Tails of the Old Crow

By Wade Bradford

© 2010

Chapter One:

William Shakespeare picked his nose. He did this every time he suffered from writer’s block – which was just about every time he held a quill.

He stared at his hornbook, and the parchment of rough paper that lay blank upon it. Then he let out a long, sad sigh.  “Writing is hard,” he groaned.  He looked around the empty stage of the Old Crow Theatre.  His legs dangled off the edge of the proscenium.  His quill was nearly dry, so he dabbed the feather into the inkwell.  Finally, his eyes lit up.  He knew what to write:

“Act the Furst.”

He was not the best speller in the world.

But William was quite pleased with his penmanship.  “Now,” he thought, “what words should come next?  What should the play be about?”  Then, he realized he needed to begin with a title, and he had a good one.  He scribbled:

“King William and the Stinky Ghost Monkeys”

He smiled at his own craftsmanship.  It was going to be the best play he had ever written.  In fact, it was going to be the very first play he had ever written. 

“WILLY!” a gruff voice echoed through the open-aired theater. “Didst thou finish sweepin’ the floorboards?!”

“Yes, uncle,” replied young Shakespeare.

His uncle glared at the boy. He was a thick bodied man with an even thicker beard. William had never seen him without food. Today his uncle clenched a turkey leg in his fist. Well, most of it was in his fist. The rest was in his beard.

“And didst thou clean up the beastly remnants?” His uncle pointed to a pile of bear poop left on the stage.

“I shall fetch it,” he replied.

“You best do!” His uncle walked through the gates of the Old Crow theater, whistling for his hounds.

“What a miserable task for a marvelous mind,” grumbled William. He set down his quill and parchment and tended to the dried bear droppings. It wasn’t long before his mind wandered. Daydreams were the perfect escape from unpleasant chores. William dreamed of someday having a better job working on the stage. But for now he assisted his uncle with the bear-baiting events. He would rather work with the actors who performed exciting tragedies and merry comedies. What would that be like? To have the groundlings peer up at him and the lords and ladies in the expensive seats smile down upon him? But his uncle would never allow that. Bear-baiting made more money. Audiences wanted barking and growling – not speeches and poetry. Yet maybe if he wrote something wonderful enough. Maybe then he would—

Shakespeare stepped in bear-poop. It was a terrible way to snap out of his day dream. As he scraped off his boot at the edge of the proscenium, he felt something – a very small something –poked his leg. He looked down to discover a mouse. It was holding William’s quill. More than holding, it was poking him with the pointy end as though he was trying to get the boy’s attention –

But William assumed that the mouse was trying to attack him.

“Zounds!” gasped the boy. “A beastie!”

The brown mouse calmly set the quill at William’s feet, but since the boy thought that the rodent was going to bite, he stumbled back, knocking over the ink well. A black streak of ink crawled down the front of the stage. Now William was truly in trouble. His uncle would kill him, and then the world’s greatest eight-year-old playwright would never be discovered.

The mouse squeaked at him, perhaps laughing in his own language. William’s face turned a sinister shade of red. “Hal!” the boy yelled to the seats in the third balcony – the lord’s rooms, the most expensive seats in the theater. Lying in the most comfortable chair in the Old Crow, a black and white tabby cat slept. “Hal! Get down here!” William commanded. “En Garde!”

In an instant, the cat abandoned his slumbering recline and turned into a bolt of furry lightning. The young cat bounded down the stairs, leapt onto the apron of the stage, and flew across the floorboards. But the mouse was no easy prize. Its tiny legs were a blur as it streaked toward the tiring house, the backstage area. The mouse hopped onto a rope and climbed out of sight.

Hal passed the rope and flew instead to a slanted plank connected to scaffolding. Nimble as a jester, the cat avoided the paint brushes and wooden mallets as he balanced from one beam to the next. Soon, the mouse would be cornered. Hal disappeared from the boy’s view. The boy heard the snarling triumph of a hungry feline, echoing down from the rafters.

“Huzzah! He’s bested the beastie!” William clapped and cheered until his uncle bonked him on the head with a turkey leg.

Chapter Two:

The triumphant snarl was actually a clumsy shriek. Hal tripped over a sandbag. The tiring house was a gloomy contrast to his sunny spot in the lord’s room. Not to mention, Hal did not get around in the dark as easily as other cats. Yes, he was young and fast, but he was also missing most of the whiskers on the left side of his face. Without those whiskers it was harder to sense objects in shadowy places. And it was easier to make mistakes – like stumbling face first into a sandbag. Hal bounced back onto his feet.

“Must remember,” the cat thought to himself. “Cats should not run on the cat walk.” He could see more clearly now. There were ropes and pulleys and counter-weights. A worn-out workman’s glove lay in the middle of the plank. An old spider hung between the rafters, patiently waiting for dinner. There was no mouse to be seen.

“Oh little mouse,” said the cat with a devious purr in the back of his throat. “Where art thou? Come out, come out.” The feline sniffed the air; then his eyes smiled. “Oh well,” he said with a playful swish of his tail, “I suppose he just disappeared.” Hal turned away as if heading back to the stage and then – POUNCE!

The cat jumped onto the workman’s glove. There was something quivering in the thumb. It was the mouse. Hal’s paw reached into the glove. And then he tapped the little mouse on the head. “Tag,” said the cat. “You’re it!”

“Not for long!” the mouse laughed. The brown rodent with the three button-like spots raced out of the glove and chased the cat across the scaffolding.

Hal flew from one plank to the next until he was back down to earth. The mouse scampered down a rope and darted across the floor. Hal, quite ahead in this race, paused and pretended to yawn. “Are you even trying, Tonio?” the cat asked.

“Yes!” puffed the mouse. “You know I am.”

Hal licked his paw to add insult to injury. “Aesop’s advice that slow and steady wins the race is a big fat lie!”

Tonio the mouse charged onward. When he was inches away from tagging the cat’s tail, Hal whisked away, ducking into the property room. Once inside, the cat hid inside a suit of armor and watched through the helmet as the mouse sniffed the floor.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” the mouse’s voice echoed off the tin swords and wooden shields.

Hal thought, “Poor Tonio. He shall never find me in here.”

“Ha!” chortled the mouse. “Got you!” The mouse squeezed between the slats of the helmet and grabbed the cat’s ear.

“Yes, yes, well played.” Hal tried to shake off his friend, but Tonio would not let go. “You can give me back my ear now.”

The mouse scrambled onto the cat’s back. “Zounds, Hal. The look in your eye when you chased me across the stage! Why, for a moment I thought you actually meant to gobble me up.”

“It is called Acting, Tonio. The humans toss me an old fish now and then, but only if they believe that I am dutifully exterminating micefolk. Fortunately for you, I don’t have the stomach for such work.”

“You’re a kind soul,” Tonio said.

“And besides, I much prefer sardine. Yet tell me, my spotted friend, why in blazes did you pester the human-boy? He might have smashed you with his hornbook.”

“I wanted to use borrow his magic quill,” the mouse explained. “I wasn’t stealing it. I was trying to ask his permission, but the boy was obviously too dumb to understand.”

“Magic? What makes you think it’s magic?”

The mouse’s eyes grew wide, his voice reverent. “Have you not heard? The human use the quill to mark a page with swirls, slashes, and dots. Then, when another human sees the magic marks they might cry, or sigh, or laugh with joy. That’s magic.”

“Magic? Those swirls, slashes and dots are merely words.”

“Well whatever they are, I need to make them. I want Gwendolyn to look at them, and if the magic is done just write she will sigh with love.”

The cat laughed, long and loud. “Gwendolyn! The mouse makes you too nervous to speak? The beautiful and dainty creature who makes your white spots blush a bright pink?”

“That’s not true!”

Hal nibbled at an uneven claw. “So, you want to write Gwen a love poem.”

“A love poem? What’s that?”

“Shh!” hushed the cat. “Someone approaches.”

Tonio tilted his head to raise an ear. “Your clan,” the mouse whispered. “Twleve paw-steps means three cats!”

“Stay quiet. Stay here. And stay still.” Hal crawled out to meet his clan. Tonio cowered in the shadows of the helmet. The mouse dared not to look, but he could hear the cats enter.

“Greetings father,” said Hal. Then his voice turned icy cold. “Greetings Mack and Rilly.”

Tonio tried his best to breathe in absolute silence. He did not want to be discovered. His friend Hal had long ago pledged never to eat a rodent.

The rest of Hal’s family was not quite so honorable.