The Trek

A Story for All Ages by Aaron McEmrys

Growing up in Crum was not all it was cracked up to be.

Crum is a small village of city mice located directly underneath one of the biggest bakeries in the City, a mouse-village so rich that when the bakery is going full-tilt, crumbs sometimes literally rain down through the loose floorboards and vents above. It is a mouse-paradise where nobody ever goes hungry.

But it drove Tasha and Nuala crazy. They had grown up in this world of falling crumbs and didn’t know what hunger felt like. What they did know was that Crum was the most boring place in the world. Nothing ever happened! Nothing ever changed!

Every day it was the same: wake up, wash whiskers, and then scones for breakfast. Then a long morning of crumb gathering followed by a fat lunch of pumpernickel or wheat. Boring, boring, boring!

The only good part of the week was their classes with Crazy Zeke. Crazy Zeke was an ancient mouse who was too old to gather crumbs anymore. He was also the only mouse who could read or write or who had ever set paw outside the village of Crum. So it fell to him to run what passed for the local school.

“Classes” consisted of little more than Crazy Zeke wistfully, and sometimes bitterly, telling story after rambling story about all the places he’d been when he was young. Most of the mice thought he was as crazy as his name, but Tasha and Nuala loved every minute of it.

They especially loved hearing about The Barn, a great mouse city beyond their grey-black City in a land called The Country, where everything was green. Crazy Zeke had been born and raised in The Barn, and about it he never ran out of stories.

The girls peppered old Zeke with questions, making him tell them everything there was to know about The Barn. He even drew maps for them, with a little bit of burnt matchstick in his teeth. He was delighted to finally have students worth teaching, but Tasha and Nuala had other plans – they were planning their escape!

Late one night after all the other mice had gone to sleep, the girls packed up everything they thought they might need. They silently kissed their mother and father, softly, so as not to wake them, and then squeezed through a knothole in the floorboards above and vanished into the night.

Used to being warmed by the bakery ovens, the girls never imagined how cold they would be on the cobblestone streets, and once their little supply of crumbs were gone they didn’t know what to do when, after looking up expectantly into the black sky no flakes of rye or wheat fell down to feed them. That night they slept in a freezing huddle behind a garbage can and woke up colder and hungrier than ever.

But they would not give up. They had their map. They WOULD make it to the great Barn. Day and night they plodded on, facing many close shaves and great adventures.

One night they were even chased by a terrifying creature: a vast, howling, spitting, hissing creature with long fur, a great tail and enormous green eyes that shone eerily in the moonlight. The monstrous beast had teeth like knives and wore a collar with a bell on it that said, “Pumpkin”, whatever that meant.

They raced down an alleyway, the monster hot on their tails when they realized it was a dead end. They were trapped and would be eaten for sure! But just then a voice called out “This way! Quick!”

Tasha and Nuala darted into the rat-hole just in time. They were terrified and shaking with exhaustion. But they were alive. Who knew the world could be so scary?

Their savior was a blind old Rat named Thomas, who used his excellent hearing as we use our eyes. He shared what little food he had with the hungry girls, and listened to their story.

“You’re almost there, little ones. Just follow the Sun for two more days and you will find what you seek.”

That night they slept in Thomas’ warm straw beds and in the morning they set off on the last leg of their journey. For two more grueling days and nights they pushed on, burning in the Sun and freezing in the Moonlight.

And then there it was! The Barn! They raced toward it, dreaming of the incredible world they would find, the friends they would make and the lives they would lead….

“Are you sure this is the place?” asked Nuala.

“Look at the map. This has to be it.” Replied Tasha with a quaver.

They both stared down the hill for a long time.

The great Barn was in ruins. It had clearly been a vast and beautiful place at one time and could easily have been home to thousands of mice, a great city indeed – but now it tottered forlornly, a ruined heap of stone and timber in an overgrown meadow. There was no great city here.

Tasha and Nuala flopped down in the meadow, utterly miserable. All their plans and dreams were ruined.

But then something strange happened. In the midst of their sorrow, a bird song, then another and another. Their sharp mouse-ears pricked up. It was beautiful, like nothing they’d ever heard. And then Tasha gasped as a wild yellow sunflower bent over her in the breeze like the Sun itself. Laying there in the meadow, finally still, finally silent, they saw and heard things they had never imagined before: the creak of tall trees, the deep playful bubbling of a stream, and a whole world of tall, swaying grasses that whispered as red, yellow and orange leaves tumbled by. Who knew the world could be so wonderful?

They had not found the glamorous mouse metropolis they had set out to find, but now, at journeys end, they were filled with peace.

“Shall we go?” suggested Tasha with a faint smile.

“Where?” asked Nuala.

“Don’t be silly. Home, of course!” Nuala said with a smile.

“Yes, home. Let’s go home.”

And home they went, in no particular hurry, back to Crum. But the home they found when they returned was not the same home as the one they’d left. And Tasha and Nuala were most definitely not the same mice either. Their world was bigger now, and so were they.