Free The Amazing Adventures of Freddie Whitemouse by Elizabeth Jane Howard Page B

he said.
    The poodle, who had been lying with his head between his paws, lifted it now to look at him.
    ‘My dear old bloke, I’ve been trying to explain: it’s no good you saying things like that. You can’t choose what happens and nor can I.’ He put out a shaky paw to
stroke Charley’s face. ‘But I shall always remember that you said that. Always. It was brave and charming of you.’ A moment later he said, ‘I’m tired, Charley, really
bone tired.’
    They had a sleep, as they always did, with Charley’s arm around Alphonse’s shoulder and his head burrowed into the soft curly fur of his chest . . .
    He was running on dazzling white sand, and Alphonse was running as well – splashing easily and fast through the shallow edge of a greeny blue sea, and a yellow silver sun
was pouring down onto their hot fur, and he was completely happy because he knew that Alphonse felt the same.
    Then, just as he began to realise that the hot sunlight was fading, the sea and the sky becoming darker, Alphonse left his side and plunged into the sea. Charley barked, but there was no answer,
and almost at once he could not even see the dark head of his friend. He ran into the sea to follow him, but at that moment it became completely dark, everything black, and he was conscious of
feeling bitterly cold, and when he shouted despairingly for Alphonse, his voice was so small that he could scarcely hear it. Gradually a grey light was there, he was shivering, and everything
around him seemed enormous . . .
    ‘That seems to have been quite a serious adventure.’
    He licked one of his soaking paws; it tasted of salt. Two black eyes were regarding him; it was the sorcerer toad. He was speechless with shock. He wasn’t Charley any more, and just when
everything had seemed so marvellous, he had lost his friend Alphonse – and he was back to being a mouse. Tears rushed to his eyes; he longed with all his heart to be Charley and to be with
his friend.
    ‘Your time was up. You didn’t remember about Freddie at all, did you? Well, I didn’t want you to. This time I wanted you to really understand about being a dog.’
    ‘I want to go back to that. I want to be back with Alphonse.’
    The toad waited while he wept. Then he said, quite gently for a toad, ‘I’m afraid it isn’t possible to be Charley forever.’
    ‘Why? Is he dead? Are they both dead?’
    ‘No, no. They are on their way to the island, to Poppy.’
    ‘So Alphonse won’t feel that I’ve left him?’
    ‘No. He’s still with Charley. You were just Charley for a week, which is what you asked for. And thanks – partly to you – they – all three of them – will be
together. Isn’t that good?’
    He thought of Alphonse and how much he loved Charley.
    He thought of Charley and how much he loved Poppy.
    Then he thought that if you loved someone, you wanted them to be happy, and if they were all together on the island, they would be. He blinked the last tears from his eyes.
    ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘it is good. ‘It’s what I wanted most, for us – I mean them – to be together. It’s just – well – I don’t know.
I’m not looking forward to being the same old feeble mouse.’
    The toad’s mouth widened into what Freddie had come to recognise was a smile.
    ‘Ah! But you won’t be.’
    ‘I don’t want to be turned into another someone else!’
    ‘I thought I’d made it clear that I’m not spending any more of my sorcery on that. You won’t be the mouse you were before. You will be a very different mouse now. Think
of all you’ve learned.’
    Freddie tried to think, but he couldn’t come up with anything. Then he said, ‘Well, when I was a tiger I was always hungry and there was nobody to talk to: not at all like when I was
Charley.’
    ‘But when you were a dog, you had no choice about what happened to you. Your friend Alphonse – a most intelligent dog – pointed that out to you several times.’
    ‘I know. He was a poodle in a