Everyone likes a mole in his hole,

and mice can be nice, too

But remember, my child, wherever you go

NEVER trust a shrew!

—a common rhyme taught among Voles

Amber slowly woke from a nightmare in which an enormous metal python was swallowing her. Her chin thunked against its ribs as she slid down. Yet as she woke, the reality was as bad as the dream. She heard Ben's dad grumbling as humans do, but she couldn't understand him.

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty," Ben's dad called. "Come get the mice. Tasty little mice for a nice kitty."

Amber tumbled in a cloud ofdust, over and over, until she landed on something hard with a thud. She began to cough the grit from herlungs. Dimly, she recalled how the humans had cornered her andsucked her into the vacuum cleaner.

"Amber, are you all right?" Ben called weakly.

She shivered. The night was cold and wet, as is common in Oregon during winter.

"Where are we?" Amber asked. Her eyes were full of dust. They stung too much for her to want to open them. She sniffed. She could smell lush grass and ice and foggy night air. In all of her dreams, she'd never imagined such scents. "It smells . . . glorious!" She raised her snout high. "Is this . . . the Endless Meadow?"

"This," Ben said dryly, "is a garbage can."

She cracked open her eyes. She lay in a huge container. Now she could smell more than grass and night air. She tasted a riot of odors. Old washrags in the garbage can vied with rotting food and paint thinner to see which could give off the most noxious fumes.

Despite the fact that only stars and a moon behind a cloud gave any light, Amber could see well. She lay sprawled in an old sardine tin, with wads of newspaper, crumpled cereal boxes, and smelly cans all around. A crusty sardine had cushioned her fall. Amber peered up. Ben loomed over her, a shadow against the starlight.

"Let's find a place to hide," Ben urged, "before the neighbor's cat, Domino, comes."

Alarms went off in Amber's mind. She'd seen an evil kitten at the pet shop—spike toothed, with fiery green eyes that glowed with cruelty. It had purred threats as a customer carried it around.

Amber leapt to her feet.

Ben tottered away from her through the garbage, slogging amidst a quagmire of baked beans, climbing a can that rolled crazily beneath his feet, then tip-toeing along a newspaper until he could peer down.

"You know, it can't be more than three feet to the ground, but it looks like I'm peering over a cliff."

"What's that?" Amber asked. She pointed to a wall of boards with white pickets aimed at the moon, sealing off the neighbor's yard. "Are we in a big cage?"

"It's a fence," Ben said. "I guess it looks like a cage, sort of. People build them around their houses."

"People live in their own cages?" Amber asked.

From the corner of her eye, Amber saw something huge and monstrous suddenly move to the side. "Ah!" she cried. "What's that?" The Something swayed like a giant above the houses.

"Just a pine tree."

"Oh!" Amber had never heard of a tree before. "Do they eat mice?"

"Nah, it's a plant—like grass or moss, only bigger."

"Then why is it moving?" Amber demanded.

"The wind is blowing it."

"Wind?" Amber asked. "What's wind? Is it bigger than a tree?" She imagined some hideous monster knocking trees aside in its effort to eat her.

"Don't be stupid!" Ben said.

Amber cried, "Why didn't anyone ever warn me about these things?" Tears welled in her eyes. She felt alone in a strange and terrifying world. No, she realized, I'm not alone. I'm worse than alone, because I'm with Ben. "And I'm not stupid!" she said angrily. "I just don't know anything."

Behind the fence, Amber heard a cat meow.

"Come on," Ben whispered. He clung to the lip of the garbage can with his rear feet, and stretched his nose toward the ground, searching for something to hang onto as he lowered himself. He used his tail to balance for a moment, but suddenly fell.

He hit the ground. "Now you."

Amber leapt from the garbage can. Stalks of grass took her weight, and then sprang her back up. She'd hardly felt the ground at all. "Fun!"

"Quiet!" Ben said, slapping a paw over Amber's mouth.

He peered up at the picket fence. A black, shadowy form suddenly appeared atop it. Amber could make out a wiry tail and two pyramids for ears. It was Domino!

The cat perched atop the fence, its tail waving in excited jerks. It sniffed the air, and for a long moment peered toward the trash can.

"Don't move!" Ben whispered. He pulled Amber down, so that they could both hide in the deep grass.

The cat crouched and wiggled its rump as it set its feet. Its ears drew back, and it went as still as could be, trying to make itself invisible.

Amber didn't dare move.

For long minutes, the cat crouched, waiting. The grass that the mice hid in smelled overpowering, and the damp ground gave off hundreds of strange and subtle scents.

Ben reached down and picked some grass, deftly twisted it, and put it on his head. He smeared mud on his face.

Atop the fence, Domino purred a little song:

"Nibble, nibble, on the mice,

With their heads off, they sure look nice!

Though they're fast, I'll run faster,

And drag their corpses to the porch,

As a present for my master!"

Just then, a yowl came from the street. A tomcat shouting, "Hey, Domino, what you doing?"

"Hunting mice!" Domino hissed, leaping from the fence into the neighbor's yard. Amber heard the two cats softly making plans. Domino hissed, "You run around the front and flush them into the backyard, I'll do the lion thing and snag them as they run past."

"Yeah, yeah," the second cat hissed.

"Come on!" Ben whispered. He and Amber scampered through the tall dry grass, into the backyard, scuttling beneath a forest of weeds, before the cats had time to carry out their plan. They stopped to catch their breath and Ben pointed to the woven grass on his hair.

"You want some?"

"I may not know much," Amber said, "but that doesn't mean that I want to look stupid."

"It's not stupid, it's camouflage. To the cats, we'll just look like a pile of grass."

"Aren't there animals that eat grass?"

"Yeah," Ben said. "Cows and horses and stuff."

"So what difference does it make if you get eaten by something that eats mice, or something that eats grass?"

Ben thought for a long moment, then with some embarrassment, he pulled the twisted grass from his head.

He led the way, nosing through a field of dandelions, under the dark pine that leaned overhead, keeping the mice deep in shadows. Huge pinecones the size of buses laid scattered atop beds of moldy pine needles. Unearthly mushrooms grew in little groves of white and yellow. A giant slug oozed across the ground like a booger that had come to life.

Amber heard strange noises, the groaning of wood, the hissing of leaves in the wind, the cries of night birds. Some startled creature went thumping away. Everywhere she looked, odd leaves, shaped like snouts, waggled in the shadows under the breeze.

"Where are we going?" Amber asked.

"Underground," Ben said. "I know a place where there are some wild mice. I caught Domino trying to eat one here, last summer."

"Wild mice," Amber wondered. Would they be friendly? Or would they bite her tail?

Finally, the woods opened, and they reached a dark tree. Ben poked his nose in the pine needles at its base.

"What are you looking for?" Amber asked.

"Ah, found it!" Ben peered down a black hole, like an open mouth, leading under the pine needles.

Amber crept close, and sniffed. She could smell a bitter scent at the mouth of the tunnel—urine. "No mice live here," Amber said, warily. "It smells strange."

"Sure they do," Ben said.

Ben squeezed into the hole and began crawling on all fours. Amber couldn't see a thing, but her whiskers were just the right length to brush against the sides of the burrow as she walked. Amber trailed so close to Ben that she kept stepping on his tail.

The burrow slanted down and down, veered, then circled back up. It was almost like being inside the vacuum hose. Amber felt strange, frightening things brushing against her ears. The passage broadened. They crept past a black opening that smelled of poop, but kept to the main tunnel.

"I sure wish I had some light," Ben said.

"Me too," Amber added.

Suddenly a pebble in front of them began to glow. At first it was only a soft light, almost as if Amber imagined it, but then the pebble went as clear as the glass on her old cage, and a brilliant light poured from it, chasing the shadows through the hole ahead.

"You are a wizard!" Ben said in amazement. He turned back and peered at her. She felt as surprised as he looked.

Ben reached down with one paw. He touched the pebble experimentally. He picked it up, revealing the way ahead.

The walls of the burrow were worn smooth, but white things dangled down, like limp whiskers.

"What are those white things?" Amber pleaded.

"Roots from the tree," Ben whispered. Amber heard a moaning sound and saw something pinkish that oozed backward into a small hole. "And that's a worm."

Amber heard a scuffling ahead. She looked forward, where the burrow twisted away, and saw a pair of bright eyes peering at them—cruel eyes.