A New Friend

Spring Has Sprung!
Buzz, buzz, buzzzzzzz. Outside the Mouse family’s cottage, a bumblebee zipped from flower to flower.



Sitting at her easel in the sunshine, Sophie Mouse put down her paintbrush. Her eyes followed the bee. Oh, to be able to fly, she thought. I could see every inch of Silverlake Forest—maybe even to the other side of Forget-Me-Not Lake! I wonder how fast a bee flies when he really gets going. What would it be like to fly to the schoolhouse for the first day of school tomorrow? What would—



“Sophie? Sophie!” Her father’s voice called out, snapping her out of her daydream. He was in the doorway of their cottage, which was nestled in between the roots of an oak tree. “Are you done with your chores?” George Mouse asked. “When you are, you can go see Mom at the bakery. She’s making nutmeg popovers today!”



Sophie’s little nose twitched. She was sure she could already smell the sweet scent. Nutmeg popovers were one of her mother’s specialties. At her bakery in Pine Needle Grove, Lily Mouse surely would have started making the batter at dawn, before Sophie was even awake.



Sophie hated to stop painting. It was the first spring day warm enough to paint outside! But she had a little sweeping to do if she wanted to go to the bakery.



Sophie hurried inside and found the willow-twig broom. She had already swept the three small bedrooms upstairs. Just the main floor was left: under the toadstool table and birch-branch stools, and around the spun-silk couch. Sophie swept all the corners of the kitchen. Then she swept the pile of leaf bits and dust right out the front door.



“Dad! I’m finished!” she called. “I’m going by Hattie’s house on the way to the bakery!” Hattie Frog was Sophie’s best friend.

Just then, way back in the rear of the cottage, a mouse’s head popped up through a hole in the floor. It was Sophie’s little brother, Winston. He was cleaning up the root cellar. “I want to come too!” Winston called.

Sophie sighed. Winston was six. She had been stuck inside the cottage with him for most of the winter vacation. Now that the weather was warming up, he wanted to tag along with Sophie everywhere.



“Have you finished your chores?” Mr. Mouse asked Sophie’s brother.

There was a long silence. When Winston answered, his voice was quiet. “Not yet.”

“Well, finish up, then,” Mr. Mouse replied. “You and I can go later.”

Sophie leaned her broom against the wall by the front door. Then she was off with an extra spring in her step.

It wasn’t that Sophie didn’t like her brother. They had fun playing together. But Sophie was two years older. And it was the very last day of vacation. She wanted to fill it with eight-year-old adventures! Halfway to the stream, Sophie heard a rustle in the tall reeds to her right. She stopped in her tracks.