Someone once told me that we go have adventures, and when we return home, no one wants to hear the stories because they don’t know what to ask, or don’t know enough to understand our experience. But I believe somewhere out there is someone who wants to read my adventures – my stories. They are the stories of a traveling mouse. My name is Sky, and I left my home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland a year ago. It was one of those days that started the same as every other day. I had finished school a few months before. We mice learn faster than you humans, and so we finish school at 16. Finished with homework forever, I was working for my family on our croft. Okay, it’s not really our croft. It belongs to a human family named McLeod, but we live there, and we help them with the farm work. They live in the big house, and we have a small house next to it. When I was little I adored their daughter – Anne, and I was always following her around. But now Anne and all the other kids have grown up and left the island, and the parents are getting a bit old, so now my family does most of the work. You see, we can talk to humans and animals, so we can explain to the cows and sheep what’s going on.
If you’ve seen a map of Skye, I lived on the loop road that goes from Portree, to Uig and back to Portree, on the very north bit near the youth hostel, where the road is not two lanes but just one. There are little places to pull over if you meet a car coming at you on the road. The bus comes by our house three times a day, and there are a few cars, but things are quiet. And by quiet I mean boring. Really really boring. I milk the cows, clean the cow sheds, let out the cows and sheep, working in the vegetable garden and read. I’m forever reading adventure stories my mom tells me are for little kids. My little kid brothers and sisters don’t want to read them though. There’s Ralf, 13, Chloe, my favorite, age 10, and Ella, only 6 and so cute. The only problem is that she knows it. Ralf is forever doing things like putting my pajamas in the fridge, and sticking spiders in my bed. And while I don’t mind spiders, he’s annoying. And so Chloe is my favorite. Oh, and me. My name is Skye, like the island, and like I said, I’m 16. My favorite color is blue, and my favorite book is Trumpet of the Swan.
So the morning of the 12th of September I woke up at five in the morning as usual. For some reason cows never sleep in. It was raining that day, as it always seems to. I like the rain, but visitors to my island always complain, as does my mum. Her real name is Louisa, but everyone calls her mum. She’s from Australia, where I guess it’s really sunny. Her parents died in a car crash when she was 18, and she got on a boat to Scotland, met my dad, and never went back, not even to visit.
By the time I got finished with the cows, it was pouring, and I decided the vegetables could wait, and went up to the hayloft in the stables and pulled my book out of its hiding place. There’s a loose board in the wall on the left side as you’re coming up the ladder, and behind the board is about 10cm before the wall. I don’t hide all my books, but my mum doesn’t like how many I read, and so I only show her some. When I was around 14 I decided that someday I was going to travel the world, and so when I found something I thought would be useful, I hid it with my books. There was a sewing kit and a flashlight, a stash of plasters, a compass, and a guidebook to China, an unbreakable plastic spoon, a travel alarm clock, and a tiny folding umbrella. And my prized possession – a map of the world. I would take it out and mark all the places I heard about, all the places with names I thought sounded cool, and all the places I read about in my books. My favorite place name was Madagascar. What a cool name! And there were supposed to be all these monkeys living there – well, not monkeys – what are they called? Lemurs! An island full of lemurs.
So I went up to read my latest book. I hid there all day until five o’clock when mum called me for supper. Today it was beans on toast. Yes we are mice, no; we do not eat only cheese. Whoever told you that was lying. I love cheese, don’t get me wrong, but to eat only cheese, it might get boring someday. After dinner I walked up to the main road, and was going to go visit a friend, when I saw a girl get off the bus. You see, the last bus of the night doesn’t go all the way back to Portree. It stops halfway round at the drivers’ house for the night. This girl had a blue green scarf wrapped round her head, and hair the same green as the scarf. She was carrying a blue backpack with a yellow sleeping pad, and a green sack that looked like it could be a tent. It was still pouring rain, and she got off and sort of looked round, and then stood there a minute. I wondered what she was doing here. And if she knew the bus would stop. She watched the bus as it drove down our road, sighed, and looked around again. Seeing me, she walked over, and asked if I knew a place to camp.
“Where were you going?” I replied
“Uig” she said, with an American accent. “But the bus stopped so I guess I can stay here.”
“You could stay on our croft” I told her. “I guess I’d better ask Mrs. McLeod first though”
She followed me back down the road, and waited while I asked mum. Mrs. McLeod said yes, of course, and soon she was setting up her green tent. I wanted to ask her all sorts of questions, but she had this intense and a bit grumpy look on her face, and so I decided to leave her alone for the moment. Her tent was soon up and she came over to say thank you. Looking at her again I realized why she might be grumpy. She was soaking wet, with her hair dripping onto her face, and sloshy noises coming from her shoes.
“Would you like to come inside?”
“I’d love to” she said, and I led her in.
She took off layer after layer, each one as wet as the one before, leaving them hanging in the entry way. My mum took one look at her, and went into mum mode, insisting that she have some tea and beans on toast. The girl, Kate, she said her name was, politely tried to decline, saying she didn’t want my mum to go to any trouble, but my mom can’t be deterred. And sitting there, wet in our kitchen with her green hair, eating her beans on toast, Kate told us her story. She was from a small town in North Carolina called Carrboro, and she went to university there. After university she worked six months and then decided she wanted to travel. I sat eyes wide, ears wider as she told about finding a job in Turkey, visiting Morocco, working at a theater festival in Scotland and then walking 95 miles on her own. I thought she might have just walked out of one of my books. She asked us about Skye and our life, and I offered to show her around the next day.
After Kate had returned, a bit dryer to her tent Mum looked me over, and in that way of hers said “Now don’t you get any ideas, Skye. Sleep well.”
I didn’t sleep well though. I kept thinking about Kate and her stories. She had just left, left her life and made a new one. So much confidence. So brave. Could I ever be like that? Could I walk up to a stranger and ask them if they knew a good place to camp?
The next day Kate helped me milk the cows, laughed as she tried and tried to get the milk to come out, drank some straight from the pail, and hoed the vegetables with me. She wanted to know all about my life, and it was easy to tell her. To tell her about the pajamas in the fridge, and the books in my hiding place. About my mom coming from Australia and never looking back, and how I was so bored here. She asked my mum if she would mind her staying one more night, and my mum said no, and would she please come to dinner. “Only if I can help,” said Kate. That night, I promised myself I would ask her in the morning.
When I went outside Kate was taking down her tent. “I was wondering” I asked quietly “if you would mind, if maybe…”
“Spit it out!” she said. “Be confident.”
“If I could please come with you. I won’t be in the way. I promise”
“Come with me now?” she asked
“Yes” I said.
“What does your family think?” she asked
My mum told me she couldn’t stop me, I was 16, but to please stay safe, no hitchhiking, brush your teeth, and call me every three days. My father looked at me if I was insane. Who would want to leave home? And grunted. Ralf hugged me and Ella said bye before turning back to her dolls. I cried to say good bye to Chloe – “I’ll call!” I promised. Putting clothes in my bag, I ran to my hiding place, dumped everything in the bag and ran back outside.
“Let’s go catch the bus” said Kate smiling at me. “It should be here any moment. Where shall we go today?”