The Cricket in Times Square: Chapters 6–10

Like most people who first ride the subway, Chester wasn’t used to the abrupt stops.

He toppled out of the matchbox into Mario’s lap.

He was wearing a silk vest over his shirt with dragons embroidered on it in red thread, and he was smoking a long white clay pipe.

The man smoothly twisted his head, as if it were on a pivot, and looked at Mario.

He was afraid that if he moved, he would be buried under an avalanche of Chinese novelties.

He was carrying a cricket cage in the shape of a pagoda.

There were seven tiers to it, each one a little smaller than the one below, and it ended in a slender spire.

He knew thoughts of animals and men, he knew desire of flower and tree, he knew destiny of sun and stars.

Tucker Mouse stopped gaping at the cricket cage long enough to say, “Once I thought of living down there.

Tucker scrambled through the gate into the cage and pranced all around inside it.

Chester and Harry heard him draw a deep breath of contentment.

Chester Cricket burrowed down deeper into the Kleenex.

He fetched the ruined two-dollar bill from the cash register.

It hit him on the left hind leg just as he vanished into the drain pipe.

Muttering with rage, Mama Bellini picked him up by his antennae, tossed him into the cricket cage, and locked the gate behind him.

Mama denounced Chester as a money eater and said further that she suspected him of inviting mice and other unsavory characters into the newsstand at night.

“Couldn’t you get out on bail for the time being?” asked Tucker.

“I have my life’s savings,” he said in a pathetic voice.

“So for all the long years of my youth, when I could have been gamboling—which means playing—with the other mousies, I saved. I saved paper, I saved food, I saved clothing—”

“Now stop acting like a skinflint and let’s get the money.”

Of course I’ll give the money! Wherever mice are spoken of, never let it be said that Tucker Mouse was stingy with his worldly goods.

Mama’s first suspicion was that the cricket had sneaked out and smuggled all the money from the cash register into the cage.

The only thing he’d noticed was that that big cat who sometimes prowled through the station had seemed to be busier than usual last night.

Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he made a very low and solemn bow.

Chester bowed back and gave one of his most polite chirps.

The dial of the clock was luminous and it shed a very soft green light.

Tucker Mouse had volunteered to let them use the drain pipe, but Chester didn’t want to eat amid all the waste paper and rubbish his friend had collected.

“I have: two chunks liverwurst, one slice ham, three pieces bacon—from a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich-—some lettuce and tomato—from said sandwich—whole-wheat, rye, and white crusts, a big gob cole slaw, two squares from a Hershey chocolate bar, the end of an Oh! Henry candy bar—with nuts!—and now comes the climax.”

He jumped down to the floor and scurried over to the drain pipe.

Harry twisted the dial and went through a quiz show, an amateur hour, and a play about the Deep South before he got what he wanted.

“You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for,” blurted out Tucker Mouse through a mouthful of bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

After the folk songs came a group of operatic arias.

The South American tempo began to excite him.

The spurt of flames it sent up lit the frayed edge of the papers and quickly spread over the whole bundle.

The people standing around were astonished to see, through the fumes and glare of the fire, a cat, a mouse, and a cricket, running, jumping, to safety.