Snoutie and His Friends

One of the happy little rays of sun decided to have a little fun with Boary. It snuck into the house through an open window and settled right on his sleepy snout. The snout warmed up and started to turn pink. Boary growled in his sleep and turned onto his other side. But the ray of sunlight followed right after him and again settled on his snout. Then Boary sneezed and woke up.

Now Burly Boary felt he was a Very Organized Boary. On a wall of his house hung his Daily Schedule, which he had put together on New Year’s Eve, when he made a resolution to stay strong and athletic. Since then, he had followed this Schedule without fail (except of course for the days he spent sleeping, which were rather great in number). Now Very Organized Boary looked at his Schedule, took a thick, blue mat and jump rope out of his closet, and dragged black dumbbells out from under his bed. He wiped some drops of water left over from his bath off his rough, grey bristles and dug around in a drawer in his desk for his Exercise Notebook, which was a special Sports Notebook that he keep in addition to his Daily Schedule. He recorded a list of all the exercises he considered Especially Useful in this notebook. He also made note of his Special Sports Achievements, which for some reason never changed. After conducting a detailed count of the number of knee bends and pushups he had done, Boary started his exercises.

At the same time, Housey Mousey, whose den was quite close to Boary’s house, decided to take a good look at her food supplies and make sure they were not spoiled. She dragged soaking bags of grain out of her den, ran them over to the nearest hummock to dry in the sun, and then dragged them back into her den. Housey Mousey was an Economical Mouse and a Farsighted Mouse.

“Into the den! Everything into the den!” squeaked Very Worried Housey Mousey. “I need to dry everything out quickly and take it back to the den! If it rains again, everything will go bad and I’ll lose all my supplies! Then what will we have to eat this winter? Into the den! Everything into the den right away!”

As she ran by Burly Boary’s house, Housey Mousey remembered that he loved to sleep during rainy weather. She was a Polite Mouse and a Well-Mannered Mouse, and she had absolutely no wish to disturb her neighbor’s sleep, but her concern about her own supplies and the supplies of her neighbors was, in her mind, much more important than politeness, so she decided to knock on Boary’s door. But no one answered. She knocked harder.

“Neighbor Boary, are you at home? Wake up! You need to dry out your supplies!” she squeaked loudly, and then she stopped to listen for any noise from inside.

But the house was quiet. You see, Burly Boary really did not like it when someone interrupted his Schedule. At that moment he was just completing his exercises with his dumbbells. He decided to ignore the knocking at the door and picked up his jump rope. Huffing and puffing, Boary jumped with so much strength that his oak table jumped right along with him and the chairs started moving around it. Then Housey Mousey decided not to waste any more time and to return to her bags of grain.

“Aunty Mousey, Burly Boary probably didn’t hear you!” she heard someone say behind her. She turned to see Beaver the Builder’s Littlest Beaver Cub sitting next to her. “You’ll need a different approach, or even a Special Approach, as Royal Chef Rabbit likes to say,” he continued, gaily scrambling up onto the windowsill. “Well, it’s exactly as I thought,” he confirmed happily when he saw Boary jumping rope with all his might.

“Good morning, Uncle Boary! You have a visitor,” he announced and skittered back down off the windowsill and onto the wet grass.

“Interrupting the Schedule! This is a disgrace!” huffed Burly Boary crossly, and he went to open the door.

After hearing what Economical Housey Mousey had to say, Boary went right down to his cellar to make sure that his supply of acorns hadn’t gotten wet. They hadn’t, and in fact they couldn’t have, because they simply weren’t there at all. The thing was that Burly Boary had always believed that one should eat one’s fill before going off to sleep, especially if that sleep is going to be a long one due to rainy weather. What’s more, Boary believed that the acorns would go bad if they were stored for too long. So, in short, Boary’s supplies never lasted for long: he would eat them as soon as they appeared in his cellar, which is why his cellar was now completely empty.

After looking around the cellar disapprovingly and grunting crossly, Burly Boary glanced at his Weekly Schedule, which was hanging on the wall right next to his Daily Schedule. According to this Schedule, Supply Day was due to take place the next day, but Boary wanted to eat right then and there.

“Well, this is totally unacceptable! It’s against the Schedule!” Burly Boary crossly kicked an empty apple box with his hind legs.