Reepicheep's Revenge

Nurse Magill spoke loudly to wake old Evers up.  She woke Norman, too.

"Time to get up, Mr. Evers," she said firmly.  "Sleep too late and you'll miss breakfast.  We can't have that."

Evers was cranky.  "Love it, don't you, you old dragon, waking a man out of a sound sleep," he said.  "Why don't you start with Norman for once?"

"Procedures, Mr. Evers, procedures.  You are senior, and therefore you are wakened first.  These are the rules we all must follow.  No lolling about into the morning.  Wake up, now."  Norman gritted his teeth and pretended to be asleep.  Behind his closed lids he pictured Nurse Magill laid out in a cheap coffin with black lilies at her head and feet.  The picture gave him some small solace.  He felt Reepicheep stir under the covers.

Nurse Magill got Evers' scrawny body into his wheelchair.  Then she briskly turned to Norman.  She bent toward him.  She was nearly six feet tall, and all iron.

"I'll be back for you, Mr. Holliwell," she said to him.  "Don't go back to sleep."  He smelled her perfume when she leaned over him.  It was like vanilla and cinnamon gone sour.  He held his breath until she straightened and went away to push Evers' chair through the door.

When Nurse Magill and Evers went out, Reepicheep crept out and sat on Norman's pillow.  He regarded Norman with a beady black eye.  Norman regarded Reepicheep with a blurry blue eye.  Norman smiled, and winked.  The mouse touched his wrinkled nose with its tiny paw, and sat back on its haunches.  They greeted each other with this ritual every morning.

Reepicheep was old Evers' pet.  He had named him Reepicheep after a mouse in a book.  Evers claimed Reepicheep had moved in with him.  Norman doubted that.  He knew mice had short lives.  Evers had been in the home a long time, a lot longer than Norman had.  Reepicheep was already a resident when Norman had moved in with Evers three years ago.

After watching Norman's ongoing irritation of Nurse Magill, Evers had trusted him enough to introduce him to Reepicheep.  Norman had taken an interest in the "little guy," as he called him, and begun bringing food from the dining room for him.  It was another way of rebelling against Nurse Magill.  Nurse Magill abhorred dirt, and everyone knew she detested mice as the dirtiest of all creatures.

Evers claimed Reepicheep had human intelligence.  He exchanged squeaks with the mouse, and called the squeaking language.  Norman couldn't make any sense of Reepicheep's squeaks, but he didn't argue with Evers about it.  The old man had been a scientist before his kids stuck him in the home.  He'd worked in some experimental lab somewhere.  Norman had shoveled his way through life, coal, manure, salt, dirt, whatever a man could move on a scoop.  Maybe the old man knew something Norman didn't.

The mouse was clever enough to hide from Nurse Magill.  It also changed the television channel.  The mouse preferred news commentaries and educational channels.  It particularly disliked soap operas and talk shows.

Norman spent more time concocting schemes to upset Nurse Magill than he did watching television.  He was the one who suggested to Evers that they train Reepicheep to ride in a robe pocket, so they could release him in the dining hall when Nurse Magill was present.  Evers had refused.  He told Norman that the mouse was too nice a pet to sacrifice, even in the worthy cause of outraging Nurse Magill.  Norman had agreed to be content with knowing they were breaking a lot of rules just keeping Reepicheep in their room.

Norman heard a noise in the hall.  "Reepicheep," he whispered, "you know better than that, to sit on my pillow when Nurse Magill could come back any time.  Here," he lifted the covers with his thin fingers, veins standing out on the back of his hand from the effort, "get under the covers, you rascal.  She'll find you, otherwise."

The mouse glanced sharply left, then right, before it scurried into the proffered haven.  Norman let the covers fall back.  He rested his thin fingers on the worn blanket.  They trembled slightly from his effort.  He was just in time.  Nurse Magill's heels clicked on the corridor floor.  The sound echoed off the walls.  Norman thought it sounded like gunshots in the background on the evening news.

Nurse Magill came through doors strutting like a Nazi General.  Her erect posture commanded obedience.  Her auburn hair somehow managed to be cold as a winter's sunset.  Her breasts were large and firm; they entered the room well before the rest of her.  Her waist made a man's arms ache to wrap around it and dance away.  She was material for a man's lurid fantasies, until he looked in her eyes.  They were green sea ice and glittered with cold fury.

Creamy skin covered her bat-skull face  Her chin was tiny and pointed, and her teeth, when she smiled, were needles.  Norman had wondered, once, if that was why she had never married.  Poor thing, she couldn't help her skull structure, he had thought.  When he got to know her better, he understood her need for absolute command had driven away any mate she might have had.

"Time to get up, Mr. Holliwell," Nurse Magill said to him as she approached his bed.  "We didn't wet our bed, now, did we?" She reached her hand under the covers to feel the bottom sheet.  Norman was tempted to let go, just to catch her hand in the stream.  He grinned instead.

"No, Nursie," he said (he knew she loathed being called Nursie), "you weren't in my bed last night.  That's why I'm so cold and lonesome."  He felt Reepicheep's whiskers on his shin as the mouse crept toward his feet.  Norman reached under the covers as though he was about to grab her hand.  Nurse Magill withdrew her hand as he leered up at her.

"You want to play Doctor, Nursie?"

"Mr. Holliwell!" It was warning enough; the ice in her voice was colder than the ice in her eyes.  It chilled Norman to the spine.

"Sorry.  I was just trying to bring a little humor into your day."  He forced his voice to be properly apologetic.  He coughed twice as she started to pull the blankets down to the foot of the bed.  The coughs were Reepicheep's signal.  He had learned quickly to hide in the lump of covers at the foot of the bed when Norman warned him.  Norman felt him run past his heels and smiled at Nurse Magill.  It was a mistake.  Nurse Magill smiled back.  Norman thought of piranhas and shuddered.

"Are we cold, Mr. Holliwell?" Her voice was professionally compassionate.  Norman found it more chilling than her icy angry voice.  He snapped back at her.

"We are not cold; we are amused and shaking with laughter.  Give us our robe, and we will condescend to join the common people for breakfast."

"Temper, temper, Mr. Holliwell.  There's always the bath."

Nurse Magill had her back to him as she got his robe from the closet.  He stuck out his tongue at her while she had her back turned.  He felt better, and his day brightened a little.  Norman could stand, with support, and hoist himself from the bed to his chair.  Nurse Magill helped him on with his robe and steadied him while he got into his wheelchair.  Then she summoned John, the orderly, to take him to breakfast.

"Been rubbing Nurse Magill up the wrong side again?" John said as he wheeled Norman down the hall.  "Why complicate your life like that?"

"It's something to do," Norman said.  "I hate that woman, and irritating her is all I've got to keep me alive."  

"Life's like that," John said.  "Some folks is hard to like.  Hold on, Mr. Holliwell,"  he said, "I've got to talk to Nurse Carruthers a minute."  He stopped Norman's chair at the stairs that led to the nursing station.  The nursing station served two floors, and had been built halfway between them.  "I'll be just a minute," he said to Norman, and went up the stairs.

John talked a moment with Nurse Carruthers, too low for Norman to make out what they said.  John was shaking his head and Nurse Carruthers was being sympathetic, as always.  Norman knew the exalted affairs of the staff were not his concern.  He had asked, in a friendly way, about various things.  Even John had warned him not to pry.  Norman suspected Nurse Carruthers and John had a joint life somewhere outside the home.  Contrary to all rules, of course.  He sent good thoughts toward them.

He heard the gunshot sound of Nurse Magill's heels.  Nurse Carruthers pointed at Norman and said something to John.  John came down and wheeled him in to breakfast.  He parked Norman's chair at the small table next to Evers and set the brakes.  Then he left to get Norman's breakfast.  Evers was snoring, his oatmeal half eaten.

Norman had no trouble spooning the oatmeal into his mouth.  If he didn't think about it he could even swallow some of it.  The watery orange juice helped thin it out enough for that.  Norman's problem was Reepicheep.  Reepicheep needed to eat.  Ordinarily there was toast, with greasy margarine, and once a week, there was bacon.  Reepicheep liked both.  It didn't take much, just a bit dropped into the pocket of a robe, to feed him.

The toaster wasn't working this morning.  Oatmeal and orange juice were the full menu.  No coffee or tea, of course.  It only agitated the patients, Nurse Magill said.  No toast was bad.  Norman sighed.  Reepicheep would go hungry until supper, unless there was something besides the customary jello for lunch.  There was no way he knew to carry oatmeal or jello in a robe pocket.

"Damn shame," he said to Evers, "no toast."  Evers opened one blank eye, saw no one but Norman, and winked, slowly.

"Magill probably shorted the toaster," Evers murmured.  "I think she suspects something.  We'll have to rub her out."  Then he closed his eye and resumed snoring.  Norman shook his head.  Sometimes Evers' comments didn't make much sense.  Norman dropped the spoon into his oatmeal.  He had no more orange juice, and he couldn't wash any more of it down.

When she saw he had stopped eating, Nurse Magill came to wheel Norman back to his room for his morning wash-up.  Norman dreaded it almost as much as the hydrotherapy cold baths.  The washcloth was rough as sandpaper, and there was no hot water, ever.

"My, we aren't very hungry this morning," she said as she bent over to tuck his blanket around his legs.  Norman looked at her cleavage and was grateful that her uniform didn't button up to the neck.  It was definitely better than television.

Evers opened his eyes and let his knobby hand drop from the metal arm of his wheelchair.  It brushed the calf of her leg, down, then up, then down.  Norman could hear Evers' dry skin rasp against her nylons.  Nurse Magill screamed.

Evers wheezed chuckles.  His gray eyes sparkled.  Nurse Magill turned toward him with the slow majesty of an un-amused dowager duchess and put her folded hands on her delicious hips.  Norman stuck his tongue out at her back.  Evers chuckles wheezed louder and faster.

"Naughty, Mr. Evers, naughty!" she reprimanded him.  "Such dirty thoughts will be scrubbed away!"

Evers choked on his chuckle.  He coughed.  The cough could not leave his throat.  Norman felt his own throat constrict in a gag as Evers struggled to complete his cough.  His breathing sounded like an angry fly caught between two windowpanes.  His face was red; his eyes squeezed shut and watering.  Nurse Magill stared furiously at Evers, then decided he wasn't faking.

"John," Nurse Magill shouted, "quickly, it's Mr. Evers!" then she bent over to examine him.  Then it happened.  Evers' oatmeal exploded over her starched white bosom.  His dentures followed his oatmeal, and lodged themselves in her cleavage.  She turned past Norman to look for John.  Her disgust distorted her face, and made her more monstrous than usual.

"Sorry," Evers said, his words slurred and slow, "must have choked."  He slumped as Nurse Magill called for John again.  Evers opened his eyes and stared at Norman.  Evers eyes twinkled.  Norman smiled, and mouthed a promise to Evers.  Reepicheep would be glad to hear about this.

"John," Nurse Magill said to the orderly as he came up, "Mr. Evers has had an accident.  Please take Mr. Holliwell to his room for his morning wash."  She looked down at Evers.

"Oh, Mr. Evers, such a fright we've had!" She put her hand to her bosom, and encountered his dentures.  Disgust struggled with fury on her bat's face.

"Oh, Mr. Evers!" she said.  The dentures were in her hand.  She was shaking.  The dentures rattled.  Norman coughed to cover his laughter.  Her rage was too high for him to agitate her further.

"You all right, Nurse?" John asked her.

"Yes," she snapped.  "I'm quite all right.  Filthy, but unhurt.  Please see Mr. Holliwell to his room then ask Nurse Carruthers to assist me.  Tell her it is urgent."

"Yes, Nurse Magill," John said and turned Norman and wheeled him into the hall.

"Poor Nurse Magill," John said mournfully, "she does hate dirt, specially someone else's dirt."  Norman twisted his neck to look at John's face.  A grin was struggling to escape from the confines of his mustache.  

Norman nodded.  "So sad," he said.  "Such a mess for such a starchy lady."

"She is a bit stiff," John said.  He chuckled the rest of the way to Norman's room.

In the room John helped Norman into bed, then turned on the television.  It was a morning talk show that Norman detested.  A black haired woman was arguing about the evils of pesticides with a scrawny red-headed man.  Reepicheep came out from some hiding place only he knew about and squeaked mournfully, begging food.  Norman held an empty hand out before him and apologized in a whisper.

"No toast this morning, little guy," he said; "blamed toaster is on the blink.  We'll have to hope for lunch."  Then he chuckled.  "Should have been there, to see Nursie Magill, all covered with oatmeal."  He chuckled again and started to recap the breakfast.  Reepicheep sat, listening.  Norman was sure his whiskers were twitching with laughter.  He even clasped his forepaws together when Norman told him about the dentures landing in Nurse Magill's cleavage.  Norman was certain he was applauding.  Norman fell asleep; it was his only escape from the television.

John woke Norman for the noon meal.  He helped him into the wheelchair.  Lunch was soup with crackers.  Norman slipped the crackers into his pocket for Reepicheep.  old Evers was not at lunch.  He was not in his bed after lunch.  Norman fretted a little about Evers' continued absence, but he drifted to sleep before Reepicheep came out.  Afternoon Television was all talk shows and soap operas.

Evers wasn't at supper, either.  John didn't return him until after supper.  Evers didn't respond to Norman, didn't answer questions or even seem to hear him.  John shook his head.  Evers shivered, then rolled over to face the wall.

"Where's he been?" Norman asked John.

"Don't fret, Mr. Holliwell," John said.  "Can't do old Evers any good.  She shouldn't have kept him in the water so long.  I told her that, but it can't be helped now."

"Is he dead?"

"Yes, gone to Glory, as we all will come to do.  May the good Lord rest his soul."

"What bath are you talking about?"

"Don't pay me any mind, Mr. Holliwell, just rambling.  Don't pay me any mind.  The Lord has his ways and his instruments, don't you worry."  John patted his shoulder.

Norman knew better than to press John for details.  John had his job to do, and did it, for the most part, with some kindness toward the patients.  Norman guessed John had passed him a warning.  Nurse Magill's bat face floated in his mind's eye.  He tried to call up the picture of her stretched out in her coffin, but all he saw was Evers lying there.  He shivered suddenly, though his robe was warm.  It wouldn't do to cross her.  Old Evers had found that out.  He felt Reepicheep squirm in his pocket, as if he were trying to get comfortable, or to breathe.  Norman opened the pocket to let in a little air.

The toaster was working again, and Norman crumbled almost a whole slice into his pocket.  The crumbs disappeared as fast as he dropped them.

John was wheeling Norman back to his room after breakfast when Nurse Magill called to him from the top of the stairs that led to the nursing station.  She wanted him to go on an immediate errand for her.  She turned her back to Norman to talk to Nurse Carruthers who was behind the desk.  Norman felt Reepicheep squirm out of his pocket and run down his leg.  Norman looked at the little mouse.  He winked.  Norman nodded, and saluted him.  Norman watched him crawl up the newel post and race up the banister toward the top.

The machine gun rattle of Nurse Magill's conversation ended in a screech.  She jumped backward as the small gray mouse launched himself at her bosom.  The open staircase was behind her.  She tumbled down the stairs, head first, striking her head on each stair with a horrible crunching sound.  At the bottom she opened her eyes and stared at Norman.  He was close enough to see the glitter fade from her icy green eyes as they stared, unseeing, at the ceiling.

He also saw Reepicheep in the corpse's cleavage.  He bent over and reached out a finger to Reepicheep.  Reepicheep reached a paw out to his finger.  Reepicheep touched Norman's finger, then crawled into Norman's hand.  Norman put his hand in his pocket and stared vacantly at the unmoving nurse.

Nurse Carruthers came running down the stairs, and almost fell herself.  She was screaming for John as she ran.  She knelt beside Nurse Magill's still form and tried to render aid.  When John came, she said to him, "Take Mr. Holliwell to his room, then get a doctor."

John got behind Norman's chair and wheeled him to his room.  As John helped Norman into bed he said, "Terrible accident, Mr. Holliwell.  Try to put it out of your mind.  I'd forget all about it, if I was you."  John helped Norman out of his robe and into his bed.  He gently laid the robe on the floor.  "I'll hang this up later," he said.  

Norman looked over at Evers' bed.  His body was gone, and his bed stripped.  The brush and comb he had used were also gone.  "Too much dying, this morning," John said, following his glance.  "If I was a certain mouse, I'd hide in the garden for a while."  Then John went out.  

Norman saw Reepicheep creep out of his robe and saluted him.  Reepicheep returned the salute, then scurried across the floor and into a hole in the baseboard.  Norman never saw him again.