mean?”
“It means that the sentinels are strong!” I
Let’s see . . .
said. “What if they’re
TREES
?”
Just then Benjamin clapped his paws in
excitement.
“No, they’re not trees, Uncle Geronimo —
they’re
poles
! The poles of the fence that
goes around Old Mouse City!”
Hercule leaped to his paws. “Of course!
They’re
STRAIGHT
, they
circle around
the city, and they are
hard and
sturdy
— so hard that not even a
stone could break them!”
“Ugh, but there are so
many
of them,”
Trap said with a groan. “How are we
supposed to find the next clue?”
Hercule knew just what to do.
“Simple.
We’ll split up!
Each of
us will check a different section of the fence.
Whoever finds the riddle first will alert the
rest of the team with a
whistle
! Ready?
LET’S GO!
”
He handed each of us a wooden whistle
and assigned us areas to investigate. “When
you hear a
whistle
, drop everything and
meet at Singing Rock Square.”
We quickly rinsed the red dye from our
fur — luckily, it was
easy-cheesy
to wash
out! — and then took off to
EXAMINE
the fence. Benjamin and I worked together,
while the others spread out around the city.
Benjamin was
scampering
from one
pole to another when he tripped on a
rock
and fell. Petrified cheese!
“Are you okay?” I asked, crouching down
by his side.
“
Shhhh
,” he said, pressing his ear to
the ground. He was listening attentively to
something.
But what?
“Benjamin?” I asked again. “Are you all
right?”
“I’m
fine
!” he said, his eyes wide. “But
“Heeeelp!”
there’s someone under here that isn’t . . .”
What in the Stone Age was he squeaking
about? I put my ear to the ground.
Bones and stones! Benjamin was
right! Someone was
yelling
for help underground. They could
only be in
one
place — the
TWEEEEEEEEET!
subwaysaurus
tunnel!
I had to get everyone’s tail in gear to help,
so I pulled out my
whistle
.
A few minutes later, we all met at Singing
Rock Square.
“We didn’t find the next riddle, but we
have to hurry
!” Benjamin explained.
“There’s someone in
danger
in the
subwaysaurus tunnel!”
“Fossilized cheddar chunks!” exclaimed
Hercule. “Grab your
clubs
and let’s get
CHAAAARGE!
What happened?
Squeak!
Together we raced
DOWN, DOWN,
DOWN
under Old Mouse City into the
metrocave, where the subwaysaurus lives.
“Try not to make any
noise
!” Hercule
hissed at us. “You never know who may
be —”
Shhh . . .
quiet!
“
Help!
” someone yelled at the far end of
the tunnel.
“
Someone rescue us!
” shouted a
second voice.
“
Save us!
” screamed a third.
Slithering
on our
bellies
like
serpentsauruses, we finally came to the end
of the
tunnel
. What we saw left me
squeakless!
It was the
Jurassic Cheddarsnouts
and the
Megalithic Mice
! They were
tied
up like balls of mozzarella . . . and
they were surrounded by a gang of saber-
toothed tigers. Fossilized feta!
Even worse, we saw
Tiger Khan
,
the chief of the Saber-Toothed Squad and
the most ferocious, evil
fanged
feline in the
entire
STONE AGE
!
&
nbsp; I was shaking in my fur and preparing
myself for premature extinction when
Hercule came up with a mousestastic plan.
“I’ve got an
idea
!” he squeaked quietly.
“They haven’t spotted us yet, so we’ll use
the element of surprise. By sneaking through
the tunnel’s shadows, we can spook those
overgrown cats
and pretend we’re
prehistoric monsters!”
Even though I didn’t want to get anywhere
near those giant fanged felines, I had to
admit — Hercule’s plan could
work
!
We tiptoed quietly down the last few steps
into an alcove. The Saber-Toothed Squad
still couldn’t
SEE
us, but we could see
them. Once we had all reached the bottom,
Clarissa
raised her club and squeaked
bravely:
Side by side, we followed her, staying in
the tunnel’s shadows. We had to rescue our
captured fellow cavemice!
“CAVEMICE,
CHAAAARGE!”
AH, CLARISSA . . .
WHAT A MOUSE!
"Yaaaaahhh!”
"Uuuuughh!”
"AAAAAAYAAAHHHH!”
Clarissa ran toward the saber-toothed tigers
with a valiant cry. “
YAAAAAHHH!
”
Hercule, Trap, Benjamin, and I imitated
her, vying to see who could squeak loudest.
When the saber-toothed tigers saw the
shadows of us with our clubs raised, they
began to shake like Paleozoic pudding!
“
Monsters!
” cried
Tiger Khan
,
shaking in his fur.
Help!
Run for
your life!
Then they all turned tail as we swung our
clubs and started
chasing
them away!
Then we heard thundering pawsteps
coming down the tunnel. Holey cheese — all
that
racket
had attracted the attention of
rodents aboveground, who were RUNNING
to help us!
BONK!
CLUNK!
KAPOW!
The village chief, Ernest Heftymouse, and
his wife, Chattina, scurried
DOWN
the
subwaysaurus tunnel, followed by a group
of cavemice armed with
clubs
.
“Take that!” shrieked Chattina, swinging
at Tiger Khan. “And that! And that!”
Defeated