Girls of the True Blue

by L. T. Meade

“Oh dear!” she said to herself, “was there ever such a long afternoon? How I wish Phoebe would come to see me! How I wish that I had my darling Sophia Maria again! I might make some more clothes for her; there are all kinds of odds and ends in nurse’s basket, and she would not mind my rummaging in it. But there! I really have not the energy. How dull it is! I wonder if Kitty will bring me a special bunch of primroses, and if they will be big ones with long stems, the sort mother used to love. Oh dear! I am tired.”

She yawned, shut up the book which she had already read, and taking Jack into her arras, kissed him on his little round forehead.

Just then a memory came to her. Kitty had been anxious about one of the white rats that morning. It was her favourite rat, Pip. Pip had not been well; he had refused his breakfast—an almost unheard-of thing in the annals of the rat world. Even a nut did not tempt him, and he had turned away from a piece of cheese. Kitty adored Pip. He was a large, rather dangerous rat. Nan as a rule kept a wide berth when she was asked to visit the rats and mice, for Pip had very sharp teeth, and a vicious way of darting at you and giving you a sharp bite. But Nan now thought of him with much interest. The very last thing Kitty had said before she went out was this:

“I sha’n’t enjoy myself very much after all, for Pip is not well. I cannot think what is the matter with him. I should just break my heart if anything happened to my darling Pip.”

Nan had asked one or two questions, and Kitty had turned round and looked at her.

“Oh! you can do nothing,” she said. “I have put him away from Glitter and Snap. I think he looks very bad indeed; he must have eaten something poisonous. No, please, do not go near the room, Nan, whatever you do, for you know you have not the slightest control over the rats and mice.”

Now Nan thought of the sick rat, and a curious and ever-increasing desire to go and look at him, to find out if he were better, if he had eaten the cheese which Kitty had last tried to tempt him with, took possession of her.

“It can do no harm,” she thought. “I will just go and have a peep; it certainly can do no harm. I shall be very careful; I will just open the door and look in.”

Notwithstanding the pain in her foot, Nan contrived to limp up to the attics. There were five or six attics on the next floor—large rooms, all of them. The smallest one, that facing the stairs, had been given over to the girls for their pets. They owned several boxes of mice, different kinds of breeds—harvest mice, dormice, Japanese mice, white mice. Nan considered all the mice most fascinating. At the opposite side of the room were the cages where the rats reposed.

Nan knew Pip very well by appearance. He was snowy white, had a long, hairless tail, and a little patch of black just behind his left ear. It was a tiny patch of black, and Kitty considered it one of his beauties. Nan opened the door softly now and went in. She had left it a little ajar, not thinking much of what she was doing. When she entered the room her dullness vanished on the spot. She could examine one cage after the other; could poke in her hand and draw it away again when the mice tried to bite her. There were a lot of little baby mice in one cage. She thought it would be nothing short of bliss to examine them, to count them, and to see what they were really like. But of course the sick rat, Pip, must have her first attentions. He was in a cage all alone—by no means a perfect cage, for it was broken at one side. Kitty, however, had secured it against the chance of the rat’s escape by leaning a bit of board up against the broken side. Nan knew nothing of this; she moved the cage so as to get it into a better light, and peering down, looked at the sick rat. He was lying curled up in the bottom of his cage, but the sudden movement and the sight of Nan’s comparatively unfamiliar face gazing at him caused Pip to become wide awake. At that instant a thrill of fear shot through his rodent heart. Nan, without knowing it, had caused the piece of wood to slip. The very next instant the rat was out of his cage, and was scuttling as fast as ever he could rush across the floor.