Sonja Anderson - London Book Fair

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Published by
SUNBERRY BOOKS
SUNPENNY Publishing Group
www.sunpenny.com
ADVANCE INFORMATION SHEET:
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TITLE:SOPHIE’S QUEST
AUTHOR:Sonja Anderson
ISBN:978-1-907984-46-4
Fiction: Children, 6-12
CATEGORY:
RRP:£8.99 / US$12.99
PUBLISHER:Sunberry Books
13 June 2015
RELEASE DATE:
FORMAT:
Paperback, 203 x 133mm
PAGE COUNT:
260 pages
O
Sophie Topfeather loves to collect people-things with which
to decorate her life and home. When she finds a golden
necklace, she is intrigued by its shape and shows it to her
grandfather, the Great Wise Horned Owl of the Park. His
reaction only stirs her interest even more; he calls it a holy
symbol, and then a ‘t’ for ‘trouble’! All of which sets our
young owl off on a Quest to learn its true meaning.
Little does she know that a day-dreaming, over-protected,
adventure-seeking Pirate – er, mouse – named Timley has
leapt into the brim of her hat as Sophie flies off on her Quest!
And suddenly, their adventure takes its own turn as they
find themselves on board a ship bound for the Holy Land.
Thorns and thistles! Has the trouble started already? Can
Timley convince Sophie she should not—I repeat, NOT—eat
him?
This is also the story of the mysterious Sky Painter, who
seems to be with them—no, leading them—on their Quest.
So, why is he always leading them straight into trouble?
Was the Great Wise Horned Owl right all along? Come along
on the Quest to find out! Cross oceans with Sophie and
Timley to a land of mosques and synagogues, markets and
Bedouin tents, and, like our unlikely friends, you may never
be the same again!
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SOPHIE’S QUEST
Copyright © 2015 by Sonja Anderson
Cover artwork © 2015 by Maggie Kneen
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The right of Sonja Anderson to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction and should in no way be construed to
represent any individual or place unless otherwise stated.
Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.
O
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written consent of the publisher and copyright owner, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
PAPERBACK ISBN # 978-1-907984-46-4
KINDLE ISBN # 978-1-907984-47-1
EPUB ISBN # 978-1-909278-32-5
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Sunberry Books,
a children’s imprint from Sunpenny Limited
www.sunpenny.com (Sunpenny Publishing Group)
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Endorsements
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ome children’s books entertain well. Others teach
important life lessons. Sonja Anderson’s Sophie’s
Quest does both. From the ‘faint but urgent knocking’ of its prologue to the heartwarming scene in its
epilogue, this story draws the reader into a world of
adventure and learning. All of us, young and old, need
to be reminded that differences need not form barriers when it comes to making friends. No matter our
size or shape or background, we are all in this wild
and wonderful world together to care for and learn
from one another. Sophie and Timley, thank you for
teaching that truth so beautifully.
—Doreen Olson, Executive Director for Christian
Formation for the Evangelical Covenant Church of
America
T
his book engages the imagination of young minds
through a story of one adventure after another.
But this is more than a story. It is a book with a
serious and important message. It discusses Christian values in making life-determining choices. Ultimately the choice is whether to trust the Jesus figure.
A timely book in our contemporary world where our
children are faced with important choices at an ever
younger age.
—Rev. Glenn Palmberg, President Emeritus of
the Evangelical Covenant Church
S
ophie’s Quest is a wonderful, balanced, refreshing,
and engaging tale that I look forward to reading
with my grandchildren.
—Rev. Jim Sundholm, Executive Director of Covenant World Relief (retired)
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Dedication
Dedicated to the memory of
Rev. Craig Douglas Erickson, PhD:
pastor, mentor, friend.
For Stephanie and Amanda
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Acknowledgements
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am so grateful to the many people who helped along
the way, especially my first readers (Suzy, Craig,
Debbie, Chris, Chrissy, Jan, Natalie, Yuri, Erica,
and Amanda). Your encouragement, enthusiasm,
and close reading helped me more than I can say.
Nancy, Joan, and Bonnie, your unwavering friendship and prayer support gave me hope and sustained
me through long periods of waiting!
A special thank you to Anna Blomgren Hassell and
my mother, Johanna Wooldredge, who also read the
manuscript and spent time in Israel investigating
answers to my many questions, and to Blair Gerdes,
who used her expertise to answer yet more questions.
I take full responsibility, though, for any mistakes
that remain.
Father Tony Haycock provided me with access to
a secure cargo ship area as a “volunteer,” so I could
learn first-hand what life aboard one of these huge
ships would be like. Thank you for one of the most
fun days of research that I’ve ever had. Knowing that
the captain would be nervous if someone was taking
notes on a clipboard, you guided me to ask the right
questions, gave me an opportunity to look around,
and helped me write it all down afterwards. I felt like
a spy in a novel!
Finally, a big hug and thanks to my entire, extended
family, and especially Jeff, Stephanie, and Amanda,
for the many ways you have supported me through
the years. I love you.
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God pushed up the mountains
and rolled out the sea
He painted the sky
and then made me.
Amen.
—Anonymous,
Hudson Congregational Church
Preschool, Hudson, Ohio
Praise the LORD from the earth...
Small creatures and flying birds...
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
For his name alone is exalted;
His splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
—Psalm 148:7, 10b, 13
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Prologue
A
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faint but urgent knocking on the rustic wooden
door brought a spectacled, graying figure to
his feet. The slightly hunched figure hummed
a tune as he shuffled to answer the door. Before he
could cross the room, however, the knocking stopped.
His ears twitched as a high-pitched voice traveled
through a crack under the door.
“Great Unc—Great Unc! Open up, quick—it’s me,
Chip!”
Finally, the elderly gentleman reached the door
and swung it open wide. He looked so distinguished—
a little larger than life, framed there in the doorway
with moonlight brightening his silky white tie and the
stiff gray tufts that shot up behind each ear. Surely
he would have frightened most small children, but
behind the tortoise-shell glasses his gold-flecked eyes
twinkled with delight to see his small visitor, whose
grin warmed him head to toe in return.
“Brrrr! Come in, Chip, my dear boy. The others are
already here!” he said, motioning toward the living
room. He peered out the door above Chip’s head into
the darkness beyond, and then frowned.
“Chip, where is the rest of your family? You know
it’s not safe to be all alone out there—especially in
the dark! Well, I see that nothing can be done about
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it now. You are already here. Do shut out the cold, at
least, until the others arrive.” He pointed to the door.
As he turned back to face the living room, however,
he couldn’t mask his obvious joy as the group inside
called out greetings to the newest comer. Their
welcome was nearly warm enough to melt the shivery,
snowy draft that swirled into the room as Chip closed
the door. It shut with an enthusiastic bang, nearly
unseating the Christmas wreath of greens and pine
cones that now swung back and forth from a nail.
A fresh whiff of pine followed Chip into the room.
White lights on a small Christmas tree winked in the
corner. Candles glowed and cinnamon scented the
air.
A rustling at the door soon announced the rest of
Chip’s family. His father, limping behind his wife and
several other children, was not at all amused.
“What were you thinking, running ahead like that?
You know I can’t move very fast, not with this bum
leg of mine—we simply must stick together.”
“Welcome! A merry Christmas to you all, my good
friends,” their host interrupted. “Let’s have some
Christmas cheer, shall we?”
Cookies and cocoa soon warmed all the hands and
hearts.
“Read us the story, Great Unc!”
“Yes, Great-Grandpa, do,” squealed another.
“Yes, yes,” begged Bitsy, the youngest, who climbed
up into his lap.
“Such an occasion as this certainly calls for a
story,” he said, nodding. “But which story? There are
so many good ones.” He reached for a book on the
bookshelf next to his overstuffed brown chair.
“No, the story,” they shouted in unison.
“Again? All right.” His bright eyes betrayed that
he was not at all unhappy with their choice. As he
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took a book with ear-marked pages off the small table
beside his chair, he bent low to the shining faces and
whispered with a grin, “It’s my favorite, too.”
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Chapter 1
Home Sweet Home
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O
ophie Topfeather flew high over the Park,
just as she did every night right before dawn,
looking as far as she could into the distance
without going past the road. Beyond the road lay
apartment buildings and skyscrapers, and beyond
that was a vast space that she knew was the City
Harbor. In this pre-dawn hour, she could see dots of
light from a hundred boats and ships.
As usual, Sophie wondered where the ships came
from, and where they would go next.
I wish I could travel the world, she thought wistfully. Someday. When I’m brave. Swooping in a broad
arc, she sighed heavily. Grandfather has probably
used up all the family’s brave genes, anyway. Just
like all the smart genes.
The sky lightened to the east, and Sophie banked
west toward her home in the Park, her grandfather’s maple tree. Catching sight of the basket she
carried in her talons, however, she felt a sudden rush
of excitement. A cool breeze caressed her feathers,
but the shivering she felt had nothing to do with the
wind that had just picked up. She wasn’t going to her
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grandfather’s—she was going to her own home—her
new tree!
“Thorns and thistles!” she cried aloud, startling a
couple of seagulls who were flying nearby. “I’m on my
own now! Grandfather doesn’t even have to know if
I’m gone!”
After that brief surge of excitement, however,
doubts set in almost immediately. Where would she
go? What would she do when she got there? Her
stomach rumbled. What if she didn’t like the food?
Behind her to the east, the dawn broke.
“Out too-oo late again!” She swept a glance over
the Park, which was still mostly shrouded in dark
shadows. Not a person in sight. “That’s a relief—it
would never do-oo for people to see me out like this.
They might come looking for their lost stuff!”
A brilliant stripe of sunlight, shining through the
gap between two brick apartment buildings that lined
the road next to the Park, fell on a large pond. Sophie
forgot about the Harbor and the ships, flapped her
large wings hard and moved even faster toward a tall
oak on the western side of the Park, following the
golden, sunlit path home.
A sweet-looking owl wearing a pink scarf tied jauntily around her neck flew up behind her.
“Peek a boo-oo,” she cried, putting her wings over
the zebra-striped sunglasses that covered Sophie’s
eyes.
Lost in thought and excitement about her first
night in her new home, Sophie was startled and
twisted around to see who it was. She collided with
her friend, sending a basket full of treasures careening toward the bright streak of light on the pond.
“Thorns and thistles, Lulu!” Sophie cried. “My
stuff!”
Both owls zoomed toward the water. Lulu grabbed
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a strand of pink beads out of mid-air with her beak,
while Sophie rescued a fairytale book with her talons,
just before it hit the water. A third owl appeared out
of nowhere. He dragged a dripping pink feather boa
out of the pond.
The three Great Horned Owls landed on a sturdy
branch outside Sophie’s rustic door hidden in
the bark. A thick canopy of oak leaves, in glorious
summer green, surrounded them.
“Sorry about that, Sophie! I didn’t mean to make
you drop everything.”
“That’s okay, Lulu—and Hunter! You got there in
the nick of time. Thanks!”
Lulu yawned and glanced at the sun, which had
been moving ever higher. “I’ll come over tonight and
help you get unpacked, okay, Sophie? Don’t stay up
all day.” She nodded at Hunter, who now scratched
nervously on the branch with his talons, reminding
Sophie of a hen she saw once at the Fair. “Toodleoo-oo.”
“Moving day, huh, Sophie?” Hunter asked. “Looks
like a nice place. Aren’t you going to miss your grandfather, though?”
“You-oo’ve got to be kidding me! Night and day
his tree is full of dissident ducks and feuding frogs. I
either have to be quiet so my grandfather can think,
or the tree is so noisy that I can’t think!”
After reminding Sophie to come to tryouts the next
night, Hunter took off for home, leaving Sophie to
ruminate about her big move. She had a hard time
admitting to Hunter or Lulu—or even herself—that
she was more afraid that the “Great WHO,” as Park
animals affectionately called her “Great Wise Horned
Owl” grandfather, wouldn’t miss her. He was so busy,
so important. Well, she wouldn’t be in his way, or his
responsibility, a minute longer.
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She might have convinced her grandfather that
she was grown up enough to take the studio apartment in the old oak when it became available this
week, but as she lay in her very own bed for the very
first time that day, all Sophie wanted was to hear
his deep, confident voice reading her a bedtime story
out of the fairytale book that had very nearly taken a
bath in Paddleboat Pond.
S
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ophie spent that night unpacking with Lulu,
and then the rest of the summer doing exactly
as she wished. She slept in late. She went treasurehunting with Lulu every night after breakfast; she
arranged and rearranged her growing collection of
trinkets, sunglasses and scarves, and she watched
Hunter defeat owl after owl in the Ultimate Rodent
Rundown Tournament. Even though he was nervous
before each competition, he seemed unstoppable,
and Sophie was sure he’d end up in the championship match. It was held during the City’s late summer
Fair, at the animals’ own Owlympics.
Setting up her new house was fun, at least at first.
She found the perfect set of branches for displaying her many hats, which she set up next to a large
dresser that had been left by the previous tenant,
and she was delighted with the built-in bed in the
back of the room and the little round table and chairs
under the knot-hole window. She kept fresh flowers
in a vase on the table and used the dresser top to
display the things she found, and to store even more
in its drawers.
Best of all was a full-length mirror that she and
Lulu soon put to good use. Dressing up in whatever
hats, scarves, make-up, and even feather boas that
little girls dropped when they visited the Park, they
modeled for each other in front of the mirror and
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laughed and laughed. Sophie had never had so much
fun.
Picking up after all the fun was over, however,
was the only thing about having her own place that
she definitely did not like. Owls, in general, are
not known for their neatness, but her grandfather,
Sophie thought with a frown, was exceptional in this
regard. As in everything else. “A clean house helps
me think,” he had said nearly every day, handing her
a dust cloth or a broom. “Besides, we have so many
visitors.”
“Well,” she thought, “that’s all fine and good, but
in my house I’ll do things my own way.”
By the middle of August, everything she owned
seemed to be strewn across either the dresser or the
floor. Deciding she could put it off no longer, Sophie
picked up a broom and started to sweep. The rhythmic movement and the sound of the crickets outside
gave her a song in her head, and she started to sing:
Thorns and thistles, homework and chores,
Goodness’ sakes! What wretched bores!
She twirled and leaped over a Mickey Mouse watch
that had somehow landed on the floor a day or so
earlier. Flapping her wings, she rose a few feet and
plucked a straw hat with long black ribbons off the
top branch of the hat tree, put it on and twirled again
in front of the mirror.
Someday I’ll be tidy, neat as a pin,
But now friends are waiting—
We’ll watch Hunter win!
Last trial before the Fair,
Hunter’s there, almost there, almost there!
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Picking up the watch and a feather boa, she gave
the rest of the room a silent promise and then took off
eagerly into the twilight.
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lying home just a few hours later, Sophie felt
as light as a baby gull feather, and proud as a
peacock. Hunter had indeed secured his position as
one of the two Ultimate Rodent Rundown champions
who would fly in the championship match.
She wished someone other than Scout was the
second champion. The idea of Hunter flying against
him made her stomach flip uneasily—Scout had a
loose relationship with the Park Rules, and on the
way home she caught him bragging about what he
would do to Hunter in the Finals.
As she caught sight of the oak—her oak—towering high above all the other trees in the thicket on
the near west side of Paddleboat Pond, however,
she dismissed her worries as nonsense and puffed
her chest out with the pride she felt every time she
returned home.
Her tree. Her home. In the moonlight, with her
owl eyes, she could see every feature perfectly. A
protective canopy of wide-spreading, gnarled and
leafy branches, now just beginning to show fall color,
topped the tree like a giant umbrella. Its thick bark
ran up the massive trunk like solid gray-brown rivers.
Children, on warm days, playing hide and seek in the
Park, would thrust their fingers deep into it and cling
to the trunk like slugs to a wet barrel; three—even
four—kids could hide behind it together. They had a
cool, shady place to play, and in the rain it was not
so wet.
S
ophie didn’t know that in the roots of that very
same tree, her tree, there also lived a deer mouse
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family. The smallest of these was a tiny gray mouse
named Timley. He liked to play Pirates.
On the night of the Owlympics and its main event,
the Ultimate Rodent Rundown, Timley Mouse had his
nose deep under his bed. The only part of him that
was visible was the long red sash he wore tied around
his waist that dragged on the floor behind him, and
his tail that pointed high in the air.
“Aha! Found them!” he shouted triumphantly. He
pulled out a toothpick sword, a black eye patch, and
a 3-cornered black pirate hat with a jaunty, downy
baby gull feather glued to one corner. Putting them all
on and flourishing his sword, Timley Mouse became
the fiercest pirate of the Seven Seas. He climbed on
top of his bed and thrust his sword into the air.
“Aargh! Now walk the plank, you Great Horned
Monster!” Timley stabbed the air off the bed’s edge.
“Ahoy, mateys, we are finally rid of that loathsome
creature. Who will join me now for—”and here, with
his sword lifted high, he jabbed at the air with each
new word—“adventure, fame, and fortune?”
Timley lay back on his pillow and looked out to
sea—a sea of stars, that is. The maze of roots that
played with the ground around his bedroom, and
the maze of branches that played with the sky above
him, all parted just right to give him a perfectly unobstructed view of the sky. Sometimes he pretended he
was an astronaut, sometimes a soldier on a great
battlefield, but most of the time, like tonight, he was
a pirate. Tonight, he was at sea. He was brave, and
undefeated, and free!
He was so absorbed in his game that he didn’t hear
his mother enter his room.
“Timley, oh Timley, dear mousekin... I’ve brought
your cocoa and cookies—Timley! Get your nose back
inside the tree this instant! A cat or crow or that­—
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that owl”—Mother Mouse raised her eyes up toward
the top of the tree—“will get you for sure.”
Timley knew that ever since “that owl” had moved
in at the beginning of the summer, his mother had
not known a moment of peace. She worried night and
day.
“Ah, Mom! You know all the owls are at the Fair
tonight.”
Mother Mouse sighed. “You can never be too sure,
especially about that one upstairs. She’s an odd one!
I don’t trust her to keep a regular schedule. And there
are other animals, like foxes and cats and ravens that
might be looking for a meal. Keep your nose inside the
tree, Timley. The Park isn’t safe. I’ve said this before,
but I’ll say it again: adventures are for others, NOT
little mouselings like you.”
“I know, I know,” Timley replied, sighing back.
“You’ve told me a thousand times—stay completely
in my room until the GHM is quite finished with her
supper, and never, ever, EVER stick my nose out too
far.”
“GHM?”
“You know, Great Horned Monster!” His voice
dripped with irritation at having to spell it out for her.
She had heard him call the owl that a hundred times.
“Well, whatever you call her, you would do well to
listen to me!”
Seeing Timley’s frustration, she softened her tone
a bit and continued. “You know you are my precious,
my last baby mousekin, don’t you? I couldn’t bear to
lose you!”
“I know, I know!”
“Well, okay, then. That’s my sweet mouse. Good
night, Timley,” With a smothering of kisses, Mother
Mouse finally left Timley alone to dream, and to drink
his hot cocoa.
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“Look at all those stars,” the little mouse exclaimed
to himself, turning back to his peephole. “There must
be a kajillion of ’em out tonight.” He threw himself
back on his bed. “Blow me down, those stars are
lucky. They get to see everything. I’m stuck in here
and never get to see anything—or go anywhere. Not
even the Fair. Doesn’t Mother know I’m over three
months old? Some mice are on their own after three
weeks! She can’t keep me in here forever. I’d be
careful, she knows I would.”
Timley absent-mindedly picked up a toy sailing
ship from the shelf above his bed. None of his friends
even wanted to play pirate with him anymore. “Only
babies do that,” Fast Marvin had said, mocking him
the last time he had come over. Fast Marvin and the
others had moved on to real adventures—out in the
Park.
He let the toy drop onto the bed and his eyes welled
up with tears.
Whenever he complained to his mother, however,
she wasn’t usually very sympathetic. She would
simply reply, “The proof is in the pudding, as I always
say. Some of those friends haven’t made it back home
again, either.”
Lonely and frustrated, Timley would mutter under
his breath that he wasn’t afraid of any old owl.
Truth be told, the owl completely fascinated Timley,
ever since the day she had moved into his tree. Of
course, he wouldn’t want to run into her in a dark
stretch of the Park (he shuddered at the thought);
but, oh, how interesting life became after she arrived!
Especially since he discovered a secret passageway
that led from his house to a hole right under the owl’s
very own bed.
He had been sniffing out some nuts a squirrel had
deposited in a hollow a little higher up the trunk of the
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tree, when he found the route to the owl’s apartment.
From his hiding place under her bed, he would listen
to the owl’s silly humming and singing and endless
prattle, and imagine himself flying around the big,
wonderful world that she described. He was practically obsessed with her! He endlessly planned ways
to sneak up the passageway without being missed at
home. How he envied her. She was truly free.
Sipping his hot cocoa, nibbling on his cookies, and
fingering his toy ship, Timley suddenly knew what
he had to do. He went to his desk, pulled out a sheet
of paper, then gnawed at the tip of a pencil with his
razor-sharp teeth until it was sharp. “Perfect,” Timley
declared, inspecting it closely. He began to write.
Sorry, Mother and Father, I really need to…
O
No, I don’t need to apologize—I really am old enough
to leave the tree by myself, Timley thought to himself.
He crumpled the paper and started again.
Dear Mother and Father,
I really need to go on a great, big adventure.
I’ll be back soon.
That’s not right either. I wouldn’t be back soon if I
went on a great big adventure. It makes me sound like
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Hey guys,
Don’t wait up; I’m just out for a teeny tiny adventure.
No, NO! Too casual. Oh, this is harder than I thought!
The pile of crumpled papers began to grow. He
tried again.
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You can’t treat me like a baby mouse anymore!!
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Aargh! Too angry! I know Mother and Father are
just trying to protect me.
Timley worked for quite a while, trying to get it
just right. When he was finally satisfied, he folded the
paper neatly and put it into an envelope. He wrote
For Mother and Father in his very best handwriting
on the outside, and laid it on his desk. Crumpled
pieces of paper lay all around it, overflowing onto the
floor.
Hmmm…too messy, Timley thought. They’ll never
even see the letter, what with all this junk laying all
around.
He quickly picked up all the paper, and then realized that he still had clothes and some of his pirate
gear lying on the floor. Soon Timley was hard at work
making everything neat as a pin. His parents would
never think that he was responsible enough to go on
an adventure all by himself, and that he wasn’t truly
running away from home, if his room looked like it
had been hit by a nor’easter. No, it must be perfect!
Then, Timley thought with a gulp, just maybe, they
won’t be quite so mad at me when they read the letter.
He swallowed hard to get rid of the lump that was
forming in his throat.
“No, I can’t get all soft and mushy now,” Timley
said aloud, trying to firm up his resolve. “This is
something I have to do—NOW.”
When everything was quite as perfect as a little
mouse can make it, Timley took one last look around,
wrapped the leftover cookies from his mother’s tray in
his bandana, and swallowed the last of the hot cocoa
(which made him grimace because it had turned into
cold cocoa while he was cleaning his room). At the
last moment he grabbed his pirate gear, deciding that
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it might just come in handy—even on a teeny, tiny
adventure.
He entered the secret passageway and only looked
back once.
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Chapter 2
The Fair
A
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nyone walking near Paddleboat Pond that night
could have seen them: winged specks, dark
against a glowing sky, rising as if in answer
to a silent call. They flew west, across ball fields and
meadows, from the thick groves of trees that covered
the western edge of the pond and the southern end of
the Park. As shadows deepened, small creatures on
the ground also grew bolder and crept west. The sun’s
setting rays, red and orange like a fire and edged with
a purple as deep as royal velvet, silently spread out
across the sky and gathered the animals in, closer
and closer to the northwest end of the Park.
In the old gnarled oak, however, while the tiny gray
mouse played pirate deep inside the roots trying to
forget the fact that his mother wouldn’t even let him
go to the Fair, Sophie Topfeather overslept.
“Sophie. Sophie! Wake up—it’s time, hoo hoo!”
“Huh? Wha–? Oh, Hunter, it’s you. Can’t it wait? I’m
still sleepy.” She opened her beak wide and yawned
again. She snuggled deeper under her covers.
“It’s time,” Hunter insisted. Hearing no response
this time, the owl tried the door and found it unlocked.
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He quickly crossed the floor of the small studio apartment and shook her gently. “It’s TIME!”
Sophie sat straight up and saw the sunset glowing
through the knot-hole. Her round, amber eyes opened
wide.
“Thorns and thistles, it’s time for the Fair,” she
said. “Why on earth didn’t you say so in the first
place?” She hopped out of bed.
Hunter rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “We’ll
miss your grandfather’s big speech if you don’t hurry
up,” he said.
“Speech, screech. Grandfather says the same thing
every year, anyway.” Sophie grabbed a small white
scarf from a large pile of perfume bottles, baubles, and
trinkets on her dresser and quickly tied it around her
neck. She cleared her throat to give her best mockery
of her grandfather’s ‘I’m so important’ voice:
“Welcome, Park residents, large and small, feathered and furry. It is my great privilege and pleasure
to welcome you all to the highlight of the year, the
annual Fair Owlympics. Blah, blah, blah.”
“Hurry up!” Hunter interrupted. “C’mon—you’re
always late for everything.”
“Go ahead without me. I have to get ready. Don’t
worry—I’ll be there in plenty of time to see you beat
Scout. You’ll get him for sure this year! Besides, Lulu
and I are going treasure-hunting first, of course.”
Sophie poked through the large collection of
sunglasses, sparkling toy tiaras and scarves that cluttered her dresser, then examined the hats hanging
from the top branches of her tree branch hat stand.
Forgotten, Hunter rolled his eyes a little, muttered at
her to hurry up, and flew off in the direction of the
fairgrounds.
As Sophie looked around, a rainbow-colored band
of light from the setting sun streamed in through the
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window and fell on the strands of beads hanging from
the lower branches of the hat stand. Clear beads of
every color—pink, green, scarlet, amber—glowed as
if on fire from the inside out. Sophie reached for one
of the bright pink strands and placed it around her
neck, put it back, and tried another one.
Sophie and Lulu had been discussing what to
wear on the opening day of the Owlympics for some
time, so she was actually ready quite soon. She put
on her yellow straw hat with the black ribbons that
dangled behind it, and two strands of beads: the red
ones because they matched the bright red cherries
on the upturned brim of her hat, and the pink ones,
well, because she really loved pink.
“Now, where did those sunglasses go?” She
rummaged through a heavy-looking trunk that rested
on the floor next to the hat stand. She hummed a
little tune while she looked. Pulling a pair of zebrastriped sunglasses out of the trunk, she put them on
and admired her reflection in the full-length mirror.
“Yes, just right! Off we go,” she said, talking aloud
to herself as she often did now that she was living on
her own. Otherwise, it was too-oo quiet!
Sophie flew toward the now fading embers of the
western sky and looked down over the Park as she
went. No need to search for breakfast; there would
be plenty of rats and mice to pick from at the Fair—
nice, plump ones, too! As she flew, she breathed a
contented sigh. What a wonderful time of day, when
people were still out and about. She watched them
play with balls and round discs in the big grassy
fields until they could no longer see well enough to
catch them. She could still see, though—she had
exceptionally good eyesight. All Great Horned Owls
did, which was one reason Great Horned Owls were
so very great, in her opinion.
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On most days she would eat quickly, gobbling
down the first rat or garden snake that moved on the
ground below her perch; she was glad that owls eat
the way they do, in a single gulp, bones and all. That
way she could soon put her keen eyesight to work
doing her most favorite thing of all: treasure-hunting.
People left amazing bits and pieces behind at the end
of the day—especially the ones who stayed until the
darkness made it too hard to collect everything they
had brought with them to the Park. That was how
Sophie had acquired most of her beautiful stuff!
Today, though, everything she could possibly want
was waiting for her at the Fair.
H
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appy shrieks greeted Sophie’s ears as she
approached the midway, and long hair flew in
people’s faces as they rode little cars and tea cups,
up and down, loopity-loop, around and around.
The annual Fair at the Park’s West End was in full
swing. Corn dogs, waffle cones, ice cream sundaes
that dripped chocolate and strawberry sauce onto
shorts and T-shirts, buzzers and whistles and
vendors calling to the crowd—the air of this unusually warm, mid-September day hung thick and loud
and irresistible.
To tell the truth, a few unhappy sounds did come
from behind stall doors in the restrooms from the
people who forgot last year’s vow not to eat anything
at all until after they rode the Ferris Wheel Ride and
Spinning Teacups. Gargantuan Garlic Fries and
Marvelous Mammoth Burgers sure tasted better
going down.
Nearly everyone in the City, however, said that
this year’s Fair was the “fairest of them all.” Even
the sun cooperated, lending the Fair a blazing backdrop of orange and red and purple that paled even
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the neon signs and blinking light bulbs. Busy food
and game vendors actually paused for a minute from
their selling to look up at the sky in wonder.
By the time Sophie arrived, many animals—mostly
owls, but also foxes, crows, and fat possums—had
gathered in the dark space under the rollercoaster.
“And so, my fellow Park residents,” Sophie heard
Grandfather Owl announce to the crowd as she flew
up to Hunter, “feast and frolic, romp and roam. The
opening event of the Owlympics will begin when the
people’s day is done. At that time we will regroup
by the Ferris Wheel for the first competition—the
Ferris Wheel Flip. And don’t forget to go to Rundown
Arena for this year’s hotly contested Ultimate Rodent
Rundown! May the hungriest owl win!”
Grandfather Owl, looking very dapper in his white
silk bow tie, swept his black top hat off his head
in a grand bow. He chuckled as much hooting and
howling and the sound of wings whirring exploded in
feathery applause.
Sophie put her wings over Hunter’s eyes. “Peekaboo-oo! See, I even made it in time for the speech—
some of it anyway.”
Sophie’s best friend Lulu and a few of their other
friends spotted her and rushed over. “Sophie! Sophie!
You-oo are finally here! Wasn’t he great?”
“Who-oo?”
“Oh, Sophie, you’re such a tease! You’re so lucky
to have such a famous grandfather!”
“Thorns and thistles! Who-oo’s kidding who?”
Sophie replied. “Try living with him, then tell me what
you think! … Forget about him. What’s our plan?”
Putting their beaks together, they soon mapped
out their entire night. They decided to split up for
optimum treasure-hunting and then meet in the pink
and purple spinning teacup during the Ferris Wheel
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Flip to compare their finds. Sophie thought of her
Mickey Mouse watch from last year. Her heart beat
a little faster as she wondered what the people might
leave behind at the Fairgrounds this year!
None of the owls and ravens and foxes who gathered to hear Grandfather Owl’s speech seemed to
notice that some of the smallest Park residents, the
mice, were decidedly left out of the welcome—this,
despite the fact that Grandfather Owl had welcomed
Park residents “large and small, feathered and furry.”
The mice understood quite well that their only role in
the Owlympics was to avoid becoming bait for Ultimate Rodent Rundown. Most of them knew that their
safest course of action would be to simply stay home
during this “highlight of the year,” but who could
stay away from the bits of corndog and popcorn that
mingled underfoot in the straw and sawdust at the
Fair?
Surely not the three mice playing “Dare” near the
cow barn. They had spied a tantalizingly large piece
of a deep-fried, cinnamon-and-sugar-coated elephant
ear right smack in the middle of the walkway between
the cow barn and the horse barn. Two of them had
just challenged the third, a very fat mouse with extralong whiskers named Marvin, to their biggest dare
yet: go after the elephant ear. Their part in the game
was to cheer him on:
“Almost, almost there!”
“Way to go! You did it!”
Marvin—nicknamed Fast Marvin because his
speed always took everyone by surprise due to his
wide girth—scampered back to the side of the barn,
breathing heavily, his sugary, buttery prize dangling
from his mouth. Sugar crystals clinging to his long
whiskers caught the light from the lamp above the
barn door. He dropped the pastry on the ground and
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gestured back toward the center of the walkway,
bragging:
“Did you see that? I dodged six pairs of feet and a
baby stroller, and not a single scratch—or scream.”
He threw them a cocky grin and then bent down to
nibble at a corner of the elephant ear.
“That was awesome,” one of the other mice chimed
in. “Hey, has anybody seen Timley? He would have
loved to see you do that.”
The long-whiskered mouse snickered.
“Timley! That namby-pamby mama’s boy? You’re
kidding me, right? He’s afraid of his own shadow—
you think he’d even be caught dead doing something
like that? Not with all the owls here tonight. He’d faint
dead away if an owl even looked in his direction.”
One of the mice snorted at the word ‘dead’ and
mocked, “Mama won’t let me come.” They all laughed.
“Yeah, Timley’s probably still home playing pirate
or astronaut or some other lame baby game. He’s too
chicken for any real excitement. C’mon guys, forget
Timley. He’s nothing.” The long-whiskered mouse
nudged the hunk of elephant ear toward the others.
“Plenty here to go around, boys. Dig in!”
The three mice bent low and gathered around the
deep-fried cinnamon goodness. Busy nibbling, not
one of them even bothered to look up to see what
might have caused the sudden, momentary dimming
of the bright light fixed to the top of the cow barn
door. Fast Marvin with the extra-long whiskers never
knew what hit him.
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Chapter 3
The Treasure
T
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he sky above the teacup ride was now bright
with a full moon and more stars than anyone
could hope to count. Not that the five owls
sitting in the pink and purple teacup noticed. They
were too busy looking at their newfound treasures.
“What did you-oo find tonight, Sophie?” said Lulu.
“Look at what I have—two pink plastic ponies! Which
do you like better—the one with blue hair, or the one
with purple?”
Before Sophie could answer, Lulu continued. “And
look! One of those gadgets that people have up to
their ears all the time!” She held it up so the other
owls could see it, then tapped it with her beak. The
whole display board lit up.
“Oooh,” they all said together.
“I wonder what it does?” asked Sophie. “People
can’t seem to get along without it.” Lulu pressed one
of the buttons and they heard a ringing sound, then
the voice of a human:
“Hello… Hello… Is anybody there?” Click!
Lulu threw it over her shoulder. “Well, that’s a
waste. Sophie, what did you find?”
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With a great flourish she produced her own treasure from around her neck. “Ta-da! Mine is the best,
don’t you think?” Sophie said excitedly.
Sophie’s treasure, they all agreed, was, beyond
any doubt, the best. Sparkling in the sawdust near
the rollercoaster, Sophie had spotted a shiny, real
gold, necklace. A solid gold letter ‘t’ dangled from the
fine gold chain.
“It is so beau-oo-tiful, Sophie,” Lulu exclaimed.
“You are so lucky! You always find the best stuff.”
“You know me—I look everywhere! I just wish I
knew what the letter ‘t’ stands for. Maybe Teacher or
Tina or Timbuktu? It must be something important.
After all, it is made out of pure gold!”
“Who-oo cares what it stands for. It’s just pretty,
that’s all. It’s almost time for Ultimate Rodent
Rundown.” Lulu tugged at Sophie’s wing. “Let’s go!”
“Yeah, who cares, Sophie?” piped up Trixie, one of
her other friends. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?
Even if it is something special, it’s only important to
People—who-oo cares what the letter is for?”
“But wait—I care what it stands for. It’s… um…
it’s interesting! Maybe Trevor, or, um—wait a minute!
Come back! Hoo hoo!”
Lulu, about to fly off with the rest of the group,
hung back for a moment. “Come on, Sophie! What’s
wrong with you tonight? It’s gold—that’s all that
matters! You won. Now, hurry up!”
Sophie tried to shake off her annoyance as she
scrambled to catch up with Lulu. The rest of their
friends were halfway to the arena already. They
wanted to be in the front row so they wouldn’t miss
any of the action. Hunter had been working so hard
for this day! By the time Sophie got there, everyone
was talking about this year’s prize—a fat, but very
fast mouse with extra-long whiskers. He should make
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it a very exciting competition.
Grandfather Owl, of course, served as the
announcer. He was using his ‘I’m so important’ voice
again.
“Welcome, one and all, to the finale of the Owlympics, Ultimate Rodent Rundown,” he began. “The
contestants, as you well know, have been selected
through a process of elimination rounds earlier this
summer. We are now down to our final two: Hunter
Grove and Scout Marsh. The object of the game is
for each owl to maneuver a mouse through the tube
positioned at the opposite end of the arena. It requires
great skill and strategy. The contestants must achieve
their objective without touching each other, and they
may not grab the mouse with their talons. The prize,
of course, is the finest mouse at the Fair. This year’s
prize is simply superlative.”
With that, the dapper owl held up the dangling
award with one of his talons. Helplessly, it wiggled
this way and that, trying to escape his iron-clad grip.
Cinnamon-scented pastry crumbs fell from his long
whiskers. The whole crowd oohed and aahed.
“On your mark, get set, GO!”
The Great Horned Owl host bowed low, removing
his hat. He released the mouse into the center of the
arena. The panicked mouse looked to the left and then
to the right, and then just started running. Skittering right, then back to the left, there was no place to
hide in that big oval arena. Hunter and Scout flew in
from opposite directions and met in the middle, right
above the mouse. The crowd hooted and hollered as
first Hunter and then Scout swooped down low over
the mouse. Each tried to get the mouse to run closer
to the tube at his end of the arena.
Sophie knew that Hunter had been practicing for
weeks to build up his endurance. He told her that
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if he could just get the mouse tuckered out before
he tired out himself, then he thought he had a good
chance at winning. Scout had won easily last year,
and had even been boasting all summer that he could
do the same this year, but Sophie had noticed that he
spent more time bragging than training. She had told
Hunter to give it everything he had, and she knew he
could win.
Round after round they went, buzzing over the
mouse’s head, swooping down at it time after time,
chasing it closer to this end, and then that end.
Finally, Hunter’s training started to pay off. Scout
was slowing down, and charging the mouse less often.
“Hoo-oo-ray! Hoo-oo-ray!” shouted Sophie. The
mouse was just inches from the tube. “You can get
him, Hunter! Swoop him again!”
Just then, Scout flew straight at Hunter and
swiped him in the face with one of his talons. Hunter
fell to the floor of the arena and didn’t move.
“No fair!” Sophie yelled. “Foul! Scout’s a cheater!”
Sophie left her seat and flew to her friend’s side in a
flash.
“Hunter, Hunter! Are you okay?” Inside, Sophie trembled with fear, as if a brother was lying there in trouble.
At that moment, she realized that she thought of him as
if he were part of her own family. “You have to be okay!”
Sophie begged the motionless owl.
The crowd held its breath. After what seemed an
eternity, Hunter groaned and tried to move. Blood
oozed from one of his eyes and feathers floated above
his face. He sat up slowly and held his wing to his
chest. The crowd gasped. Clearly, Hunter was done
for the night. Sophie helped him to his feet and everyone cheered. Despite his pain, Hunter gave them a
weak smile and the crowd cheered again.
Grandfather Owl, in his booming voice, flew back
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to the center of the arena. “Given the unfortunate
circumstances, this game is forfeit. I declare Hunter
the winner, and Scout will be fined a penalty for his
foul lack of sportsmanship. Please find the nearest
exit and leave the arena at this time.”
In the boos, groans, and general chaos of everyone
trying to leave at once, no one noticed that the lucky,
fat mouse with the extra-long whiskers, tired as he
was, was halfway across the Park by the time most of
the audience had reached the exits.
S
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ophie helped Hunter get home and made him as
comfortable as possible, and then went home to
her own tree. She fumed the whole way home.
Hunter had been declared the winner, and she
had even found the best treasure, but he was hurt
and she was angry; as she took off her new necklace,
she looked at the letter dangling from the chain and
remembered Lulu’s words: “What’s the matter with
you, anyway?” She suddenly felt so… small.
Winning was not supposed to feel like this. She
threw her hat across the room and went unhappily
to bed.
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Chapter 4
‘t’ is for Trouble
S
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ophie fluttered from side to side in her bed all
day. She kept picturing Hunter falling to the
ground, blood oozing from his hurt eye, his
wing held to his body in an unnatural pose. Lulu and
Trixie kept saying, “What’s wrong with you, Sophie,
what’s wrong with you?” After what seemed hours,
she finally fell into a deep sleep. She didn’t wake up
until the sky was almost dark.
She suddenly sat up and looked out her window
into the gloom.
“Thorns and thistles! I’ve overslept again. And I was
going to go check on Hunter early, in case he needed
anything,” she said, scolding herself. Hopping over
to her mirror, she quickly and expertly groomed her
disheveled feathers, clicking a few back into place.
“Too much tossing and turning! Well, no permanent
harm done. All fixed.”
She searched for her necklace amidst the clutter
on her dresser and then looked about for her hat.
She had been in too much of a dither the night before
to think about putting things away. When she finally
found the hat on the floor under the lace tablecloth
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on her little round table, she put it on her head and
twirled around in front of the mirror. She loved the
way the black ribbons on the hat floated out behind
her, and how the gold † shone nicely against her
brown speckled feathers in the soft moonlight that
filtered in through the window.
Sophie took off her hat, and then put it back on her
head. “Maybe it is still warm enough to get away with
wearing this summer hat just a little while longer.”
She admired her reflection.
“Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo! How fine! How fine!” she said
aloud.
She twirled in front of the mirror again and again,
making the gold necklace sparkle.
O
Shiny me, pretty me,
Dancing ‘round my old oak tree!
What joy, what bliss to find a find like this!
“As the kids in the Park always say, ‘Finders
keepers!’” Sophie spun around again and then
stopped, with a frown. She picked up the necklace in
her beak and looked intently at the t. She stared at
it for a long time. Clouds blocked the moon and the
room darkened.
“I do wonder what the ‘t’ stands for. Surely it is
something and not nothing.” Sophie thought for a
moment and brightened again.
“Grandfather! That’s it! He’ll know, if anybody
knows; he knows everything, after all.” Sophie rolled
her eyes. “Annoying, but all that information does
come in handy sometimes! Yes, I’ll check on Hunter
and then go show my necklace to Grandfather.”
Very pleased with her plan, Sophie spritzed herself
with her favorite perfume, Parfum de Meadow Fleur,
and flew out the door.
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Hunter, to her great relief, was recuperating nicely.
His mother had stopped by to change the bandage on
the cut next to his eye, and she was now busy making
him some breakfast. His wing had been jarred, but
he’d be flying high as ever in no time.
Happy that Hunter was in good hands, Sophie left
and flew across Paddleboat Pond toward Grandfather’s tree. The water below was a flat gray on this
cloudy evening. She sighed. She had such mixed feelings as she thought about her grandfather.
She did love him; after all, she had to admit that
he had taken very good care of her ever since she
was an owlet, after that terrible hurricane killed her
parents.
Deep in thought, a sudden gust of wind made her
shudder. She flew a little faster.
She also had to admit, if she was honest with
herself and thought really hard about it, that she was
proud of Grandfather, too. After all, he was the Great
Wise Horned Owl of the Park, and if Grandfather said
something was the truth, then it was the Truth with
a capital T, and anything he decided was considered
by all to be the End of the Matter.
“Say, maybe the necklace is a ‘t’ for truth!” she
mused out loud to herself as she flew. But the truth,
as far as Sophie was concerned, was that it was just
too difficult to be herself around all that smartness.
Here he was, the Great Wise Horned Owl of the Park,
and she was plain old Sophie. She might be a Great
Horned Owl with a wingspan of almost five feet, but
when she was around him, she felt the opposite of
great. She felt small—as small as a meaningless
mouse.
As she approached his maple tree, she smelled the
familiar smell of acorn nut cookies baking, and her
heart beat a little faster. Here she was, coming to him
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with a question, just like all the other animals that
came on wing and on paw to beg just a few moments
of his time. He would take her seriously—finally! And,
maybe, she’d be in time for a few cookies, too.
Yes, he’ll know exactly what the letter on my necklace stands for, she thought. She lifted up the wooden
knocker on the door and tapped it with her special
knock: tap, tappy tap tap, tap, tap!
Grandfather Owl answered the door before she
was even finished knocking.
“Sophie, my sweet Miss Fancy Feathers! What
brings you to my tree today? You have a lovely new
necklace, I see. Latch not even broken? Just a tiny
bit loose? What a good find. Pure gold, too, I see.” He
waved her in to the living room.
“Well, now,” Grandfather Owl continued, as he
closed the door behind her, “sit down, sit down. A
fresh batch of cookies just came out of the oven!”
Sophie smiled again. She hoped that the other
Park animals could handle their own problems for a
while so she could have Grandfather to herself—and
his cookies.
She made herself comfortable in one of the two
overstuffed chairs in the living room and looked
around. Nothing had changed since she moved
out: books still lined the round walls; an enormous
dictionary perched heavily on a Grecian-style white
pedestal table in between the chairs.
“Have a cookie, dear.”
“Thank you.”
“So, did you have a good time at the Fair?” he
asked, reaching for a cookie as well. “I assume you
went, although I looked for you before the start of my
speech and couldn’t find you.”
“Oh, uh, well, I was just a tiny bit late. I heard
most of your speech. Um, good job, as usual!” Sophie
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took a bite of her cookie.
“What a shame about Ultimate Rodent Rundown.
I have long been afraid that Scout would grow up to
be a scoundrel, and it appears I was, unfortunately,
correct as usual. How is Hunter today, do you know?”
“Yes, sir. Hunter is doing quite well, thank you.
His mother came by to take care of him, and his eye
and wing will be better in no time.”
“I am very pleased to hear that.”
“Um, Grandfather, I was wondering… it’s probably
nothing, but just the same, if you could tell me…”
She swallowed a bit of cookie that was sticking in her
beak.
“What is it, Sophie? Spit it out, now.”
“I asked my friends what they thought the letter
on my new necklace might stand for, and they just
laughed at me. They wouldn’t even talk to me about
it. Even Lulu didn’t care. I thought it must stand for a
t-word, like Tina, or Tammy, or Teacher, or something
like that. Come to think of it, though, most of those
words would probably be written with an upper-case
T, and this is definitely lower-case.”
She picked up the necklace and looked at it more
closely, then set it down, and said, “They’re probably
right. It must not mean anything important—at least
nothing that matters to an owl.”
The elderly owl, who had been listening intently
while rubbing his chin with a wing, took on a surprisingly serious tone.
“Sophie, you are thinking excellent thoughts with
that superb brain of yours. Do not let your friends
make fun of things that you are interested in. Be
more confident! You have even remembered your
lessons about upper-case and lower-case letters. Very
good! Now, about your necklace. Your friends might
be amazed to learn that the shape hanging on your
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necklace has great symbolic significance for a group
of people called Christians. It isn’t a letter at all. It’s
called a cross—Christians consider it a holy symbol.”
“Hmm. A cross. What does ‘holy’ mean?”
“Why don’t you look it up?”
Sophie turned to the dictionary and opened it to
the H’s.
“Let’s see, I use the guide words at the top of the
page to narrow down my search.” She moved her
wing up and down the pages.
“Okay. It will be between ‘holography’ and ‘home’.
‘Holy’! I’ve got it!”
“Excellent. What does it say?”
“‘Holy: dedicated to religious use; belonging to or
coming from God; spiritually perfect or pure.’ Wow! I
didn’t know anything could be perfect. If this is a holy
symbol, it must be really special.”
“Not so fast, my dear.”
Sophie looked up at her grandfather’s face; something in his tone had changed.
Uh-oh, he’s got that look! Sophie thought to herself.
Grandfather’s ‘This is foolish’ look!
She squirmed in her seat. The cookie she had just
bitten into tasted hard and dry in her mouth. Maybe
it wasn’t so great being treated like one of the clients
after all. And didn’t he just say that she shouldn’t let
her friends make fun of her interests?
She fumed. Nobody—not Lulu, not Grandfather—
NOBODY takes me seriously.
As her grandfather continued on, she struggled to
listen to him.
“This cross is just one of many so-called holy
symbols. There are many religions, Sophie, and many
different gods, even. Some people think that there is
one God who created the world—animals, people,
everything you see. Others think quite differently.
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The dictionary may say that holy things are perfect
or pure, but I would be remiss, my dear, if I didn’t
tell you that there is nothing perfect about any of
these religions, or their people. Wars have even been
fought in the name of religion! No, on the contrary; if
it’s a letter ‘t’ on your necklace, it is a t for Trouble—
nothing but trouble.”
“But, Grandfather—”
While talking, he had stood up and walked over to
the window next to his chair. Looking out, he raised
his wings, as if to encompass the entire Park. He
turned back to look at her with flashing golden eyes.
“Sophie Topfeather, I will NOT have any of that
kind of trouble here in the Park!”
Sophie was alarmed. He never called her by her
full name!
What kind of trouble is he talking about? I don’t
understand, she thought to herself. She had gone to
him for help, but all he did was talk in confusing
riddles.
Her grandfather’s face softened. He came and
patted her head gently.
“Come now, let’s just think of your fine golden cross
as ‘t for trinket’ and leave it at that. No need to worry
your lovely feathery head about ‘holy’ things one more
minute. ‘Holy’ is hoo hoo hooey! Just like the fairy­
tales we used to read together when you were small,
remember? It wasn’t so long ago, right? Fairytales are
interesting, perhaps, but hooey just the same.”
He looked around him and raised a wing at the
rows of books that lined the walls of his living room,
as if to say that any one of them contained proofs of
his point. A moment later, a book caught his eye and
he pulled it from the shelf.
“Now where did I put my reading glasses?” he
muttered.
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Sophie slowly picked them up from the arm of
his chair and said in a small voice, “Here they are,
Grandfather. I guess I’ll be going now.” She grabbed
another cookie and headed for the door.
“Mmhmm—yes, dear.” Having obviously arrived at
the ‘End of the Matter’, he was already absorbed in
his reading.
Sophie left in a bit of a huff, closing the door with a
satisfyingly rude bang—right in the faces of two rather
unhappy blue jays that were just about to knock. She
didn’t care, but rushed past them muttering aloud to
herself.
“Hooey? Hooey? How does he do it? He can even
say ‘hooey’ and still sound so, so right about everything. It makes me so angry! If only he could be
wrong about something—just once! He treats me like
an owlet and he always will,” Sophie concluded.
“I am NOT a baby owlet! He can’t treat me that way
anymore. But how do I get him to STOP?”
She had been heading for home over the dark
waters of the pond, but changed her mind midway.
Making a large arc, she flew off toward the bright
lights and night noises of the City.
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Chapter 5
Weeping at a Wedding
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he gusts of wind that had ruffled Sophie’s
feathers as she flew over the pond earlier that
evening had settled into a gentle breeze. A
patch of clouds cleared away to reveal that the moon
was rising just over the horizon. The Indian summer
air that passed over Sophie’s wings now was delightfully warm. Faster and higher she flew. She felt a little
better, and was determined not to let Grandfather’s
opinions ruin the entire night.
A spin around the City is just what I need to clear
my head.
Leaving the Park behind, she soared over the
tallest red-brick apartment building on the border of
the east side of the Park, and then flew even higher
to pass over the skyscrapers of the business district.
She didn’t slow down until she had left the Park far
behind.
Finally, she arrived at the Harbor, where the moon
shone on the softly rippling water. A vast array of
boats bobbed in the marina and along the piers. Even
though it was quite dark, with her excellent eyesight
she could still see them clearly: sailboats, tugboats,
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cargo ships, even a large cruise ship. Colorful nautical flags fluttered in a line along the upper deck.
Swooping twice between a couple of tugboats
and around an enormous cargo ship, she turned
back toward the City. Admiring herself in the shiny
skyscraper windows that reflected the harbor scene,
Sophie caught sight of something that made her
gasp. She beat her wings against the air currents to
steady herself.
“Why, I’ve never noticed that before!”
Just beyond the office complex, a large, gold †
crowned the dome of a gray stone building. It shone
boldly in the light of a spotlight fixed right on it.
“Hoo hoo! What’s this? If Grandfather is right
about crosses being ‘nothing but trouble’, why would
people put a super-big one on the very top of a great
big building for everyone to see—and even light it up
at night?”
Sophie made straight for it. She expected it to be
dark and silent inside, but as she drew closer she
heard beautiful music fill the air. Coming down to
perch in a tree near the arched wooden doors of the
building, the owl had a good view of the cavernous
room inside. The light of a hundred candles made the
wooden pews gleam.
“Oo-ooh! It’s a lucky night after all!” Sophie hooted
happily to herself and settled onto a sturdy branch
hidden by leaves to watch the lovely spectacle.
Smiling young women in lavender, floor-length
dresses had just begun to parade, one by one, down
the long center aisle. They held small bouquets of
purple and white flowers to their waists. A golden
necklace, much like Sophie’s new one, glowed in the
candlelight against the smooth, honey-toned skin of
each woman’s lovely neck.
“Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo!” Sophie couldn’t believe her
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eyes. A wedding! It seemed like the beautiful princess and the handsome prince in her fairytale books
always managed to get married in the end—but she
had never seen an actual wedding with her very own
eyes. What a wonderful, delightful sight!
The most beautiful woman of all, dressed head to
toe in white fluff, was standing quite near below her
perch. She bent down to talk to a little girl waiting
her turn to walk down the aisle. Although she was
dressed in the prettiest dress Sophie had ever seen,
a white frothy confection with lots of layers and a
purple sash tied around her waist, the child had tears
running in a continuous stream down her cheeks.
It looked as if the bride was doing her best to calm
her down. Sophie couldn’t be sure, but it seemed the
bride touched the † on the little girl’s necklace as she
tried to comfort her. The only thing Sophie could be
very sure of was that all that blubbering was ruining
an otherwise charming sight!
Sophie watched in utter amazement as the little
girl stifled her sniffles, nodded her head, and blew
her nose in the bride’s daintily embroidered hankie.
With her head held high, she walked right down the
center aisle without even looking back once, dropping purple and white rose petals in carefully measured amounts all the way to the end. The lavenderdraped women greeted her at the other end with wide
smiles and gentle touches.
The large wooden doors closed behind the wedding
party after the bride began her own walk down the
aisle. Sophie hastened around the side of the building, anxious to catch another glimpse of the enchanting scene. She fluttered down onto a wide, stone
window ledge and looked through the glass.
“Now I can see just fine, but I can’t hear a thing!”
She looked around. “Hoo hoo! What luck! That
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window is open a little. Maybe I can squeeze inside.”
She made a quick little hop over to the next ledge
and tried to press her way in through the narrow
window opening.
“Thorns and thistles! I shouldn’t have eaten so
many of Grandfather’s cookies… If—I—was—a—
umph—little—ungh—smaller, I could just make it.”
Afraid she would miss the entire event with all of
her huffing and puffing, she finally gave up trying
to slip inside, and instead, grunted and twisted her
head all around until her ear was right next to the
slim opening. Even with her excellent hearing, she
could barely make out the words that the bride and
a man dressed in a black tuxedo said to each other:
“…till death do us part.”
“Whew! Kind of serious in there for such a lovely
party.” Sophie twisted back around to face the window
in a more comfortable position, and started to think
about what she had just said about wishing she was
smaller. She giggled.
“That’s a new one, wishing to be smaller! How
funny. I can’t remember ever thinking that before in
my whole entire life.” She rather liked being a Great
Horned Owl—biggest and best of all the owls! She
especially liked being called “Great” on days like
today when Grandfather made her feel so small.
“Hoo hoo hooey to him!”
Somehow just saying that out loud made her feel a
little better. “Maybe, just maybe, Grandfather doesn’t
know everything about everything. The ‘†’ wasn’t
trouble here.”
Sophie continued watching the wedding until the
church emptied out and the candles were extinguished. During the wedding great banks of clouds
had moved in, darkening the sky—and her mood.
“Thorns and thistles,” Sophie pouted on her
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windowsill perch. “What do I really know, anyway?
Grandfather’s probably right about this, just like
everything else.” She turned around and thrust her
back against the window and crossed her wings
in front of her chest. Clouds covered the moon
completely, and her mood darkened even more.
Sophie frowned. “Why should he take me seriously? I’ve never done anything great. If I could be
right about something, or do something amazing,
just once, he’d have to stop treating me like an owlet,
wouldn’t he? But what can I do?”
Suddenly the clouds parted to reveal the starriest sky Sophie had ever seen. Thousands of stars,
millions of stars, winked at her.
“What are you looking at?” Sophie said in a huff.
Nothing but silence answered her, and she flew back
to her tree.
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Chapter 6
Up, Up, and Away
T
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imley, meanwhile, back in the tree, had
climbed the secret passageway as far up as the
squirrel’s stash of nuts that he had discovered
some time before, the day he first made his way up to
the owl’s apartment. He paused for a little snack and
looked out the knot hole.
Acorn crumbs fell out of his mouth as he gaped at
the diamond-studded sky.
“Come, Timley, come. Up, up, and away! Come,
Timley, come,” the stars seemed to whisper as they
winked.
Timley shook his head to clear it, and then looked
out again. Now the stars were still. Were they waiting
for his answer?
“Blow me down—I know what my answer is—no
more cowering in tree roots for me! ‘Fear’ is a fourletter word, banished from my lips like a pirate left to
rot on a deserted island! I may not know where I’m
going, but I’m not turning back!”
Sizing up the squirrel’s stash, Timley chose a few
large acorns and tied them up with the cookies in
his bandana. He felt a twinge of guilt—Park Rules,
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issued and enforced by the Great Wise Horned Owl
of the Park (he shuddered as he thought of that fearsome creature) clearly forbade Park creatures from
taking food that belonged to another animal. On the
other hand, he found it inside his own tree; surely an
adventurer—nay, a pirate—could bend the rules just
a bit in order to store up a few provisions?
Picking up the bandana, he thrust his sword
through the knot and threw the bundle over his
shoulder. He looked out of the knot hole one more
time. The stars seemed to wink their approval. With
firm resolve, Timley scampered up the rest of the way
to the owl’s apartment. This time, he didn’t look back.
Even though he knew his mother would faint
straight away if she had any inkling that he sneaked
off regularly to the owl’s apartment, it seemed to
Timley that it was a logical place to start his adventure. It was still technically part of his tree, so it
wasn’t as if he had run away yet—technically. It
bought him a little more time to plan his adventure.
In his hiding spot under the Great Horned Owl’s bed,
he could listen to the owl prattle on and maybe figure
out where to go first.
The moment he entered Sophie’s apartment, a
bright pink feather boa under her bed tickled the
mouse’s nose.
“Ah-ah-achoo! Achoo! A-achoo!”
He froze with fear and waited for the owl to dive
under the bed.
Nothing.
The GHM must not be home! I’m in luck! As fast as
a little mouse can work, he dragged the long feather
boa out of the way with his paws so he could have a
clear view of the apartment. He finished just as the
owl came in the door.
The Great Horned Monster herself—alone. Good.
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Timley’s eyes opened wide with anticipation.
The owl banged the door behind her. She hopped
over to her mirror. Timley saw a necklace glint in the
light as she turned first this way and then that.
Singing always made Sophie feel better. What had
she been singing earlier? Oh, yes—
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Shiny me, pretty me,
Dancing ‘round my old oak tree!
Sparkle bright, I light up the night—
O
Timley rolled his eyes at her silly song and dance
as she twirled in front of her reflection.
Noticing a few feathers out of place, she stopped
singing suddenly and, with her beak, hooked them
into their proper places. She spread her wings out
again, several times, to test them.
“There. At least my wings are perfect.”
Timley watched as the owl examined her wings
again, very slowly this time. She leaned so close to
her mirror that she tapped the glass with her beak.
Startled, she gave a little hop backward, then continued gazing in the mirror and moving her wings slowly
around.
“These wings of mine are truly amazing, now that
I stop to really look at them. Each feather is perfectly
shaped and in just the right place. If they weren’t, I
couldn’t even fly.”
Silvery light from the starry night soon fell again
in a bright stream across the room. The owl hopped
over to the window.
“What keeps the stars and the moon in their places,
so high up in the sky—and in such pretty patterns,
too? Was it planned that way or were they just placed
there by some sort of accident?” The owl looked around
the room and frowned at the clutter everywhere.
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“When I have an accident, I make such a mess of
things, like that time I caught a string of blue beads
on my beak and the string broke. Beads rolled all
over the floor. Why, I bet there are still some of those
beads under the bed.”
The owl turned and looked toward the bed. Timley’s
heart began to pound so loudly that he was sure the
owl could hear it. Is she going to look for those missing
beads NOW?
He held his breath as he tried not to panic. Pirates
don’t panic, he repeated over and over in his mind.
The owl looked out the window again and continued talking; Timley let out a long, slow breath of relief.
“The world just seems too organized to be a total
accident. Like, every day, the moon comes up and the
moon goes down, and the sun comes up and the sun
goes down. And, every night, there is food for me to
eat. I just go out to my perch and wait, and sooner
or later, breakfast runs right by my tree. Hoo hoo
hu hoo! How true, how true! Mustn’t something or
someone be in charge of it all? Whoo-oo could it be?”
She ruffled her feathers and swiveled her head in
both directions to try to clear her head. “Thorns and
thistles! What thoughts I am having tonight! Thinking this hard makes my head hurt. Ever since I found
that silly necklace, I haven’t been myself at all. ‘Don’t
fuss your feathers over fairytales,’ Grandfather would
say. But how could a fairytale keep the stars in their
places and make my wings so perfect and keep my
stomach full? One thing is for sure: I can’t go back
to Grandfather and ask him, and my friends won’t
care—they didn’t even care enough to help me guess
what the necklace might stand for. No, if I am ever
going to understand anything at all, I’m going to have
to search for the answers myself.”
The owl began pacing back and forth across her
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one-room apartment, deeper in thought and concentration than Timley had ever seen her before. He
was mesmerized by all he saw and heard; it was so
completely different than her usual conversations
with herself about what to wear and where she should
go treasure-hunting that night.
“But how?” the owl continued, waving her wings
in despair above her head. “Who-oo can tell me these
things, if not Grandfather? Where should I go? Who
can I ask for help? Thorns and thistles, rats and
ravens, this isn’t just too big—it’s IMPOSSIBLE!”
With that she suddenly crossed the floor and flung
herself onto her bed. Timley quickly withdrew to
the safety of the passageway entrance and listened,
amazed, as the GHM sobbed above him. Finally it
grew quiet, and both mouse and owl dozed off.
It was near daylight when Timley woke with a start.
She’s talking again!
“Why, I don’t have to answer all my questions at
once,” Sophie said to herself. “I could start by finding
out just a little more about the cross on my necklace, and why people care so much about it that they
would put it on top of a great big building. That would
be a fine start. Yes, I’ll go on a very small, um—what
did Grandfather always call them? Oh yes, ‘quest’—
that’s it—but just a small one for starters.”
Sophie puffed up her chest feathers a bit at the
word ‘quest’.
“How exciting! Grandfather has been on many
wonderful quests—maybe that’s how he got so smart.
And am I not the Great Wise Horned Owl’s own granddaughter, raised under the leaves of his very own
tree? Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before? My
own quest!” She was getting very excited and turned
to her mirror to imitate her grandfather again.
“Sophie, I am venturing out on a quest in search of
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Experience and Knowledge; I’ll be back. In the meantime, I’ve arranged with Mrs. Grove for you to stay
with them.”
His quests had always seemed so important. All
the most highly respected animals of the Park flocked
to the tree upon his return to hear Grandfather tell
them everything that he had learned while abroad in
the world.
“Yes, I can do it, too! Why not?”
She examined her reflection in the glass and
sighed.
“If only I were a tiny bit smaller so I could sneak
into that building where I saw the wedding. Maybe I
could hear something that would explain everything.
Oh well. I guess my size is something that can’t be
helped.”
Spurred to action by her decision to go, Sophie
pushed her trunk into the center of the room and
began to plan in earnest.
“I must be ready for anything!”
She dug deep into the trunk, throwing feather
boas and a purple faux fur cape aside. She found her
bright pink vinyl purse and put her favorite perfume
bottle inside. “I’d sure hate to be caught without my
Parfum de Meadow Fleur,” she said happily, and
placed the purse’s long shoulder strap across her
shoulders. Next, she put her straw hat back on her
head. “I know,” she told her reflection, “straw hats
are for summer, and the longer nights tell me we are
close to fall; still, it’s my favorite. One more time, and
then I’ll wear my felt and velvet hats.”
She turned her attention back to the trunk. Her
skinny legs lifted off the ground as she put nearly her
whole body into the trunk, searching for something.
“Here it is! My umbrella! I don’t know how long
this quest will take, and the warm, dry weather can’t
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last forever, so I’d better be prepared. Oh, how I adore
polka dots!” she exclaimed as she opened and closed
her pink and white polka dot umbrella, and twirled
it around. Finally, she put on her zebra-striped
sunglasses and brought out her little blue suitcase.
She stuffed a few scarves into it, a feather boa, an
extra pair of sunglasses, and some blue eye shadow,
then tried to close it.
Timley watched as Sophie sat on her suitcase, trying
to get it to shut. She bounced up and down on it. He
couldn’t help but glance over at his own bandana filled
with just a few cookies and nuts. That owl sure needed
a lot of stuff!
“Uh. Still won’t shut. I’ll—”
She interrupted herself when she spied something
crumpled on the floor behind the trunk. “Lulu’s red
cape! Of course! Perfect for such a momentous occasion! I’m sure she won’t mind if I borrow it for a while.”
The owl reached down and fastened the pearl clasp
around her neck.
“Yes!” Looking at her reflection, she raised her
umbrella skyward and cleared her throat. “Hereafter,
I am to be called Sophie the Great, the Fine Feathered Fact or Fairytale Finder (I do like the sound of
that!)… the, um, the Wandering Wonderer of the Ways
of People… Tireless Traveling Truth-Seeker… Holiness
Hunter… Querying questor of the Arranger of All Thi—
AACK! AAGH! HOO HOO HEELLPPP!!!”
Stepping backward, Sophie tripped over her trunk
and passed out cold.
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Chapter 7
An Unusual Proposition
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t might just work! Timley whispered to himself in
his dark hiding spot far under the owl’s bed. This
is my chance! His mind raced. She wants to go
on a little quest, and I want a tiny adventure, which I
think is something like a quest. She wishes she was
smaller, and I am much, much smaller. But how does
a mouse talk to an owl? That owl could have me for
dinner before I could even say GHM!
Timley, for the first time, suddenly wished he
was much, much bigger. I know—I can’t be bigger,
but I can be TALLER! With one eye on the motionless
owl lying in a heap in the middle of the apartment,
Timley scurried along the floorboards and crept up
the side of the trunk. From there, he leaped over to
the hat stand, grabbing one of the long strands of
shiny purple beads. In one slick move, like a sailor
swinging from the lines of a tall mast on a pirate ship,
Timley swung up to the cluttered dresser top.
He could barely find a place to set all four feet down
at one time. I have never seen so much useless stuff in
all my life, Timley thought as he gingerly stepped over
a glittery pen with a fluffy pink top to get to the one
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clear space he could see… right into some powdery
blue eye shadow that was hiding under the pink fluff!
Grimacing at his blue paws, he turned back toward
the center of the room to make sure the owl was still
unconscious. In doing so, he slipped on a satiny leopard-skin eye mask Sophie sometimes used to keep
out the daylight while she slept. When he got back up
again he was feeling rather defeated, until he caught
sight of his reflection in the owl’s full-length mirror.
“Blow me down, I almost forgot!” he whispered.
“I’m not just a mouse, I’m a pirate!”
“Uh, what happened?” Sophie started to stir and
put a wing up to her head. She winced. Timley could
plainly see from his higher vantage point that one
corner of the cape was securely stuck underneath the
heavy trunk. For the moment at least, he was safe.
It was now—or never.
“Ahoy there! Owl!” Timley shouted as loud as he
could, and assumed his most convincing (he hoped)
pirate swagger.
The owl blinked her huge yellow eyes and spun her
head all around.
“Who-oo said that?”
Timley took a deep breath.
“I said, who-oo’s there?” the owl repeated.
“You asked for help, and help has come.”
“Speak up! All I hear are little squeaks. Where are
you, and whoo are you?”
Timley looked around the top of the dresser and
in a flash rolled up a scrap of paper. He talked into it
like a megaphone.
“Allow me to introduce myself, up here on top of
your dresser. I am Timley Mouse, adventurer, sometimes pirate, at your service.” He grinned, displaying
his tiny razor-sharp teeth. Then, with a flourish and
a bow that looked far more confident than he felt on
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the inside, Timley swept his three-corner black pirate
hat off his head. The hat’s soft, downy feather tickled
his nose as it went by and he sneezed. Behind the hat,
his knees began to shake uncontrollably; his bravado
started to melt as he noticed the owl’s large yellowish toes—and the sharp black talons that curled out
from their ends. They were many times bigger than
his longest, sharpest tooth.
Am I crazy? Well, what’s done is done. I’ve got
to finish what I started—for better or worse. Timley
straightened up and spoke into his little megaphone
again. “Owl, you clearly—just now—stated that you
want to go on a small quest. A quest, if I remember right, is an adventure—one with an important
purpose. Adventures happen to be my specialty, and I
am in need of a small one myself at this very moment.
Sophie stared at the mouse in disbelief.
“You also—quite clearly—wished to be smaller,”
Timley continued, “in order to fulfill your quest. As
you can see, I am indeed much smaller than you. In
fact, I can squeeze into any hole you can pass a dime
through! My hearing is excellent, and my sharp teeth
are extremely useful for sharpening pencils, cutting
through rope, and lots of other things, too.”
Sophie, stunned by the fall and then by the sight
of a mouse talking to her from the top of her dresser,
finally recovered from speechlessness. She flew at the
mouse, squawking and sputtering. She landed with
a quick thud back on the floor. She was stuck—and
angry.
“Thorns and thistles! Do you mean to tell me, little
mousie, that you want to go WITH me? Why, who ever
heard of such a thing? It just isn’t done! If Lulu or
Hunter saw me hanging out with a mouse, I’d be the
laughing stock of the entire Park! And Grandfather—
what would he say? ‘Sophie’s gone completely bats,’
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that’s what. No—NO! Mice are for food, for sport. I
didn’t even know mice could talk until three minutes
ago. Tasty snacks are NOT traveling companions for
Great Horned Owls.”
“I understand your feelings, um, Miss Owl, and
every one can see you are a very great owl.”
“A Great Horned Owl.”
“Yes, a very Great Horned Owl, whom I have actually admired all summer! And I am, as you have said,
a very insignificant mouse. But I can help you! Your
cape, for example, is firmly stuck underneath the
trunk, and without the help from my very sharp teeth
(he pulled out his sword and used it as a pointer),
you may remain stuck for quite some time.” Timley
eyed the owl’s slightly broad waistline and added
shrewdly, “You may even miss a few meals before
anyone else finds you.”
“Why, I don’t need you to help me. I’m not really
stuck at all. I just need to undo the clasp. You just
distracted me for a minute, that’s all… Ungh… just a
second… unh… Rats! It must have gotten bent when
I fell down.”
“No problem for Timley Mouse! I can have you free
before I can say GHM—I mean, before I can say ‘Great
Horned Owl’. There is just one condition; you must
promise not to eat me once you are free again.”
“OK, Timley Mouse, I don’t see that I have much
choice. Just get on with it before I change my mind.”
Timley, buoyed by his success so far, skittered
back across the dresser, down the hat stand, and
across the floor in a flash. Teeth bared, he zipped
through the cape like a boy’s remote control motorboat slicing through calm water on Paddleboat Pond.
In the meantime, Sophie was busy working on the
clasp.
“There. Got it! You don’t have to…”
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Timley looked up at the same time and said,
“You’re free! See how helpful I can be? May I go with
you? May I?”
Sophie picked up the chewed edge of the cape and
frowned. “Now you’ve done it—it’s wrecked! What am
I going to tell Lulu? I certainly can’t wear it now.”
She left it crumpled on the floor and gave her full
attention to the gray mouse. He sat there, not two feet
away, in that silly pirate hat, eye patch and sword,
looking at her with great anticipation. What a trusting
little mousie, thought Sophie.
Despite herself she had to admire him, just a
little—but instantly thought better of it. What am I
thinking? He’s a mouse. He’s nothing!
She shook out her wings a little and said, “Well,
Timley Mouse, I will keep my promise not to eat you,
but you have ruined Lulu’s cape and you are NOT
going with me on my quest. Go home. I am just going
to write a little note to Grandfather so he won’t worry,
and then I will be on my way.”
She grabbed the paper Timley had been using as
a megaphone, ignoring the little blue mouse tracks
now scattered across the other side, and scribbled
a quick note. She grabbed her suitcase, thrust her
straw hat (which had fallen off when she’d tumbled)
back on her head, and made straight for the door.
“WAIT! Let me go with you! PALEEASE!”
Sophie swiveled her head around, startled by the
mouse’s begging tone. “No! Mice and owls do NOT
go on adventures together, and that’s final!” Unsure
why she felt oddly moved by the little creature’s
pitiful plea, she fluttered quickly to the door, trying
to shake it off. He is just a mouse, he is just a mouse,
she thought.
Timley, however, could not take ‘No’ for an answer.
Somehow, Sophie’s quest and his hope for adventure
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had become one and the same. He had faced the GHM
and lived to tell about it; if she was his protector and
companion, he could go anywhere.
“NOOOO!” he yelled at the top of his squeaky voice.
His toenails scritched and scratched on the wood
floor as he raced faster than he had ever run before.
He scampered up the table leg of her bedside table,
then leaped through the knot-hole window, just as
Sophie slammed the door shut.
“WAIT FOR MEEEE!”
The owl, who had hopped her way to the end of a
long branch (rather slowly, as she herself had no idea
where to go first on her quest), turned sharply at the
sound, gaping in astonishment as the mouse torpedoed himself down the branch.
Sophie pulled up her talons from the branch,
pushed her wings up and out, and took off, taking
Timley’s dreams with her.
“Come back here, you scalawag, you Great Horned
Monster,” Timley squeaked. “I’m not finished with
you yet!” With that, he ran full-speed to the end of
the branch—and leaped into the air.
Sophie, so startled that she paused in mid-air for
just a moment, looked back in time to see the mouse
jump.
“Foolish, brave little mousie,” she said aloud.
She turned her head and flew on.
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Chapter 8
Just Don’t Look Down
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imley closed his eyes and stretched his tiny
body out as far as it could reach. Expecting to
grasp air, he felt something else instead. He
grabbed it and hung on for dear life by one hand,
then opened his eyes. He was swinging from one of
the long black ribbons on the owl’s hat that floated
out behind her as she flew. The ground far below him
spun around and around. He felt dizzy.
Just don’t look down, he thought. He pulled himself
up slowly, hand over hand, until he reached the brim
of the hat. He flung himself over the edge.
Panting heavily, Timley’s body shook from the top
of his head to the tip of his tail. Even though he was
scared to death, he had only one main thought: I did
it! I DID IT! I’m on a REAL ADVENTURE!
For quite some time, Timley crouched low in the
space between the crown of the hat and the brim,
afraid to move. While the adrenalin pumped through
his tiny body at the excitement of being on a real
adventure, thoughts crowded into his brain. What
would the GHM do to him when she figured out that
he was in her hat?
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Will she eat me on the spot? Will she dump me out
just to watch me go splat on the ground? What did she
say that mice were good for? Oh yeah—sport. I bet
it would be GREAT sport to watch me fall 300 feet to
certain death.
Eventually, however, his heart stopped pounding
and his knees stopped shaking, and he took courage
from the sheer fact that the owl flew on. She doesn’t
know I’m here, Timley thought triumphantly. She’s
still flying, and that means I’M flying!
Tingling now with excitement, he slowly pulled
himself up and looked over the hat brim. Blow me
down! He wanted to shriek; he wanted to scream!
He bit down on his own hat to keep from making a
single squeak. He watched the Park disappear as the
owl soared in between buildings that were taller than
he had ever imagined. Way, way down—a long, very
long, way down—was the ground. Now the people
look like little mice—ha!
The sun broke free from the horizon and chased
away the dimness of the pre-dawn sky. As they flew
ever higher, Timley craned his neck and tried to take
in the whole City at once. A cool breeze tickled his
whiskers as it rushed past his face. He held on tight
to the crisp-looking cherries which, fortunately, were
fastened quite securely to the upturned brim of the
yellow straw hat. For the moment, at least, life was
sweet, and his freedom tasted as delicious as the
cherries looked.
Timley lifted his face to the new day and smiled.
This was so worth it.
Sophie, meanwhile, did not feel quite so triumphant. Flying high above the very large City, she
realized she had neglected to think about one rather
important question: how exactly does one go on
a quest? Her one and only idea was to fly past the
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church again, but this time it was unlit, and shut
tight.
“This is hopeless!” she said suddenly, twisting
her head around from side to side as she always did
when she needed to think. Startled, Timley nearly fell
out of her hat. “Maybe this was a dumb idea after all.
Even if the church was open, I could never go inside.
What was I thinking? Rats. Maybe Grandfather was
right—as usual.”
She sighed in defeat and swooped right, about to
do a U-turn back to the Park. A gleaming band of
blue glistened in between some of the skyscrapers in
the dawn’s early light. The Harbor.
She changed her mind and flew toward it.
Row after row of small sailboats, their short masts
sticking up from the water, crowded into a marina.
Several large vessels were tied up to old wooden piers
with thick ropes. Heavily salted air, mixed with a
strong fishy odor, greeted her nose. Seagulls played
on the air currents, and they begged and cried.
One very large ship had drawn a crowd. It was a
tall ship with furled sails; not three, not four, but
five tall masts stretched toward the sky. An ovalshaped wooden crow’s nest crowned the center mast.
The loose edges of the furled sails flapped in the light
breeze as if to say, “The sea, the sea! Let’s go! I want
to be at sea!”
Timley was beside himself with glee. Still not daring
to make a sound, he waved his pirate hat wildly in
the air and thought, It’s a PIRATE SHIP!
A tugboat stood ready to guide the ship, the Princess
Clipper, out of the Harbor. Lively music stirred the
air. The upper deck had a small blue swimming pool
in the middle of it. A large banner hung above it.
Sophie read the words on it aloud:
“‘Holy Land Tour’—hoo hoo! I don’t believe it!
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Maybe my luck is changing! This ship is sailing to
a whole land that is holy! Maybe I can learn everything there is to know about holy things there!” The
owl sounded breathless with excitement. “Maybe this
is the ‘something great’ that I’ve been waiting for;
something even Grandfather has never done. If I get
on this ship and go see this Holy Land—wherever,
and whatever, it is—Grandfather will never be able to
treat me like an owlet EVER AGAIN.”
Timley, unseen in the owl’s hat, started to shake.
He had never heard Sophie sound so determined
and serious about anything before, and it completely
unnerved him. From what she was saying, his teeny
tiny adventure was about to take a giant leap into a
full-fledged trip of a lifetime.
Timley, wondering if he should make a run for it
back to the Park, looked back at the tall buildings of
the City; morning clouds, edged with pink and gold,
were mirrored in their shiny windows. His green Park,
his own tree, lay somewhere beyond those buildings.
Could I find my way home? But, even if I could,
every hungry crow and alley cat just waking up for the
day would try to chase me down.”
He looked back toward the ship. Excited, happy
people waved goodbye to families and friends on the
pier, who waved back.
They are going on an adventure.
He twisted his hat in his hands.
I deserve an adventure, too. I’m a pirate, blast it—
and my ship has come in. I am going to be on it!
He slapped his hat back on his head. For a little,
tiny mouse who had never been more than ten feet
away from his tree in his entire life (and that, he
blushed to think, had been with his mother), these
were the biggest, most rebellious thoughts he had
ever had.
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I will be free, he thought. I WILL BE FREE.
Sophie, meanwhile, looked down at her necklace.
It shone bright against her mottled brown wing feathers. “Grandfather, hoo hoo hooey to you! I’m going
to find out about things even you don’t know. I don’t
care how far away I have to go or how long it takes
me!”
And with that, she flew straight to the ship.
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Chapter 9
Ahoy, Matey!
C
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risp white sails, now joyfully unfurled, flapped
and filled with the brisk sea breezes. White
foam danced high against the sides of the ship
as it sliced through the water. The Princess Clipper
was under way.
High up on the tallest mast, Sophie perched on the
edge of a crow’s nest. From that viewpoint, Timley
caught a glimpse of a tiny stripe of green behind the
receding gray stripe of the City.
The Park. My tree. Home. I’ll probably never see it
again.
Despite his brave, defiant words a short time
before, he was suddenly unable to bear that thought.
The little mouse turned his tiny face away from home
and the guilt he felt at leaving his family so abruptly,
and he looked toward the sky and the open ocean
and his freedom. He lifted his arms from the brim
of Sophie’s hat and stretched them out as far as he
could. He wanted to feel the full strength of the sun
and the wind.
“E-url, e-url,” a high-pitched voice cried. “Ain’t this
a funny sight now? An owl headed out to sea, and a
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little gray mouse hitchin’ a ride in her hat!”
A splotchy gray-and-white seagull with rather
tattered feathers landed on the edge of the crow’s
nest. Timley leaped from Sophie’s hat and scampered down into the center of a thick rope coiled in
the bottom. Sophie, seeing him for the first time,
screeched as only an owl can.
“Hee hee,” the seagull continued to the owl. “Ain’t
never seen nothin’ like it in all my days, and I been
’round the block a few times, if y’know what I mean.
Now, ain’t you and your shy little friend lost? Oh,
where are my manners—the name’s Salty Sam.” He
held a wing out to Sophie, who touched it with one
of hers.
Sophie, still recovering, tried to regain her
manners. “Nice to meet you, Salty Sam,” she replied
politely. “My name is Sophie Topfeather, and I just
flew in from the Park, just south of the big bend in
the River. Maybe you know my grandfather, the Great
Wise Horned Owl of the Park? But as for that mouse,
I have no idea how he managed to get in my hat—
owls are not friends with mice!”
The seagull nodded. “That would be mighty peculiar, yes, indeedy. So, you are from the Park. Been
there myself a few times. The pickin’s are better in
the Harbor, though. Sure love the French fries at
the fish ’n chips place! But your granddaddy—why,
everybody knows him! He’s legendary. He saved my
Uncle Benny from a real pickle a few years back. I’ve
never met him, though. That would be sumpin’ else,
havin’ the Great Wise One for a grandfather.”
Sophie looked away and rolled her eyes. Why did
everyone have to say that?
“Great day to be at sea, eh?” the seagull went on,
not noticing anything amiss. “Had to take a spin
around the Big Water before headin’ back to the
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City. Land sakes, I’ve lost my manners again, talkin’
your ears off. Where you two headed now? I’ve flown
around this Harbor for many a year, and I ain’t never
seen an owl on a ship before—mouse or no mouse.”
The seagull hopped down onto the top rope of
the coil where Timley was hiding. “By the way, gray
mouse, I know you can hear me. Are you crazy in the
head or sumpin’? Hitchin’ a ride with an owl—it just
ain’t done, leastways not by someone who values his
life. Sounds to me like you’ve got a story in you, and I
got time to hear it. Don’t worry now, I just ate breakfast and I ain’t got no room for no mouse.”
Timley poked his nose out of the coil of rope and
very cautiously started telling his story. His tongue
loosened, however, when it became clear that neither
the owl nor the seagull was going to eat him—not
anytime soon, at least. All of his frustrations over his
lack of freedom at home came pouring out.
Sophie, finding the seagull to be such a wonderful
listener, began to tell her story as well, and Salty Sam
looked from one to the other and back again, trying
to follow them both.
“I went to Grandfather for advice! Even though
he’s all I’ve got after that hurricane took my parents
away, he gives the squirrels’ problems more serious
attention than—”
“I didn’t even get to go to the Fair, and I try to do
what she says, but I can’t stay trapped in the roots
forev—”
“All Grandfather could say was ‘hooey’ and you
can only imagine how insulted I—”
“All of my friends are running around the Park by
themselves and all my mother can say is ‘No!’”
Together they ended their stories with: “But I won’t
be treated like a BABY anymore!”
Sophie gaped at Timley, who blinked calmly up at
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her. This was the first time Sophie had heard Timley’s
side of the story.
Timley, of course, had known Sophie’s feelings
quite well for some time, because of her habit of
thinking out loud, and his habit of spying on her.
The owl, though, was speechless for what seemed a
very long time. It had never occurred to her that she
and this little gray mouse might have something in
common. Finally, Sophie spoke up. “We are going to
show them, aren’t we Timley?”
It was Timley’s turn to gape at Sophie. Did she just
say we?
“Salty Sam, could you do us a favor?” Sophie
spoke in a whisper to the seagull.
He nodded and said, “Sure thing! You can count
on your ol’ pal, Salty Sam.”
As soon as the seagull waved good-bye and flew
off, Sophie and Timley found they couldn’t keep
their eyes open another minute. The sun had moved
higher overhead; it was way past both of these night
creatures’ bedtimes. Timley found a cozy spot to
sleep deep inside the coil of rope, and Sophie leaned
against it, pulling one of her scarves out of her suitcase for a warm cover.
Their emotions over the past twenty-four hours
had been as loopity-loop as the rollercoaster at the
Fair, but before Timley turned in for the day, he
pulled out his toothpick sword, looked at Sophie, and
cried in his loudest voice: “Ahoy, matey! We’ve set sail
for fame and fortune and adventure!”
Sophie giggled and said, “Foolish, brave little
pirate mousie. I will be the laughingstock of the Park
if anyone hears about this. Promise me that you’ll
never tell anyone about this, ever.”
Timley reached out with his sword and touched
her outstretched wing. “I do hereby solemnly swear
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this vow of secrecy. If I break it, I will walk the plank.”
Sophie, suddenly solemn herself, remembered the
vows from the wedding ceremony and made her own
vow. “I do hereby solemnly swear not to eat you, till
death do us part.”
“Good night, matey,” Timley said.
“Sleep tight.” Sophie yawned wide and pulled her
covers up to her chin.
B
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ack in the tree, Mother Mouse went down the
hall to Timley’s room. “It is so quiet in there,” she
muttered to herself as she knocked softly on Timley’s
bedroom door. “Timley, it’s time for breakfast—toast
and willow root tea today.”
There was no answer. Still asleep?
Mother Mouse quietly entered the room and
looked with approval at Timley’s neatly made bed.
“Not asleep. Where could he be?” She looked around.
“What a good boy. He cleaned his whole room.”
When she glanced over at his desk, however,
she gasped loud enough for Father Mouse to come
running.
“A letter? For us? What can this mean?”
She set her tray down on the desk before sitting
herself down on Timley’s bed, which was a very good
thing, because as she read Timley’s note, she started
trembling all over.
“Father Mouse! Father Mouse! This is terrible, just
terrible! What are we to do?”
“Let me see the note, dear.” Father Mouse answered
calmly, reaching out his paw. He was quite used to
occasional outbursts of this type.
As she handed him the note, she burst into tears.
“Timley has run away from home! Where, oh where,
did I go wrong?”
“Calm down, dear, let’s hear what Timley has to
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say,” Father Mouse said, reaching for the paper.
Dear Father and Mother,
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PLEASE don’t be mad at me. I am out of the tree for
just a teeny, tiny adventure, like all of my friends. I
will be back by supper and first light. PLEASE don’t
worry about me. I’ll be fine.
Love,
Your son,
Timley
O
P.S. Please, please, PLEASE don’t be mad at me.
“See dear, Timley has not run away. He says he’ll
be back for supper, and I am very sure he will keep
his word. He is a good boy, you know. Look, he even
cleaned his room before he left. I am not one to say
I told you so, but haven’t I been telling you lately
that he is practically grown up and needs to be given
some responsibility? All of his friends have been
scurrying around the Park looking for homes of their
own—surely you have seen them yourself? Come, my
dear. Let’s not panic. Timley will be home for supper;
he said so.”
With that assurance and a gentle squeeze around
Mother Mouse’s shoulders, Father Mouse went back
to his breakfast. But Mother Mouse continued to sit
on Timley’s bed. She cried, softly, so her husband
wouldn’t be disturbed, and prepared to wait all night
for first light.
Breakfast turned to lunchtime. Still no sign of
Timley. With a heavy heart, Mother Mouse prepared
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her son’s favorite dinner of rye grass seeds and
watermelon rind. Outside the tree roots, the night
sky lightened a little and fuzzy tree shapes appeared
in the dim light of the approaching dawn.
Timley’s place at the table remained empty.
Mother Mouse fought the urge to panic when she
finally got up to clear the dishes.
“I knew we should have gone looking for him immediately! Oh, where can he be?” she wailed.
“It’s time for us to go to bed,” Father Mouse
suggested. “Perhaps Timley got a little lost and needs
a bit more time to make his way home. If he isn’t
back by the time we wake up at dusk tonight, we will
take turns looking for him. We won’t be much good to
him if we are exhausted ourselves.”
Mother Mouse reluctantly agreed. After a restless
day of pretending to sleep, she rose at dusk and went
directly to Timley’s room. Just as before, the room
was neat as a pin; no one had slept in the carefully
made bed. The sharpness of it all pierced her very
heart. How she wished he was home, playing and
messing it all up again! She sank down on his bed.
“Mousekin, my mousekin, where are you, my little
mousekin?”
Father Mouse, who had not slept very well either,
despite his brave words earlier to his wife, came in
and sat down beside her. “Have a nice warm cup of
tea with me, and some walnuts. You’ll feel better, and
then one of us can go look for him.”
She did feel somewhat better after her breakfast,
and announced that she would take the first shift
going out to look for Timley. The look in her eyes told
Father Mouse that the matter was quite settled. She
tied her blue and yellow floral scarf under her chin
and left the tree. Skittering from bush to bush and
tree to tree, she systematically made her way around
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the Park.
“Timley!... Timley!”
She called out his name, over and over again.
She searched all night. As the darkness disappeared
again into the daylight, she began to grow very weary,
and less cautious about her own safety. She knew
she should have gone home to let Father Mouse take
a turn, but she just couldn’t bear to stop searching
for Timley herself.
Seeing a tree stump nearby, she scampered up
to the top of it. “Maybe I need to look around from
a higher vantage point,” she said to herself. “And I
can rest for just a moment or two.” Her feet ached,
but mostly her hope flagged. As she rested, the full
weight of her worry came crashing down on top of her
like a boot on a spider.
“Timley, precious mouseling, where are you? How
could you do this to me? Where are you, where are
you? Timley, Timley!” Mother Mouse called out to him
again and again. She finally broke down and sobbed
into her hands.
In her despair, she never noticed the large shape
that silently glided closer and closer toward her until
it seemed to come out of nowhere and buzzed over
her head, the enormous owl’s ferocious talons brushing the tops of her ears.
“Aagh!” Mother Mouse screamed. She looked frantically from side to side for a safe place to run; her
feet, however, remained frozen in fright to the top of
the stump.
The menacing creature made a U-turn and came
directly at her, toes and talons outstretched.
Mother Mouse closed her eyes and waited for the
end.
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Chapter 10
Sky Terrors
M
O
adam Mouse,” boomed a voice above her.
Mother Mouse, still firmly planted to the top
of the stump in her fear, trembled, her eyes
squeezed shut. “Madam Mouse, am I correct in my
conclusion that you are looking for someone?”
Not believing her ears, the shaking mouse squeezed
her eyes shut and hoped for a quick demise.
“Excuse me, please. Mouse, open your eyes and
talk to me. Are you looking for someone?”
Astonished, Mother Mouse forced her eyes open
and blinked up at the enormous owl, quite unable to
speak.
“May I?” The owl pointed to a spot on the stump
with his wing. Without waiting for an answer, he
perched.
“I just flew by my granddaughter’s tree to talk
with her. She had visited with me earlier, you see,
and I’m afraid when she left she was very upset with
me; perhaps you can understand how these young
ones can be sometimes. I wished to make amends, if
I could.” The great owl shook his head slowly. “I was
too-oo late, I’m afraid. When I looked in her window,
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I saw things scattered about everywhere. It looked
like something terrible had happened there, so I went
in. A red cape lay on the floor; one corner had been
chewed off by what looked like very sharp mouse
teeth, and my granddaughter is quite missing. I found
this very short note on a scrap of paper, but there is
no mention of a destination—just a desire to go on a
quest. Tiny blue mouse tracks run all over the other
side of the paper. When I saw you in distress, it made
me wonder if you know that tree, and perhaps even
what may have transpired there.”
He showed Mother Mouse the note. She could
barely focus on it; she was still in quite a state of
shock, sure she was to be eaten at any moment.
Her surprise at the sight of the blue pawprints
scattered all over the paper loosened her tongue.
“Oh me! Oh my! Those are Timley’s tracks, my son’s
tracks! I am sure of it. See?” She pointed with a paw
to one of the prints. “One of his toes is shorter on one
paw than on the other—he had a little accident when
he was younger. What on earth was he doing in that
owl’s apartment?”
“That owl is named Sophie, and I am very worried
about her as well.” He leaned a little closer toward
the mouse.
The nearness of the huge bird sent her trembling
all over again.
“Y-yes, I apologize Great Owl. I-it’s just that I d-do
know that tree very well. W-we live in its roots and I
c-can’t imagine what Timley may have been d-doing
there. He has gone missing also, and I am so worried
about him. He has always been such a good boy—
growing up so fast, you know.” She hung her head a
little and slowly shook it from side to side. “To t-tell
you the truth, he wasn’t very happy with me yesterday, either. I have been too afraid to let him grow up.
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He has a lively imagination, and such an interest in
adventure. He had the one accident already when he
injured his toe, and I was afraid—”
She stopped rather abruptly, nervous and struggling with the reality that she was confiding in an
owl, and such a grand one, at that. Grandfather Owl
looked interested in what she had to say, though, so
she continued.
“S-sir, Timley left us a note, too. He said that he
planned to be home by supper, but that deadline has
obviously come and gone. Do you think there might
be a connection between the two disappearances?”
Before Grandfather Owl could answer her, a gray
and white seagull dove straight towards them out of
the powder blue sky. The owl immediately spread his
wings over the mouse, protecting her from possible
danger.
“Stay out of sight!” he ordered. Mother Mouse
brought her tail under the huge wings, out of sight.
“Who-oo are you-oo,” demanded the owl, “and
what is your business here?”
“E-url, e-url,” called the seagull. He landed on a
branch of an evergreen tree hanging near the stump.
“You can come out, little lady mouse. I seen you
already. Hee hee hee. If it ain’t a mouse and owl
paired up for the second time in a day—and I thought
I had seen it all just this morning. You two must be
the ones I been searching for. A bit o’ luck for ol’
Salty Sam, and ain’t it the truth. It’s the Great Wise
Horned Owl himself, and Mother Mouse, perspectively, I presume.”
“That would be ‘respectively’ and yes, I am the
Great Wise Horned Owl, and this little lady is Timley
Mouse’s mother.” He looked down at Mrs. Mouse,
who now peeked out cautiously from under one wing.
“Please, tell us quickly,” Grandfather Owl contin75
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ued. “Tell us all that you know. When did you see
Sophie and Timley? Are they on their way home? Are
they in some kind of trouble?”
“Hee hee hee. It’s my lucky day, for sure. The Great
Wise Horned Owl himself, standing right here, asking
ol’ Salty the questions! Say, now that I think of it, I’ve
been having some trouble with a certain raven that
keeps snatchin’ my take. You got some Great Wise
Advice as to how I can deal with that thievin’ low life?”
“Not NOW, Salty Sam,” Grandfather said impatiently. “About our children…?”
“Yes, indeedy, where was I? Seems those two have
a hankerin’ for the sea. They’re headin’ for some place
that’s full of holes, let’s see now, what did they call it?
Hee hee! I remember. They’re bound for Swiss Cheese
Land—no, no, Old Sock Land. No, Donut Land! Hee
hee! Haw Haw Haw Haw!”
Salty laughed long and hard at his own jokes.
Grandfather Owl was not amused, and Mother
Mouse, clearly bewildered, looked to the owl for help.
“Salty Sam—excuse me… Excuse me—Salty SAM!
Would you please tell us what you know about our
children in plain English? NO MORE JOKES!”
“I can’t say it no more plainly than I already did.
Sophie and Timley are on a real pretty sailing ship
headed out to sea—goin’ to a place called Hole-y
Land. They asked me to come find you to tell you not
to worry. Oh, and Timley is sorry, but he won’t be
home for supper. That’s it.”
Mother Mouse fainted straightaway.
“Mrs. Mouse! Mrs. Mouse, are you all right?” With
one of his great wings, Grandfather Owl started
fanning the little mouse.
“Seagull, keep an eye out for that ship, do you
hear? If you ever see it again, will you come tell me
immediately? Everyone around here knows where I
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live. Just ask anyone in the Park and they will direct
you. Thank you very much for your information. We
are greatly in your debt. Come back later and we
can discuss your raven situation. I apologize for an
abrupt farewell, but as you can see, I need to attend
to Timley’s mother.”
“Will do, and ’twas no trouble at all, no trouble at
all. E-url, e-url!” The seagull dipped his head in farewell, and was soon just a dot in the sky.
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Chapter 11
Life and Liberty
T
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imley was dozing in that fuzzy time of day
between asleep and awake. He had been having
particularly vivid pirate dreams. Why, it almost
felt like he had a ship for a bed! The rolling motion,
the sound of the wind outside his cozy room, the salty
taste of the air—
“Wait a minute, where am I?” Timley said, licking
his lips. He opened his eyes. He could make out
ghostly white sails floating above his bed, silhouetted in the moonlight. Stars were just beginning to
pop out as the sky darkened. It sure is getting dark
earlier, Timley thought, and then he rubbed his eyes
and blinked again. Where did my tree go?
He scampered up to the top of the rope coil.
“Aagh!” Timley shrieked in a panicked whisper.
An owl was snoring softly just below him. “The Great
Horned Monster! Where am I?” Timley scurried to the
top of the crow’s nest and screeched to a halt.
“Whoa.” A vast sea stretched out in all directions,
the tops of the waves capturing light from the moon
and the starry night sky. “It wasn’t a dream. I am at
sea!” He could barely believe his eyes.
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Suddenly a bell interrupted his thoughts. The P.A.
system crackled to life.
Kr-r-r-k—Ding, dong, ding!
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A sweet-as-syrup lady’s voice spoke through a
speaker system throughout the ship: “Welcome
aboard the Princess Clipper, ladies and gentlemen.
We hope you have enjoyed the first day of this 21-day
cruise across the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean
Sea to our destination port of Haifa, Israel, in the
Holy Land.”
It all came back to the mouse in a flash: the promise
he had made in his note to his parents, which he
had not kept; the terrifying yet exhilarating encounter with the owl in her living room; being carried aloft
holding onto nothing but long black ribbons and
then flying high above the City in the brim of a yellow
straw hat, and, finally, talking to a seagull on the
edge of a crow’s nest.
Just in case Sophie was equally confused when
she woke up, Timley decided to wait in a slightly safer
spot. Returning to the safety of the rope coil, he took
out the red bandana, unwrapped the cookies and
nuts, and began nibbling at one of the cookies. Home
washed over him in a wave of both guilt and comfort.
“The blue beads, no, the pink ones,” Sophie
suddenly murmured in her sleep. “Rabbit, mouse, or
crow for breakfast? No, better not eat mice, can’t eat
mice. Why no mice? Can’t eat mice… Oh! Wh-where
am I?” Sophie stammered as she finally woke up.
She twisted her head from side to side. “Hoo hoo! I
remember now, I do-oo, I do-oo! I’m on an important
quest, it’s true. I wish Grandfather could see us now!”
At the word ‘us’ she remembered that she was not
alone on this journey.
“Mousie? Where did you go?”
Timley peeked out from the center of the coiled
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rope. Crumbs from home lingered on his whiskers.
“There you are. No fair! You’ve been eating already.
I’m hungry. I’m going to go find something to eat.”
Perching on the edge of the crow’s nest, she saw
the silver glimmer of a school of fish swimming close
to the surface of the water, and thought she’d try her
hand at fishing. “I’ve always heard that sashimi is
tasty,” Sophie said. “It can’t be that difficult to catch
a fish.”
Fishing, however, was harder than it looked, especially for an owl who lived in a nice green park with
lots of rabbits and rats and ravens for easy main
courses. After many near misses, wet talons and
soggy feathers, she finally returned empty-handed
and hungrier than ever.
Timley, still skittish around the owl and not sure
he could really trust her not to eat him if she was
especially hungry (her words ‘mice are tasty snacks’
had a way of echoing around his head), returned to
his stash of nuts and cookies down at the bottom
of the rope coil. Opening his bandana, he tossed an
acorn nut cookie over the side.
“You can have some of my food,” he said.
“Really? Thank you, little mousie,”
“Sure—and you can call me Timley.”
Sophie swallowed the tiny cookie in one gulp.
“Timley?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you feel terrible when you are treated like
a baby?”
“Yes! It makes me feel so small.”
Sophie giggled. “As small as a mousie?”
Timley laughed, too. It felt good to let go of some
of the nervous feelings he had whenever Sophie was
near.
“Timley?”
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“What?”
“I was just thinking, even though it’s kind of hard
to think with my stomach growling so much, but I
was just thinking that it would be very lonely to go on
a quest by myself. I am actually glad you are here.”
“Can I call you Sophie? It’s a little nicer than what
I usually call you.”
“What’s that?”
“GHM.”
“GHM?”
“Great Horned Monster!”
Sophie spread out her wings to their full 5-foot
long wingspan, and then made her eyes as round and
scary as she could.
“Oo-oo-oo-oo,” she hooted, in as ghostly a voice as
she could muster.
Timley leaped back into the rope coil. It took him
but a moment to realize she was only kidding around,
and he came back up laughing. “You got me that
time, matey!”
Sophie giggled, too.
“My stomach is still making gurgle noises,” she
said, finally, when they stopped laughing.
“I’m still hungry, too,” Timley said. He reached for
his pirate hat, sword, and eye patch. “I’ll go scout out
the ship’s food supply and be back before you can
say scalawag.”
He scurried down the line like an old sea hand.
“This is my chance to prove to the GHM, I mean,
Sophie, that I can be useful to her,” Timley thought.
“If I can bring her back something good to eat, she’ll
be extra-glad I’m here.”
She had promised not to eat him, and she was
certainly acting more friendly, but Sophie was, after
all, an owl. Old habits are not that easy to break. He
was sure that eating mice was an old habit for an owl,
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and being cautious around a predator was an equally
old habit for a mouse. Determined to show his worth,
he scampered back down the line and headed toward
the galley. It seemed a very long time, however, before
he came back to the crow’s nest with a full report.
“Blow me down, Sophie! There’s not just one, but
two galleys (that’s ship talk for kitchen), and two poolside cafés! This isn’t just a ship—it’s heaven! There’s
only one problem. This ship is too clean. I think they
could even beat Mother in a neat contest! There was
even a sign in the galley that read, A clean ship is a
happy ship, and boy, do they ever seem to mean it.
They must get out the broom the second anything
hits the floor. The tables, the counters, the floors—
everything is spotless! We might be in trouble.”
Timley continued, though, with a proud look on
his face. “I thought I was going to come back emptyhanded, but, look! I found this for you!” He reached
behind his back and produced a piece of raw chicken
with a flourish.
It was a rather small piece of food for an owl, but
it had required no small effort on Timley’s part to get
it and bring it all the way back to the crow’s nest. If
Fast Marvin, the long-whiskered mouse at the Fair—
the one who had proclaimed Timley a scared ‘nambypamby mama’s boy’—if he had seen Timley run in
between the chef’s own feet to get that piece of chicken
after it barely hit the floor, not to mention carrying it
tucked into his sash while climbing the lines back up
to a dizzying height, and then to present it as a gift to
an owl, why, his little eyes would’ve bugged clear out
of his head in disbelief.
“Thank you, Timley. That was really nice of you.”
And she gulped it down in a single swallow.
Timley, who could nibble for quite some time on a
single seed, looked at Sophie in amazement. “Don’t
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you have to chew it or anything?”
“No, that’s just the way owls eat. We just gulp it
down and then spit up the bones and feathers and
stuff that we can’t digest. It comes up in a little pellet.”
“Awesome!” Timley said, with genuine admiration.
“That’s really cool!”
Renewed by the raw chicken, Sophie decided to
try fishing again. She was certain that all she needed
was a little more practice.
Timley decided to go exploring again, this time
less focused on food. He crept along the edge of a
narrow, dim hallway. On one side was a row of small
doors. They all looked closed. On the other side of the
hallway was a short wall topped with a shiny brass
railing. Beyond that, the sea stretched out to the
horizon. The last door at the end of the corridor was
open just a crack and had a sign on it. Timley read it:
“Hmmm—LIBRARY.”
He poked his nose inside. It was dark and looked
deserted. He ventured in.
The room inside was small, but cozy and warm,
and books filled the dark wood shelves that climbed
the walls. His excitement grew as he read off some of
the titles:
Caribbean Pirate Adventures
Nasty Nor’easters and Scary Scalawags
Penguin Antics in Antarctica
It’s Mine! Gold Bullion, Silver Ingots and Other
Shipwrecked Treasure
C-re-ak… the door swung open slightly. Timley’s
heart thumped nearly out of his chest. The sudden
crackling of the P.A. system made whoever had
opened the door stop in their tracks.
Krrr-rk. Ding, dong, ding!
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“Grab your favorite dance partner,” the syrupy
voice said, “and come on down to the main deck for
dance lessons. Tonight—the Macarena and Cha Cha
Slide. Even if you don’t like to dance, the Princess
Clipper’s famous dessert buffet begins at 8:30 pm,
same location. See you there!”
Timley, frozen like a statue, overheard a woman’s
voice on the other side of the door:
“Amanda, honey, the dance lessons on the deck
are about to start, and I know you have been looking
forward to the strawberry icecream at the dessert
buffet. We can come back to the library tomorrow.”
“Icecream, icecream!” a little girl’s voice responded.
She began jumping up and down.
Their footsteps faded away.
“Whew! That was a close one,” Timley whispered in
the dark room. “Dessert buffet, they said? Sounds to
me like the next port of call!”
With a lingering glance toward the bookshelves
and comfy chairs, he went back to the crow’s nest to
find Sophie and tell her about the library and dessert
buffet. He also hoped she had met with better success
on her second fishing expedition.
“Timley! Up here!” Sophie called out to him from
somewhere above the crow’s nest the moment he
crawled over its edge. “Isn’t this simply grand?”
He looked up to see where her voice was coming
from. The music and bright lights from the deck
below had pulled her in to the dance lessons. It soon
became apparent that she was an excellent student.
High among the masts, unseen by the people below,
Sophie was doing the Macarena with the best of them.
Timley, having just snagged a sight of the dessert
buffet from the crow’s nest, said, “Never mind the
dancing—check out that buffet! Cakes, puddings,
pies, and piles of fresh blackberries!”
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At that moment a man wearing a tall white chef’s
hat entered the deck, his arms wrapped around a
huge, crystal bowl of strawberry, chocolate and
vanilla icecream topped with luxurious whipped
cream. He set it down in the center of the table and
sunk an enormous silver spoon in the bowl.
“Come dance with me!” Sophie begged, a little out
of breath.
“No! I’ve got better things to do. Did you see that
buffet table?”
“Be careful,” Sophie called out after him as his
tail curled over the edge of the crow’s nest. “Where
there’s food, there are people!”
From a dark, shadowy corner, Timley watched the
people go to the desserts and then carry their plates
to small tables stationed around a swimming pool.
Timley licked his lips.
I wish I didn’t have to wait until all the people are
finished eating, he thought to himself. Why should I
get the leftovers?
The children, like Timley, cared much more about
the huge bowl of icecream than about the dancing.
They had lined up in a flash as soon as the dessert
table was declared open by the person wearing the
tall white hat. Each one, in turn, took up the giant
spoon and put a sweet fluffy heap into his bowl.
The last in line was a child no older than three or
four—Amanda, the girl from the library. She looked
up at the big bowl, then toward her mother and
father on the dance floor, then at the bowl again. Her
parents were in the middle of the Macarena, laughing
and smiling at each other and paying very little attention to Amanda at that moment.
Determined to help herself, the little girl stuck her
tongue out of the corner of her mouth, reached up as
high as she could reach, took the spoon in both of her
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hands and flung its contents in the direction of her
bowl. She left the table with a proud grin, oblivious to
the fact that most of the sweet white cream from her
giant spoonful was splattered across the deck.
PLOP! A large white glob landed right in front of
Timley’s nose. Timley, still in a dark corner, sniffed
at it cautiously and looked around. He stuck his tiny
pink tongue out for a quick lick. He wanted more.
But wait! Only two inches further was another!
Then another! Before he knew it, Timley had followed
the sweet trail all the way across the floor. He didn’t
stop until he bumped into the buffet table leg.
That’s when he noticed it: a huge, luscious wave of
whipped cream hanging heavily over the edge of the
enormous crystal bowl. It looked as if at any moment
it would fall of its own weight on to the table.
For Timley, the world ceased to exist. He heard
no dance music. He saw no people. He forgot about
Sophie and adventures and quests and even the ship.
In the whole world at that moment, the little mouse
was only aware of one thing: the wave of whipped
cream that hung precipitously over the edge of that
big, clear bowl. Oh—and one more thing. When the
little girl let go of the spoon, it had come to rest with
its handle down and its scoop-end hanging off the
rim of the large bowl. It looked, to Timley, like a playground slide made just for a little mouse—made just
for him.
I bet if I crawl up that handle and stretch out just
so, I can reach that cream that’s hanging on the edge
of the bowl.
Timley licked his lips again. Without another
moment’s hesitation, he scurried up the table leg and
then up the long spoon handle. It was a great plan, fit
for a brave pirate, except for one small problem: the
slide turned into a teeter totter when he crept closer
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to the rim of the serving bowl. As soon as Timley put
his weight near the bowl of the spoon, he slipped into
it and gravity had its way.
“Aaagh—blub—glub—”
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Chapter 12
The Pursuit of Happiness
O
O
n this first night of dance lessons, the teacher
worked hard to get people comfortable with
the idea that looking rather silly on the dance
floor was part of the fun when learning a new dance.
A few brave people tried it out right away, while most
of the others sat at little tables around the dance floor
eating their dessert. After much coaxing and pleading by the people in the first group who insisted that
the dance really wasn’t that hard to learn, eventually
most of them would join in, too. It was more fun to
look silly, even if they made lots of mistakes, than
to sit around watching other people being silly and
making lots of mistakes.
By the middle of the evening everyone was laughing
and moving to the music, and it didn’t really matter
if the teacher could no longer recognize the moves
as any particular dance. Dads were happy that their
daughters were smiling at them, and moms danced
with their sons and their husbands, and they were
just happy that everyone else was happy.
Amanda’s mother loved to dance. She and her
husband were in the first group of dancers. Her
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husband, however, happened to be quite fond of
whipping cream himself. When he saw their daughter
carrying her bowl across the deck with a very proud
expression on her face, he left the dance floor at once
to help her eat it. It was some time later when his wife
decided she was sufficiently exhausted and could
think about a little dessert herself.
Still laughing and a bit out of breath from all the
dancing, she crossed over the floor toward the buffet
table.
“Honey, would you like some berries, too?” she
called cheerfully to her husband.
“No, that’s all right. I’ll help Amanda finish off this
one here.”
The woman spooned some blackberries into a clean
bowl and then reached for the spoon in the icecream
and whipped cream. Timley was just emerging from
the midst of it, still sitting in the bowl of the spoon,
sputtering and coughing and wiping cream from his
eyes and face.
He blinked up at the woman.
“Aagh! MOUSE! There’s a MOUSE in the ICECREAM!”
shrieked the woman. She dropped the spoon back into
the mound of icecream, covering Timley completely
in it once again. Everyone started talking at once and
whisked away their children’s bowls of berries and
cream, worried that they, too, had scooped up a little
mouse.
Timley came up for air again. He wiped the icecream
away from his face, then looked wildly about for an
escape route. The direct route, up the sides of the
bowl, was too steep and slippery; he fell right back
down into the middle. Timley waded through the
heavy cream to get back to the large serving spoon
before he could get dunked again, then scurried up
the handle, took a flying leap off the rim of the bowl
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and zigzagged across the deck as fast as he could go.
He left tiny white tracks everywhere he went.
People leapt out of his way. Others got in front of
him as if to stop him, except that once the mouse was
in front of them they didn’t know what to do. They
couldn’t just reach down and grab him—he was far
too slippery, still covered in whipping cream. Everyone resorted to simply leaping about, yelling ‘Mouse!
Mouse!’ whenever he came near them. Timley skittered here and there, dodging all the feet and hands
that swirled about him.
Sophie, high up in the masts, couldn’t tell at first
what had happened. “Why on earth did the music
stop so abruptly? How roo-ude! Maybe I’d better take
a look at what’s going on down there,” she said aloud,
as usual, to herself.
She swooped lower, not making a sound—a strategy that was usually very effective when she was
sneaking up on an unsuspecting supper. People,
however, were a little harder to fool.
“It’s an OWL! It’s an OWL and a MOUSE!”
People shouted and pointed, up and down, up and
down; some at the mouse on the ground, some at
the owl swooping above the deck. Sophie finally saw
a frantic, cream-coated mouse in the middle of the
commotion. Thrusting her wings back and her talons
forward, she silently and expertly closed in on the
crowd on the deck. The group of people moved away
from the mouse, leaving him blinking and frozen in
the center of the circle. In one smooth motion, Sophie
closed her talons around Timley and made a beeline
for the crow’s nest.
The people were simply abuzz with the news, and
soon everyone on the ship, from the cooks in the
galleys to the Captain on the bridge, knew all about
it.
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“Wow! We have our very own owl!”
“Did you see the way he swooped down on to that
mouse? Amazing!”
Dance lessons were over for the night. The deckhands got out their mops and buckets and headed
for the sticky, gooey deck and the dancers headed
back to their cabins. The cleaning crew debated over
what to do about the mouse.
“Maybe we ought to set some traps,” one said to
another as they paused for a moment, leaning on
their mops.
“Nah,” said the other. “The owl will make short work
of that mouse. We won’t be bothered by it again.” The
matter decided, they got back to work.
Back in the crow’s nest, Timley tried to find the
words to thank Sophie.
“You saved my life—you actually saved my life! I’ve
been so afraid that you would eat me, but you actually saved me. I won’t ever forget it, and I won’t ever
forget you.”
Sophie waved her wing, as if to brush aside his
praise. “It’s nothing, mousie. I mean Timley. I have a
feeling we have a long quest ahead of us, that’s all,
and I decided that I don’t want to do it by myself. Just
don’t make me save you every day, because I won’t!”
Timley didn’t need to be told twice. No one ever
suspected again that he was still there. Of course,
a few people scratched their heads trying to remember if they had actually finished off that last bite of
toast or tiny bit of sweet melon on the plate they had
set down next to their deck chair, but Timley himself
was never caught again. A little wiser, he and Sophie
worked out a daily routine of sleeping, eating, reading
in the library, (and for Sophie, dancing), that kept
them safe and happy.
Sophie was also delighted to discover that the
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Princess Clipper was almost as good as the Park for
treasure-hunting. The children on board sometimes
left things lying around and Sophie was an expert
finder. She was particularly pleased with her new
pink and white Princess Clipper logo sun visor (which
she began wearing every day, since Timley didn’t
need to ride in her hat while on board the ship), and
she even found a Princess Clipper logo hand towel
for Timley. Tucked into the coil of rope in the crow’s
nest, it made a perfect bed. A doll-sized deck-chair fit
her perfectly, and she dragged that up to the crow’s
nest for her own bed.
Relaxing in her new chair, sun visor on her head,
zebra-striped sunglasses in place and sipping on a
red fruit juice with a little purple umbrella sticking
out of the top, Sophie decided that life was just about
perfect.
As for the people, ‘Spot the Owl’ became a favorite
game for the rest of the cruise: children pointed to her
excitedly when they saw her flying about the masts at
dusk. Sophie and Timley relaxed and began to have
the time of their lives.
Timley listened intently to the crew and soon
learned their lingo and the names of every part of
the ship. Playing pirate had never been so much
fun. Today, poised on the edge of the crow’s nest, he
stretched out his sword and cried out in his loudest
voice, “Raise the anchors! Hoist the foresail! Man the
lines all you scalawags—a nasty nor’easter is almost
upon us. Aargh! It will be a flogging and the plank for
ye if my gold is dashed upon the rocks. Aargh!”
Sophie, watching, giggled in amusement. “You
silly pirate mousie, you heard the nice lady voice say
just a few days ago that now we are in the Mediterranean Sea. I don’t think they have nor’easters in the
Mediterranean Sea.”
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Timley stood up on the edge of the crow’s nest on
two legs and pretended to hold a telescope up to his
eye. Large, puffy clouds sat on the horizon. Looking
out at them he pointed and said, “There it is! The
nor’easter—it’s coming!”
A strong breeze threw him off balance and he
started to fall over the side. Before Sophie could even
react, however, the quick-thinking mouse thrust
his sword into a crack in between the boards of the
crow’s nest, stopping his fall. He hoisted himself up
and over the railing.
“I’m all right, I’m all right,” Timley said, breathing
hard.
Sophie, whose heart had fled to her stomach to
see him toppling over the edge, got cranky. “You’d
better be careful, little mousie, or you’ll be walking
the plank—and I’m willing to bet that you don’t swim
very well if you’ve spent your whole life in our tree.”
Timley just grinned at her, still panting.
T
his is the life, isn’t it Timley?” Sophie murmured
one night while they were both reading in the
library, which they did almost every night. Three
weeks had passed quickly, and without further incident. The weather stayed fine and the air was warmer
in the Mediterranean Sea. Sophie no longer had a
speck of trouble catching fish for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner, and Timley had figured out so perfectly
how to scavenge for food, even on this spotless ship,
that Mother Mouse wouldn’t have even recognized
him. Even with the exercise scampering like a seaman
around the ship, Timley had gotten rather plump and
was very content.
“Isn’t life just about perfect?” Sophie repeated.
“Don’t bother me now—I’m at the best part! A
huge storm is about to hit Antarctica and the ship is
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surrounded by icebergs the size of skyscrapers!” He
turned the page.
“I wish we could stay on the Princess Clipper
forever,” sighed Sophie, turning another page in her
own book, The Princess Who Couldn’t Sing.
“Me, too,” Timley said. They exchanged a glance
that held, for what seemed a very long time. Timley
looked abruptly back down at his book. “Don’t
b-bother me, I said. I’m t-trying to read.”
I wish we could stay on the Princess Clipper forever,
she had said. Out loud. Timley had been thinking
that very thing at that very moment, but to hear it
said out loud—it scared him very much. And now he
couldn’t concentrate on his book, and he was at the
best part, too!
What if they did stay on the ship? What if they just
kept on sailing, back and forth, back and forth, across
the ocean? Maybe they could fly home, say hello to
everyone, and then return to the ship before it sailed
again! He could have the sea and the sky and his
freedom—forever! Only, what if. . . what if the Clipper
never went back to the City? Or what if his parents
refused to let him go back to the ship with Sophie?
“Sophie, I don’t feel much like reading anymore
tonight. I’m going to bed early. See you back at the
crow’s nest.”
“Suit yourself.” Sophie turned another page.
It was near dawn when Sophie finally returned to
the crow’s nest herself. She was too excited to sleep
quite yet, though, because of some news she had just
overheard.
“Timley, are you awake? Wake up! I’ve got news,”
Sophie said in a loud whisper, shaking Timley gently
with her wingtip.
“What is it?” Timley said with a yawn. “I want to go
back to sleep.”
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“We are landing tomorrow—in the Holy Land! I just
overheard the early morning crew talking about it as
I left the library.”
Tomorrow.
Both Sophie and Timley tossed and turned all day
as they tried to sleep.
Sophie struggled to remember what had been so
important about getting to the Holy Land. Somehow,
in the middle of that great body of water, being on
the ship itself had become reason enough for leaving
home. What could be better than their life on the
Princess Clipper? What else did she need to know?
She looked at her necklace and tried to remember
what she had so desperately wanted to learn about it.
As for Timley, now that the end of the voyage was
upon him, all of the options seemed unbearable: One,
enter an unknown land, with unknown dangers and
the distinct possibility that he would never get home
to his tree in the Park again; or Two, stay on the ship
and maybe make it back to the City—only to probably be grounded for the rest of his life. He pictured
his parents standing in front of the door with their
arms crossed, telling him “NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER,
EVER, EVER AGAIN WILL YOU LEAVE THIS TREE.” His
fear of what the coming day might hold practically
paralyzed the little mouse.
With dusk approaching, they finally woke up properly when the sound system crackled into life.
Kr… Krrk… Ding dong ding!
“Attention, all early birds. Tomorrow morning at
sunrise,” the Nice Lady’s voice said, “please join the
Rabbi for a special Jewish service on the Upper Deck,
starboard side.”
Sophie stirred in her lounge chair bed. Seeing that
she was awake now too, Timley decided to tell her all
the things he had been thinking about through the
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night. Maybe she would know what to do.
“Sophie, I’ve been thinking, and—what’s wrong?”
Sophie had a very odd, faraway look on her face.
She stared past Timley with wide open eyes. Timley
turned to see what had caught her attention.
“Whoa!” The sky burned fiery red and hot pink
and orange. Beyond that it was the deepest possible
shade of blue. The calm water around the Clipper
reflected the dramatic colors almost as vividly as the
sky itself.
Sophie and Timley sat like statues, mesmerized by
the beautiful sight until the darkness finally swallowed the colors up. One by one, stars pricked the
black sky until they looked almost thick enough to
walk upon. Was it a lifetime ago when another starfilled sky had jarred their sense of peace, making
them long for something more?
“Thank you,” Timley finally whispered.
“You’re welcome,” Sophie said, “but for what?”
“Not you, Sophie—Thank you to Whoever painted
this amazing sky tonight!”
“Yes,” Sophie whispered, “if You can hear us,
You’re awesome.” Shivering slightly, she suddenly
knew, with every feather on her head, that they were
not alone.
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Chapter 13
Sky Painter
F
O
ussing your feathers again, are we?” Grandfather’s voice bounced around inside Sophie’s
head. She perched on the edge of the crow’s
nest, watching the dawn break over the eastern
horizon. Normally she would be in bed by now, but
she couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about the sunset
the night before—and what Grandfather would have
said about it.
“The vibrant aerial display of color yesterday
evening, Sophie, was simply the angle of the sun’s
rays to the earth in conjunction with the level of dust
particulates in the atmosphere, and in combination
with the velocity of the wind. It’s all illusion, nothing
more. The notion that someone was watching it with
you, other than the mouse, of course, is just hoohoo-hooey, hoo-hoo-hooey, hoo-hoo-hooey…”
Sophie shook herself to get his voice to stop echoing
about in her mind. She turned from the west, where
shades of pale pink, gold, and gray from the early
morning sky reflected on the calm water, to look
toward the east. She was anxious for her first glimpse
of the Holy Land.
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As she did, she mused out loud, “Someone was
with us. At least that’s sure what it felt like, right
after Timley said ‘thank you’ to the sky painter.” A
breeze ruffled her feathers a bit. Sophie shuddered a
little. “Oh, I must be going kooky-ku koo-oo.”
A group of people, very unusual for this early
morning hour, was gathering on the deck below.
Sophie saw men with little caps on the tops of their
heads, and women and children, some with scarves
neatly covering their heads. With little books in their
hands, they were also looking east, toward the dawn,
and they began talking—or was it singing?—as if they
had one voice:
—The breath of all that lives praises You,
Lord our God.
O
“Timley!”
—Could song fill our mouth as water fills
the sea and could joy flood our tongue like
countless waves:
Could our lips utter praise as limitless
as the sky and could our eyes match the
splendor of the sun—
“TIMLEY!”
Timley, asleep in his rope coil, finally awoke and
poked his nose out. Soon he was on the edge of the
crow’s nest, trying to hear every word.
—Could we soar with arms like an eagle’s
wings and run with gentle grace, as the
swiftest deer:
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Never could we fully state our gratitude for
one ten-thousandth of the blessing, dearest
God, granted to our ancestors and to us.
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The people gathered below continued to speak
words of gratitude for a safe trip to the Holy Land.
Timley began to get excited. His tail swished back
and forth faster and faster.
“Maybe there is Someone out there, Someone who
can make a rainbow-colored sky that fades into a
starry night, and Someone who can create an enormous ocean and fill it with fish—Someone… I don’t
know, who is above it all.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Sophie, her wings
spread out toward the sea, “but when I see the sky
and waves and even my wings that carry me high
above everything, it does make me want to praise
Whoever thought it all up and made it happen.”
Timley looked Sophie directly in the eye and put
his tiny paw on one of Sophie’s toes. “Sophie, if going
to the Holy Land on your quest means trying to find
out who colored that sky last night, and if that same
Someone was with us while we watched it, count me
in. Someone was there. I know it!”
Sophie suddenly pointed to a spot far off in the
distance with a wing. “Land! The Holy Land!”
H
ooooonnnnnk. In no time the ship announced
its arrival in the harbor with a deep sound that
echoed back from the mountain now facing them.
“Sophie,” Timley said, “I’ve got an idea. Maybe it’s
crazy, but before we fly off the ship, maybe we could
ask this Sky Painter—whoever He is—to help us find
Him. If those people can sing praise to their Someone,
maybe we can talk to Him too.
“Good idea! I have a louder voice than you do. I’ll
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give it a try,” Sophie decided. “Okay, here goes.” She
cleared her throat and looked up at the sky. “Dear
uh, Sky Painter (Timley, that’s what you called him,
right? I liked that). Uh, we want to find out who you
really are. If we get off this boat—”
“Clipper, Sophie, it’s a clipper,” Timley whispered.
Sophie rolled her eyes, and then continued: “The
truth is, Sky Painter, now that we are actually here,
in the Holy Land, on this clipper, I’m scared. I don’t
know how we will ever get home again if we get off
this ship. If you are really here with us, can you help
us find out who you are and then lead us back home?
Thank you very much. Um, the end.”
“There,” said Sophie, turning to Timley. “Do you
think He heard me?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “but, somehow, I do feel
much better.”
“Me too-oo, me too-oo! Climb aboard, little matey!
I see green trees on that mountain over there, and I
have a taste for rat. Hoo hoo hu hooo!”
She packed her Princess Clipper sun visor into her
suitcase, tied her straw hat securely under her chin
and waited while Timley threw his pirate gear over
the hat brim and then climbed in after it. Sophie’s
pink purse was strapped across her chest and just
after she gripped her little blue suitcase in her talons,
she lifted off.
“You know something, Timley? I think you’ve
gotten much heavier on this cruise!”
Kr-k-k-k—Ding, dong, ding!
“Haifa. Welcome to Haifa, Gateway to the Holy
Land,” Sophie’s sharp ears heard the Nice Lady on
the ship’s P.A. system far below announce its arrival
to the ship’s two-legged passengers. “We hope you
enjoyed your cruise and will remember us the next
time your adventures call for maritime travel.”
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Timley glanced down at the ship, quickly shrinking in the distance. So far below them now, it already
looked like the toy sailboat on his bedroom shelf.
Reminded of home, his conscience pricked at him.
What must my parents be thinking now? I’ve been
gone for three whole weeks! They must think I’m dead.
Afraid he would chicken out and demand to be
returned to the Princess Clipper, he put his hand to
the brim of his black three-corner pirate hat, clutched
his sword, and set his face firmly toward land. Since
his cookies and nuts from home were now long gone,
he tied the bandana around his neck.
“Land ho!” he cried.
Below them a large city stretched across a peninsula. The land to the southeast rose to mountain
height. Steering clear of the marinas, loading docks,
railroad station, and industrial section of town,
Sophie headed straight for the large green park on
the north side of the mountain.
In no time, Sophie had swallowed a whole fat rat
and a small, green garden snake. Timley stopped
eating the pomegranate seeds he had found to look
up in amazement. “How do you DO that?”
“Food from the good, green earth, Timley. I was
getting a bit tired of seafood, to tell you the truth.”
Excited to be over land again, Sophie soon took
to the sky, no particular destination in mind. After
a while, she realized she was thirsty and looked for
a source of water. She spotted an old-looking white
building with a large courtyard. Trees were all around
it. In the center of the courtyard was a fountain.
“This building somehow reminds me of a church
back in the City; there is a dome and tall towers, but I
don’t see any t-shapes,” Sophie observed. “Why don’t
we stop for a drink at the fountain? This is supposed
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thing, um, holy.”
After a good long drink they perched in a tree,
much shorter than the trees they were used to back
home in the Park, but it had lovely branches that
hung over both sides of the courtyard wall. From
their branch, they watched two boys and their father
walk up to the fountain and wash. The interesting
thing about it was that they each washed themselves
in exactly the same way. They washed their hands,
mouth, nose and face three times, then their arms
up to their elbows three times. Then they passed wet
hands over their hair and ears and, finally, washed
their feet up to their ankles three times. Each man
and boy started with the right side and finished with
the left.
“What do you think they are doing?” Sophie asked
Timley.
Timley shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Let’s
watch them for a while. Maybe they’ll do something
else interesting. Here they come!”
The boys sat down on a bench under their tree
and unfolded a cloth embroidered with gold thread.
Inside was a book.
Timley wanted a closer look. “I wonder what they’re
reading? I’ll be right back.”
He skittered his way through the tree and down a
long branch that thinned out right over the bench.
As he came to the end, the branch bent and swayed
under the mouse’s weight; Timley swung within an
inch of the tops of the boys’ dark brown heads.
“Timley!” Sophie said in a hoarse whisper. Timley
desperately clung to the branch with all four limbs.
The branch went up and down, up and down. Sophie
couldn’t breathe. What if he was seen?
Finally, it steadied. Timley inched back on the
branch to a slightly thicker part. Sophie gasped for air.
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The boys were oblivious to the frantic scene above
them. They recited passages of the book to each
other, over and over again.
“Unbelievable!” Timley whispered over his shoulder to Sophie. “I think they are trying to memorize
the whole book! I can’t understand what they are
saying though, because it’s in a different language.
No pictures, either—just cool writing on the pages,
and some fancy designs on the cover. It must be an
important book!”
Just then a foreign-sounding—and somewhat
haunting—voice sang out of a loudspeaker attached
to one of the towers. Timley jolted at the sound and
swung underneath the swaying branch. He clung to
the skinny branch again for dear life. He closed his
eyes.
“Timley, you look a little green,” said Sophie.
“I’m getting dizzy and I can’t-hang-on-muchlonger...”
He let go of the branch, popping it up in Sophie’s
face; she had hopped down to a branch closer to
where Timley had been dangling.
“TIMLEY!”
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Chapter 14
A Raven—or a Rat?
H
O
earing the call from the tower, the boys
promptly wrapped the book back in its special
cloth covering, stood up and walked toward
the building. In the next instant, Timley plopped
down—splat!—directly on to the bench where they’d
just been sitting.
Sophie flew down to make sure he was okay.
“Pardonnez-moi,” said a curious new voice from the
courtyard. A sleek blue-black raven, exceptionally
large, bowed low to her in a formal greeting. Much to
Sophie’s amazement, his yellow beret stayed firmly
planted on his head, despite the low bow.
“To use an expression common to ze worshipers at zis ’oly mosque,” he continued, “‘As-salamu’
Alaykum’—God’s peace to you. You look perhaps a
leetle flustered, no? And a leetle lost? I ’ave rarely
seen such a fine owl like yourself around here before,
and never one up at zis hour of ze day. Are you a
fellow traveler from a foreign land? I, myself, am a
foreigner, and a student of foreign affairs. I would be
honored to be your guide in zis fair city. I always like
to ’elp fellow sojourners—especially lovely feathered
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friends, such as yourself.”
Sophie was startled by the crow’s sudden appearance, but she did enjoy his flattery. Before she could
say anything, however, the crow went on:
“May I introduce myself? My name is Dastard,
Corbeau Dastard. I am at your sairveece—at least
until 14:00 hours, when I must go. Today, you see, is
my wedding day and I must not be late! I was just out
looking for a little wedding gift for my beloved, when
I saw you. ’Ow may I assist you?”
“Hoo hoo! Thank you, thank you! Congratulations!
How exciting for you! Of course you mustn’t be late
for your wedding. Don’t let me keep you. If I looked
flustered, it was because my little friend fell out of
the tree—”
“Friend? I did not see anyone wiz you. Where is ’e?
Is ’e ’urt?”
“Psst! Sophie!” Timley’s tiny voice seemed to come
out of thin air.
“Excuse me, please, Mr., um, Dastard. My friend is
a little shy and he seems to have disappeared.”
“SOPHIE!” The whisper was louder, and harsher.
Sophie twisted her head around in all directions,
but Timley was nowhere to be seen.
“Up here! I’m back in the tree!”
“Timley, you are being rude to Mr. Dastard,”
Sophie said in a loud whisper. “He is trying to help
us. Didn’t you hear him? He even greeted us with the
words ‘God’s Peace’. Maybe he is the help we asked
for on the ship!”
“I don’t know if you remember this small fact, but
ravens eat mice! Just because you made friends with
him, how do I know he will be my friend, too? Besides,
I want to follow those two boys! They are almost in
the building now.”
“Pardon, little friend, up in ze tree. I am sorry to
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have over’eard you, but perhaps I may enlighten you.
Zee book ze boys were reading? You saw zem? It is
a holy book called zee Holy Koran, and ze beautiful
song you ’eard from zee towair a short time ago ’as
called zem to prayer in zee mosque. Zey are Muslim,
you see, and zey practice ze Islamic faith as taught to
zem by ze prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him.”
He puffed out his chest and continued. “Over ze years
I have developed ze keen powairs of observation.”
“Hoo hoo! Thank you! Thank you!” Sophie interrupted. “We are lucky to have met you, lucky indeed!
Are you a Muslim, too? You know so much about
them!”
“No, no, I am not a Muslim myself. You see, I
consider myself a student of people. I ’ave listened
and learned much in my years ’ere, in zis special
land. Zere are Jews ’ere, and Christians, as well as
ze Muslims, and zey all offer so much wisdom and
tradition and ’istoire. As a foreigner among zeese kind
people, it would seem ungracious to choose between
zem.”
“We just arrived this morning and are sorely in
need of a guide. Timley, please come down and greet
Mr. Dastard properly. He knows a great deal about
this holy place.”
Reluctantly, Timley came down the tree and
stopped next to Sophie. Dastard bowed low again. “I
am exceedingly pleased to make your acquaintance,
Mr. Mouse.”
“Do forgive my friend, Mr. Dastard, for his shyness.
He isn’t used to meeting strangers, and given the
order of the food chain, I am sure you will understand his reluctance to come out. My name is Sophie,
and this is Timley. How doo-oo you do-oo?”
“Charmed, simply charmed. So pleased to make
your acquaintance,” said the handsome black bird,
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nodding his head. He gave Timley a sidelong glance.
Timley, tired and unaccustomed to being up at this
hour, couldn’t be sure, but either the bright sun of
the noon hour or something more than eagerness to
help glinted in the raven’s eyes. He squirmed uncomfortably and moved a little closer to Sophie. She was
beginning to tell him all about their journey.
Sophie held out her cross necklace to the raven.
“We are on a bit of a quest, you see. Could you tell us
where we might look in this Holy Land for places that
are particularly holy?” Sophie inquired.
“A pilgrimage is it? ’Ow lovely,” replied Dastard.
“You ’ave come to zee perfect place. Zee Holy Land
is home to zee ‘people of zee Book’, as Muslims say.
According to Muslim tradition, zese are people who
’ave received ’oly books from zee One True God. Jews
have zee Torah, Christians zee Bible, and Muslims
have zee Koran. It is a special honair to memorize
great portions of zee Koran, as you saw zee boys
doing.”
Timley felt some of his fear slipping away as he
listened. Dastard certainly knew a lot about the Holy
Land! “You said the boys were Muslim. What does
‘Muslim’ mean?”
Dastard puffed up his chest feathers a bit more
and held his head high. “‘Muslim’ means someone
who submits to zee One True God, whom zey call
Allah, by saying zese words—only in Arabic, of course,
like their holy book—‘There is no God but God, and
Mohammed is zee messenger of God’. An angel, it is
said, recited zee Koran to Mohammed, who passed on
to Muslims zis book, even zough zey say ’e could not
even read or write.”
“Oooh, an angel!” said Sophie. “With bright shining
wings and dressed all in white? I’ve heard of them
before.”
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“Well, I don’t know about zat, but I do know zat
in addition to submitting to Allah with zose words,
Muslims show great devotion to God by praying five
times a day. They give zakat, money to zee poor, and
for one month of ze year (a month zey call Ramadan)
they do not eat or drink from dawn to dusk. Like you,
zey try to make a pilgrimage to a holy city, called
Mecca, once in zair lives. Zese are called ‘zee Five
Pillars of Islam’.”
“You must see zee mosque,” the raven continued,
“and zen, of course, you must go to Jerusalem. It is a
vairy, vairy ’oly place for all zee people of zee Book.”
“Jerusalem? Is it far?” asked Sophie.
“It weel take some time to get zaire, but it is quite
simple to find. You fly toward zee sunrise to zee
Jordan Rivair zat runs north and south. Follow it
south until you come to zee great big Dead Sea. Take
another right and fly toward zee sunset. Soon, you
will see a large, hilly city built of cream-colored boxy
buildings. You will see zee mosque called zee Dome of
zee Rock in zee middle of it all. Its golden dome glows
so bright in zee sunshine! It is magnifique!”
“Hoo hoo! Beau-oo-tiful!” squealed Sophie. “We
must set off at once!”
“Oui, oui, but first, ze mosque. Allow me to show
it to you. May I carry your luggage?” Without waiting
for a response, Dastard picked up her little suitcase
in his beak and strutted down the sidewalk ahead of
them. Then he turned and looked back at Timley; that
strange glint shone in his eye again. Sophie hurried
after him. “How can we repay you?”
Over her shoulder to Timley she called out, “We
must start a ‘Be Kind to Strangers Campaign’ in the
Park when we get home again, don’t you agree?” She
didn’t wait for an answer, but continued to chatter to
Dastard all the way down the sidewalk.
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Timley stayed behind for a moment, torn about
what to do. He wanted to go inside the mosque and
maybe see those two boys; if only he didn’t have the
terrible, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that
he was being led right into a trap!
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Chapter 15
Trapped!
Y
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ou really must take a cruise yourself someday,
Mr. Dastard. You’ve never seen such a ship as
the Princess Clipper! The food, the dancing, the
fun! It was quite the life. Non-stop entertainment!
And the people loved to play ‘I Spy the Owl’, so I am
sure they would love their own ship-board raven,
as well. We lived up in the crow’s nest, and it was
quite convenient and comfortable. Of course we had
to embellish it a little along the way to make it truly
homey.”
Sophie twittered on and on to the crow as they
drew near to the mosque. Finally he broke in as
politely as he could:
“Through zat doorway is zee main prayer ’all,”
Dastard explained, pointing. “Pair’aps you would like
to see it for yourself, Timley? You are small and can
sneak in while all ze people are praying. I will wait for
you… outside.”
While Timley was glad that his small size was finally
going to be useful to Sophie and her quest, he was
mainly glad to get away from the glint that had reappeared in the raven’s eyes. He crept into the mosque,
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careful to stay close to the wall, in the shadows.
“Allahu Akbar,” many male voices intoned, as
if with one voice. Rows upon rows of men, old and
young, stood shoulder to shoulder. Wearing long
flowing robes and skull caps, they faced an indented,
elaborately decorated space on the opposite wall.
Everyone looks the same from here, Timley thought.
Maybe if I climb higher I can see those two boys. He
looked up. The balcony—that’s it, he thought to
himself.
He scurried up the railing of a staircase that led
to the balcony, his tail waving high in the air behind
him, and in no time at all he was looking down on a
sea of bowing men and boys.
“Sami Allah-hu liman hamida,” they said, the same
words he had heard the boys reciting from the Koran
earlier—he was sure of it.
There they are!
Nearly directly below him, they bowed low, then
even lower—all the way down to the floor. They
touched their foreheads to carpets which lined the
room. No-one wore shoes. The rhythmic sounds and
intense looks on their faces so mesmerized Timley
that he didn’t realize he was on the very edge of the
balcony railing.
I wonder what it would feel like to pray like that? he
thought. He started to imitate their movements, just
to see for himself.
Up, down, forehead to the flo—
Leaning too far forward, he lost his balance and
tumbled toward the rows of men bowing low. He was
sure he was about to make a terrible scene.
Timley’s fall was abruptly broken by the whiterobed back of one of the boys. He somersaulted onto
the floor, but the boy still made no sound other than
that of his prayer. Timley looked anxiously from side
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to side for the nearest exit, and scampered right in
front of the noses of all the bowing men between him
and the door. Not a single person broke the rhythm
of his prayer or even acknowledged that he was there.
“Unbelievable!” Timley said. Very impressed with
people who were so devoted to their prayers that they
didn’t even notice a mouse in their midst, he couldn’t
wait to find Sophie and tell her all about it. He had
come to be her eyes and ears inside such a place,
after all!
Meanwhile, perched on the courtyard wall near
the door to the prayer hall, Sophie was still talking
about their life on the ship. “Do you like to dance,
Mr. Dastard? I bet a charmer like you is very good
at dancing. Have you ever done the Macarena? You
really should take your new wife dancing sometime.”
Dastard interrupted her endless stream of chatter
and pointed to a group walking toward the mosque,
and then to the beads she had added to the cross
necklace around her neck. “You like beads, Sophie?
Down zee path, do you see zee group of women in
long flowing robes and scarves over zair hair? Ze
one walking next to ze child is carrying holy beads.”
Sophie perked up. She hadn’t noticed them herself.
“Holy beads? Oh yes! Now I see them. They are
lovely, aren’t they? I want to look at them more
closely!”
“Some Muslim people carry them to help them
remember all the names of God. They have 99 names
and a bead for every name!”
“Hoo hoo! Ninety-nine? My goodness! I never
dreamed there were so many names for God.”
“Yes: God ze All-Merciful, God ze Compassionate,
God ze King, and many more. Why don’t you go take
a closer look at ze beads? Zey are vairy holy. I’ll keep
an eye out for Timley.”
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Sophie perched in a tree above where the women
were walking. She couldn’t stop looking at the beads.
Surely having two holy symbols would be better than
just one!
“I must have those beads, but how?” she murmured
to herself.
Just then the woman tripped on a cobblestone
and the beads fell from her hand. Without stopping
for even a moment to consider the right or wrong of
it (and everyone knew from Park Rules that animals
never took anything that belonged to people until the
people were gone), Sophie flew directly at the woman
and scooped up the beads practically out of her hand,
just as she bent over to pick them up.
“My prayer beads, my prayer beads,” she cried.
Her child pointed up into the tree where Sophie had
made her escape. “Thief! Thief!” she yelled.
In the top branches of the tree, Sophie stopped
to admire the beads. It was difficult, though, what
with all the yelling going on at the base of the tree.
She looked at the beads again, and then down at the
people.
“Thief!” they yelled again. The child started to cry.
Thief! Me? What have I done? What was I thinking,
breaking Park Rules like that! I should know better,
even if we aren’t in the Park, thought Sophie, breathing hard. Where, oh where, is Timley—I want to get
out of here!
Trying to ignore the pleading people at the foot
of the tree, Sophie finally looked into the courtyard
and back toward the mosque to see if she could spot
Timley yet. What she saw sent shock waves through
all of her feathers.
There, above the courtyard, was the raven—flying
away with a certain plump mouse in his beak.
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he moment Dastard saw the mouse come through
the mosque doorway, he wasted no time. With
Sophie safely distracted by the beads, he scooped
Timley up in his beak and took to the sky to look for
his bride. He was careful not to crush him—a living,
breathing fat snack would bring her much more
amusement. What a gift! She would be so pleased!
Sophie lifted her talons from the branch to take
off after Dastard when she realized that she still
clutched the prayer beads in her beak. Now she had
to decide—and decide fast—to either keep the beads
and watch Timley disappear into the bright blue
sky, or drop them and go after him. There wasn’t a
moment to lose!
The beads fell from her beak.
Spreading her wings high above her head, she fell
upon the raven with deadly fury. He turned toward
her at the last second; her talon swiped at the air.
“Aack! Caw! Caw!” Dastard shrieked in surprise
and dove sharply toward the ground.
Furious that she had missed her target, Sophie
followed and attacked again.
Dastard rose straight up in the air, then dove
again, this time swerving to the left. Sophie followed
right behind, but the smaller raven was more nimble;
his quick movements to the left and right and loopityloop made it hard to pin him down.
Above the courtyard, the pair of birds looked like a
team of fighter jets flying in an air show. The people
who had been kneeling in prayer were coming out of
the mosque now, and the young boys were the first
to spot the fighting birds. Soon, everyone was yelling
and pointing.
Sophie and Dastard paid no attention, and she, in
fact, did not even hear them. She lunged at the raven
again and again, Brown and black feathers flew.
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Sophie’s rage made her as fearsome as a trapped
bull, and to Dastard, she must have seemed almost
as large.
When Dastard couldn’t shake Sophie off after
many tries, his dives slowed and his head, heavy
with the mouse in his beak, appeared bowed. Just as
Sophie was about to charge him yet again, he opened
his beak and let Timley drop.
Timley kept his eyes squeezed shut and waited for
the hard crash onto the courtyard paving stones, but
instead, he was suddenly wet and gasping for air. The
fountain!
His whole body went down, down into the water.
Touching the bottom, he had just enough energy to
push with his legs and rise to the surface. He sputtered for air and struggled to keep his tiny nose above
the water. He flailed his arms and legs wildly. Sophie
was right: he had no idea how to swim.
His head went under again. Finally, after what
seemed a very long time, he came up again, his nose
barely breaking the surface of the water.
Timley pleaded silently for help.
S-s-ky P-painter, can you hear me? I need your help
right now!
Thrashing about, his hands grasped a broad leaf
that floated by. Even though it sank partially under
his weight, it floated just enough for Timley to lay his
head down on it and suck in long gulps of air. When
the leaf bumped into the edge of the fountain, Timley
used all of his remaining strength to throw himself
out of the water. He crawled onto the wide stone edge
of the fountain, gasping.
He looked up to see Sophie and Dastard locked in
a ferocious battle. “You killed my best friend!” Sophie
shrieked.
She thinks I’m dead, Timley thought. She said I’m
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her best friend!
He had to get her attention, but how? A soggy end
of his red bandana around his neck caught his eye
and he had an idea. It was risky, and it might catch
the wrong bird’s attention, he knew. Still, he untied
the bandana, shook it out, and waved it like a bullfighter. He had to do something to let Sophie know
he was still alive. She was his friend. His best friend.
Still gasping for breath, he couldn’t speak, but
he waved the bandana over his head for all he was
worth. Dastard and Sophie spotted him at the same
time, and they stopped in midair. Then, they both
turned toward the mouse.
“Timley! You’re okay!”
Like a lightning bolt Sophie streaked to the mouse
and scooped him up, then turned back to give the
raven one more glaring look. Dastard, nursing his
bruises, had already decided, though, to admit defeat.
“Eet’s just a lousy mouse,” Dastard muttered as
he flew away. “And zat owl ees a strange one! Zay are
best left alone, I theek, oui, zay are.”
Sophie carried Timley gently back to the tree she
had just come from. At the foot of the tree, the woman
was lifting her child up high enough to retrieve the
beads that they had finally spotted. They were caught
on a branch and dangling, about eight feet above the
ground.
“Thank you! Thank you!” She gave her daughter a
gentle squeeze and put the beads safely away in her
purse. As they walked away, the woman kept looking
up as if to see if the owl was following them. Sophie,
high up in the tree, pouted as she watched the scene
unfold.
Gone. The holy beads are gone, she thought. Sophie
looked at Timley, hoping he wouldn’t ask any questions about how the beads had gotten in the tree in
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the first place. He wasn’t paying any attention to the
people, though. Weary and half-drowned, he gazed
absently toward the street from the crook in the tree
branch where he was resting, his tiny chest heaving
up and down.
Suddenly Timley sat straight up and, with his
last burst of strength, pointed toward the street and
shouted: “Sophie! That bus! Catch that bus! No time
to explain—just DO IT!”
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Chapter 16
Shabbat, but No Shalom
I
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told him I didn’t want to rescue him every other
day,” Sophie said grumpily to herself from her
perch behind a sign on top of the tour bus. They
were heading down the side of a mountain, with farms
spreading out in the valley below. The rumbling and
rocking of the bus had put Timley almost instantly to
sleep, leaving Sophie alone with her thoughts.
“When he wakes up, I’m going to have to make it
as clear as the water in the fountain back there that
I won’t do it again. It’s much too hard on my poor
wings.”
She hooked a few feathers back into place and
smoothed a few others back down. Now that Timley
was safe, she was very unhappy that she had lost
the beads—she had held them in her very own beak!
Looking at Timley sleeping, nestled close to her side,
she also bristled at the memory of him, a little mouse,
telling her what to do: “Get on the bus!” A mouse
commanding an owl? It’s just not done! What would
Lulu think?
Sophie couldn’t stop thinking about the ‘old days’,
as she was already referring to her life before her
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quest. She and Lulu and her other girlfriends had
hooted endlessly about this bauble or that trinket
that they’d picked up on their treasure hunts around
the Park, but would any of them risk their lives to
be with her the way Timley just did when he used
his bandana to flag her down? Dastard could easily
have reached him in the fountain before she did, if he
hadn’t given up and flown away.
Yes, Timley is a special friend, even if he is just a
plump little mousie.
Uneven breathing and an unsettling space of
silence coming from her side made her freeze with
fear. When she looked at Timley again, her heart felt
softer. Then she had another uncomfortable thought.
What if he doesn’t wake up? He’s been through
quite an ordeal for a little mousie. What if he doesn’t
make it?
The mouse shivered as he slept, and Sophie pulled
him closer toward her warm, downy chest with her
velvety wing. For all her talk when she and Timley
first met, she really didn’t want to be alone on this
journey. In a voice as soft as the mouse-breaths that
barely ruffled her feathers, she began to sing:
Pirate, crow fighter, brave little friend,
I hope that you will quickly mend.
You risked life and limb for me;
You faced the giant and didn’t flee.
She bent her face close to his to feel the shallow
wisps of his breath ruffle her cheek feathers. She
stayed like that for some time, until the breaths
seemed to grow stronger and more regular. As Sophie
relaxed, however, another uncomfortable thought
gripped her.
Would he still want to be my friend if he knew I was
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a thief—a bead-snatcher?
Snatching something right out of a Person’s hand
and treasure-hunting in the Park late at night were
two very different things. Every animal from the Park
knew the Rules. Snatching was definitely against the
Rules. Only bad animals, like that devil Dastard, went
against the Rules. Just thinking about Dastard made
Sophie feel upset all over again.
“That nasty Dastard—some answer to our prayer
for help he was. Hoo hoo, hu hoo, so true, so true,”
she thought out loud. Thinking about the raven’s bad
behavior was somehow a happy relief. As long as she
thought about him, she didn’t have to think about
her own bad behavior.
“Dastard greeted us with the words ‘God’s peace’
when he was really thinking only of himself. Park
Rules are very clear: you don’t eat your friends. We
asked for help, and he acted like he wanted to help
us, but instead of being a friend, he was full of deceit
and treachery. Why would Sky Painter, if he can even
hear us, play such a mean trick on us and send us
that bad bird? Of all the terrible, low-down, awful—”
Timley stirred and struggled to free himself from
Sophie’s protective hold. He motioned for her to bend
her head closer to his.
Sophie realized he wanted to say something, but
in his weakened state he’d never be heard over the
rumbling of the bus.
“What is it, Timley? Are you okay? Do-oo you need
something?”
“D-Dastard wasn’t our answer; it’s the bus. Didn’t
you see the sign? We are on our way to Jerusalem!”
Sophie poked her head around to the front of the
sign. It read JERUSALEM in bright red letters. She
gave Timley a gently squeeze.
Unable to believe their good luck, Sophie watched
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the changing scenery in silence. Golden wheat fields
swayed in a light breeze; ripe, red pomegranates hung
heavily from branches, and grape vines covered the
land in neat rows. Eventually, the land rose higher
again into hills covered with groves of olive and fig
trees. The higher the bus went, though, the sparser
the landscape became. Sophie finally allowed the
rocking motion of the bus and the purring sound of
its engine to lull her into some much-needed sleep.
“Whoa, Sophie, wake up and look at that!” Timley
tugged at her wing, just two short hours or so later.
His voice was stronger; the sleep had done him
good. “Blow me down! It’s Jerusalem—it has to be
Jerusalem!”
Cream-colored limestone buildings spread out
below them like a child’s elaborate city made of
blocks. In the center of it all, the Dome of the Rock
glowed brilliantly—and unmistakably golden—in the
late afternoon sunshine. At least Dastard had told
them the truth about that!
“I’m getting hungry, Sophie, how about you?’
They decided to get off the bus at the first park
they saw. Sophie looked around to make sure she
didn’t leave anything on the bus when they got there.
“Thorns and thistles! My suitcase! Dastard had it!
And my purse! It must have fallen off when I was
fighting that nasty crow.”
“Your cross necklace, Sophie—it’s gone, too! It
must have fallen off in the fight. Oh rats—my pirate
hat! And my sword! I must have lost them in the fountain.” Timley found his bandana still gripped in one
of his paws and fastened it securely around his neck.
Sophie grasped her bare neck with a wing. “Oh,
no! I can’t believe it’s gone! My other necklaces are
gone, too. This is terrible!” She couldn’t help but also
feel sad about the other beads—the holy beads—that
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were nearly hers, as well. All gone.
“It sure is a good thing your hat fits nice and
snug,” Timley remarked, interrupting her thoughts.
“Traveling the rest of the way gripped between your
toes and talons would be about as much fun as flying
through a hurricane.”
“Don’t talk about hurricanes, okay? I’m a little
sensitive about hurricanes.”
“I almost forgot—your parents.”
“That’s right, and I said that I don’t want to talk
about it!”
“Okay, okay. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Modest light-colored brick apartments, glowing
warmly in the late afternoon sunshine, sat in a tidy
row next to the small park where Timley soon found
plenty of insects, seeds, and grasses to eat. Few
people were out and about. Sophie, still full from her
heavy meal earlier that day, watched a rabbit nibble
some green leaves at the edge of the Park and wished
she was hungry. Unable to eat, she started paying
attention to a man pushing his little girl on a swing
at the other end of the park. He wore a little cap on
the top of his head, and had a curly, dark beard—just
like the men on the Princess Clipper at the sunrise
service.
Maybe these are the Jewish people Dastard told us
about, thought Sophie. She moved closer.
“Just one more time, Daddy!” said a little girl on a
swing.
“It’s getting late, Johanna, but we have time for just
a few more pushes. How about if you practice reciting
the Ten Commandments as you swing? You can tell
them to Oma and Opa tonight at dinner. They will be
so pleased. One mitzvah for each push—ready?”
“Ready, Daddy!” He pulled back on the swing and
let it go.
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“You shall have no other gods before me.”
“You shall not make any idols.”
“Doing fine, now!” She rose higher with each push.
“Speak God’s Name with Respect.
“Honor the Sabbath.
“Honor your father and mother.”
“I like that one! Halfway done, now.”
“You shall not kill.
“Be true to your husband or wife.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not lie.
“You shall not want what others have.”
Johanna leaned back, stretched her legs out and
just let the swing go back and forth on its own. Her
long dark hair, tied in two neat braids, hung down
and flipped back and forth against her shoulders as
the swing slowed. Finally, it came to a stop and she
put her feet on the ground.
“Well done! Let’s go home and tell your grandparents what you can do. It’s almost time for Shabbat
and we mustn’t be late!” Her father put her up on his
shoulders and carried her to one of the nearby apartments.
The rest of the street was quiet.
“Let’s follow them,” suggested Sophie, hurrying
back to Timley. “It sounds like something important
is about to happen.”
They reached a tree near a doorway just in time
to see the father touch a little box attached rather
askew to the doorpost.
Then he put his fingers to his lips. “Would you like
to kiss the mezuzah, too?”
His daughter, up on his shoulders, smiled as she
easily reached the box and then put her fingers to her
own lips. Sophie saw this and remembered the special
washing at the fountain outside the mosque. People
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did such unusual rituals here in the Holy Land!
They disappeared inside. Sophie and Timley waited
and watched for what seemed a very long time. Late
afternoon shadows eventually blended into the darkness of dusk.
“There they are at last!” Sophie pointed to an
upstairs window that was open to the warm evening
air.
The little girl and her father, framed in the lighted
window, seemed to be watching the skies for something.
“One, two, three! Three stars! Shabbat shalom!
Sabbath peace!”
A loud siren broke the quiet of the street, but it
seemed expected and the street remained as deserted
as before.
Sophie and Timley flew up to the now-deserted
window so they could see and hear better.
“Hoo hoo, hu hoo! So fine, so fine!” exclaimed
Sophie, who always noticed beautiful things. “White
linen tablecloth, silver candlesticks, fine china—it
must be a very special occasion.”
Two round loaves of bread, lightly covered by a
white cloth, sent a lovely aroma through the open
window. Timley sniffed deeply. Two embroidered
golden triangles formed a star on the top of the cloth.
A small dish of something amber-colored and stickylooking sat near the bread.
“Honey!” Timley said, licking his lips.
An older couple, faces softened by wrinkles and
smiles, approached the table. Their granddaughter
walked in between them, holding a hand from each.
Her father was close behind. He and the older man
wore little round caps on the tops of their heads. Her
mother, wearing a lacy scarf over her hair, welcomed
them all to the table.
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“Shabbat shalom!” she said. “Sabbath peace!”
“Shana Tovah! Happy New Year!” the others replied,
and they all sat down.
Lighting the candles in the silver candlesticks, the
mother next waved the warmth of the flames toward
her eyes with her hands and softly spoke a few words.
Then the father raised a wine glass and recited a
blessing that began like this:
Blessed are You, LORD our God,
King of the Universe,
who makes us holy
through doing His commands,
and delights in us.
O
When finished, he tenderly placed both hands on
top of his daughter’s head and said:
May Adonai bless you and keep you,
May Adonai make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you,
May Adonai turn His face to you and give
you peace.
“That’s nice, isn’t it?” Timley whispered. “Sophie?
What’s the matter? You’re shaking.”
“N-nothing, I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. She ruffled
her feathers. “I’m just c-cold, that’s all.”
She hadn’t actually heard much of the blessing.
Once the man said the words ‘makes us holy through
doing His commands, and delights in us’, she stopped
listening. Her heart raced, her feathers trembled, and
she could hardly see straight.
I’m a bad owl! Sophie wailed inside. I just wanted
to learn about my cross necklace and find out if Grandfather has it all wrong about holy things being nothing
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but trouble. But now I’m the one in trouble! Oh, no!
“You shall not steal,” the little girl on the swing
had said. Not only was stealing wrong in the Park,
but stealing was against a holy commandment! What
did that blessing say? God ‘delights in us’?
Whoever God is, he’ll never delight in me, now.
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Chapter 17
Heaven Sent
D
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ejected, Sophie tried to push these awful
thoughts to the very back of her head. “Let’s
go, Timley. I’ve seen enough.” She couldn’t
bear to look at the joyful, beautiful gathering another
moment.
But she couldn’t get away, not yet. Flying down
the street, apartment after apartment, there were
more silver candlesticks with flickering flames, more
blessings, more delicious smells of chicken soup and
freshly baked bread rising from table after elegant
table, surrounded by more smiling families. Large
groups of relatives and friends sat around some
tables; others, just two or three—but all the people
were embraced by the warm glow of Sabbath candles.
“I can’t watch this anymore,” Sophie said. They
rested a moment on a branch overlooking the now
familiar scene, at the last apartment building on the
block. She felt the mouse trembling in her hat. “Are
you crying, Timley?”
“All these families—laughing and talking and being
happy together! I’ll never see my family again, and
it’s entirely my own fault! I should never have run
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away from home!” He burst into tears and large drops
poured down his tiny cheeks. His nose ran, and he
wiped it on the back of a paw.
“There, there, Timley Mousie. It will be okay,” Sophie
said, patting her homesick friend as he sniffled. “I
promise we will get back to the Park—someday.”
She wrapped a soft wing around him and tried to
comfort herself at the same time. Her words sounded
hollow and hopeless, even to her own ears. The Holy
Land was just so far from home. How would they ever
get home again?
Sophie realized that she hadn’t ever thought about
how she would get back, not until that very moment.
How foolish I’ve been! Sophie thought. She ruffled
her feathers and tried to shake away the unhappy
feelings. I’ll just have to think happier thoughts until I
can figure out what to do next.
“Thank you for being my friend, Sophie,” Timley
said after he was able to get his tears to stay in his
head. “It must be terrible not to have a whole family of
your own. I’m sorry I joked about a hurricane earlier.
I should’ve remembered about your parents.”
“I know what we should do, Timley. Let’s go see
that shiny golden Dome of the Rock up close, and try
to forget about these sad things.”
They landed on top of an immense sandy-colored
stone wall near the dome. Even though sunset had
passed and now the sky had grown fairly dark, the
wall and the gold dome behind it were brightly lit up
with spotlights. The people standing at the bottom
of the wall looked small, and they were divided into
groups: the men were in one large area of the courtyard, and the women, some in long skirts and with
scarves over their hair, were by the wall in a smaller
section. The wall itself looked very old and was made
up of simply enormous blocks, the edges of which had
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crumbled and softened through weather and years. A
few green, weedy tufts grew out of cracks between the
stone blocks here and there down the wall. People’s
voices, full of song, filled the stone courtyard and
rose up to Sophie’s and Timley’s perch.
Young men with dark brown beards and long hair
tied in tails in front of their ears, old men with grizzly
gray beards and long braided sideburns—all of whom
wore small round caps or tall black felt hats—and
even teenage girls—clapped and danced and sang in
small groups in their own sections in front of the wall.
The songs and sounds of stomping feet and clapping hands overlapped to create a contagiously joyful
noise. They all seemed aglow with a secret source of
energy.
For the moment, both Sophie and Timley forgot
their troubles. It amused Timley to see the people
look so small, far below them in the courtyard, and
they watched and listened until finally the music
ended and, eventually, all the people left.
“I just saw something fall out of the wall. What
could that be? I’m going to go see what it is.” Sharpeyed Sophie swooped down, scooped up a neatly
folded piece of paper with her beak and was back in
a flash. She dropped the note in Timley’s hands.
“Why, it’s a letter to God!” exclaimed Timley. “The
ink looks a little smudged, like a drop of water fell on
it, but I think I can still read it.”
“What does it say? What does it say?”
Timley read:
Dear God,
My dog is very sick and my mommy says he won’t
live much longer. Please can you help him?
Love,
Rebecca
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“How sad, how sad,” Sophie said. “Do you think
God can really help them? Why would someone write
to God and leave the letter in the crack between these
stones? It must be a very holy wall to be God’s own
mailbox. Too bad we can’t take it with us, hoo hoo!”
“Maybe we can write letters to God, too!” suggested
Timley, and he scampered off to scour the dark
corners of the plaza for something to write with. He
soon produced a pencil stub and a broken purple
crayon, and Sophie, scouting from the air, found a
dirty piece of paper that the crowds had stomped on
earlier that evening.
Timley sharpened the writing utensils with his
teeth, then tore the paper down the middle. They
got to work. Neither noticed, however, that the other
struggled mightily when it came to the actual writing.
Why would God read a letter from me? Sophie
thought. I’ve broken his commandments already—
I stole the prayer beads, and right out of that nice
woman’s hand, too. She didn’t do anything to deserve
that. How selfish can I be?
Finally she scribbled: I’m sorry I broke your rules,
and folded it before Timley could see it.
Meanwhile, Timley, with his tongue wagging out
the corner of his mouth and his brow furrowed, kept
asking himself what that little girl had said on the
swing earlier that evening. He had been listening, too.
Honor your father and mother—that was it.
His eyes welled up with tears, imagining how sad
his parents must be by now, and how worried.
What if something terrible has happened to them?
They must have gone out searching for me. What if
they got attacked by a big animal—or even an owl—
when they were out looking? I would never forgive
myself!
A big tear fell, smearing the brown dust on the
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paper. He suddenly realized that the water droplets
on the other letter were probably also tears.
I should never have run away from home. I didn’t
honor my father and mother, that’s for sure. Why
would God listen to me now?
Tap, tap. “There. That should do it.” Sophie tucked
her note deep into a crack between two huge stones
with her beak. Timley quickly jotted down a short
phrase and tucked it into the wall. He was so busy
feeling miserable that he was glad that Sophie, who
usually had no trouble coming up with things to
chatter about, was being terribly quiet herself.
In the darkest hours of the night they quietly
wandered about the narrow, maze-like streets,
wondering if God, at that very moment, was checking
his mailbox.
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Chapter 18
An Unusual Alarm Clock
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couple of hours before dawn a warm drizzle
dampened Sophie’s feathers. When it began to
fall in big drops, Sophie shook her wings out
and said, “We need to find someplace to hole up for
a while.”
“Yeah,” Timley agreed. “We should get to sleep
early, too, so we can be awake during more of the
daylight hours. We have to be awake when the people
are up if we are going to learn more about this Holy
Land.”
Blinking past the rain, they looked around for a
likely place to find shelter.
“Look, Sophie, up there.”
“Do you mean by the star?” Sophie replied, pointing up toward a large limestone building. The dark
rain clouds parted for a moment and glimmering
moonlight rested on two triangles, one that pointed
up and one that pointed down, that decorated the
front of the building. “We saw a star like that before,
remember? It was embroidered on the bread cloth
on that Jewish family’s table in the first apartment
window we looked into.”
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“Yes,” Timley answered, “I remember. But look, just
above it, right under the roof—a loose vent cover is
dangling from a single screw. I bet we can get inside.”
Soon, they were inside the large attic, all snug and
warm. For Sophie, however, sleep simply would not
come. She kept hearing the music and picturing the
people dancing at the big holy wall. She wanted the
joy that she saw on their faces, but how? She was a
thief! If only she could erase it, somehow make it like
it never happened!
But that’s impossible, she thought. The Muslim
lady got her beads back, it’s true, but I can’t change
the fact that I took them. A tear rolled down her cheek.
She must have fallen asleep at last, because a
loud sound, like a strangled horn blast, made her
wake with a jolt. For a moment she thought she was
still on the ship, with the Clipper’s horn announcing
their arrival into the port of Haifa. Light streamed in
through the broken vent.
“Thorns and thistles, where am I? Timley—Timley?
Now where did that little mousie go? He should still
be sleeping,” Sophie said, looking around her in
sleepy confusion.
The horn sounded a blast again.
“There it is again! Three short sounds this time.”
A little while later, a long, moaning sound brought
Timley scurrying back to the attic.
“Sorry to disappear on you, Soph—I woke up really
early, so when I heard people gathering downstairs, I
decided to go check it out.”
“Tell me everything, everything! What was that
strange noise? It sounded like a cry or a moan or a
wail—it could wake a person from the dead! It sure
woke me up, and I had so much trouble falling asleep,
too.” Sophie complained.
“Well, the first thing I saw was someone reading
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from a big book. Not a book, exactly, but the paper
is rolled around fancy golden sticks. It must be a
special book, too, like the Koran, because the person
reading from it didn’t even touch it with his hands;
he used a cool pointer to follow the words.”
“Dastard said something about Jews and Christians both being ‘people of the Book’. Maybe that is
one of those other books!” Sophie said. Her eyes were
bright now with excitement. “But what made that
strange sound I heard?”
“That came from a long, curvy horn—they called it
a shofar. I heard someone say that it was a call, like
a wake-up call, for people to remember what they did
against God in the past year and to think about how
they can fix it.”
“People can fix the wrong things they do?” asked
Sophie. What a glorious new thought!
A sunbeam lit a stream of dust in the dim attic and
fell on Sophie’s face. A new sense of hope gleamed in
her eyes.
Timley looked at Sophie, his head cocked to one
side. “Sophie, are you okay?”
“Oh, Timley!” Sophie cried, and then she blurted
her secret all out at once. “I did something very bad
at the mosque, and because of it I almost didn’t reach
Dastard in time—that wretched raven almost got you
for good!”
“What are you talking about?” Timley asked.
She told him all about taking the prayer beads,
and even admitted that she took them practically out
of the woman’s hand.
Timley gasped. “That’s against Park Rules! Everybody knows that. What were you thinking?”
“The beads were pretty and were supposed to be
holy, too, and I just wanted them so much. Only now
I know that stealing is against God’s Rules, too, his
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commandments, not just the Park’s Rules, so God
must be angry with me and I can’t ‘un-steal’ them,
because what’s done is done. The worst part is that I
was so busy admiring my beads that I almost didn’t
notice that you were in trouble! I-I couldn’t finish this
quest without you, Timley. I’m so, so sorry.” Sophie
looked at the floor, afraid to even glance in Timley’s
direction. She was sure he would be furious with her.
Timley gave her a warm, mouse-sized hug. “So that
is what’s been bothering you. It’s okay, Sophie, I’m
fine now. You did reach me in time! Dastard let me
go because of you. By the way, whatever happened to
the beads?”
After Sophie described how the woman retrieved
them, Timley said, “See? Maybe you helped fix that
problem after all.” He hung his head on his chest, his
bottom lip quivered, and he breathed out a long sigh.
“I can never fix the bad thing I did. My parents will be
sad forever that I ran away. We’re so far away—I don’t
think we will ever get back to the tree in the Park
again. I told God that I was sorry in my note, but…”
Tiny tears started to fall.
Sophie swallowed hard past the lump in her throat.
“I told God I was sorry in my note, too.”
Both of the sad travelers were quiet for a few
minutes. Finally, Sophie broke the silence.
“I’ll never be able to get back to sleep now. Why
don’t we fly back to the big wall and see if there is any
sign that God read our letters?”
Timley climbed into her hat and together they
soared high above the city.
But they never made it back to the wall.
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Chapter 19
To Market, to Market
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s the morning sky brightened and turned to
midday, much of Jerusalem remained quiet
and still. Shops across the city remained shuttered; streets stayed empty of most traffic. Small
groups of people walked home after worship services
in the Jewish synagogues, including the one Sophie
and Timley had spent the night in. Only one section
of the old city had come to life.
From this district, pungent smells of cinnamon
and cloves and oranges drifted into the air, drawing
Sophie closer. Local residents, some wearing the
long, flowing dark robes that Sophie now recognized
as Muslim and others in colorful head-coverings,
wound their way through the narrow streets below.
Tourists, dressed in t-shirts and khaki pants or cool,
cotton skirts, and taking countless pictures, joined
them in large numbers as the day progressed. There
was no place else to go, with everything all closed up.
In between the blue, corrugated metal awnings
that shaded some of the market streets, Sophie
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ing designs, or interesting shapes. She was desperate
to get a closer look.
“I want to see what that stuff is down there,
Timley—but all those awnings are blocking my view.
If I could just perch on one for a second, I could look
over the side. It will only take a minute, and then
we’ll go on our way to the wall.”
“Be careful,” Timley admonished. “I’m not so sure
that’s a great idea—way too close to people for my
tastes. In case you hadn’t noticed, people don’t seem
to like mice very much.”
“Come on—are you a pirate or a chicken?!”
Without waiting for an answer, Sophie swooped
down. She hooted with delight as more of the fascinating merchandise came into view. Spices were
stacked neatly into pyramids, oranges and pomegranates placed in neat rows. Statues of camels and
angels carved from golden-hued olive wood rested on
tables next to racks of t-shirts and strappy leather
sandals. Timley licked his lips when he saw bowls of
olives—both black and green ones.
Just beyond easy eyesight, Sophie could see something shining—something gold perhaps. Most of it
was hidden underneath yet another blue awning.
She needed to be just a little bit lower.
“If … I… could… just…” Sophie grunted, as she
peered over the edge. “If… I… ugh… could… just…
ach… see… farther over the… side… for… a… sec—
AACH!”
Losing her balance, Sophie toppled, actually
somersaulting through the air over the side of the
awning. Grasping for one of the cherries on the brim
of Sophie’s hat, Timley missed and catapulted right
out of her hat. He sprawled on top of the bright red
pomegranates, hitting them hard.
“Timley!” Sophie screamed.
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“Mouse!” screamed a tourist, who had picked up
and was sniffing a pomegranate next to the one Timley
landed on. It fell from her hand with a thud, landing
in the middle of the angled fruit table, causing an
avalanche of pomegranates and oranges.
Timley cascaded to the earth with them. When
he hit the ground, fruit continued to rain all around
him—great heavy globes that smashed or rolled
when they hit. Stunned at first, he tried desperately
to dodge them, leaping here and there in a frantic
dance. Sophie, meanwhile, after flapping her wings
in the tourist’s face, managed to right herself quickly
and began to look for Timley.
Most of the tourists now congregating in the Muslim
District of the Old City, on this day of rest and Rosh
Hashanah (New Year) holiday for the Jewish population, seemed to be trying to step on Timley’s head.
Like a tornado, destruction and screams followed the
terrified mouse wherever he ran.
The rolling fruit caused the crowd of people in
the narrow street to jump and stumble, overturning
tables of merchandise, which created more chaos and
confusion. Jewelry flew through the air, dates and
figs and grapes and olives were trampled underfoot.
Fragrant clouds plumed all around as flip-flops and
sandals and shoes ground spices into the pavement.
Small dogs, gripped tightly in their owners’ arms,
barked furiously at Timley, and the many cats ran to
and fro through the crowd looking for him, tripping
people and upsetting even more booths.
For Timley, almost blind with fear and no obvious
route to safety, there seemed no escape.
“Help me, Sky Painter, help me!” cried Timley over
and over again.
In the mayhem, Sophie kept trying to pick her little
friend out of the crowd. Each time she spotted him,
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only to see a foot land right next to his tiny head, her
heart stopped a little bit. She wished she could swoop
down and rescue him as she’d done on the Princess
Clipper, but here the crowds pressed all around; there
was simply no room to fly.
At long last she saw him scamper up the side of
a small cart. He disappeared under a mound of soft,
white sheepskins.
Eventually the cats gave up their search and the
dogs stopped barking and the shopkeepers took
out their brooms and the tourists began arguing for
discounts on the merchandise that had landed on
the ground.
One shopkeeper, a bearded old man, shook his
head as he surveyed the mess. He said to another
merchant, who was wiping pomegranate juice off his
hands with a white cloth tied around his waist, “Just
a nothing, a tiny mouse! Haven’t tourists ever seen a
little mouse before?”
With normalcy returned, Sophie went over to
Timley’s hiding place and perched on one side of the
brightly painted green wooden cart. “You can come
out now, Timley,” Sophie whispered. “It’s safe.”
Just then, a motor started up very close by. The
cart lurched forward, pulled by a tiny green tractor
along the narrow street. Sophie, perched on the cart’s
edge, tumbled into it headfirst. She had a soft landing
in the sheepskins, but her skinny legs stuck straight
up toward the sky!
Muffled hoots and squawking noises emitted from
where Sophie’s head was buried in the thick white
wool. Wiggling to and fro, she finally managed to
right herself. She shook the wool out of her ear tufts.
A tiny, persistent laughter seemed to come from
the sheepskin itself. She swiveled her head and saw
Timley bent over double with hilarity, holding his
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hand to his shaking belly.
“Just what is so-o-o-o funny?” Sophie asked indignantly.
“Hee hee! I can’t help it. Look at me!” Timley
turned onto his back and wiggled his own legs in
the air. Sophie finally laughed too, and when Timley
could speak without breaking out into more giggles,
he offered Sophie an olive. Several dates and olives
had fallen into the cart during the chaos, and he had
been enjoying quite a feast while waiting for everything to settle down.
“Just a minute, Timley—there is something tangled
around your tail.” Sophie set about freeing him as he
twisted and turned, trying to see it for himself. “Hold
still!”
“Hoo hoo!” Finally Sophie held up a simple ‘t’ carved
out of olive wood. It hung from a brown leather cord.
She handed it to Timley. “I guess this is yours now.”
Looking back toward the market, she shook her head.
“No use going back there and causing another scene
just trying to return it. Would God say that it’s stealing when it’s an accident?”
Timley took it in his paw, and looked it. “I don’t
know about that, but I do know that we can’t go
back. You’re right—we’d just make a bigger mess.”
He handed it to Sophie. “Here, Sophie. I want you
to have it. It isn’t shiny or pure gold or anything,
but maybe you will like it anyway. I’ve been trying
to think how I could thank you for saving my life—
first on the ship, and then from Dastard. If it wasn’t
for you, Dastard’s bride would’ve eaten me for sure.”
Timley’s face turned a little red and he looked away
before adding in a soft voice, “You’re the best friend
I’ve ever had.”
The owl put it proudly around her neck. It didn’t
shine like pure gold, but the little golden-hued wooden
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cross felt like the best gift she had ever received.
Happy, both the owl and the mouse rolled around
in the sheepskin as the cart rumbled out of the mazelike streets in the old section of Jerusalem. They let
its warm, wooly coziness soothe away all the frights
of the past twenty-four hours.
“I can’t believe we’ve only been in the Holy Land for
one day,” Sophie said, stifling a yawn. She noticed for
the first time that the sun was now ’way past noon.
“I think I’ll close my eyes for just a few minutes. How
about you? Timley? … Timley?”
The little mouse was already fast asleep. The
sound of the rumbling tractor, the excitement of the
morning, and the soft sheepskin had all worked their
magic; before she knew it, Sophie, too, was snoring
softly beside him.
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Chapter 20
The Dog’s Tale
Y
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ou-oo awake?”
Timley rolled over onto his back in the warm,
wooly sheepskin and stretched all his limbs
before creeping over to the side of the cart. He looked
over the edge, but the little mouse couldn’t see a
thing. It was very dark, with just a thin stream of light
coming from a doorway on one side of the building.
“Blow me down, where are we? We must have slept
the rest of the day.” Timley sniffed and wrinkled up
his nose. “I don’t think we are in Jerusalem anymore.
This place sure smells like a barn.”
Sophie looked around, her large, golden eyes easily
adjusting to the dim light. “It is a barn.” Animal stalls
lined both sides of a rough wooden building. Feeding
troughs marched in a line in front of the stalls. The
stalls themselves were empty, but wheat and corn
kernels stuck to the sides of the troughs. Animals
had eaten there recently. A few buckets and a couple
of mops occupied the corner next to the wide door,
which was slightly ajar. Moonbeam rays, speckled
with dust, pierced the darkness in the barn.
“Breakfast!” said Timley, whose eyes had finally
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adjusted to the darkness, and he scampered down
to the nearest feeding trough. Nibbling on one corn
kernel after another, he soon had eaten as much as
his stomach could hold.
“My turn,” Sophie said finally, trying not to sound
too impatient, but feeling quite hungry herself. Once
they were outside, stars glimmered above them in
the clear night sky. The moonlight allowed them to
see easily across the barnyard and then beyond it
to some nearby hills. The soft bleating of sheep and
goats came from the direction of the hills.
“We’ll perch over there.” Sophie pointed to a low
stone fence about twenty yards away that divided
the barnyard area from the hills. The bleating grew
louder the closer they got.
No sooner had they landed, than they could hear
an animal of large proportions breathing heavily, as
if running, and drawing closer to them. Although the
night was bright, the animal was hidden from view
because of a dip in the hill next to their perch.
Just as Sophie was about to take off for a safer
place to stake out breakfast, a dog came bounding over the crest of the hill toward them. He had a
dark brown face with brown pointy ears, a white ring
around his mouth, and a spotted tan-and-brownand-white body. His white tail curled up and wagged
back and forth.
“Huff! Huff! Huff! Huff!” he barked at them.
The somewhat bewildered travelers watched the
dog warily, unsure if he had barked a greeting or a
warning. Sophie could feel Timley freeze like a statue
in her hat. He was obviously not happy to meet
another local animal just yet.
Sophie, however, had watched dogs playing with
people many times in the Park—chasing a round, flat
disc over and over again—and knew that most dogs
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were friendly animals, generally speaking. Staying
put on her perch, she greeted him with a few soft
hoots and a nod, which the dog returned.
“Name’s Shep,” he said. “Hope I didn’t scare you,
but got sheep to protect and all. Need to know who is
in my territory, you know?” He looked over his shoulder and gave a little start. “Hey—gotta go, but I’ll be
right back! Wait here!”
He raced over to one of the smaller lambs who had
wandered a little too far from the rest of the flock, and
now stood rooted to the ground, bleating and looking
around for his mother with a concerned look on his
face. Nudging the lamb gently, the sheep dog did his
job well; the little one soon nestled happily against
his mother.
The dog took another quick look around, and then
came back to the fence. “Who are you?” he asked the
travelers.
“I’m Sophie, and this is Timley. We’re from across
the Big Sea.”
“Welcome! We don’t get enough visitors out here in
the hills. Most tourists stay in the towns and cities.
I like meeting new folks. What are you doing here?
Where are you going next?” He talked so fast that
they couldn’t get a word in edgewise. It seemed he
hadn’t had anyone new to talk to in ages.
Suddenly, though, Shep stopped his rapid-fire
stream of questioning and he leaned in until his face
was just a few inches away from Sophie’s chest. In
silence, he lifted Sophie’s wooden necklace out from
underneath some of her chest feathers with a paw,
and in a hushed voice, said, “I thought I saw a cross.”
Surprised, Sophie took it back in her wing and
looked at it. “You mean this? It was a gift from Timley.”
She proudly ruffled her feathers a bit.
Shep leaned nearer to them. “With a necklace like
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that, you must know about… that night.” His voice
faded to a whisper, but not out of fear, it seemed. In
awe.
Sophie and Timley looked blankly at each other,
then at the object dangling from the bottom of her
necklace, then again at Shep. They shook their heads.
“No,” Sophie said eagerly, “but we want to know.
It’s one of the reasons why we came to the Holy Land
in the first place. Can you tell us?”
Would the mystery of the dangling ‘t’ be solved at
last?
Shep looked around again to make sure his charges
were fine, and then continued. “I’m talking about the
holy night when the angels came.”
“Holy angels?? Oo-oo, tell us! Tell us!” Sophie
forgot all about her stomach now. Breakfast could
wait.
A pup came across the hill toward Shep, who
nuzzled his face with his own before continuing.
“Are you telling the story of the angels, Papa?! Tell it,
Papa! Tell it!”
Shep nodded, then began. “Yes, my boy. Well, my
family,” he said proudly, “we’ve been helping the shepherds watch the sheep around Bethlehem for many,
many generations. Some say it’s been over 2000 years!
The story of the angels has been passed down, word
for word, grandfather to grandson—”he nuzzled his
pup again—“and father to son, ever since. Each one
has claimed with his dying breath that the story is
true.”
“The angels, tell us about the angels,” Sophie
pleaded.
Shep looked around again at the flock. “Well, on
a night probably a lot like tonight—clear, with the
moon and stars shining their lights brightly across
the hills, one star was bigger and brighter than all
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the rest. It even looked like it hung right over Bethlehem! Anyway, the shepherds and their dogs were
doing what we do every night, just watching over the
sheep, you know. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord
appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone
around them. They were really freaked out, as you
can imagine,” said Shep.
“That’s only one angel,” observed Sophie. “You
said ‘angels’. Were there more?”
“Yup! I’ll get to that in a sec. The shepherds are
used to working in the dark, you know? The bright
light from heaven scared them nearly to death! They
hid their faces behind their shepherds’ crooks but
the angel told them they shouldn’t be afraid—he was
bringing them ‘good news of great joy that will be
for all people’. And the shepherds got to be the first
people to hear about it,” Shep said, his face beaming
like the moon.
“The baby! Tell them about the baby!” the puppy
begged.
“I’m getting to that. The angel continued: ‘Today in
the town of David (that’s Bethlehem, you know—the
town very close to here), a Savior has been born to
you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you:
You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a
manger’.
“Those were the exact words as told to me by my
grandfather, as told to him by his grandfather. Then,”
(Shep turned to Sophie), “then a great company of the
heavenly host appeared with the first angel.”
Shep’s son wagged his tail vigorously and joined
his dad, saying, “The host—that means lots and lots
of angels!” he explained proudly. “They praised God,
saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to Men on whom his favor rests’.”
“What happened next? Did they go to Bethlehem
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and find the baby?” Sophie was enchanted.
“Yup, they sure did. Inside a cave, there he was, in
a manger, just as the angel had said.”
“A manger?” asked Timley.
“Yup—a feeding trough for animals.”
“A manger sure is a strange place to lay a baby!”
Timley kept thinking about the food trough he had
just eaten out of. “A cave seems like a weird place
for a baby to be born, too. Didn’t they have hospitals
back then?” Timley’s inquiring mind wanted to know.
“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” replied
Shep. “All I know is what the angels said.”
Sophie was puzzled about one thing. “I don’t see
what this has to do with my cross. And do you know
what happened to the baby after that? If he was so
special that angels came to announce his birth, he
must have done many wonderful things during his
life.”
Shep’s tail started wagging faster than ever. It
wasn’t often he had visitors to tell this story to—especially ones who had never heard it before. “Yup! He
sure did! Yeshua, Jesus—that was the baby’s name—
he did many amazing things. They say that when he
was grown up he performed all kinds of miracles. He
healed people who were blind and lame or had bad
diseases like leprosy; he walked on water; he calmed
a big storm just by talking to it; he even fed a huge
crowd of people with a little kid’s lunch! He never,
ever, did anything wrong—ever.”
Sophie and Timley exchanged a meaningful glance.
What it must feel like to be—clean—like that, with no
uncomfortable thoughts about bad things you had
done!
“Was he a doctor?” Sophie asked the dog.
Shep shook his head.
“He must have become a king or something!”
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Timley exclaimed.
“Well, when Jesus was born, travelers from far
away followed the bright star that shone over Bethlehem. They claimed that the star was a sign that
a new king had been born to the Jews and that it
had led them right to Jesus. They worshiped him and
presented him with special gifts.”
Shep suddenly looked downcast, and his tail
stopped wagging. “Then the story actually becomes
quite sad. Some people, of course, wanted to make
him king because of all the miracles he had done.
They thought Jesus could overthrow the Romans
who were in control at the time. A few people even
claimed he was the Son of God, the Messiah, who
had been promised to the Jewish people for thousands of years.
“The religious leaders didn’t like all the attention
Jesus was getting. Some felt threatened by him and
arrested him and had him killed. The Romans hung
him from a cross—a big wooden one.”
Sophie squirmed a little on her perch and looked
uncomfortably down at the olive wood cross hanging
around her neck. “But if he could do all those miracles, couldn’t he save himself?”
Shep nodded. “Well, a lot of people thought so and
made fun of him while he was dying on that horrible
cross. ‘Come down! Save yourself!’ they taunted. A
story even went around in those days that he had
just raised one of his own friends from the dead. But,
even so, Jesus died, and they put him in a tomb, and
sealed it tight with a great big rock. The Romans had
heard a rumor about Jesus coming back to life in
three days, so they put guards in front of the tomb.
They didn’t want anybody to take his body away and
say that he had come back to life.”
“I don’t get it,” said Sophie. “If Jesus died on the
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cross, why would people want to be reminded of
that terrible day and wear necklaces with crosses on
them? I’ve even seen crosses on great big buildings
back home, crosses that shine like gold! I’m not sure
I want to wear mine anymore. It will just make me
sad to think how things could have been different,
if—”
“If Jesus were actually still alive?” Timley interrupted, very excited. His tiny tail flipped back and
forth, swatting Sophie, who sat beside him on the
fence.
“That’s crazy,” Sophie said, moving Timley a little
farther away, but Shep was nodding his head and
wagging his tail so hard it looked like it might fall off.
“This is the best part of the story,” Shep continued. “On the third day after Jesus died, some women
went to the tomb to finish a Jewish ritual for the dead
that they hadn’t been able to do the day he died, it
being Shabbat.”
“Shabbat,” Timley said, nodding. “We know about
that! We saw lots of families celebrating Shabbat.”
“Right. Jews can’t do any work from the time they
can count three stars on Friday to the same time on
Saturday. They rest like God did after creating the
world and they also remember that God rescued
them from slavery in Egypt, where they didn’t have
the freedom to rest.”
“Man, you sure know a lot,” said Timley, impressed.
“Not at all, my little friend, not at all. Everyone
around here knows all about it.”
Shep’s humble spirit made Timley increasingly
fond of their new acquaintance. After Dastard, he
hadn’t been too anxious to meet more locals, but
he found it impossible not to like Shep’s energetic,
generous spirit.
“So what happened at the tomb when the women
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got there?” Sophie didn’t mean to sound impatient,
but her stomach was grumbling, reminding her that
she still hadn’t eaten any breakfast.
In a voice hushed again with awe, Shep continued.
“Well, even though it had been guarded, the tomb
was empty, except for the burial cloths that were
folded—left behind. Jesus was alive again. Hundreds
of people claimed to see him after that, and his
followers, called disciples, watched him rise back up
to heaven a few weeks later.”
“Alive! But he still disappeared, and then that was
the end of it, right?” Sophie felt a little disappointed
again, somehow.
“Nope,” said Shep. “Jesus told his disciples that
he was the Messiah they had waited for, God’s Son,
who had died for their sins—the wrong things people
do against God. It was His gift to mankind. He knew
they could never be perfect enough to get to heaven
on their own. Jesus, who was perfect, died so that
imperfect people can be with Him forever.”
Listening to the story, Sophie felt transported back
to her grandfather’s maple tree, the day she showed
him the cross. Had he ever heard this story? How
could he have heard it and concluded that the cross
was ‘nothing but trouble’? It sounded to her like it
was a rescue from trouble! If only the story could be
true, as Shep claimed!
Shep’s pup pushed his head under her wing,
wanting to be petted. Sophie tried to bring herself
back to listen to the rest of Shep’s story.
“If that wasn’t amazing enough all by itself, Jesus
also promised that he would be with them ‘to the
end of the age’, and that he’d send his believers a
comforter—a counselor—his Holy Spirit—to guide
them and protect them and help them live life to
the full until he came back for them someday. Even
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though it’s been two thousand years, people who
follow Jesus are still waiting for him to return.”
His whiskers quivering, Timley asked Sophie if she
thought that it was Jesus’ Holy Spirit who was with
them when they watched the sunset and prayed on
the ship.
“Who-oo knows for sure?” she said, wondering.
She fingered her cross and smiled. Now she could
tell Grandfather why the cross was so important to so
many people! It pointed to a wonderful, mysterious
man named Jesus!
Shep and his son went back to the sheep and the
owl and the mouse silently pondered Shep’s story. It
was quite some time before Sophie remembered that
she still hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet.
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Chapter 21
Stars, Elephants, and Other Things in the Sky
T
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he next day, and for many days that followed,
Sophie and Timley stayed with Shep and his
sheep on the farm outside Bethlehem. Timley’s
former physique returned with all the fresh air and
exercise, and they spent much of their time watching
the sheep’s playful antics and talking to Shep when
he could take a break. The smallest sheep, the lamb
which had wandered away the first night, got into
trouble time and again. Over and over, Shep would
help push him over a rock he couldn’t climb over, or
nudge him closer toward the rest of the flock.
“He sure is patient with that little one,” observed
Sophie one day.
“I don’t think Shep would ever let anything bad
happen to that lamb. He notices everything,” said
Timley.
One day Shep disappeared for quite some time.
Sophie and Timley started to get worried about him.
“I wonder if we should go look for him. Maybe he
fell into a crevice in the rocks, or something,” Timley
suggested.
Sophie nodded, and said, “I’ve noticed some dry
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wells around here, too. Maybe he has fallen into one
and needs our help!”
Before they could even start looking for him, Shep
appeared over the top of a hill. Blood oozed from
deep, fresh scratches torn into the skin on his back.
He was limping. The littlest lamb trotted along beside
him, bleating for his mother.
“Shep! Shep! Where have you-oo been? What
happened to you-oo?” Sophie flew beside him as he
made his way slowly home.
“A wolf had a taste for lamb, which will have to
be satisfied another day,” Shep explained humbly. A
steely, determined gaze came to his eyes. “And not by
my sheepfold!” he continued.
Sophie and Timley were amazed at his bravery, and
thought about how Shep had once, rather proudly,
told them that some people called Jesus ‘The Good
Shepherd’.
“It is said of Jesus,” he told them, “that He searches
for people who are lost, just as shepherds search for
lost and wandering sheep.” Shep explained that the
holy book of the Jews—the scroll that Timley had
seen in the synagogue—had a passage in it that tells
about Jesus the Shepherd perfectly, even though
it was written long before He was born. “I’ve heard
it read out loud,” said Shep. “It says, ‘I myself will
search for my sheep… I will search for the lost and
bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and
strengthen the weak’.”
Watching Shep at work, selflessly caring more for
the safety of his sheep than his own, they began to
understand exactly what that meant.
And so the days passed: happy, carefree days. One
night they flew over the town of Bethlehem and heard
music coming from an old sandstone building.
“There are crosses on the roof!” Sophie exclaimed.
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She flew lower to get a closer look.
A group of tourists stood just inside the church,
singing. The door was slightly ajar, even though
the night air was cool. They were just finishing one
particular song when Sophie’s sharp ears heard:
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Heav’nly hosts sing alleluia,
Christ, the Savior, is born!
Christ, the Savior, is born!
O
“Timley! I think they must be singing about the
night that Shep told us about, and the special baby,
Jesus! Let’s listen—maybe they’ll sing another one.”
Just then the whole group passed through the
narrow door to the church and stood in the courtyard. The group leader pointed to the clear night sky
and said, “It must have been on a night similar to
this one that Jesus, our Savior, was born, and the
special star lit the wise men’s path. When we wander
far from God, Jesus lights our path home again as
well. Let’s sing the old Swedish carol, I Think of That
Star of Long Ago, with grateful hearts. Jesus is bringing us home!”
They sang,
I think of that star of long ago
That lighted the wanderers’ path below;
In faith I look up, and o’er me I see
That star in its beauty—still shining for me.
O star that once shone over Bethlehem!
Thy beams yet to mortals great joy proclaim;
The Lord to adore, I hasten with thee,
O star in thy beauty—still shining for me.
“Do you think Jesus will light our path home?”
Timley whispered.
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“Shep did say that Jesus looks for ‘lost sheep’.
Maybe he will look for a lost owl and a lost mouse,
too!”
Timley sighed deeply as he thought of home. He
wished with all his heart that the stars would tell
him how to get there. He could almost see it now—the
stars all lined up in a giant, sparkling arrow pointing
to the northwest, back to the sea and across the ocean
to the City and the Park, where his mother would
be waiting for him with open arms and pussy willow
tea. Sophie could simply fly up to the stars, couldn’t
she?—and together they would slide in safety on the
glittering path, all the way to their tree.
The little mouse sighed again. Impossible.
“Do you think we should be leaving the farm soon,
Sophie? You’ve learned a lot about your necklace.
I want to learn more about Sky Painter, but maybe
we’ve learned all we can here. If… if it’s okay with
you, I want to try to get home. Can we?”
Sophie didn’t answer Timley right away. As usual,
she was enjoying her new surroundings very much,
and it bothered her to be reminded that they didn’t
actually belong there. They had plenty to eat and
interesting company in Shep, who always had great
stories to tell at night after taking care of the sheep all
day. Besides, it was just plain entertaining to watch
the lambs tumble and play. Why did Timley always
have to spoil her fun by reminding her of things they
needed to do?
Thorns and thistles! I was just getting settled into
my new routine, Sophie thought, a bit annoyed. Can’t
he ever just be satisfied where he’s at?
But even as Sophie thought this, she knew it was
unfair. Timley was right—they didn’t really belong
there on the farm, and if she had learned all she was
going to learn about the necklace, then there was no
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need to stay in the Holy Land.
“You-oo are right, Timley. There’s really no reason
to keep going on our quest—I did find out what my
necklace was about, and that’s what I said I wanted
to do. Let’s tell Shep tomorrow.”
The next evening, after Shep came in to the barn
after a long day out with the sheep, Sophie begged
Shep to tell her the story of the glorious angels again,
and of the miraculous things the baby did when he
grew up, and even of the day Jesus died, and of the
empty tomb.
“I need to hear the whole story again, because I
don’t want to ever forget. You see, we think we need
to be traveling on. We can’t stay in one spot if we’re
going to get home again someday. We’ve been here
for a couple of weeks, and that’s probably too long.”
“Keep your hat on,” Shep said. “You’ve only told me
a little about your adventures here, before you came to
the farm. My life is pretty much the same, just tending
these sheep day after day. Please tell me more.”
They told him all about the pleasant weeks sailing
on the Princess Clipper, and then the scary encounter with Dastard. Although he was somewhat familiar with the rituals of the worshiping Muslim and
Jewish people, he was interested to hear Sophie’s
and Timley’s observations. Shep couldn’t stop laughing when they told him about the chaos they had
created in Jerusalem.
“Huff! Huff! I sure wish I could have seen you two
at that market!”
He laughed all over again when Timley demonstrated how Sophie had ended up head first in the
cart full of sheepskins.
Timley whispered something to Sophie, who
nodded.
“Shep,” Timley said shyly. “You won’t laugh if we
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tell you a secret?”
Shep shook his head. “You can trust Shep! I won’t
laugh at something you think is important.”
Timley went on to confide in him how Sophie had
started the whole journey by wanting to know more
about the cross on her necklace, and how their quest
changed when they were thankful for a spectacular sunset they saw while sailing on the ship. Both
of them knew that a special Someone, perhaps the
creator of the sunset itself, was actually with them.
They longed to learn his name.
“We call him Sky Painter,” Sophie added, “but ever
since we arrived in the Holy Land, we have heard so
many names for God, the Creator: Allah, Adonai, the
Lord, Messiah, Jesus: Who is God, really? Can we
ever find out for sure?” She sighed. “I’m beginning to
think it’s impossible.”
Shep was listening intently. “What I know about
Jesus and the angels is good enough for me, but you
two might be interested in hearing about the time a
circus train came through here,” he said.
“A circus train? What does that have to do with
Sky Painter?” asked Timley.
“Well, now, just listen. I don’t know if it does, but it
might help you anyway. A few years ago, when I was
a mere pup, a big circus train came through Bethlehem on its way to Jerusalem. It wasn’t exactly a
train, but brightly decorated wagons with cages in
them that traveled together. There were lions, tigers,
bears, monkeys—even an elephant. A ship had
brought them from Asia through the Red Sea, and
now they were touring the Middle East, going from
town to town in these wagons.
“Right as they passed this farm, something went
wrong with one of the wheels on the elephant’s cage.
The farmer let them spend the night here while
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they fixed it. I spent most of the night talking to the
elephant. He had come from a faraway place called
India.”
“India!” Timley said. He paused for a moment from
chewing on a kernel of corn, his tail flipping back and
forth with excitement. “I read about India in a travel
book that was in the Princess Clipper library.”
“Right. Well, I don’t know much about India, but
that elephant—talk about a long memory! He knew
stories from way back, as far back as my ancestors.
He wanted to hear all about the angels too, just like
you. When I told him about the special baby sent by
God, he told me that in India, everything is a god. ‘All
is god and god is in all’, he said. His favorite story was
of Ganesh, a god who could remove obstacles. He had
the body of a man and the head of an elephant. He
also liked to tell a story about Indra, the god of the
sky and rain. He said that Indra rides an elephant
across the sky.”
Timley had finished his meal and was now lying
on his back, idly chewing on a piece of hay. “I could
sure use a flying elephant right about now—one who
could fly across a whole ocean! And one who could
remove all the obstacles between us and home,” he
said wistfully.
“Hmmm… Timley, did your book say how far away
India is?” wondered Sophie aloud.
“No. Why?”
“Well, these gods that Shep just told us about, from
India. They sound so different from anything we’ve
heard about here in the Holy Land. I wonder if we
should continue our quest for Sky Painter after all?”
Timley’s hay fell from his mouth. Shep didn’t seem
to notice any distress on Timley’s part, but walked
over to a window in the barn. “I do remember that
the elephant said that the Red Sea is south of here.”
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Shep pointed the way with his paw. “It’s not an easy
route, though. It’s hot, and dry, and it’s easy to get
lost if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Sophie looked out the window, then at Timley.
Timley struggled to find his voice. Finally, he spoke.
“I made you a promise, Sophie—I promised I would
be your eyes and ears on this trip, and a pirate never
goes back on his word.” He giggled. “Well, maybe a
pirate goes back on his word, but I don’t. We’ll go to
India, and then home. Agreed?”
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Chapter 22
Wilderness
T
O
he next day, when the blue sky was fading into
dusk grays, Sophie, Timley, and Shep met at
the fence for the last time. Again, Shep pointed
his paw to the south. “You’re sure you want to go that
route? It’s a most dangerous journey,” he cautioned.
The owl and the mouse nodded solemnly.
“Okay, then. It is very hot and dry in the wilderness. Drink water whenever you find it. The sun
beats down something fierce during the day, and then
the night is downright cold. Be sure to look for my
cousins. They herd sheep and goats with a Bedouin
tribe. They move sometimes, looking for fresh grazing
land, you know, but they passed near here not long
ago. Maybe they are still close. Look for dark goatskin
tents. Those dogs are wilderness survival experts.”
“Hoo hoo, hu-hoo! We’ll be fine, we’ll be fine. Thank
you, Shep, for being so kind to us. We’ll never forget
you—or the angels!” Throwing her wings up and back
and picking her talons off the perch, Sophie took to
the sky with Timley again positioned behind the front
brim of her hat.
Scooting himself quickly around to the back of the
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hat, Timley waved with both hands until they could
no longer see Shep running back and forth on the
hillside, a brown and white moving speck, barking
goodbye.
As night approached, they flew south over olive
groves and hilly pasturelands that were now grooved
so deeply by shadow that Timley could barely see the
sheep clusters that occasionally dotted the landscape
below. Sophie, of course, could still see just fine.
“Why, this isn’t so bad, no, not so bad at all,”
mused Sophie. “And look over there—a dark-colored
tent, just like Shep said, of course.”
Squinting, Timley could just make out the tents of
the Bedouin camp that was set up near a well on the
edge of the wilderness. To the north, groves of trees
dotted the scenery; to the south, isolated trunks
occasionally stood silhouetted against the sky. A onehumped camel was tethered to one side of the tent.
Coming toward the tent from the well, a girl of about
ten or eleven years old was carrying a large jar on her
shoulder. She set it down near a man who squatted
on a rug next to a cooking fire ringed with stones. He
had a white-and-red patterned cloth wrapped around
his head and wore a long light-colored robe.
He was flipping something flat and white on a
cooking surface. A kettle with gentle ribbons of steam
coming from the spout sat in the fire. The smell of
coffee laced with cardamom filled the air.
“’Mmm, there’s cheese, too,” sniffed Timley. “But I
don’t see any sheep or goats—or dogs.”
Sophie scanned the horizon with her bright eyes.
“There they are!”
They watched as a group of children, wearing loose
garments of bright red trimmed with gold thread,
waved their arms behind a flock of sheep. Slightly
older shepherd boys and girls were positioned in
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front of the flock to lead the way. Three dogs trotted
along the side.
Sophie and Timley perched in a tree near the tent
and watched with fascination as the people took
supper and then sat in a circle near the fire. Small
drums appeared, and a stringed instrument, like a
guitar. For quite some time they sat there singing,
talking, and laughing together.
The weary dogs, after they had eaten, settled down
next to a small campfire near the flock of sheep, heads
resting in their paws. Sophie and Timley hesitated,
but finally worked up the courage to approach them.
“Hoo Hoo, excu-oose us,” Sophie said. “Would you
happen to be related to a wonderful dog named Shep
who lives near Bethlehem?”
The dogs perked up and each one started yipping,
“Yep! Yep! Yep! Yep! He’s our cousin! How do you
know him? He hasn’t been hurt, has he? Shepherding is such dangerous work.”
The wanderers assured them of Shep’s good
health, and the dogs, relieved to hear it, responded
with great Bedouin hospitality. They made room for
them around their fire, and offered them their water
bowl. Timley ate some of the cheese—goat’s cheese,
he learned—with great appreciation and interest.
While it smelled stronger than cheese he had eaten
before, it had a good, rich taste, which he remembered fondly for a long time to come.
Sophie was mesmerized by the strumming and
beats of the Bedouin music, and asked the dogs more
about it.
“They are singing to the camel,” one of them said,
“to keep him happy and strong.”
Sophie glanced through the darkness at the tethered camel. He was chewing on hay, contently enough.
“Singing keeps me happy, too,” she told them.
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As the evening wore on, they also shared lots of
advice—and plenty of warnings—about traveling
through the wilderness.
The oldest dog in the group spoke with a muffled
voice, very slowly, but he drew from a wealth of experience that was obviously respected by the other
dogs. The others listened and nodded vigorously with
each sentence.
“The farther south you go, the drier it gets.
However, you can still find water—if you know where
to look. Keep a sharp eye out for wadis.”
Sophie and Timley looked at each other with confusion in their eyes. The old dog noticed, and explained.
“A wadi is a low spot between hills. Most of the time
they are dry, but acacia trees grow in some of them—
their branches spread out and are good for rest and
shelter—and perhaps you can find some small pools
of water nearby.” He lowered his voice and looked
straight at them. “But mind the sky. Mind the sky.
If clouds move in to a wadi, you move out. A dry
wadi can soon flow four or five feet deep, faster than
you can say ‘flash flood’. It’s deadly if it catches you
unaware.”
The animals continued to talk amiably long into
the night, sharing stories with the light of the fire
glimmering in each of their eyes. When Sophie and
Timley told them about their journey by sea on the
Clipper, the dogs guffawed with amazement. Water
that spanned the horizon was as difficult for the
desert dogs to imagine as endless miles of barren
rock and sand for Sophie and Timley.
By the time their final questions were asked and
answered on both sides, eyes drooped and yawns were
exchanged all around. Before going to sleep, however,
the Bedouin dogs implored Sophie and Timley to stay
for two more days, insisting that a three-day stay was
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the custom for visits. As much as Sophie and Timley
enjoyed their stay, they told them that they would
have to be on their way the next day.
Exhausted, the guests slept well and long and
when they finally awoke, the bright sun blazed high
in the sky. The dogs were gone.
It was very hot. The heat that rose from the sandy
ground blurred their view. They took to the sky.
The tents and fire pits and camel were soon like
toys surrounded by an enormous sandbox beneath
them, and the landscape quickly lost even the occasional tree. A few shrubby bushes were scattered
below them here and there. Just as empty-looking, a
painfully stark blue sky stretched out above them. At
the horizon, though, was a narrow strip of shimmering gray. Water!
“Are you thirsty, Timley?”
“Not yet, but maybe we better stop anyway.
Remember what Shep said.”
Sophie flew lower, but the shimmering space
vanished. Looking south, the horizon glistened enticingly again.
“Thorns and thistles! I must have misjudged the
spot, but I see it now—just up ahead.”
Up ahead, however, the pool of water disappeared
again!
When it had happened a third time, Timley remembered something that the dogs had mentioned the
night before that he hadn’t understood.
“Yes! These have to be the mirages that they told
us about. They look like pools of water, but they are
really tricks of light and heat.”
“How are we supposed to know when it’s really
water?”
“Beats me—I guess we just have to check them all
out.”
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“Easy for you to say. All you have to do is ride!”
Sophie, who was hard at work flying, got really
thirsty before Timley did.
“Do you remember, Timley, do you remember
those little glasses of fruit juice on the Clipper? Those
pretty ones with the umbrellas sticking out of the
top? Thorns and thistles, but those would taste so
sweet right about now.”
“Now Sophie,” Timley cautioned gently over the
hat brim, “don’t you start daydreaming about fruit
drinks already. We don’t know how far the sea is from
here. You might get a whole lot thirstier yet.”
“You-oo are too-oo sensitive!” Sophie protested.
“We were having fun last night telling the dogs about
the Princess Clipper, and I just started remembering,
that’s all.”
Timley didn’t want to say anything, but he had to
admit that the more Sophie thought about food and
drink the less she might remember her promise not
to eat him. There was something called a food chain,
and he knew his own place on it was not particularly
secure—especially if the situation grew desperate!
They flew on and on. The farther south they
traveled, the more desolate the landscape. Shep had
been right after all, about the wilderness being barren
and remote.
It didn’t take long before Sophie began to wonder
why they were traveling through that horrible wilderness in the first place.
“Did you ever know there was this much sand in
the entire world?” Sophie asked. “A cool, soft breeze
would feel so nice on my feathers. I wonder how far
it is to the sea?”
With nothing else to do but look at the vistas
around him, Timley was fascinated by the way the
sun’s movement changed the colors of the sand and
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rock that surrounded them. Now golden, now rusty
red, now brown, until at last, of course, the hot fireball in the sky sank over the horizon and Sophie’s
wishes changed dramatically, bringing Timley’s
thoughts back to the concerns at hand.
“Brr! Where did the heat go? How could it be so hot
one minute and so cold the next?” she complained.
“How I wish I could sit around the dogs’ fire, just one
more time. Maybe we should have taken them up on
their offer to stay longer. Maybe it was rude of us to
leave! Do you think we could turn around even now?
Why, we could be listening to music instead of freezing our feathers!”
“But we’d have to leave eventually, and the wilderness wouldn’t be any better then.”
“You’re right, of c-c-course.” The cold made her
shake as she flew. Timley had to hang on tight to stay
in her hat. “T-Timley, do you remember what it was
like to live indoors, in our tree? Our beautiful tree!
And Grandfather would have a plate of his acorn nut
cookies. They were the best! Hoo hoo!—it’s been so
long, I can’t even remember how they smelled. Ooh, I
can’t even remember what they taste like!”
Besides gently scolding Sophie for too much
remembering of impossible things, Timley was too
cold to say much in response. He huddled in the brim
of her hat under a little piece of sheep’s wool that the
dogs had given him before they went to sleep. They
flew until she grew too tired to fly, and then found a
bush or sometimes even a tree in a wadi to perch on
and sleep. For several days they followed this pattern
of flying at night, and then sleeping through the worst
of the heat.
They listened to the dogs’ advice and looked for
small pools of water that glistened below them like
gemstones in the moonlight. Unlike the glimmering
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sand mirages that fooled them time after time during
the day, these were real, and quite wet. They drank
deeply from each one they found, feeling that it might
be the last pool before reaching the sea.
Sophie took advantage of the water breaks to
pounce on and eat anything that crept along the
ground in that barren land. Her keen eyesight helped
her spot the slithering and scampering wilderness
creatures, and her silent approach made quick work
of the hunt. She wasn’t hungry at all.
“Sophie, that is just disgusting,” Timley complained
the third night. Sophie looked up, a lizard tail dangling
out of her mouth. “All I’ve done since we entered this
wilderness three days ago is watch you scarf down
snakes, rats and lizards. It’s gross! I can’t even find a
blade of grass to nibble on. I’m so hungry I could eat
my own tail!”
Timley wasn’t just complaining. He really was that
hungry. His stomach made loud, growling sounds
almost constantly. If it wasn’t for their success at
finding water, he was sure he’d be dead even now.
At first he’d tried to take his mind off of his hunger
pains by imagining out loud to Sophie all the exotic
sights they might see if they ever really made it to
India. He had read about India in one of the adventure books from the Princess Clipper’s library. Cows
roamed freely in the streets, and there was a beautiful white building called the Taj Mahal. He knew
Sophie would like to hear about that.
As three days turned into four, however, he became
very hungry—and more cranky than ever.
Sophie had just returned from eating her third
snake of the morning when Timley turned aside from
his fruitless search for something—anything—to eat,
and said, “Would you please quit smacking your beak
together when you are done eating? It is so annoying!”
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“Who-oo twisted your tail in a knot? If I am such a
bother to you, maybe I should just set you down on
the ground, and see how you like the trip to the Red
Sea by yourself then,” Sophie replied, getting a bit
testy herself.
“Aw, forget it.” Unable to think of anything but
complaints, Timley fell silent—silent, that is, except
for the constant churning noises coming from his
stomach.
Like an old-fashioned silent movie, scenes from
their trip kept playing over and over in the hungry
mouse’s mind: the time he asked Sky Painter to help
him escape from Dastard, and then Sophie pulling
him off the ledge of the fountain; the bus that took
them right to Jerusalem; Shep and his wonderful
stories and friendship.
One scene in particular kept rewinding to play
again and again in the starving mouse’s mind: Jewish
tables in Jerusalem piled high with sweet potatoes,
stuffed grape leaves, cucumber salad, and challah
bread, smiling faces aglow in the light of the Shabbat
candles. As his mind’s eye scanned the faces around
the tables, they morphed into the beloved faces of his
calm, kind, father and his caring mother, who, in his
mind’s eye, always had a ready tray of hot cocoa and
cookies.
Here the daydream turned into a nightmare.
His father would look right at him, smile, and then
vanish; his mother would pick up her tray from the
table, walk toward Timley’s spotless room, scream,
and then drop the tray. Trembling, Timley would
shake himself back to reality, only to run through
the whole scenario again.
Too weak from hunger to cry aloud, Timley begged
Sky Painter for help—for some sign that He was still
with them in this terrible place. The little mouse had
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never felt so alone. It had been two days now since
he had last complained to Sophie about her eating
habits—two days, in fact, since he had spoken to her
at all.
Oh, Sky Painter God, Timley prayed earnestly and
silently when Sophie had stopped to rest, eat, and
preen her feathers; where are you? I feel so alone.
A tear rolled down Timley’s tiny cheek, but he was
too weak and hungry to even wipe it away. As Sophie
swallowed another lizard, all he could do was pray.
You were with us on the sea, you were with us in
the cities, you were with us on the farm. I need you
here in this wilderness with me now, too! Only the
God who made this enormous world could be everywhere. Where are you now? Where are you now?
Timley lay weakly on the sandy ground, barely
able to lift his head. He looked up at the night sky
where the tranquil sight helped him, for the moment
at least, to forget about the angry pit in the bottom
of his stomach. The stars shone bright and clear.
The moon was full. The weather-smoothed hills and
valleys of the wilderness, dipping and rising in moonlight and in shadow, would have looked beautiful to
him in a strange, eerie way, if he had not been so
hungry.
One more thing, Sky Painter. Would you somehow
be with Mother and Father too, and tell them that I
love them? I do love them, so much.
Suddenly, words seemed to spring out of the night
itself:
“Trust Me.”
Who said that? Timley raised his weary head, and
looked at Sophie. Had she said something? No, her
beak was still full with yet another lizard. She showed
no sign that she had even heard anything.
“Trust Me.”
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Timley raised his head again, just a tiny bit off the
ground.
Who? I must be going crazy! Timley thought. Could
it be?
His head felt too heavy. He laid it back down on the
sand. He wanted to take a deep breath, but he didn’t
have the energy. The voice—it must have been inside
his mind—had said to trust. Although the night air
was chilly, he gave in to the warmth of the sand that
still held the memory of the day’s hot sun, and let it
comfort his body.
Trust. He gave in to the warmth and the silent
voice, ready to just lie there forever, shallow breath
in, shallow breath out, until his breathing simply
stopped.
Trust… breathe in… Sky Painter… breathe out…
not alone… breathe in… not … breathe out… alone …
breathe in… Thank you… breathe out…
A sudden but gentle breeze from the west caused
him to lift his head ever so slightly off the sand into
the chilly air, and sniff.
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Chapter 23
Hope for the Hopeless
H
O
u-hoo! Hu-hoo! Hu-hoo! I smell breakfast
toast—do you have any for me?”
“My goodness gracious,” Mother Mouse
said to Father Mouse. “The Great WHO! He must have
news!”
She quickly tied her blue-and-yellow floral scarf
around her head and scampered outside to greet their
important guest. She carried a tiny plate with an even
tinier piece of toast on it, but it was the biggest piece
she had. She held it out to Sophie’s Grandfather.
“Has Salty Sam come back? Is there any news?
Are they on their way home? Please tell me!”
He reached for the toast and gave her a gracious
bow of his head. His shoulders slumped a little and
he shook his big head slowly from side to side.
“Dearest Lady Mouse,” the distinguished-looking
owl began, his huge golden eyes brimming with tears.
“I just now had a brief visit from Salty Sam. He dutifully reports with regret that the Princess Clipper, the
very ship that carried our dear children off to the Holy
Land, has returned to the Harbor. But alas! Timley
and Sophie were not aboard.”
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Mother Mouse turned toward Father Mouse and
laid her head on his shoulder.
Father Mouse, looking over his wife’s head, asked
the owl if he had any idea what had happened to them.
“They must have disembarked and entered the Holy
Land according to their plan. While it is disappointing that they are not now safe at home, I do-oo have
to say that I am so very proud of them for pursuing
their quest. It reminds me of my own adventures when
I was young. Only difference was that I went off in
search of find-able, know-able things! I would hope
that they find what they are looking for, but, of course,
it’s impossible. How does Sophie go about finding God,
of all things? Isn’t God as abstract and unfindable a
concept as there could ever be? It just isn’t logical!”
Mother Mouse, who had calmed down enough to
listen to the Great Wise Horned Owl, didn’t understand. “God?”
“Sophie, you see, found a necklace with a cross
on it—right before they left for the Holy Land. I told
her that it was a holy symbol—a symbol of God—for
some people, but that it truly was—I’m embarrassed to
repeat it—‘hooey’, I said to her. Can you imagine that?
Why did I not listen to her and try to answer her heartfelt questions? She was sincere in her search to understand God, and all I did was make light of her curiosity.
I should have respected her desire to understand even
that which cannot be understood. I have been reflecting on my words, and I am so very sorry. I am sure she
left just to spite me; neither of our children would be
gone now if I had just been more understanding.”
After this long oration, Grandfather Owl let unaccustomed tears roll down his feathery brown face.
His great chest heaved up and down.
“There, there, dear friend.” Mother Mouse spoke
gently and patted his wing. Seeing this giant of a
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friend reduced to tears helped her summon courage
that she didn’t know she had. “We don’t know that
for sure. And we both said things we regret now. All
we can do now is to continue to wait—and hope.”
As she spoke, a cloud shifted and a bright full
moon shone like a beacon across the Park. Mother
Mouse pointed to it.
“There is just one moon, isn’t there? See how it
lights up the darkness. And look at the stars! Somewhere, that same big, beautiful moon and the light
of a million stars look down upon our dear children,
too. Perhaps Timley and Sophie are looking up too,
right this very minute! Maybe we are closer to each
other than we think. Let’s take strength from that,
and hope, even though hope isn’t logical, either.”
H
O
alf a world away, Sophie finished eating and
putting her feathers into top flying condition, yet
she hesitated before going after Timley. He had been
so quiet lately, which was even worse than when he
was cranky. At least then she didn’t feel so alone!
She knew he was hungry, but it wasn’t her fault he
couldn’t find anything to eat! Why did she feel so
guilty every time she looked at that sad, listless face?
Thorns and thistles! I don’t know what to do except
keep flying south and try to get to the sea as fast as
we can—and hope Timley makes it that long.
She was worried. The last time they stopped he
hadn’t even had the strength to get back into her hat
by himself.
“All groomed—Timley, where are you?” asked
Sophie. She was surprised to find him up and about,
sniffing all around.
“Over here,” Timley said weakly. “Smell… grassy.”
Summoning his last bit of strength, he followed the
scent, his nose to the ground. He soon returned with
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a large grain of wheat in his mouth. He swallowed it.
His eyes twinkled. “Food!” he said, after swallowing it.
“Wait here.” Sophie hopped over to the spot where
Timley had found the wheat, then flew overhead a
short ways before returning. “There’s more, Timley!
Lots more! It looks like a giant hand sprinkled a trail
of it across the sand.”
Sure enough, under the glowing moon and the
twinkling stars, the grain cut a barely visible line
across the ground.
“Let’s follow it,” Sophie said. “The trail runs to
the south.” They stopped often to let Timley fill his
cheeks, and after a refreshing drink of water, his
hope returned with his strength. Just before dawn,
they flew right into the source of the subtle trail: five
camels lumbered south in a single line across the
desert. Each had great burlap bags across its hump.
The last camel in line had a very tiny hole in one of
its bags: golden kernels of wheat dropped, one after
another, to the ground.
Day broke. The eastern sky silently exploded into
shades of pink and gold. A thin band of blue rimmed
the sandy horizon. As they flew closer they could see
that this was no mirage. The sea! The sea! The sea!
Sophie beat her wings a few strong strokes and
then soared toward the ever-widening blue stripe.
Pink and gold and blue,
My favorite colors, yes, it’s true.
We made it through the heat and sand—
Now we’re bound for India-land!
If only the Park we will someday see,
Happier I could never be!
Sophie, swept away by joy, sang her song over and
over and over again, and Timley was too relieved to care.
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Chapter 24
A New Friend Saves the Day
S
O
eagulls played on the warm sea breezes.
The late afternoon sunshine made the water
sparkle so brilliantly that it hurt Timley’s
desert-scorched eyes to look at it. He shut them tight
and just listened to the water lap gently against the
pier. Smiling at the sound, his desert-parched lips
cracked open; he winced in pain. Licking them to
soothe them, he smiled again, even though it hurt—
the familiar, salty taste of the sea!
They had finally come to rest on the wide open deck
of a huge container ship; Timley had first eaten his fill
of the spilled soybeans that covered the ground near
a bulk cargo ship further down the pier, and Sophie
had made her choice from a smorgasbord of fat rats
that hid in the brush along the shore. Giant cranes
loaded heavy-looking metal boxes onto a nearby ship.
“What can possibly be in all those big containers?” Sophie wondered aloud, breaking into Timley’s
thoughts. “And where do all these enormous ships
go? Who-oo could help us figure out if any of them go
all the way to India?”
“Or maybe even home,” added the exhausted mouse
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in a weak voice. He turned away from the sparkling
water and busy activity to face the more peaceful flat,
gray deck of the ship they rested on. The grains had
renewed his strength considerably, but he remained
weak and weary of the adventure. He wanted to go
home. He had made a promise, however, and he
intended to keep it.
Squinting, he tried to make out a small shape on
the other end of the deck that he hadn’t seen before.
“Sophie—look this way!” Timley whispered. “Is that a
monkey? I didn’t see it before now.”
A small brown figure with a lighter brown furry
muff around his head was sitting cross-legged and
looking calmly out to sea. He held his hands out in
an unusual position. The ship was so large that they
could barely make him out.
“Yoo-who-oo! Yoo-who-oo!” called Sophie cheerily. “Who-oo is there? Hello!” The little brown shape
didn’t move or act like he had even heard Sophie. She
grunted at Timley.
“Well. How rude. He acts like he can’t even hear
me. What is he doing, anyway? I’d get tired holding
my arms out like that for so long.”
SCREECH! SCREECH! CLANK!
The sky darkened above them and the two travelers looked frantically around them, unsure what was
happening or what they should do.
“Move away! Move—quickly!” An unfamiliar voice,
faint at first but growing louder caused them to look
around frantically in all directions. Sophie instinctively grabbed Timley in her talons and blazed off
toward the voice. The crane above them, like a supersized metal dinosaur, had sprung to life. It dropped
one of the huge boxes onto the very spot where they
had been sitting just a moment before.
“You wait much longer to move, you wake up in
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next life!” the monkey said, his chest heaving from
his dash across the deck when he heard the crane
start up. “You look much lost.”
Still stunned from their near miss, the owl and
the mouse just looked at each other and then the
monkey, blinking.
“Excuse me, please,” the monkey continued. He
put his hands together, fingers pointing upward in a
greeting. He made a slight bow. “Where my manner?
Namaste—hello. My name Pooki, short for Phuket
Island in Thailand where Captain find me. He from
India. He say I remind him of home—many monkey
in India. I see whole world with Captain. He good
man, very holy.”
Sophie cocked her head sideways at the word ‘holy’
and then twisted it around to look at Timley. “A Holy
Man from India!” she whispered.
“You lost?” the monkey repeated. “Where you want
to go?”
“India,” they answered together.
“And then home, to the City,” said Timley. “I really
want to go home. Do you know the City?”
“Of course, everyone know City! But we not go there
for two or three year. Not know when we go back.
Most time, we go Europe, Africa, India. From Europe,
though, many ship go to City. This ship go Europe
next, I think. Or India, maybe. You most welcome.
Captain, he Hindu, he love animal—he not notice two
more. If he kind to animal, to ship crew—he get good
karma. He come back better man in next life.”
Sophie barely understood a word the monkey said,
his accent was so strong, but she nodded and smiled.
She and Timley excused themselves for a moment
and put their heads together.
“Timley, do-oo you-oo think we should go with this
monkey? If we get on this ship we might not get any
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closer to home, or to India.” She whispered even more
softly, so only Timley could hear. “I don’t think this
monkey really has any idea where this ship is going.”
“I promised you I would help you with your quest,
and I will keep my promise. If you want to wait to
board a ship headed for India, I’ll wait with you.”
Sophie sank deep into thought.
“Take your time, Sophie,” Timley said. He chewed
absent-mindedly on the end of his tail while she
decided what to do.
Sophie looked at the little mouse, waiting so
patiently. How hasty her earlier decisions must
have seemed to him, and how risky they had been
for Timley! She thought about her snap decision to
get on the Princess Clipper, and her immediate liking
for the flatterer Dastard. Both had almost ended in
disaster for the little mouse.
Well, no more snap decisions for me!
Sophie didn’t know what to do, but she did know
that Timley really wanted to just go home. Rays of
light from the setting sun suddenly glared in her
eyes. Oh yes, Sky Painter!
Sky Painter, oh Sky Painter, we need your help.
What should we do? Timley looks so weak and tired
after traveling through the wilderness. Should we go
with this monkey?
Hearing a tiny noise, she stopped and turned
toward the sound. Timley was holding his stomach
with one paw and wiping a tear away with another,
he was laughing so hard. How good to hear him laugh
again! It made her realize that he hadn’t laughed at
all since they’d ventured into the wilderness.
“Pooki, do it again! Do it again!”
Pooki kicked his sailor hat up high into the air
and then turned one, two, three somersaults. The hat
floated down perfectly to land right on his head when
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he came up after the last somersault. Without missing
a beat, he took it off again and gave a graceful bow.
Both Sophie and Timley laughed and applauded.
Suddenly Sophie knew what to do. “Pooki, if you
are sure we’d be no trouble, we would be happy to
accompany you on this ship.”
She felt a tug on her wing.
“But Sophie—what about India? Are you sure this
is what you want?”
“Timley, I’ve been doing some thinking. Pooki said
the Captain came from India, right? Maybe we can
learn something about India from listening to the
Captain while we travel.”
She turned her attention back to the monkey.
“You see, we have been on a bit of a quest, and we
are eager to learn about the holy ways of people.”
“Yes!” Timley added, his relief at Sophie’s decision
apparent on his face. “We are pretty good at staying
out of sight on ships, too. You won’t even know we
are there!” Abruptly, he stopped short and looked
back toward the port city and the wilderness beyond.
He shuddered.
“Timley, what is it? Pooki, would you excuse us
again for a moment? Thanks.”
Pooki went back to practicing his somersault trick.
“I just started wondering if now I’m being too
hasty. What do we really know about this monkey,
or his ship? All I know is that I want to go home, and
there’s a chance this ship will get me closer. Maybe
it’s messing with my mind.”
Trust Me. The words shot back to him from nowhere
and yet everywhere—in a flash.
It was so unexpected that his stomach went fluttery and his tail twitched. He suddenly knew that
they had to get on this ship.
“We’ll do it,” Timley told Pooki when he came up
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again from his last somersault.
“I very happy for more company,” said Pooki, grinning and showing all of his teeth. “But I show you
ship later. You interrupt yoga time when you get
almost flat like India bread.” With that, Pooki closed
his eyes and twisted his body into a pretzel shape.
“Uh, Pooki?” Timley began. “When do we…?” It was
no use. The monkey no longer seemed aware that
they were even there.
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Chapter 25
Destination Unknown
T
O
he long ship, heavily loaded with cargo—boxes
and boxes of it stacked up like colorful blocks
on both sides of the bridge tower—now headed
south, through the Gulf of Aqaba, toward the Red
Sea. Once there, it would turn north and travel
through the Suez Canal. Pooki told them all about the
various Mediterranean and European ports where he
expected them to put in.
Finally underway, Pooki gave the newcomers the
grand tour of this ship, so different from the Princess
Clipper.
“So, let me get this straight,” said Sophie. “There
aren’t any swimming pools, so there aren’t any poolside cafes. There are no dancing lessons or dessert
buffets. The only library is a small bookshelf with
dog-eared paperbacks in the main mess. What do
you do all day?”
“This way,” the monkey whispered. “I show you my
secret place.”
He had already shown them most of the bridge
tower: the tall white box of a building where the
crew lived and worked much of the time. Now he was
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leading them down a narrow, cream-colored corridor
with large diagrams of the ship framed in shiny brass
and bolted to the walls. Several heavy wooden doors
with gray vents at the bottom of each one lined the
corridor.
Pooki pointed to one of the doors. Strong smells of
curry and chicken came through the vent, filling the
air.
“That the galley,” he said, still whispering. “Big
bowl banana on counter most all time. Except when
storm come, waves rock boat like baby in mama’s
arms. You like banana?”
Without waiting for an answer, Pooki continued
on. Loud music played behind another closed door
and they could hear several young men’s voices,
laughing.
“That a mess,” Pooki whispered.
“Why is it a mess? Doesn’t anyone ever clean it
up? And why are we whispering?” Sophie asked in a
breathy voice.
“Eating and living area called a mess. I don’t know
why. We whisper so we not wake up Cat,” Pooki
answered in a hushed voice.
“CAT? WHAT CAT?” asked Timley in a shrill but
guarded voice. ‘Captain not notice two more animal.
Captain love animal,’ he suddenly remembered Pooki
saying.
Timley instantly regretted following Pooki on to the
ship, but they were too far from land to turn back
now.
And yet… and yet, it felt like the right thing to do,
Timley thought to himself. ‘Trust Me,’ he remembered.
Yes, trust—and be careful!
Pooki put his finger to his lips and pointed to a
partially open door a little further down the hall. “That
where Cat is ’most all time, when he with Captain,
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and he with Captain ’most all time.”
Timley held his breath until they reached the end
of the hall.
“Now for secret place.”
Pooki led them down a flight of very steep metal
steps. The small monkey visibly relaxed and Timley
let his breath out. The humming sound of machinery
grew louder and louder as they approached a slightly
open door at the end of the hall.
Pooki looked very proud of the immense room he
now showed them. Huge, noisy engines roared two
stories below them. It was very hot.
“Here, engine room,” Pooki said, almost shouting
in order to be heard over the din. “This ship much
power. Twelve-cylinder diesel engine. 98,000 horsepower. Propeller weigh 100 ton. Much impress, no?”
“Much impress, yes!” shouted Timley, his eyes
wide with all this fascinating new information. For
the moment, he nearly forgot about Cat. “This is
awesome! How fast does the ship go?”
“In calm sea, 30 knots—that’s about 35 miles per
hour. Big storm come up, we go much slow. We no
like storms, afraid of storms—and pirates.”
“Blow me down—pirates! Real pirates?” Timley
shouted in disbelief.
“Yes! They kill crew, steal cargo—very bad.” Pooki
nervously took his little sailor’s hat on and off his
head. Timley coughed and caught eyes with Sophie
for a moment. He looked a little nervous himself.
Pooki pointed to a spot behind a gray metal panel.
“We safe here.”
There, on a small rug, a statue of a bald man with
a serene expression on his face sat cross-legged. Off
to one side were several bananas.
“This my secret place. Cat no come here much.
She Captain’s favorite. Captain bought her so I not
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be lonely, but she all time with Captain. She not my
friend.”
“Why do you have this statue here?” asked Timley,
who was investigating it closely.
“This my meditation place,” said Pooki. “If noise of
engine and heat of room and fear of pirates no bother
me, I achieve goal—‘Right Meditation Goal’. It is one
of Eightfold Path to reach nirvana, be like Buddha.”
He smiled his toothy grin and pointed to the statue.
“Who is Buddha? Is he a god, too?” asked Sophie.
“No, not god. He enlightened man. He was prince
who gave up rich life to seek peace. He try very hard,
learn much. He reach nirvana. He find peace.”
Pooki looked at the owl and pointed to the statue
again.
“You, Sophie, you do the eight things right, you
have peace, too. Eightfold Path is Right Knowledge,
Right Attitude, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right State of Mind, and Right
Meditation.” Pooki ticked them off on his fingers and
ended with a grin.
“Whoa. I don’t think I could ever do that many
right things,” Timley said, shaking his head.
“That why it take many year, much practice. I keep
try.” With that, the monkey sat cross-legged in front
of his statue, closed his eyes, and began to meditate.
S
ophie and Timley soon settled into their simple, if
boring, life on the container ship. They spent their
days sleeping in Pooki’s secret place, and they spent
their nights looking for food—and looking out for Cat.
Pooki let Sophie in and out of a window in the bridge
tower so she could go fishing for her meals, and he
helped Timley find crumbs of bread and cheese in
the galley and messes. Some of the young men on
the ship liked to eat more than they liked to clean,
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so there was always something left lying around for
Timley to nibble.
Always present, however, was the threat of running
into Cat. Cat, a perfectly white ball of fluff with penetrating blue eyes, was, indeed, nearly always with the
Captain, just as Pooki had said. Whether the Captain
was on the bridge or in his cabin, he’d be seen pointing out orders to the crew with one hand and stroking or holding Cat with the other.
Timley slowly began to relax. Pooki cautioned him,
though, to never let his guard down.
“Cat got evil eye,” he said. “You be careful—especially at night if Captain no can sleep. He take her all
around ship at night when he no can sleep.”
A
O
bout a week into their trip, Timley couldn’t find
Sophie anywhere. Hours earlier, Sophie had
spotted a large school of blue-green anchovies swimming close to the surface, and was fishing. She should
have been back long ago.
Come to think of it, she’s been disappearing a lot
the last couple of days, he thought. What could she
be up to?
Normally, it wouldn’t bother him at all to be left
alone—he could entertain himself quite easily—but
Cat had been throwing him bolder and bolder glances
from under the Captain’s arm. Seemingly aware that
his great owl protector was taking a bit of a vacation,
she looked like she was watching and waiting for the
perfect moment to strike.
Thinking that maybe Pooki had seen Sophie, he
made his way, inch by inch, level by level, down to
Pooki’s secret place in the engine room.
Coming around the corner of the hiding spot,
Timley stopped short.
“Sophie! What are you doing?
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Not a monkey, but an owl—Sophie—sat crosslegged with her eyes closed in front of the Buddha
statue. Her head was held erect and her wings were
held out to the side. She repeated a short phrase over
and over again.
“Ommmmmm… ommmmm…”
Timley poked her in the side.
“Ommm—o-hoo?” Sophie sputtered. “Timley, don’t
startle me like that! Can’t you see I’m meditating?”
“Meditating? Why?”
“Pooki has been teaching me. He says that if I can
empty my mind of all thoughts, I can have peace.”
“That’s right,” the monkey said, swinging around
the corner. “Sophie need peace. She tell me how she
love many thing too much—want, want, want—it
cause her much suffering—and you, too. She tell me
how she want to know about cross on necklace, how
it cause much suffering. She take you from home, far
away on ship. Your family much suffer.
“On Princess boat be much dancing, much food,
but you like whip cream too much and almost die
and she worry and have no peace. In Holy Land, she
see much, learn much, but you, Timley, you suffer
more time than one; she have no peace. Sophie need
peace, need empty mind.”
“Yes, Timley, and wait until I tell you about making
merit! If we do good things in this life, we will have
a better life next time,” explained Sophie. Her wide,
golden eyes glistened with excitement.
“Next time? What are you talking about?”
“Pooki will teach you, too! Pooki, tell Timley all
about the ‘Middle Way’, about having not too much
or too little.”
Before Pooki could get a word in edgewise, however,
Sophie kept speaking, as if in a hurry to get every
word out before she forgot something.
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“Pooki got me thinking about how all my desires,
like wanting to understand holy things, have made
me do bad things.”
“What bad things?”
“I stole those prayer beads at the mosque, and
I almost didn’t reach you in time to save you from
Dastard, and then you almost died in the wilderness—all because you promised to help me understand holy things and prove Grandfather wrong. It’s
better for everyone if I just forget about everything. I
should even stop singing my silly songs—they are all
about me, me, me, and what I want, want, want—it
would be better for everybody if I just sit here and
count my breaths.” The owl closed her eyes and
crossed her skinny legs and began to meditate again.
Timley shook her wing to get her attention again.
“Stop interrupting me!”
“Sophie, listen to me! Your songs, well, they make
you, you! You’ve told me before how singing makes
you feel happy.”
“Well,” Sophie began, but Timley interrupted her.
“And maybe you did want to prove that your grandfather was wrong about holy things out of spite, to
get even with him for not treating you with respect,
but hasn’t your quest—our quest—turned into something bigger than that? Hasn’t our search turned into
the most important search of all? Haven’t we found
Sky Painter?” Timley threw his paws out toward the
sky. He was desperate that Sophie understand how
important this was.
Sophie simply looked blank for a little while, and
then shook her head.
“Grandfather told me that the cross was a symbol
for something that was ‘nothing but trouble’. We’ve
had nothing but trouble since we started talking to
Sky Painter and looking for holy things, so maybe
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Grandfather was right! When Pooki talks, he makes
so much sense. You make my head feel all fuddled.
Just—just go away, Timley!”
Timley looked at her in disbelief. He gestured
toward the statue. Anger bubbled up inside him.
“I don’t know what this statue can do for you,
but I do know a few things. I know you looked at
your wings with awe and knew that Somebody made
them. I know we watched the sunset together and
met Sky Painter! We have both made mistakes. We
have been in danger. But how can you forget? Hasn’t
Sky Painter helped us over and over again on our
quest? Maybe not the way we expected, and maybe
not right away, but haven’t we actually been helped
by Someone? We have not been alone—and you know
it, too.”
Sophie looked at Pooki, and then at the floor. The
din of the engine room seemed to match the beating
of their hearts. It seemed a very long time until Timley
finally spoke again.
“You’re treating Sky Painter as if He were just
anybody—but he’s a capital ‘S’ Somebody!! If I had
stayed safe and sound in my own tree in the Park, I
would never have learned that Sky Painter is always
with me, and that is more important to me than
anything, even being in trouble.”
Sophie remained silent. Her gaze was fixed on the
patterned rug that she sat crisscross on.
“Aw, forget it, Sophie. You’re hopeless.” Timley
turned tail and skittered out of the engine room as
fast as he could go.
The door slammed shut. The noise of the engines
seemed even louder than usual. Sophie flew over to
the door.
“Timley, please don’t be mad at me!” She called
through the vent. “Wait! You don’t understand!” It
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was no use. Timley was scampering down the hall
and wouldn’t even look back.
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ophie and Timley did their best to avoid each
other for the next few days. Sophie went around
with a sulking, wounded expression on her face, and
no somersaults from Pooki could cheer her up. He
simply encouraged her to keep meditating and clear
her mind of all these negative thoughts.
Timley stayed in the shadows and dark corners.
Once, their eyes met as they caught a glimpse of
each other in the kitchen. Timley waited to see what
Sophie would say, but when she looked away, he just
shook his head and moved on.
Sophie wanted to be friends again, but the words,
You’re hopeless! kept ringing in her ears. It reminded
her of that day at the fairgrounds—that day that this
strange journey began—when her friends had said
something similar.
She stomped off to look for Pooki.
“That mouse thinks he knows everything! What
does he know—he’s just a mouse,” Sophie complained
to Pooki with a scowl on her face.
T
he next evening, Sophie woke with the feeling
that something was different.
“We’ve stopped!”
She went to a window to look out. In the twilight
she could see that the lights of an unfamiliar port
twinkled at her, and another cargo ship, as large as
theirs, was docked beside them.
“That ship,” Pooki said, pointing, “it go back to Red
Sea and then to India! You go to India now!”
“India! Really? Hoo-hoo hooray!” Sophie said, her
heart beating faster and faster. “But, Pooki, what
about Timley? I can’t go without Timley, can I? He
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said he would go to India with me, but… I don’t
know, everything seems different now. Timley isn’t
even speaking to me anymore!”
Just then, Timley crept past the open door on his
way to the galley to find some breakfast. He glanced
up and started a little when he saw Sophie and Pooki
by the window across the mess. Sophie’s sensitive
ears picked up his movement and she caught his eye.
Sophie started to speak, but thought better of it.
Why should I apologize? I didn’t do anything wrong,
she thought.
The mouse lowered his head and continued creeping down the corridor.
Sophie turned slowly back toward the window.
“I can go to India by myself. Yes, why not? Timley
doesn’t care about me anymore.”
When Pooki said that he would help Timley keep
an eye out for Cat, the matter was settled. Sophie
hopped up onto the window sill and looked back
toward the door, hoping to see Timley one more time
and say goodbye. Instead, a fluffy white tail drifted
by the door.
“Hurry, Sophie. That ship leave tonight. You must
go now to get inside bridge tower. When Captain took
me with him today to visit that other ship, I opened
window for you. Go, now, or it will be too late!”
Flustered at the suddenness of the decision,
Sophie stammered a little. “I… I guess I’d better get
going then. Thanks for everything, Pooki. I hope I find
peace in India, because I sure don’t have any peace
here. Um, tell the mouse goodbye for me, okay?”
The owl hesitated only slightly, and then flew out
the window to the waiting ship.
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Chapter 26
Blow Me Down!
C
O
at’s fluffy white tail curled around the door
of the Captain’s cabin and disappeared. The
Captain closed the door.
Phew, thought Timley. That was close. Safe for the
moment.
Sophie had been gone for two days, and Cat
seemed to have doubled his mouse patrol. Most of
the crew was asleep, as it was nearing midnight, but
Timley kept close to the wall, just in case. He headed
for the window on the starboard side of the mess, the
side of the ship where he most expected to see lights
blinking from the next port of call.
Still nothing. All was black beyond the glow of
lights coming from his own ship. He crouched, still as
a stone, with ears at full attention. He was waiting—
for what? For the next port, yes; maybe Pooki would
find him a ship bound for the City, just like the ship
headed for India that he found for Sophie. But he
knew he waited for more than just the next port.
He was waiting for Sophie.
She had to come back, didn’t she? Timley still
couldn’t believe that she’d actually left him behind.
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She didn’t even say goodbye, not really. True, he’d
been giving her the cold shoulder—he had to admit
it—but he would’ve kept his promise to go to India
with her. They were a team! At least he thought they
were…
The door clicked open and he turned toward the
sound. Cat? No, just a sailor coming through to get a
can of soda. Timley looked absently out the window
again.
I just didn’t understand her anymore. I get that she
wanted to learn more about people’s ways, but clear
her mind of everything? Even Sky Painter?
He sighed again.
Sky Painter, Sky Painter! Where are you now? I
want to go home! I want to see my mother and father
again! I want my tree!
He called out Sky Painter’s name over and over
again, begging for help, but there was no response.
Even the small, whispering voice asking him to trust
had vanished. Silence replaced it, a silence that
mocked his prayers and roared in his ears. The only
sound, deep in the engine room, was the muffled
thud of the wind beating against the sides of the ship.
A loud clap of thunder shook him out of his miserable musings. The wind flew against the window
frame, causing it to shudder. Lightning blazed across
the sky, revealing dark, angry clouds congregating above the cargo ship. They somehow reminded
Timley of a pack of hungry dogs he had seen outside
his tree once; they had found a bag with a half-eaten
lunch still inside, and they circled around it, snarling,
baring their teeth in a broiling, weaving dance. The
air around the tree had been so thick with tension
and an impending explosion of violence that Timley
couldn’t breathe, even though he was safe inside his
tree’s tangle of roots.
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Another bolt of lightning, and one more look at the
sky told Timley that this storm, like the dogfight, was
going to get a lot worse before it got better. He shivered.
I miss Sophie, he thought, I even miss listening to
her sing. She had been gone for only a couple of days,
but it felt like forever. Maybe Pooki’s still awake. He
made his way slowly, cautiously as always, down to
the engine room.
“Uh, Pooki?” Timley couldn’t tell if Pooki was asleep
or meditating. He crawled onto the rug and tapped
the monkey on his knee.
Just then, an enormous lurch caused them both to
lose their balance. The lights flickered and an alarm
sounded throughout the ship. The brewing storm
had roared in from the north, arriving with the force
of a freight train, and giant waves rocked the huge
vessel. The lights blinked on and off again, and this
time stayed dark.
The ship lurched again, and something metal flew
off a ledge and landed hard—right on top of Timley.
Timley lay motionless on the rug. Pooki felt around
in the pitch dark, found the offending wrench, and
slid it across the floor to the opposite corner of the
room.
“Uhhhh... uhhh,” the mouse groaned. “My front
leg hurts. I think it’s broken. What happened?”
“Wrench come crashing down. Stupid mistake!
‘Put things away,’ Captain tell crew all time. They
don’t listen, will have bad karma. Next life they come
back as insect. I go get you bandage. I feel blood on
leg. Do not move, little mouse. I come back soon.”
Timley writhed in pain, alone in the dark.
Sky Painter, I need you!
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ophie, meanwhile, once on board the other
container ship, felt very pleased with herself—at
first. She was pursuing her quest to the very ends of
the earth! Grandfather would be so impressed! The
only problem was that Pooki had told her the ship
was leaving in the morning, but there must have
been some delay, because the ship had sat in the
harbor for another whole day. She felt nervous and
impatient to go—and guilty. Really guilty.
Now Sophie Topfeather, she scolded herself, you’ve
just had too-oo much time to think, that’s all. Timley
deserved to be left alone. He wasn’t even speaking to
you! This is really your quest, not his. Pooki will help
him get home, just like he helped you get to India.
It was with great relief when the ship’s engines
finally roared to life and they pulled away from the
pier. Timley’s ship left soon after, and for some time,
they followed each other out to sea.
Perched where she could see the lights of Timley’s
ship, she watched them get fainter and fainter.
Suddenly, she cocked her head sideways and said,
“Isn’t that odd? We haven’t gone that far away yet—
why can’t I see them any more?”
One look at the sky gave her a frightening answer.
Dark, billowing clouds had moved in at an alarming
rate, nearly obscuring Timley’s container ship. She
shuddered, then shuddered again. Storms always
made her nervous; she tried to shove back thoughts
of her parents and the hurricane that killed them—
thoughts that always raced to the surface at times
like this.
Great sheets of water pelted the window. She
backed away from it and huddled in a dark corner.
She tried to sing a song to make herself feel better,
but nothing would come.
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking
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about Timley. Great tears, as large as the raindrops,
hit the floor. She had to admit that she missed him
and she was more than a little jealous of the fact that
he was together with Pooki during this big storm.
I wonder what he’s doing right now? I sure hope
he’s staying away from Cat!
If the storm wasn’t bad enough, thoughts of Cat
made her very nervous, indeed. How could Timley
defend himself against Cat?
She tried to reassure herself—He has Pooki, he
has Pooki. But Timley said I was his best friend! What
kind of friend am I to leave him with a cat?
She looked out of the window again, and this time
she couldn’t even see the lights of the other ship.
What am I doing here? He needs me! But if I don’t
go to India, my quest will be over for good. On the other
hand, if I don’t get back to Timley, he will be a goner—I
just know it! Even if he makes it back to the City, how
could he ever survive the journey to the Park?
Thunder clapped louder than ever, and flashes of
lightning forced her back to her corner. She covered
her ear openings with her wings and rocked back and
forth.
She had no idea how much time had gone by when
she vaguely wondered what was banging on her chest
as she rocked. Her necklace! She looked at the smooth
wooden cross and thought about the Man who had
gone through so much pain and trouble for others,
even though he had done nothing wrong. He knew
what it was like to suffer, but he did it anyway—why?
Because he loved them. Because he wanted to be
with them, forever—that’s what Shep had said.
Sitting there in the dark, all alone, Sophie remembered, too, how Sky Painter had been with them in
the Holy Land. She cried aloud, “I’m so sorry that I
was trying to forget about you! Sky Painter, help me!
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What should I do? Timley needs me. But I can’t make
it to the ship in this storm, and what about Grandfather? I do-oo want him to be proud of me! How can
I give up my quest now, when I still have more to
learn?”
Lightning flashed again, and with it a loud boom.
Sophie squawked. She had never felt so alone or
scared. She closed her eyes and prayed again, begging
Sky Painter to be with her. This time a great sense of
calm came over her.
“You’re right, Sky Painter. I’m not alone, am I?
Thank you!”
Using all her might, she opened the window against
the wind and rain, closed her eyes so she wouldn’t
chicken out, and leaped into the storm. She only had
two questions: could she find the right ship before
her wings gave out, and could she get there before
Cat found Timley?
F
or what seemed a very long time, Timley heard
nothing but the sound of the engine. He could tell
that the storm still raged by the rocking motion of the
ship, but in the windowless room, deep in the ship,
he couldn’t hear the wind or the rain. A scratching at
the door, however, made him jerk his leg suddenly,
causing him to cry out in pain. The last time he’d heard
the door open, it had been Pooki with a bandage for
his leg. That had been ages ago, though. Was Pooki
finally coming back, or was it Cat?
Something—or someone—scratched at the door
again. This time the door creaked open a little.
“Pooki? Is that you?” he whispered into the darkness.
There was no answer, but a faint swishing sound
in the air. Timley froze with fear. Cat! It had to be Cat!
The door swung open, slowly, the rest of the way.
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Unable to move his legs, he reached with his arms to
the edge of the rug and tried to cover himself with it.
Warm breath ruffled his whiskers. Timley fainted
with fear and pain.
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peak to me, Timley, speak to me,” whispered a
very weakened and bedraggled owl. “You have to
be okay. I can’t bear it if you’re not.”
Timley lay motionless on Pooki’s rug. The owl,
softly caressing Timley with her velvety feathers,
began to sing softly.
Close your eyes and what do you see?
A tree home for you, a tree home for me.
Leafy shade up above,
Weaving roots, full of love;
Safe someday we’ll be,
Snug and warm in our tree.
Birds chirp and sing, soaring high o’er
the Park,
Kids play hide and seek, even past dark.
They laugh and they say,
“Can’t catch me—not today!”
Remember, Timley, the sounds of the Park?
I don’t know how, I don’t know when,
But, surely, I’ll get you home again.
And our tree, so tall and true,
It’s waiting for me, it’s waiting for you!
We’ll be happy then, we’ll be so happy then!
Timley stirred. He was having a good dream, that
Sophie had come back and was singing to him. The
dream continued, however, and the pain in his leg
reminded him that he couldn’t possibly be asleep.
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Timley opened his eyes and in the dimness of
the room saw an owl-shaped dark spot. Sophie! He
smiled weakly at the owl. But where was Cat? He was
so confused.
The lights suddenly came back on and Timley saw
that Sophie was in rough shape. Feathers stuck out
here and there all over the place. He slowly realized
what had happened.
“You flew through the storm to come back,” the
little mouse whispered. “How did you find the ship
in the dark? Sophie—you could have been killed—
like your parents! I’m so glad you came back. But—is
that blood on your face?”
Sophie smiled a tired smile. “One question at a time,
mousie, please? I found the ship because exceptional
eyesight is a Great Horned Owl specialty, remember?
Pookie heard me banging on the window and let me
in. But Cat was prowling nearby and tried to stop
me; his claws raked my face.” She extended her own
talons: “One look at these, though, and Cat decided
not to chance a real fight! Besides, you are my best
friend, Timley. Even if you don’t like me anymore, I
couldn’t let Cat get you.”
Timley shuddered at the sight of her talons. He
tried to sit up, grimacing, but fell back again. “I’m
sorry I was so angry with you. You are my best friend,
too. I’m so glad you’re back!” He made another face;
the pain was very bad. He attempted a smile.
“Blow me down, Sophie; I guess I finally got my
nor’easter.”
O
ver the next day, the storm intensified, continuing to toss the enormous ship about like a toy
boat left on Paddleboat Pond during a summer squall.
Every time the ship rolled, Timley’s legs were jarred;
pain shot through his entire body. Pooki had stopped
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the bleeding and bandaged the wound, but there was
nothing he could do for the broken bones.
By the third day the storm still showed no signs
of letting up. Sophie stayed by Timley’s side. Pooki
brought them food a couple of times a day. The third
evening, however, there was no sign of the little
monkey.
Sophie kept going to the door to listen through the
vent at the bottom of the door to see if he was coming.
Her stomach growled constantly.
“Where on earth is Pooki? He hasn’t been here all
day. I’m hungry!”
She looked at Timley’s sleeping form cradled in the
soft napkins that Pooki had found for him. She was
glad; sleep had not come easily to the hurting mouse.
It was clear that one leg was severely broken. The
other was just cut and bruised. The badly injured leg
had swollen several times its normal size. It throbbed
constantly. Every time he moved, it hurt even more.
When he was awake he could keep it very still, but
when his body relaxed and sleep started to come, he
invariably moved his leg and then woke with a start
and a cry, and he had to try to go to sleep all over
again.
“Poor little mousie,” Sophie said. “Timley will be
hungry, too, when he wakes up.” She flew to the
door, and looked back one more time at the sleeping
mouse. Certain he was as comfortable as he could be
for the moment, she slid into the hallway.
Cat’s perfect moment had finally arrived.
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Chapter 27
Popular Pooki
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uch to Pooki’s dismay, the Captain had
decided he needed the little monkey for
some morale-boosting entertainment. Pooki
was being kept busy. His job was to make the sailors
laugh and forget about the storm. He pulled hats over
the crew’s eyes, stole food from their dinner plates,
and mimicked the different seamen’s movements and
facial expressions until they laughed so hard that
they begged him to stop.
Every time Pooki tried to get away, the Captain
gave him a banana to reward him for his good work,
and then sent him promptly back to the sailors in the
mess.
Fully occupied with the storm and his terrified
crew, the Captain, for once, forgot all about his
beloved Cat. She silently slipped out of the mess,
licking her chops as she crept through the corridors.
Her head bobbed back and forth as she went, scanning the dark corners of any open room with her
piercing blue eyes, searching for any sign of the little
mouse.
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ophie flew quickly to the galley and scavenged
some bits of bread and cheese she found on
the counter. “Boring, but better than nothing.” She
sighed. “At least Timley will like it.” She lingered there
for just a moment. It’s so much quieter and cooler up
here than in the engine room, she thought, and sighed
again. Oh, well—I’d better get back.
“Sophie! Why you here? Cat gone! I worry for
Timley,” said the monkey, coming into the kitchen in
search of something else to eat besides bananas. Pooki
had finally been left alone as the Captain, exhausted,
went to his room to get some much-needed sleep.
Pooki and Sophie took off for the engine room.
Just as they got there, a fluffy white tail curled
around the engine room door, then disappeared.
They were too late!
“After her!” Sophie yelled.
They raced through the doorway. Cat turned
toward them and raised her lip in a sneer; the mouse
already dangled from her mouth.
Sophie’s fierce eyes glowed bright and she opened
her talons wide and prepared to drop on the cat, fast
and hard. Cat, however, was faster yet. She darted
out her paw, as swift as the lightning that had ripped
across the sky during the storm. WHAP—Sophie was
knocked to the floor.
Z-z-zing! Clang!
“Yee-ooow!!!”
Pooki had found the wrench on the floor in the
corner of the room where he had left it, and now he
threw it expertly at Cat. Not wanting to hurt the animal
and give himself bad karma, the monkey propelled
the wrench across the room so that it landed just in
front of Cat’s nose. Timley flew through the air, and
Cat bounded from the room, her tail between her legs.
Pooki, somersaulting across the floor, thrust out his
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arm after the third somersault in a great stretching
motion and caught Timley—just before he landed on
the hard concrete of the engine room floor.
Sophie groggily opened her eyes. Timley was in the
monkey’s hand.
She reached out her wing toward her little friend.
“Please be okay,” she pleaded. Tears fell freely from
her enormous yellow eyes. “I don’t know how, but I
am taking you home, Timley,” she sobbed. “My quest
is finished for good. No more India. Grandfather Owl
can just think that I am a silly owl forever more—I
don’t care anymore about that—I just want you to
get better.”
Oh, Sky Painter, don’t let me be too late! She sent a
quick prayer straight from her heart.
“Home,” Timley whispered, and they both drifted
off into unconsciousness from pain and hunger and
exhaustion and fear. Pooki kept watch, not knowing
what else to do for his friends. At least he could make
sure that Cat didn’t come back.
D
ay broke over a calm sea at last. Puffball clouds
reflected the pink and orange sunrise. The beauty
of it, however, couldn’t penetrate the dim engine room
where Timley fought for every breath. His broken leg
was swollen beyond recognition. Feverish heat radiated from his body; Cat’s teeth had penetrated deep
and now the bite marks were infected. Timley’s little
body did its best to fight off the many wounds, but it
was clear: Timley was running out of time.
Sophie felt much better after a good sleep, except
for the bruise on her head where she had hit the hard
floor. Pooki was nowhere to be seen. Sophie returned
to Timley’s side to continue her worried vigil. Time
and again, Sophie bent her head toward Timley’s
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ers. Her heart stopped each time until she felt the
tiny puff of air. Each time, she thanked Sky Painter
for another breath. Each time, she asked Sky Painter
to grant Timley yet another. He just had to get better!
She looked up with a start at the sound of the door
opening again. Was Cat coming back? She flexed
her toes and tapped her razor-sharp talons on the
concrete floor. She’d be ready for that tuna-breath
mouse-trap!
“Sunrise pretty, Sophie, come see,” said Pooki,
coming through the door with a leap. His face wore
a mischievous smile. “Bring Timley, fresh air make
well. Come, Come!” Pooki helped Sophie make a soft
bed in her well-worn straw hat and he gingerly placed
Timley in it. Timley groaned with pain, but his eyes
remained pinched shut.
Once on the deck of the massive ship, Sophie
looked east. The sun burst out of the dark water,
giving her a sudden reason to hope, though all else
seemed lost. “It is beautiful,” she whispered.
“Look to west,” the monkey said, pointing. He
looked positively bursting, as if keeping a great secret.
To the west, tall mirrored buildings lining a harbor
reflected the brightening rays of the sunrise. Their
Harbor! Home!
Oh, Sky Painter, thank you! Thank you! With every
breath, Sophie breathed her thanks to Sky Painter.
Only you, Sky Painter, could have helped us get home.
Only you.
“What you stand here for?” said Pooki, with his
toothy grin covering most of his face. “Go! Go and be
well. You go India next life maybe.” He bowed slightly,
and put his hands together, pointing toward the sky.
By the time he looked up, Sophie was high in the sky,
which was now a beautiful robin’s egg blue.
“Thank you, Pooki! Thank you! I’ll miss you!” she
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called back, and then took off with great speed toward
the Park.
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e’re almost home,” Sophie whispered to Timley
as she flew toward the Park. “We’re on our way,
really and truly almost home!” Timley, unconscious
in her hat, did not answer. Tears streamed down
Sophie’s face as she sang Timley her song, trying
to give him a reason to keep breathing, one more
shallow breath at a time:
I open my eyes and what do I see?
The Park, and the Pond, and yes, our Tree!
Leafless branches high above,
Your home in the roots, warm with love;
Safe we will be, back home in our tree.
O
The snowy Park, see it glisten!
Sparkling and white, so silent—yet listen—
The children are coming, bundled up tight
To sled and skate and laugh till night.
Listen, Timley!—to the sounds of the Park!
Soon, mousie, soon, oh so very soon,
Your mother! Your father! Grandfather! So soon!
Tall our Tree stands, tall and true,
It’s waiting for me, it’s waiting for you.
There it is! I see it! So soon! So soon!
Sophie finally lowered her talons down on the
snowy ground and shivered in the cold. She took off
her hat as carefully as she could and gently set it on
the ground. Sophie’s eyes, however, remained firmly
on the door; she was too afraid of what she might see
if she looked inside the brim of the hat.
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“Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo!” Sophie hooted as loud as she
could at the foot of the large old oak tree. “Hoo hoo!
Hoo hoo!” She tapped her beak on the tiny door.
“That doesn’t sound like Grandfather Owl’s signal,”
said Timley’s father, from inside their tree root home.
“Still, it has an urgent tone to it. Maybe I should take
a peek outside.”
“Do be careful!” instructed Mother Mouse. “Please,
be very careful!”
Father Mouse, with worry lines etched into his
face that had not been there before Timley had disappeared, poked his tiny pink nose out of the maze of
roots, and sniffed. Even though he sensed that an
owl was quite near, he ventured out a little farther,
so he could see better.
“Dear! Come quickly! It’s Timley!”
Before you could even say “scurry,” Mother Mouse
was at the front entrance to their home, throwing all
caution to the wind.
“My son! My mousekin! Are you all right? Speak to
me!” She stood on tiptoes to look over the hat brim at
Timley’s still body.
Mother Mouse’s scream rent the air.
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Chapter 28
True Confessions
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o!” The anguish in Mother Mouse’s voice
tore deep into Sophie’s heart. Sophie bowed
her head slightly, unable to look at Timley’s
parents. As gently as possible, she nudged the lifeless little mouse over the hat brim with her beak.
Father Mouse helped lower him to the ground. Mother
Mouse stood as if frozen, her hands on both sides of
her face.
“Dear,” Father Mouse began, but he was soon
interrupted.
“You!” Mother Mouse pointed and took several
steps toward Sophie and glared at her with a face
heavy with grief and fierce with anger. Her voice
shook. “Look at what you’ve done! Leave us alone!”
Large drops of hot, salty tears ran down Sophie’s
face unchecked. They hit the ground, melting holes in
the snow around her talons. Sophie turned to go. She
dragged herself across the snow and found herself
falling into a warm, velvety embrace.
“Sophie, my Sophie!”
Sophie gazed into her grandfather’s face. To her
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bered, even though she had only been gone for a few
months. His ear tufts looked grayer, his face more
haggard.
“Oh Grandfather, how did you know?”
“Who-oo else, but our friend, Salty Sam, of course.”
“What?” Sophie’s eyes got big.
“Yes, Salty Sam. He has been keeping an eye out
for the two of you ever since the Princess Clipper
returned without you. He came to me the moment
he spotted you in the Harbor. Hush now. No need for
words. Later, there will be time for any words that
need to be said. Right now, this is all I need.”
He hugged her tight and took her to his tree for
a fresh batch of acorn nut cookies. As they ate,
however, Sophie blurted out her anguish.
“I don’t know if Timley is alive or dead! I should
have flown him back to the Park the minute I realized
he was with me. I’m sorry, so sorry!” She buried her
head in her grandfather’s downy chest feathers and
cried some more.
He wrapped one wing around her back and slowly
smoothed the feathers on her head with the other.
Eventually, her sobbing subsided.
“Are you-oo angry with me, too, Grandfather?”
Sophie finally whispered. “I-I just wanted to do somesomething great, like you. But I made a mess of
everything. I was so selfish, and now Timley might be
dead!” She picked up her cross and said, “Maybe ‘t’ is
for trouble after all.”
The Great Wise Horned Owl pushed away from her
slightly and pulled up her chin. She looked him in
the eye and saw a most serious expression covering
his face.
“I am not angry, Sophie. Quite the contrary—I’m
very, very proud of you. Park Rules clearly state that
we don’t eat our friends, and you have proven to be
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Timley’s true friend. A lesser owl would have eaten
him or left him behind to fend for himself at the first
sign of trouble.” He shuddered suddenly. “I can only
imagine the many hardships you must have endured
on your journey. But you did it! You made it home,
with your little friend, and that is something great.”
Sophie smiled. “Really?”
“Really. Now, will you forgive me?”
“Forgive you?”
“I should have taken your questions more seriously, that day after the Fair, helped you search
for answers. Perhaps, then, you wouldn’t have felt
compelled to go away on such a long journey, causing
others—myself included, you know—such worry. I
am so very sorry.”
For the first time since arriving home, Sophie held
her head high. She finished her cookie, brushed the
crumbs off her wings, and stood up, giving her grandfather a big hug. All the way home, the words “that
was something great” played in her head. Despite her
worry over Timley, she felt a little more like a great
Great Horned Owl, indeed.
A
fter Sophie left with her grandfather, Father
Mouse, who was leaning over Timley, felt a tiny
breath on his cheek. He quickly examined Timley’s
body and saw the terribly infected leg.
“Dear, he’s alive! Get his bed ready, gather your
medicinal herbs. Boil some water! Sophie might’ve
gotten him home in the nick of time!”
“How dare you speak that owl’s name in my presence?” Mrs. Mouse yelled.
Father Mouse stood up and gently touched her
elbow. “Dear, the medicinal herbs. Quickly!”
Just then, Timley opened his eyes.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
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His mother sucked in a large amount of air,
squeezed his hand, and scurried into the house.
“Andiroba, I think,” she muttered as she went, “and
aloe, of course.”
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fter a full day of tossing and turning alone in her
studio apartment, Sophie finally rose from her
bed at the first sign of dusk. She quickly checked her
wing feathers, went to her perch, and pounced on the
first rabbit she spotted half-hidden on the edge of the
grove.
When she was quite full with her breakfast, she
fluttered over to the tiny door of Timley’s house. She
tapped expectantly with her beak: Tap tappy tap
tap, tap TAP. When there was no answer, she called
through the door. “Mr. Mouse? Mrs. Mouse? It’s
Sophie Topfeather. I… um… please, how is Timley?”
Sophie’s acutely sensitive ears could hear frantic
scampering inside the tree roots. Father Mouse’s
whispers were answered by a few sharp sounds from
Mrs. Mouse. After what seemed like a very long time,
Timley’s father finally spoke through a crack in the
door.
“S-sorry, but Mrs. Mouse said for you to leave us
alone, and I’m afraid she means it.” The door shut
fast.
“But—wait! What do you mean? I need to know
how he is! He’s my friend!” Sophie heard nothing
more but the sounds of Timley’s father skittering
down the hallway away from the door.
Thorns and thistles! Do they mean never?
Fuming and fretting, Sophie hopped around the
base of the tree, searching for a place where she could
see or hear what was going on inside Timley’s house.
Just then, Lulu came up from behind and threw her
arms around Sophie.
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“You-oo came back,” Lulu said. “I’ve been so
worried! Where on earth did you fly off to?” A tinge of
resentment shaded her voice, but she hugged her like
she was afraid she’d fly off again if she let go.
“Lulu!”
Over Lulu’s shoulder, Sophie saw Hunter smiling
at her, nervously shifting his talons like a hen. He
stepped forward as if to hug her next, but instead
thrust a wing out and rather awkwardly patted her
on the back.
“I’m glad you’re back, Sophie,” he said. “I—we
missed you!” He looked around at the roots of the tree
as if trying to figure out what Sophie had been doing.
“Did you lose something? What were you looking for
when we came up?”
“Oh, um, I thought I heard some mice.”
“Yummy!” cried Lulu, her eyes slightly widening.
“I haven’t had breakfast yet. How many do you think
there are? Can we help you stake out the place? Only
if you think there are enough to go around,” she
added politely.
“NO!” Sophie’s eyes got huge with fright. “I mean,
no, thank you, but I don’t think there are very many
and they sounded too small to really be worth the
trouble. I was, um, just leaving. Why don’t we go up
to my place?”
Without waiting for an answer, she flew up to the
perch outside her door, hoping they would follow her.
“So, where have you-oo been?” asked Hunter, just
as Sophie reached out for the branch. Her talons
slipped a little and she landed awkwardly, falling into
Hunter. He steadied her with a wing, and cocked his
head at her a little.
What could she say? That she’d been around the
world with a mouse, who, incidentally, was now one
of her best friends? Hardly! If they didn’t take her
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seriously before, they would definitely think she’d
gone cuckoo now.
“You-oo seem different, Sophie,” Lulu said, concern
written all over her face. “Are you-oo okay?”
“Just tired after the trip. We—I mean, I traveled
very far. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow, okay?”
She pushed past them and went inside and closed
the door before they could ask her any more difficult questions. As they flew off, she looked out her
window and saw them exchange a glance that meant
one thing—they suspected she wasn’t telling them
the whole story, which of course, she wasn’t.
Lulu headed toward the meadows where she would
no doubt find a good breakfast, and after looking
back several times as he flew away, Hunter flapped
his wings hard and hurried after Lulu.
When they were completely out of sight, Sophie
headed back out herself. Without being sure where
she even wanted to go, she soon found herself
tapping on her grandfather’s door. She needed to talk
to someone who knew about Timley. She didn’t hear
any voices inside—if only he was alone!
The Great Owl opened the door before she reached
her last customary tap TAP. Surprised, but obviously
glad to see her, he welcomed her in and assured her,
as she looked toward the study, that they were alone.
“No clients, dear. Just us, and any that come will
have to solve their own problems tonight. I’ll make
some tea.”
Sophie breathed a little easier and settled into a
comfortable chair near the bookshelves that lined one
wall. Clinking sounds came from the kitchen as her
grandfather picked cups out of a cupboard. She could
hardly believe that she was there, in that space where
she had spent most of her life; that she wasn’t on the
ship any more, no longer needed to protect Timley.
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At the thought of Timley, her throat started to
close and her heart beat faster.
Just then, her grandfather came back with the tea.
“Here,” he said, handing her a napkin. Instead of
putting it on her lap, she dabbed it at her eyes. “How
is—?”
Sophie interrupted him. “They won’t let me see
him! They won’t even tell me if he’s alive!”
“I see.” He took a sip of his own tea before continuing. “What about your owl friends? Have you let any
of them know you’re back? Hunter has been very
worried.”
“Hunter and Lulu found me trying to visit Timley,
but I—I lied to them! How can I tell them that I’m
friends with a mouse?”
“True friends will be there for you, Sophie. You’re
right, though, that they may find it difficult to understand at first.”
He took another sip and then asked her if she
wanted to tell him about her trip. When she nodded,
he said, “Just let me get my glasses—and my notebook.”
The words came slowly at first, but soon poured
out in a stream. The Princess Clipper, Dastard, Jerusalem, Shep, the wilderness, Pooki. A few key details,
such as Sky Painter and stealing the woman’s beads,
she decided to save for later, if ever. How could she
explain?
Sophie didn’t realize at first that her grandfather
was rapidly taking notes in his little black notebook,
just like she had seen him do a thousand times with
clients. When it finally registered, she stumbled on
her words a bit as her heart did a little flip. He’s
taking me seriously!
When she finally finished her tale, the Great Wise
Horned Owl moved to the window, lost in thought.
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This usually meant he was pondering some particularly troublesome problem. Looking past him to the
view outside, she was surprised to see that they had
talked until dawn. The sun’s first golden rays were
making their way from the east to the west over the
tops of the apartment buildings and across the pond.
She leaned back and opened her beak to give in
to the yawn that was trying to come out, when her
grandfather turned from the window. His eyes were
moist.
“Do you know why your mother and father named
you ‘Sophie’?”
Sophie’s yellow eyes flew open with surprise and
the yawn vanished. A lump lodged in her throat
instead. She shook her head.
“On rainy days when your mother was an owlet,
she played a game with me she called “Guess the
Book.” She’d pull a random book from the shelf and
read aloud a paragraph or two. I would try to guess
the title of the book.”
This was news to Sophie.
The huge owl crossed the room and took an old,
leather-bound book from the bookshelf. He turned to
a dog-eared page.
“One day, your mother read these words to me:
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all
pure; then peace-loving, considerate, full of mercy and
good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
Sophie liked the sound of these words. She took
the book from her grandfather’s wing and looked at
the title: Holy Bible. With wondering eyes, she waited
for him to continue.
He cleared his throat.
“My being the Great Wise—it scared her, your
mother. She never thought she could be smart
enough to please me.” He shook his head sadly at the
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memory of it, and his glasses, perched on top of his
head, went cockeyed. “When she read this, however,
she announced that if she ever had a daughter she
would name her Sophie—”
“That means ‘wisdom’, from the Greeks! You
taught me that.”
“That’s right. She wanted to remember to be wise
with this heavenly kind of wisdom. And she was
correct to do so; that kind of wisdom is far better
than being ‘smart’.”
Sophie took the book with her, and for the next
week, she did little else but read it and try to visit
Timley. When Hunter and Lulu caught her peeking
through the tall oak’s roots for the third time in three
days, Lulu demanded an explanation.
“I know you don’t care that much about one little
mouse,” she said.
Sophie turned red under feathers and looked down
at her toes.
“I do, actually, she stammered. “You-oo see, I
wasn’t alone on my trip.
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Chapter 29
Worth the Trouble?
L
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ulu stamped her feet impatiently. “Out with it,
Sophie! I know you-oo’ve been hiding something from me. You-oo are different, now.”
Hunter stood nearby, silently shifting his talons
nervously again, waiting for Sophie to explain.
Sophie took a deep breath. When she spoke, she
talked very fast so she wouldn’t chicken out.
“I went on an ocean voyage to a faraway place to
see if I could learn more about the necklace I found
at the Fair. A mouse stowed away in my hat and I
didn’t know it—hee hee, silly me, I guess that’s what
‘stowaway’ means—and anyway we became friends
and I saved his life, well, more than once—I actually
lost track of how many times—and now he’s sick or
probably dead but they won’t let me see him and I
have to know if he’s okay!”
There. She’d said it out loud. It was a relief, no
matter what happened next. She waved a wing
toward the oak tree’s roots that wove in and out of
the ground around their talons.
“Timley lives here.”
“TIMLEY! Mice have names?” Lulu’s voice was about
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ten times higher than normal.
Hunter put a wing out to steady Lulu, who was
clearly upset by this revelation that the world was a
little different than she had come to expect. Quietly,
he told Sophie that he’d like to hear more about her
adventure.
“You-oo would?” She took another deep breath.
Maybe things would be okay after all.
A scratching near the base of the tree made the
three owls’ ear tufts twitch. Sophie glared sternly at
her two friends. “If a mouse comes through those
roots, do NOT eat it.”
They stared at a door-shaped section of bark, still
as statues. Very, very slowly, the door opened the
smallest possible crack, and then a tiny pink nose
poked through the opening.
“S-s-sophie? Is that you?” To Sophie’s astonishment, it was Mother Mouse’s voice.
“Yes, Mrs. Mouse, it’s me. Just a moment, okay?”
The door closed again. She turned to her friends. “It
might be best if you guys just go. Hunter, we can talk
later.”
Lulu looked frozen to the spot, her eyes as huge as
saucers. She didn’t move until Hunter tugged at her
wing.
The moment they were out of sight, Sophie hooted
softly and the pink nose appeared once more. “It’s
safe, Mrs. Mouse. They’re gone. Please tell me—how
is Timley? Is he—?”
“He’s alive, but only just.” She took a step outside
and Sophie saw that she wrung her hands together
over and over. “He’s delirious! He keeps asking for
you, night and day! I don’t know what to do.”
Timley’s father joined her. Worry lines etched his
brow.
“Sophie—above Timley’s room the roots crisscross
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in such a way that he has a clear view to the sky. It’s
in the northwest section of the tree. Perhaps you can
find that window and speak to him? I think it’s the
only—”
He got no further. Sophie disappeared around the
base of the tree. Peeking through all the branches,
Sophie called Timley’s name over and over again.
A squeaky voice finally called out to her. It was
Mrs. Mouse telling her she was in the right place. “He
squeezed my paw; I think he heard you!”
Sophie’s heart did a little jump. “Timley? It’s Sophie,
and I’m here to tell you that I did not save your life
so many times to have you get sick and, and—not get
better now. Do you hear me? GET BETTER!”
She stopped abruptly, finding it hard to get any
more words past the lump that had formed in her
throat.
“He nodded,” Mr. Mouse called up. “He nodded!”
Encouraged, Sophie continued. “My hat is too-oo
empty without you-oo, and oh! Wait until you see
the book my grandfather gave me! It’s got some great
stuff in it!”
“That’ll probably do fine for now,” Mr. Mouse
shouted up to the huge amber eye that filled the
space between the roots. “I think Timley’s gone back
to sleep. Don’t worry; it looks like a happy, peaceful
sleep this time. Thank you so much. You may have
saved his life one more time!”
“I’ll be back,” she said, and she went home with a
smile on her face that was as wide as the ocean they
had crossed together.
Over the next few days, Sophie visited Timley
every night after breakfast and stayed until Mr. or
Mrs. Mouse gently suggested that Timley needed to
rest. Most of the time, she watched him as he slept,
or winced in pain. She wasn’t even sure that Timley
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was aware of her visits. Over time, however, his pain
decreased and he spent more time sitting up, awake.
It became clear that he would recover. Whether or
not he would ever walk again was still uncertain.
When she wasn’t with Timley she spent most of her
time alone at home, reading her new book. Lulu and
Hunter stayed away, but Sophie, who was consumed
with worry over Timley, barely noticed. Besides, she
didn’t know how to be friends with all of them at the
same time. For the time being, it was easier to avoid
them, to read, and to focus on helping Timley get
better.
They had been home in the Park for about a
month when Sophie raced down to Timley’s window
one clear night, clutching the book. To her surprise,
Timley met her there.
“You’re up!” she cried.
He simply pointed to the sky. It sparkled with
thousands of tiny lights. “Right before we met, the
sky looked like this.” He smiled. “We’ve come a long
way since then, haven’t we?”
Sophie nodded, which meant that an enormous
yellow eye moved up and down in Timley’s window.
Scenes from their wanderings flooded through her
mind. The book in her wing began to slip. She remembered what she came down to tell him.
“Oh! Timley! Wait till you hear what I just read in
this book! Listen to this.”
This is what she read: “And there were shepherds
living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over
their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to
them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were terrified. But the angel said to them,
Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people. Today in the town of
David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the
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Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby
wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
“But that’s the same story Shep told us! Word
for word what the angels said!” Timley said. His tail
thumped excitedly behind him on the bed.
“There are many other stories in here, too, about
the wilderness we traveled through, and about the
miracles Jesus did—everything!”
Sophie’s t-shaped necklace, the one Timley gave
her in Bethlehem, slipped through the root window
and dangled in front of Timley. He took it in his paws
and looked at it thoughtfully. “Hmmm… You said
that the Great Wise Horned Owl called the ‘t’ on your
necklace a ‘t’ for ‘trouble’. Maybe it’s ‘T’ for ‘Truth’. If
the angel story is true—”
“Wait until you hear this! It’s in a section called
‘Matthew’: The virgin will be with child and will give
birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel’—
which means, ‘God with us’.”
“God WITH us!” Timley shouted. “Sky Painter!”
A deep “Whoo whoo hu whoo” sounded in the
night. Sophie turned in time to watch her grandfather glide silently to a stop.
“Grandfather! Timley’s up!” She moved over so he
could look in the window.
“Hoo-ooray for your improo-ving health! I’m glad to
hear it. In fact, I came to invite both of you-oo to my
maple for a visit. Lulu and Hunter will be there, too.”
Sophie swiveled her head toward him, surprised.
“We’re all anxious to hear your whole story. Don’t
worry, Timley; I’ll make sure they are well-fed.”
“Aye aye, sir!” the mouse shouted up through the
window.
I
t was a beautiful spring afternoon when the highly
anticipated outing finally took place. The sun still
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shone brilliantly, but long shadows told them that
evening wasn’t far away. Timley assured his mother
that he was quite well enough to go, and his mother
gave him a nervous peck on the cheek while wrapping a hand-knit gray scarf around his neck, just to
be on the safe side.
The Great Wise Horned Owl had invited Timley’s
parents to the gathering as well, but, after thanking him profusely for his kindness, decided that they
weren’t up for adventures the way their son was. His
father helped him bring his still-sore leg over the brim
of Sophie’s new hat—a pink felted one that matched
the season’s early plum blossoms.
Once they were airborne, the little mouse drew in
a deep breath of the fresh spring air. He felt light and
happy and free. Never before had he felt so alive.
“The daffodils are blooming!” Timley kept pointing
to the wonderful sights, and Sophie took an extralong trip around the edge of the pond rather than
going straight across to her grandfather’s. “Look at
the catkins on the weeping willow! The Park is so
beautiful from up here. We are truly home. So many
times this winter I wondered if I was dreaming it.”
Sophie’s heart was as light as her chest feathers
and she sang all the way there:
Breathe deep and smell them, the colors of spring;
Yellow and green—what joy they bring!
Daffodil shoots reach for the sky,
Pink and white blossoms on a breeze float by.
A long shadow stretched out from the maple tree
that stood alone in that part of the Park. It seemed to
reach into her heart, for the briefest moment. “Maybe
Grandfather was right, Timley,” she said. “Maybe the
‘t’ does stand for ‘trouble’. Think of all the problems
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we had!”
“That’s true, but ‘truth’—that’s the point, isn’t it?
Isn’t truth worth any trouble? I’m glad I know Sky
Painter, and that’s the truth, even if caused me a lot
of trouble along the way!”
Sophie soared right into the setting sun and did an
extra loop around the maple, just for the sheer joy of
flying with Timley in her hat again. She sang as she
went:
Tulips’ green leaves push through cold, hard ground,
Soon pink, yellow, red will bloom all around;
New life, fresh starts, spring’s scents of delight.
Truth blossoms, all worth it, everything is all right.
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Whatever happened with Lulu and Hunter, she
knew everything, somehow, would be just fine.
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Epilogue
T
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he candles, burned down to nubs, sputtered
in the silence that followed when Great Unc
closed the book. Bitsy, Sophie’s youngest,
snored softly in his lap.
“Dear, dear Shep. I wonder how he is,” Sophie
said. She sat with her mate in the back of the room.
A faded Be Kind to Strangers button was pinned to
her Christmas red felt hat with a crisp black bow in
the back.
“Blow me down, what I would give to see that
dog again!” Timley said. His large mouse family sat
at Great Unc’s feet. “Well, I imagine by now he has
earned his place at the hearth. He was such a good
dog.”
“Tell us the troo-ooth, tell us the troo-ooth,” interrupted one of Sophie’s older owlets. “You and Uncle
Timley just helped Great Grandpa make up this story
for his book, didn’t you? You didn’t really go on that
adventure!”
Sophie ruffled her feathers a bit. “And, precisely
why not? Why, in my day—”
“Dad,” giggled a little mouse voice, “did you actually go on a ship wearing a pirate hat? How lame!”
The mice and owls of all different sizes and ages
started chattering and hooting at once, weighing in
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on whether or not Sophie and Timley’s adventure
had, indeed, been fact or fiction.
Grandfather Owl, now ‘Great Grandpa’ to Sophie’s
little owls and ‘Great Unc’ to Timley’s mouse family,
broke into the clatter with his booming voice. He
would put an End To The Matter.
“Children, children, look around you. What do you
see? How many owls and mice in the Park are celebrating Christmas Eve right now—together?”
“Yes, my good friend,” Timley’s mother said. “They
don’t call you the Great Wise-Hearted Owl of the Park
for nothing!” She looked up from her knitting and
smiled at her old ally. “The proof is in the pudding,
as I always say!”
Another silence came over the room. Chip, Timley’s
youngest, poked his favorite owl ‘cousin’ and whispered, but not softly enough: “Hey—maybe you and
me can go visit Shep someday, whaddya say?”
Sophie and Timley, their spouses, Grandfather
Owl, Mother Mouse and Father Mouse, shot a look
across the room at each other, aghast. As if with one
voice, they all shouted, “NO!”
“Aw, rats!” Chip loudly protested. Then, when he
was sure no one was looking, he turned to his owl
‘cousin’, and winked.
THE
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Sonja Anderson was born in
Iowa, raised in Ohio, and spent
the next thirty years studying
and working in some of the
world’s greatest cities: Chicago,
Boston, Tokyo, and Seattle.
Married with two daughters,
she has called Seattle home for
over twenty years.
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With a master’s degree in
Education from Harvard, and a
bachelor’s degree in history at North Park University,
Sonja has worked as an elementary school teacher in
Tokyo, Japan, been a resident counselor in a children’s
home in Connecticut, taught Sunday school, and has
served for twelve years as the Christian Formation
Coordinator for the North Pacific Conference of the
Evangelical Covenant Church.
Sonja is a member of the Society of Children’s Book
Writers and Illustrators and the NW Christian Writers
Association. She currently works in the library at her
local elementary school. Seeing the books children
choose, learning what excites them and helping them
develop those interests all bring her great joy. The
books she read as a child helped to shape her life, and
Sonja is very excited to be a part of shaping others’
lives through her own stories.
Sonja would love to hear from readers! Please contact
her through her website at:
www.sonjaandersonbooks.com
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Appendix
• Discussion Questions
• Activities
• Author’s Note: Freedom of Religion
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• Truth might feel rude, but you don’t have to
be: Being friends with a person of a different
faith
• Further Reading Suggestions
• Glossary
• List of Foreign Phrases
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Discussion Questions
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1. When Sophie looks closely at her wings, she
marvels at how perfectly made they are. Have
you ever had a similar experience and felt in
awe of some aspect of nature? Why do you
think the author included this in the book?
2. A desperate Timley leaps off a tree branch to
grab at Sophie’s hat ribbons. Why did he think
this was a good idea? He could have been
killed—either by the fall or by Sophie, once she
discovered him! Have you ever wanted something so much that you acted a little more
foolishly than maybe you should have? What
happened as a result?
3. Write two words that tell what type of character Sophie is, and then write two words that
describe Timley. How are they alike? How are
they different?
4. Sophie’s grandfather, the Great Wise Horned
Owl of the Park, called the cross necklace
(a symbol for Christianity), a ‘t for trouble’.
What kind of trouble do you think he meant?
If someone told you that trouble should be
avoided no matter what, would you agree or
disagree? Why?
5. What does Sophie hope to accomplish by going
on board the ship to the Holy Land? Does she
succeed? How can you tell?
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6. Normally, owls eat mice and mice flee from
owls. How do Sophie and Timley learn to trust
each other? Is building trust easy or difficult
for them? What scenes can you point to that
show how they did it?
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7. Both Sophie and Timley are tempted to stay
on the ship and enjoy a leisurely life. Would it
have been a good idea? Why or why not?
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8. While on their long journey, Sophie and Timley
learn about many different things. What
surprised you? Did you recognize anything as
part of your own culture? What impressed you
about another culture? Did anything make
you feel a little uncomfortable? Did you find it
difficult to read the foreign words?
9. Along the way, Sophie and Timley become
aware of a Presence they call Sky Painter.
What impact does Sky Painter have on their
journey?
10.By the end of the book, Sophie has some pretty
specific ideas as to Sky Painter’s true name.
Who does she think he is and how does she
figure it out? Do you agree? Why or why not?
Is it possible to know for sure?
11.Sophie and Timley wonder if Sky Painter is
helping them or actually leading them into
trouble. Has it ever been hard for you to trust
that God loves you and is helping you, especially when you go through a difficult time?
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12.At the end of the story, Timley tells Sophie that
he feels free. He still lives at home with his
parents. What has changed?
13.Has reading this story changed the way you
feel about classmates or friends who belong to
a different religion than you do?
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14.Why do you think the author wrote this book?
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Activities
Creative Writing:
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Now that Sophie and Timley are back in the Park, do
you think that they will be able to remain friends?
What kinds of problems might they have to face?
Write a short story about a time when Timley tries to
fit in with Sophie’s owl friends, or a situation when
Sophie tries to fit in with Timley’s mouse friends.
Research:
O
Pick one of the religions discussed in the book. Using
resources from the Appendix, books from your school
or public library, or a website like www.kidsclick.org,
learn at least three things about how the religion got
started. Kidsclick is a website run by librarians, and
you will find many links there to other websites that
will help you with your research.
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Author’s Note: Freedom of Religion
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ophie and Timley venture into the world for different reasons, but they both become fascinated by
the different religions they encounter as they travel.
They even come to believe in some of the things they
discover. If you are a student in the United States or
Europe or many other parts of the world, you probably have neighbors or classmates who are Buddhist,
Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or Christian—or no religion
at all.
Maybe you’re not sure who belongs to what faith—
it’s not exactly a big topic of conversation at most
schools. Because of confusion over the separation of
church and state, many schools are afraid to bring up
the topic of religion at all, even in subjects like history
and literature that have been greatly influenced by
religion.
Perhaps you suspect that the girl sitting next to
you in math is Muslim because she wears a headscarf
every day to school. Your friends might talk about
Christmas celebrations at their church, or someone
wears a gold necklace depicting the Buddha, or the
kid you play soccer with has a mother with a dot
etched onto her forehead, and you think maybe that
has something to do with religion.
If your school is like many others, even if we don’t
talk about it a lot, we somehow still feel separated by
our beliefs. We are most comfortable being with other
people who are ‘just like us’. Some people long for
the days when it seemed like everyone was the same.
Some people think it is intolerant, or even rude, to
adhere to any one particular faith. Is it? What if some
of what Sophie and Timley learned about is true?
Martin Marty, a famous University of Chicago
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professor of church history, says that religious
freedom is actually ‘the great gift Americans gave to
each other’. Marty says that this actually creates an
atmosphere for faith to thrive (Covenant Companion,
Oct. 2007, p. 30).
I hope that by reading Sophie and Timley’s journey
you will want to go on your own spiritual quest!
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At least 20 religions have some version of the ‘Golden
Rule’. The Bible puts it like this: Do to others as you
would have them do to you (Luke 6: 31). Wouldn’t you
love it if everyone tried harder to understand you?
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Bibliography
The Jewish prayer on page 100 is found in Nishmat:
Traditional Prayer in the Saturday Morning Preliminary Service, at (www.Greenfaith.org).
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The Jewish blessings on page 128 were found in:
1. jacksonsrow.awardspace.com/erev_shabat/
erevshabbat.htm
2. Numbers 6:24–26 (Holy Bible)
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The hymn on page 159, I Think of the Star of Long Ago
(in the public domain; written by A.L. Skoog (18561934), is found in the Covenant Hymnal : A Worshipbook, Covenant Publications, Chicago, Illinois 1996,
p. 193.
The Bible verse that is quoted on page 220 is found in
James 3:17 (Holy Bible).
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Further Reading Suggestions
For Kids:
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Acorn, Randy. 2006. Heaven for Kids, by Randy
Acorn. Chicago: Tyndale.
Barnes, Trevor. 1999. Kingfisher’s Book of Religions: Festivals, Ceremonies, and Beliefs from
Around the World. New York: Kingfisher.
Berger, Gilda. 2002. Celebrate! Stories of Jewish
Holidays. Scholastic.
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Birdseye, Debbie Holsclaw, and Tom Birdseye.
1996. What I Believe: Kids Talk About Faith. New
York: Holiday House.
Cotterell, Arthur, and Laura Buller. 2005. A
Faith Like Mine: Celebration of World’s Religions—
Through the Eyes of Children. DK Publishing.
Demi. 1996. Buddha. Henry Holt & Co.
DePaola, Tomie. 1990. Tomie DePaola’s Book of
Bible Stories. Putnam.
Glossap, Jennifer. 2003. The Kids Book of World
Religions. KidsCan.
Hoffman, Rabbi Lawrence A., and Dr. Ron Wolfson.
Photographs by Bill Aron. 2004. What You Will See
Inside a Synagogue. Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths
Publishing.
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Lowry, Lois. 1989. Number the Stars. Houghton
Mifflin/Dell Bantam.
Malka, Drucker. Illus. by Nancy Patz.1994. A
Family Treasury of Jewish Holidays. Boston: Little,
Brown and Co.
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Mears, Henrietta. 2007. What the Bible is All About.
Regal.
Osborne, Mary Pope. 1996. One World, Many
Religions: the Ways we Worship. Knopf Books for
Young Readers.
Paterson, Katherine. 2008. Life of Jesus for Children: Light of the World. Arthur A. Levine Books.
Schmidt, Gary D. 1997. The Blessing of the Lord.
Eerdmans.
Senker, Cath. 2004. My Muslim Year. Hodder &
Stoughton.
Senker, Cath. 2007. My Hindu Year. PowerKids
Press.
Ward, Hiley H. 1991. My Friend’s Beliefs: A Young
Reader’s Guide to World Religions. Walker and Co.
Wolf, Bernard. 2003. Coming to America: A Muslim
Family’s Story. Lee & Low Books.
Hirsh, Jody, Idy Goodman, Aggie Godenholz, and
Susan Rath. Illus. by Cindy Cooper. 2002. Tales of
Jewish Tradition: Recipes, Activities, and Stories for
the Whole Family Memphis: Wimmer Cookbooks.
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For Adults:
Ankerberg, John, and John Weldon. 2004. The Facts
on World Religions. Harvest House Publishers.
Donin, Rabbi. 1991. To Pray as a Jew. Basic Books.
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Gabriel, Mark A. 2004. Jesus and Muhammad:
Profound Differences and Surprising Similarities.
Charisma House.
Johnson, Linda. 2001. Idiot’s Guide to Hinduism.
Alpha.
Peters, F.E. 2003. Islam: a Guide for Jews and
Christians. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Picken, Stuart D.B. 1982. Buddhism: Japan’s
Cultural Identity. Kodansha.
Schoen, Robert. 2004. What I Wish My Christian
Friends Knew about Judaism. Chicago: Loyola Press.
Strobel, Lee. 2003. The Case for Easter: A Journalist Investigates the Evidence for the Resurrection.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Water, Mark. 2002. World Religions Made Simple.
AMG Publishers.
Yancy, Philip. 2002. The Jesus I Never Knew.
Zondervan.
Zimmerman, Marth. 1981. Celebrate the Feasts.
Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishing Co.
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Truth Might Feel Rude, But You Don’t
Have to Be
Being Friends with a Person of a Different Faith
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Suppose a new kid at school becomes your friend.
You happily laugh together at lunch, sign up to be
his or her partner for a school project, and text or
call each other on the phone. Suddenly, your friend
asks you about your faith—what church or mosque
or synagogue or temple you go to (or what you don’t
go to), what you believe (or what you don’t believe),
etc. Instead of listening respectfully, as if they really
want to know the answers and learn something about
you, your ‘friend’ makes fun of your beliefs, tells you
they are stupid and wrong and need to change. How
long would you be that person’s friend?
Obviously, not very long. Does that mean, however,
that you always need to agree with a friend? Not at all!
Here are a few easy tips:
Start by focusing on what you have in common. Shared
passion for fairytales and mythology helped J. R. R.
Tolkien and C. S. Lewis (creators of the Lord of the
Rings and Narnia Chronicles, respectively) to develop
a friendship that withstood their differences in faith
(and lots of other things, too). It is very likely that
without each one encouraging the other, and being
willing to disagree on some things, those hugely
popular books (and movies) might never have been
made!
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Understand that your friend or classmate might be as
sincere in his or her faith as you are in yours. Their
traditions, rituals, and festivals probably mean just
as much to them as yours do to you.
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Understand that he or she might be nervous that you
will judge them unfairly. When you are together, try
to listen more than talk. Major religions often try to
answer the same big questions: What happens after
I die? Why was I born? How did the universe begin?
What is true? Why is there suffering in the world?
Even though the answers differ significantly, you can
wonder together.
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Learn all you can about what you believe and why. If
your friend asks you, you will be ready to share your
faith in a respectful, gentle way.
Be a true friend. This means that no matter what, you
will still be their friend. Smile, have fun together!
Pray for God’s timing, and then wait. If God wants to
use you to help your friend understand Him better,
He will let you know! You can trust Him, because He
loves your friend, too.
What if you want to be friends with kids who are different than you but they seem distant or unapproachable?
A genuine smile and friendly eye contact on the playground or in the hall can go a long way toward making
a new friend. Say hello, and see what happens!
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Glossary
Allah: The Arabic word for God; the Supreme Being,
the one and only God.
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Islam: Arabic for ‘submission’. The religion of Islam
teaches that in order to achieve true peace one must
submit to God and live according to his divinely
revealed law. It is the most rapidly growing religion,
second only to Christianity.
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Koran (also spelled Qur’an): the holy book of Islam;
Muslims believe that it was spoken by the angel
Gabriel to Muhammed, who became the founder and
leader of Islam.
Mosque: the place where Muslims meet for study and
worship.
Hinduism: in Persian, the word means ‘Indian’. It is
the world’s oldest religion, and the third largest, after
Christianity and Islam. 80% of the people of India are
Hindu.
Making merit: a Buddhist practice, where people
can earn a better existence in the next life. They do
this by supporting monasteries, making pilgrimages
to Buddhist shrines, giving food to monks and nuns,
doing good deeds, and by building a memorial to
Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.
Mezuzah: a small, oblong-shaped container fixed to
the doorpost of a Jewish house. It contains a tiny
parchment with the words of Scripture (Deuteronomy
6:4-7, called the Shema, and Deuteronomy 11:13)
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written on it that remind the family of God’s presence
and commandments. It is kissed to express love for
God and respect for the commandments.
Nirvana: a Buddhist term which means ‘the blowing
out’ of the fires of all desires as the self is absorbed
into the infinite.
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Rosh Hashanah: a Jewish New Year Festival often
called the ‘Feast of Trumpets’. For ten days Jewish
people look back over the past year and ask for forgiveness for wrongdoing.
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Shabbat: also called the ‘Sabbath’. The word means
‘to cease’, and is a Jewish day of rest and spiritual
enrichment. Jews are commanded on this day to
remember God’s act of creation and their deliverance
from slavery in Egypt.
Synagogue: a Jewish place of study and worship.
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Website: www.sunpenny.com
Blog: www.sunpennybooks.com
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