And both were young

by Madeleine L'Engle

Flip was afraid of bats and mice and rats and beetles and spiders and things; but she was more afraid of Paul's scorn so she said, "I don't mind them."

Paul looked at her as though he knew that she minded very much indeed; then he slipped behind the shutter into the chateau, laughing back at her and calling, "Come on, Flip."

Flip followed him into a great hall with a fireplace the size of a room. The hall was bare and colder than outside.

"There are rooms and rooms," Paul said. "I've tried to count them but each time I come out with a different number. There are so many little turns and passages. There are all these dozens of rooms and only one bathroom and it's as big as our living room in the gate house. And the tub is the size of a swimming pool. But if you want hot water you have to build a fire in a sort of stove under the tub. Oh, come, Flip, I want to show you something."

Flip followed Paul down a labyrinth of passages into a small round room that must have been in one of the turrets. It had stained glass windows and, unlike most of the rooms, was not completely empty. In the centre of the room was an old praying-chair with a monogram worked into the mahogany. Something was moving in the red velvet of the cushion and she leaned over and there was a tiny family of mice, the babies incredibly pink and soft.

"Oh, Paul!"

"We mustn't disturb them but I thought you'd like to see them. I only found them yesterday," Paul said. "In the spring I'll show you birds' nests. Last spring in Paris I found a sparrow with its wing broken and I took care of it and helped it to learn to fly again and after that it came to my window every morning for crumbs. I kept them in the drawer of my desk and it used to fly in the window and fly over to the desk and jump up and down and squawk until I opened the drawer. I had a cat, too, who'd lost his tail in a fight. The concierge in our house is keeping the cat for me till I come back."

Flip bent over the mice again. "They're so terribly sweet. I don't see why people are afraid of mice."

"They don't know them," Paul said. "People are always afraid of things they don't know. This room used to be the private chapel of the lady of the chateau, Flip, and that prie-dieu is where she used to kneel to pray."

"How do you know, Paul?" Flip asked.