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Mouse Peak

How a mouse became a sailor

The guys launched boats along the river. My brother cut them out of thick pieces of pine bark with a knife. My little sister was adjusting the sails from rags.

The largest boat needed a long mast.

“It needs to be from a straight branch,” said the brother, took the knife and went into the bushes.

Suddenly he shouted from there:

- Mice, mice!

Little sister rushed to him.

“I cut a branch,” said the brother, “and they burst!” A whole bunch! One over here, at the root. Wait, I’ll take her now...

He cut the root with a knife and pulled out a tiny mouse.

- Yes, how tiny he is! – my sister was surprised. - And yellow-mouthed! Are there such things?

“This is a wild mouse,” the brother explained, “a field mouse.” Each breed has its own name, but I don’t know what this one is called.

Then the mouse opened his pink mouth and squeaked.

- Peak! He says his name is Peak! – my sister laughed. - Look how he trembles! Ay! Yes, his ear is bleeding. It was you who wounded him with a knife when you took him out. He's in pain.

“I’ll kill him anyway,” the brother said angrily. - I kill them all: why are they stealing bread from us!

“Let him go,” my sister begged, “he’s small!”

But the boy did not want to listen.

“I’ll throw it into the river,” he said and went to the shore.

The girl suddenly figured out how to save the mouse.

- Stop! - she shouted to her brother. - You know? Let's put him on our biggest boat, and let him be a passenger!

The brother agreed to this: the mouse would drown in the river anyway. But it’s interesting to launch a boat with a live passenger.

They adjusted the sail, put the mouse in a dugout boat and set it adrift. The wind picked up the boat and drove it away from the shore. The mouse clutched tightly to the dry bark and did not move. The guys waved to him from the shore.

At this time they were called home. They also saw how a light boat with all sails disappeared around a bend in the river.

- Poor little Peak! - the girl said when they returned home. “The ship will probably be overturned by the wind, and Peak will drown.”

The boy was silent. He was thinking about how he could get rid of all the mice in their closet.

Shipwreck

And the mouse was carried along on a light pine boat. The wind drove the boat further and further from the shore. High waves splashed all around. The river was wide - a whole sea for tiny Peak.

Piku was only two weeks old. He did not know how to look for food for himself or hide from enemies. That day, the mother mouse took her little mice out of the nest for the first time - for a walk. She was just feeding them with her milk when the boy scared the entire mouse family.

Peak was still a sucker. The guys played a cruel joke on him. It would be better if they killed him at once than to let him alone, small and defenseless, on such a dangerous journey. The whole world was against him. The wind blew as if it wanted to capsize the boat, the waves tossed the boat as if they wanted to drown it in its dark depths. Animals, birds, reptiles, fish - everyone was against him. Everyone was not averse to profiting from a stupid defenseless mouse.

Large white gulls were the first to notice Peak. They flew up and circled over the ship. They shouted in frustration that they could not finish off the mouse at once: they were afraid to break their beak on the hard bark in the air. Some landed on the water and swam to catch up with the boat.

And a pike rose from the bottom of the river and also swam after the boat. She waited for the seagulls to throw the mouse into the water. Then he will not be able to escape her terrible teeth.

Peak heard the predatory cries of seagulls. He closed his eyes and waited for death.

At this time, a large bird of prey, an osprey fisherman, flew up from behind. The seagulls scattered.

The fisherman saw a mouse on a boat and a pike in the water under it. He folded his wings and rushed down.

He fell into the river very close to the boat. The tip of the wing touched the sail, and the boat capsized.

When the fisherman rose heavily from the water with a pike in his claws, there was no one on the overturned boat. The seagulls saw this from afar and flew away: they thought that the mouse had drowned.

Pieck never learned to swim. But when he got into the water, it turned out that he only had to work with his paws so as not to drown.

Mouse Peak

Vitaly Valentinovich Bianki
Mouse Peak
How a mouse became a sailor
The guys launched boats along the river. My brother cut them out of thick pieces of pine bark with a knife. My little sister was adjusting the sails from rags.
The largest boat needed a long mast.
“It needs to be from a straight branch,” said the brother, took a knife and went into the bushes.
Suddenly he shouted from there:
- Mice, mice!
Little sister rushed to him.
“I cut a branch,” said my brother, “and they burst!” A whole bunch! One over here at the root. Wait, I'll take her now...
He cut the root with a knife and pulled out a tiny mouse.
- Yes, how tiny he is! - my sister was surprised. - And yellow-mouthed! Are there such things?
“This is a wild mouse,” the brother explained, “a field mouse.” Each breed has its own name, but I don’t know what this one is called.
Then the mouse opened his pink mouth and squeaked.
- Peak! He says his name is Peak! - my sister laughed. - Look how he trembles! Ay! Yes, his ear is bleeding. It was you who wounded him with a knife when you took him out. He's in pain.
“I’ll kill him anyway,” the brother said angrily. - I kill them all: why do they steal bread from us?
“Let him go,” my sister begged, “he’s small!”
But the boy did not want to listen.
“I’ll throw it into the river,” he said and went to the shore.
The girl suddenly figured out how to save the mouse.
- Stop! - she shouted to her brother. - You know? Let's put him on our biggest boat, and let him be a passenger!
The brother agreed to this: the mouse would drown in the river anyway. But it’s interesting to launch a boat with a live passenger.
They adjusted the sail, put the mouse in a dugout boat and set it adrift. The wind picked up the boat and drove it away from the shore. The mouse clutched tightly to the dry bark and did not move.
The guys waved to him from the shore.
At this time they were called home. They also saw how a light boat with all sails disappeared around a bend in the river.
- Poor little Peak! - the girl said when they returned home. - The ship will probably be overturned by the wind, and Peak will drown.
The boy was silent. He was thinking about how he could get rid of all the mice in their closet.
Shipwreck
And the mouse was carried along on a light pine boat. The wind drove the boat further and further from the shore. High waves splashed all around. The river was wide - a whole sea for tiny Peak.
Piku was only two weeks old. He did not know how to look for food for himself or hide from enemies. That day, the mother mouse took her little mice out of the nest for the first time - for a walk. She was just feeding them with her milk when the boy scared the entire mouse family.
Peak was still a sucker. The guys played a cruel joke on him. It would be better if they killed him at once than to let him alone, small and defenseless, on such a dangerous journey.
The whole world was against him. The wind blew as if it wanted to capsize the boat, the waves tossed the boat as if they wanted to drown it in its dark depths. Animals, birds, reptiles, fish - everyone was against him. Everyone was not averse to profiting from a stupid, defenseless mouse.
The first to notice Peak were large white gulls. They flew up and circled over the ship. They shouted with frustration that they could not finish off the mouse at once: they were afraid of breaking their beak on the hard bark in the air. Some landed on the water and swam to catch up with the boat.
And a pike rose from the bottom of the river and also swam after the boat. She waited for the seagulls to throw the mouse into the water. Then he will not be able to escape her terrible teeth.
Peak heard the predatory cries of seagulls. He closed his eyes and waited for death.
At this time, a large bird of prey, an osprey fisherman, flew up from behind. The seagulls scattered.
The fisherman saw a mouse on a boat and a pike in the water under it. He folded his wings and rushed down.
He fell into the river very close to the boat. The tip of the wing touched the sail, and the boat capsized.
When the fisherman rose heavily from the water with a pike in his claws, there was no one on the overturned boat.
The seagulls saw this from afar and flew away: they thought that the mouse had drowned.
Pieck never learned to swim. But when he got into the water, it turned out that he only had to work with his paws so as not to drown. He emerged and grabbed the boat with his teeth.
He was carried along with the overturned boat.
Soon the boat was washed up by the waves on an unfamiliar shore.
Peak jumped out onto the sand and rushed into the bushes.
It was a real shipwreck, and the little passenger could consider himself lucky to have escaped.
Scary night
The peak was soaked to the last hair. I had to lick myself all over with my tongue. After this, the fur soon dried, and he warmed up. He was hungry. But he was afraid to come out from under the bush: the sharp cries of seagulls could be heard from the river.
So he sat there hungry all day.
Finally it began to get dark. The birds have calmed down. Only ringing waves crashed on the nearby shore.
Peak carefully crawled out from under the bush.
I looked around - no one. Then he quickly rolled into the grass in a dark ball.
Then he began to suck all the leaves and stems that caught his eye. But there was no milk in them.
Out of frustration, he began to pull and tear them with his teeth.
Suddenly, warm juice splashed into his mouth from one of the stems. The juice was sweet, like the milk of a mother mouse.
Peak ate this stem and began to look for others like it. He was hungry and did not see at all what was going on around him.
And above the tops of tall grasses it had already risen full moon. Quick shadows silently swept through the air: they were nimble creatures chasing moths the bats.
Quiet rustles and rustles were heard from all sides in the grass.
Someone was scurrying around there, sneaking around in the bushes, hiding in the hummocks.
Peak ate. He chewed the stems close to the ground. The stem fell and a rain of cold dew fell on the mouse. But at the end of the stem, Peak found a tasty spikelet. The mouse sat down, lifted the stem with its front paws, like hands, and quickly ate the spikelet.
Splash-splash! - something hit the ground not far from the mouse.
Pieck stopped gnawing and listened.
There was a rustling sound in the grass.
Splash-splash!
Someone was jumping across the grass right at the mouse. We must hurry back to the bushes!
Splash-splash! - jumped from behind.
Splash-splash! Splash-splash! - was heard from all sides.
Plop! - came very close ahead.
Someone's long, elongated legs flashed over the grass, and - plop! - A bug-eyed little frog plopped down to the ground right in front of Peak’s nose.
He stared at the mouse in fear. The mouse looked at his bare, slippery skin with surprise and fear...
So they sat in front of each other, and neither one nor the other knew what to do next.
And all around you could still hear the sound of plop-splat! plop-plop! - as if a whole herd of frightened frogs, fleeing from someone, was jumping across the grass.
And a light, quick rustling sound was heard closer and closer.
And then for one moment the little mouse saw: behind the little frog the long flexible body of a silver-black snake shot up.
The snake slid down, and the frog's long hind legs jerked and disappeared into its gaping mouth.
What happened next, Pieck did not see.
The mouse rushed headlong away and didn’t even notice how he found himself on a branch of a bush, high above the ground.
Here he spent the rest of the night, fortunately his belly was tightly stuffed with grass.
And all around until dawn, rustling and rustling sounds were heard.
Catchy tail and invisible fur
Pieck no longer faces starvation: he has already learned to find food for himself. But how could he alone save himself from all his enemies?
Mice always live in large flocks: this makes it easier to defend against attacks. Someone will notice the approaching enemy, whistle, and everyone will hide.
But Peak was alone. He had to quickly find other mice and pester them. And Peak went on a search. Wherever he could, he tried to make his way through the bushes. There were many snakes in this place, and he was afraid to go down to the ground among them.
He learned to climb very well. His tail especially helped him. His tail was long, flexible and prehensile. With such a grip, he could climb thin branches no worse than a monkey.
From branch to branch, from branch to branch, from bush to bush - this is how Peak made his way for three nights in a row.
Finally the bushes ended. Next was a meadow.
Peak did not encounter any mice in the bushes. I had to run further through the grass.
The meadow was dry. There were no snakes. The mouse became brave and began to travel in the sun. Now he ate everything he came across: grains and tubers of various plants, beetles, caterpillars, worms. And soon he learned a new way to hide from enemies.
It happened like this: Pieck dug up the larvae of some beetles in the ground, sat on his hind legs and began to snack.
The sun shone brightly. Grasshoppers chirped in the grass.
Peak saw a small falcon in the distance above the meadow, but was not afraid of it. Shaker - a bird the size of a dove, only thinner - hung motionless in the empty air, as if suspended on a string. Only her wings shook a little and she turned her head from side to side.
He didn’t even know how sharp the eyes of the shaker were.
Peak's breast was white. When he sat, she could be seen far away on the brown ground.
Pieck realized the danger only when the shaking thing suddenly rushed from its place and rushed towards him like an arrow.
It was too late to run. The little mouse lost his legs from fear. He pressed his chest to the ground and froze.
The shaker flew to him and suddenly hung in the air again, barely noticeably fluttering its sharp wings. She couldn't figure out where the mouse had disappeared to. Now only she saw his bright white chest, and suddenly he disappeared. She peered vigilantly at the place where he was sitting, but saw only brown clods of earth.
And Peak lay here, before her eyes.
On his back, the fur was yellow-brown, exactly the color of the earth, and it was impossible to see him from above.
Then a green grasshopper jumped out of the grass.
The shaker rushed down, picked him up in flight and rushed away.
The invisible fur saved Piku's life.
From the moment he noticed the enemy from afar, he immediately pressed himself to the ground and lay motionless. And the invisible fur did its job: it deceived the keenest eyes.
"The Nightingale the Robber"
Day after day, Peak ran through the meadow, but nowhere did he find any traces of mice.
Finally the bushes began again, and behind them Peak heard the familiar splash of river waves.
The mouse had to turn and go in the other direction. He ran all night, and by morning he climbed under a large bush and went to bed.
A loud song woke him up. Peak looked out from under the roots and saw above his head beautiful bird with a pink chest, gray head and red-brown back.
The mouse really liked her funny song. He wanted to listen to the singer more closely. He climbed towards her through the bush.
Songbirds never touched Peak, and he was not afraid of them. And this singer was a little taller than a sparrow.
The stupid mouse did not know that it was a shrike and that although he was a songbird, he lived in robbery.
Before Peak even had time to come to his senses, the shrike pounced on him and hit him painfully in the back with its hooked beak.
From a strong blow, Peak flew head over heels from the branch. He fell into the soft grass and was not hurt. Before the shrike had time to pounce on him again, the mouse had already darted under the roots. Then the cunning “nightingale-robber” sat down on a bush and began to wait to see if Peak would peek out from under the roots.
He sang very beautiful songs, but the mouse had no time for them. From the place where Peak was now sitting, he could clearly see the bush on which the shrike was sitting.
The branches of this bush were lined with long sharp thorns. Dead, half-eaten chicks, lizards, frogs, beetles and grasshoppers stuck out on the thorns, like on spikes. There was a robber's air pantry here.
A mouse would sit on a thorn if it came out from under the roots.
The shrike guarded Peak all day. But when the sun set, the robber climbed into the thicket to sleep. Then the mouse crawled out from under the bush and ran away.
Perhaps in his haste he lost his way, only the next morning he again heard the splash of the river behind the bushes. And again he had to turn and run in the other direction.
End of the journey
Peak was now running through a dried-up swamp.
There was only dry moss growing here; it was very difficult to run along it, and most importantly there was nothing to eat; There were no worms, no caterpillars, no succulent grass.
On the second night the mouse was completely exhausted. He climbed another hill with difficulty and fell. His eyes were drooping. My throat is dry. To refresh himself, he lay down and licked droplets of cold dew from the moss.
It's starting to get light. From the hillock, Peak could see a moss-covered valley in the distance. Behind her the meadow began again. The lush grasses stood there like a high wall. But the mouse did not have the strength to get up and run to them.
The sun came out. From its hot light, droplets of dew quickly began to dry.
Pieck felt that he was coming to an end. He gathered his remaining strength, crawled, but immediately fell and rolled down the hill. He fell on his back, paws up, and now saw in front of him only a hummock overgrown with moss.
Directly opposite him, in the hummock, a deep black hole was visible, so narrow that Pieck could not even stick his head into it.
The mouse noticed that something was moving in the depths of it. Soon a thick, shaggy bumblebee appeared at the entrance. He crawled out of the hole, scratched his round belly with his paw, spread his wings and rose into the air.
Having made a circle over the hummock, the bumblebee returned to its hole and landed at its entrance. Then he stood up on his paws and fluttered his stiff wings so hard that the wind blew on the mouse.
“Zhzhuu!” the wings hummed. “Zhzhuu!”
It was a trumpeter bumblebee. He drove into a deep hole Fresh air ventilated the room - and woke up other bumblebees who were still sleeping in the nest.
Soon, one after another, all the bumblebees crawled out of the hole and flew to the meadow to collect honey. The trumpeter was the last to fly away. There was only one peak left. He understood what he had to do to be saved.
Somehow, crawling, with pauses, he reached the bumblebee hole. From there a sweet smell hit his nose.
Pieck poked his nose at the ground. The ground gave way.
He picked again and again until he dug a hole. Large cells of gray wax appeared at the bottom of the hole. Some contained bumblebee larvae, others were full of fragrant yellow honey.
The mouse greedily began to lick the sweet treat. He licked all the honey, set to work on the larvae and quickly dealt with them.
His strength quickly returned: he had never eaten such hearty food since he parted with his mother. He tore the ground further and further, now without difficulty - and found more and more cells with honey and larvae.
Suddenly something painfully pricked him in the cheek. The peak bounced. A large queen bumblebee was climbing out of the ground towards him.
Peak was about to rush at her, but then wings hummed and buzzed above him: the bumblebees had returned from the meadow.
A whole army of them attacked the little mouse, and he had no choice but to flee.
Peak ran away from them as fast as he could. Thick fur protected him from the terrible stings of bumblebees. But the bumblebees chose places where the hair was shorter and pricked it in the ears and the back of the head.
In one breath - where did the agility come from! - the mouse rushed to the meadow and hid in the thick grass.
Here the bumblebees left him and returned to their plundered nest.
That same day, Peak crossed a damp, swampy meadow and again found himself on the river bank.
The peak was on an island.
Building a house
The island that Peak ended up on was uninhabited: there were no mice on it. Only birds lived here, only snakes and frogs, for which it was easy to get across the wide river.
Pieck was supposed to live here alone.
The famous Robinson, when he found himself on a desert island, began to think about how he could live alone. He reasoned that he first needed to build himself a house that would protect him from bad weather and attacks from enemies. And then he began to collect supplies for a rainy day.
Pieck was just a mouse: he didn’t know how to reason. And yet he did exactly the same as Robinson. The first thing he did was build himself a house.
No one taught him how to build: it was in his blood. He built the way all mice of the same breed as him built.
Tall reeds interspersed with sedge grew in the swampy meadow - an excellent forest for mouse construction.
Pieck chose several reeds growing nearby, climbed on them, nibbled off the tops and split the ends with his teeth. He was so small and light that the grass easily held him.
Then he began to work on the leaves. He climbed onto the sedge and nibbled off a leaf right at the stem. The leaf fell, the mouse climbed down, picked up the leaf with its front paws and held it out through clenched teeth. The mouse carried the soaked strips of leaves upstairs and deftly wove them into the split ends of the reeds. He climbed onto blades of grass so thin that they bent under him. He tied them together with their tips one after another.
In the end, he got a light round house, very similar to a bird's nest. The whole house was the size of a child's fist.
The mouse made a hole in it from the side and lined it with moss, leaves and thin roots. For the bed, he collected soft, warm flower fluff. The bedroom came out great.
Now Peak had a place to rest and hide from bad weather and enemies. From a distance, the keenest eye could not have noticed the grass nest, hidden on all sides by tall reeds and thick sedge. Not a single snake could reach it: it hung so high above the ground.
The real Robinson himself could not have come up with a better idea.
Uninvited guest
Days after days passed.
The mouse lived calmly in his airy house. He became quite an adult, but grew very little.
He was not supposed to grow any further, because Peak belonged to a breed of tiny mice. These mice are even smaller than our little gray house mice.
Pieck now often disappeared from home for a long time. On hot days, he swam in the cool water of a swamp, not far from the meadow.
One day he left home in the evening, found two bumblebee nests in the meadow and was so full of honey that he immediately climbed into the grass and fell asleep.
Peak returned home only in the morning. Even below, he noticed something was wrong. A wide strip of thick mucus stretched along the ground and along one of the stems, and a thick, curly tail protruded from the nest.
The mouse was seriously afraid. The smooth, fat tail looked like a snake's. Only snakes have a hard tail and are covered with scales, but this one was bare, soft, covered in some kind of sticky mucus.
Peak plucked up his courage and climbed up the stem to take a closer look at the intruder.
At this time, the tail slowly moved, and the frightened little mouse rolled head over heels to the ground. He hid in the grass and from there saw the monster lazily crawl out of his house.
First, the thick tail disappeared into the hole of the nest. Then two long soft horns with pimples at the ends appeared from there. Then two more of the same horns - only short. And behind them finally the whole disgusting head of the monster poked out.
The mouse saw how the naked, soft, slimy body of a giant slug slowly, slowly crawled out of his house, as if it was spilling.
From head to tail, the slug was a good three inches long.
He began to descend to the ground. Its soft belly stuck tightly to the stem, leaving a wide strip of thick mucus on the stem.
Pieck did not wait for him to slide to the ground and ran away. The soft slug could do nothing to him, but the mouse was disgusted by this cold, lethargic, sticky animal.
Only a few hours later Peak returned. The slug crawled away somewhere.
The mouse climbed into his nest. Everything there was smeared with nasty slime. Peak threw out all the fluff and laid a new one. Only after that did he decide to go to bed. From then on, when leaving home, he always plugged the entrance with a bunch of dry grass.
Pantry
The days became shorter, the nights colder.
The grains of the cereals have ripened. The wind dropped them to the ground, and birds flocked to the mouse in the meadow to pick them up.
Piku had a very satisfying life. He was getting fatter every day. The fur on it was shiny.
Now the little four-legged Robinson made himself a pantry and collected supplies for a rainy day. He dug a hole in the ground and widened its end. He carried grains here, as if into a cellar.
Then this seemed to him not enough. He dug another cellar nearby and connected them with an underground passage.
It kept raining. The earth softened from above, the grass turned yellow, became wet and drooped. Peak's grass house sank and now hung low to the ground. There was mold in it.
Living in the nest became bad. The grass had completely fallen to the ground, the nest hung like a noticeable dark ball on the reeds. It was already dangerous.
Peak decided to go live underground. He was no longer afraid that a snake would crawl into his hole or that restless frogs would disturb him: the snakes and frogs had long since disappeared somewhere.
The mouse chose a dry and secluded place under a hummock for his burrow.
Peak arranged the passage to the burrow on the leeward side so that cold air would not blow into his home.
From the entrance there was a long straight corridor. It expanded at the end into a small round room. Peak brought dry moss and grass here and made himself a bedroom.
His new underground bedroom was warm and cozy.
He dug passages underground from it into both of his cellars so that he could run without going outside.
When everything was ready, the mouse tightly plugged the entrance to his airy summer house with grass and moved into the underground one.
Snow and sleep
The birds no longer came to peck the grain. The grass lay densely on the ground, and a cold wind walked freely across the island.
By that time, Peak had become terribly fat. A kind of lethargy came over him. He was too lazy to move much. He came out of his hole less and less often.
One morning he saw that the entrance to his home was blocked. He dug through the cold, loose snow and went out into the meadow.
The whole earth was white. The snow sparkled unbearably in the sun. The mouse's bare paws burned with cold.
Then the frosts began.
The mouse would have had a bad time if he had not stocked up on food. How to dig grains out from under deep frozen snow?
Drowsy lethargy increasingly overwhelmed Pieck. Now he didn’t leave the bedroom for two or three days and kept sleeping. Having woken up, he went to the cellar, ate his fill there and fell asleep again for several days.
He stopped going outside completely.
He felt good underground. He lay on a soft bed, curled up in a warm, fluffy ball. His heart beat less and less, more and more quietly. Breathing became weak and weak. The sweet, long sleep completely overpowered him.
Little mice do not sleep all winter, like marmots or hamsters.
From long sleep they lose weight and become cold. Then they wake up and take to their supplies.
Peak slept peacefully: after all, he had two full cellars of grain.
He had no idea what unexpected misfortune would soon befall him.
Horrible Awakening
On a frosty winter evening, the guys sat by the warm stove.
“It’s bad for the animals now,” my sister said thoughtfully. - Remember little Peak? Where is he now?
- Who knows! - the brother answered indifferently. “It must have been a long time since I fell into someone’s clutches.”
The girl sobbed.
- What are you doing? - my brother was surprised.
- It’s a pity for the mouse, he’s so fluffy and yellow...
- I found someone to feel sorry for! I’ll set a mousetrap and I’ll catch you a hundred!
- I don’t need a hundred! - my sister sobbed. - Bring me one of these small, yellow ones...
- Wait, stupid, maybe someone like that will come across.
The girl wiped away her tears with her fist.
- Well, look: if you get caught, don’t touch it, give it to me. Do you promise?
- Okay, roar! - my brother agreed.
That same evening he set a mousetrap in the closet.
It was that same evening when Pieck woke up in his hole.
This time it was not the cold that woke him up. In his sleep, the mouse felt something heavy pressing on his back. And now the frost pinched him under his fur.
When Peak fully woke up, he was already shaking from the cold. The earth and snow pressed him down from above. The ceiling above him collapsed. The corridor was filled up.
It was impossible to hesitate for a minute: the frost does not like to joke.
You need to go to the cellar and quickly eat some grain: it’s warmer for the well-fed, but the frost won’t kill the well-fed.
The mouse jumped up and ran through the snow to the cellars.
But all the snow around was pitted with narrow, deep holes - traces of goat hooves.
The peak constantly fell into the holes, climbed up and flew down again.
And when he got to the place where his cellars were, he saw only a large hole there.
The goats not only destroyed his underground home, but also ate all his supplies.
On snow and ice
Piku managed to dig up a few grains in the hole. The goats trampled them into the snow with their hooves.
The food strengthened the mouse and warmed him. A sluggish drowsiness began to overwhelm him again. But he felt: if you succumb to sleep, you will freeze.
Pieck shook off his laziness and ran.
Where? He didn’t know this himself. He just ran and ran wherever he could.
It was already night and the moon was high in the sky. The snow glittered all around like small stars.
The mouse ran to the river bank and stopped. The shore was steep. Under the cliff lay a thick dark shadow. And ahead sparkled a wide icy river.
Pieck sniffed the air anxiously.
He was afraid to run on the ice. What if someone spots him in the middle of the river? You can at least bury yourself in the snow if there is danger.
Turn back - there is death from cold and hunger. There may be food and warmth somewhere ahead. And Peak ran forward. He went down the cliff and left the island on which he had lived so calmly and happily for a long time.
And the evil eyes had already noticed him.
He had not yet reached the middle of the river when a fast and silent shadow began to overtake him from behind. He saw only a shadow, a light shadow on the ice, when he turned around. He didn't even know who was chasing him.
In vain he fell to the ground with his belly, as he always did in a moment of danger: his dark fur stood out as a sharp spot on the sparkling bluish ice, and the transparent darkness of the moonlit night could not hide him from the terrible eyes of the enemy.
The shadow covered the mouse. Curved claws dug painfully into his body. Something hit me hard on the head. And Pieck stopped feeling.

Page 1 of 6

Vitaly Valentinovich Bianki

Mouse Peak

How a mouse became a sailor

The guys launched boats along the river. My brother cut them out of thick pieces of pine bark with a knife. My little sister was adjusting the sails from rags.

The largest boat needed a long mast.

“It needs to be from a straight branch,” said the brother, took a knife and went into the bushes.

Suddenly he shouted from there:

Mice, mice!

Little sister rushed to him.

“I cut a branch,” my brother said, “and they burst!” A whole bunch! One over here at the root. Wait, I'll take her now...

He cut the root with a knife and pulled out a tiny mouse.

How tiny he is! - my sister was surprised. - And yellow-mouthed! Are there such things?

“This is a wild mouse,” the brother explained, “a field mouse.” Each breed has its own name, but I don’t know what this one is called.

Then the mouse opened his pink mouth and squeaked.

Peak! He says his name is Peak! - my sister laughed. - Look how he trembles! Ay! Yes, his ear is bleeding. It was you who wounded him with a knife when you took him out. He's in pain.

“I’ll kill him anyway,” the brother said angrily. - I kill them all: why do they steal bread from us?

Let him go,” my sister begged, “he’s small!”

But the boy did not want to listen.

“I’ll throw it into the river,” he said and went to the shore.

The girl suddenly figured out how to save the mouse.

Stop! - she shouted to her brother. - You know? Let's put him on our biggest boat, and let him be a passenger!

The brother agreed to this: the mouse would drown in the river anyway. But it’s interesting to launch a boat with a live passenger.

They adjusted the sail, put the mouse in a dugout boat and set it adrift. The wind picked up the boat and drove it away from the shore. The mouse clutched tightly to the dry bark and did not move.

The guys waved to him from the shore.

At this time they were called home. They also saw how a light boat with all sails disappeared around a bend in the river.

Poor little Peak! - the girl said when they returned home. - The ship will probably be overturned by the wind, and Peak will drown.

The boy was silent. He was thinking about how he could get rid of all the mice in their closet.

Shipwreck

And the mouse was carried along on a light pine boat. The wind drove the boat further and further from the shore. High waves splashed all around. The river was wide - a whole sea for tiny Peak.

Peak was still a sucker. The guys played a cruel joke on him. It would be better if they killed him at once than to let him alone, small and defenseless, on such a dangerous journey.

The whole world was against him. The wind blew as if it wanted to capsize the boat, the waves tossed the boat as if they wanted to drown it in its dark depths. Animals, birds, reptiles, fish - everyone was against him. Everyone was not averse to profiting from a stupid, defenseless mouse.

The first to notice Peak were large white gulls. They flew up and circled over the ship. They shouted with frustration that they could not finish off the mouse at once: they were afraid of breaking their beak on the hard bark in the air. Some landed on the water and swam to catch up with the boat.

And a pike rose from the bottom of the river and also swam after the boat. She waited for the seagulls to throw the mouse into the water. Then he will not be able to escape her terrible teeth.

Peak heard the predatory cries of seagulls. He closed his eyes and waited for death.

At this time, a large bird of prey, an osprey fisherman, flew up from behind. The seagulls scattered.

The fisherman saw a mouse on a boat and a pike in the water under it. He folded his wings and rushed down.

He fell into the river very close to the boat. The tip of the wing touched the sail, and the boat capsized.

When the fisherman rose heavily from the water with a pike in his claws, there was no one on the overturned boat.

The seagulls saw this from afar and flew away: they thought that the mouse had drowned.

Pieck never learned to swim. But when he got into the water, it turned out that he only had to work with his paws so as not to drown. He emerged and grabbed the boat with his teeth.

He was carried along with the overturned boat.

Soon the boat was washed up by the waves on an unfamiliar shore.

Peak jumped out onto the sand and rushed into the bushes.

It was a real shipwreck, and the little passenger could consider himself lucky to have escaped.

Scary night

The peak was soaked to the last hair. I had to lick myself all over with my tongue. After this, the fur soon dried, and he warmed up. He was hungry. But he was afraid to come out from under the bush: the sharp cries of seagulls could be heard from the river.

So he sat there hungry all day.

Finally it began to get dark. The birds have calmed down. Only ringing waves crashed on the nearby shore.

Peak carefully crawled out from under the bush.

I looked around - no one. Then he quickly rolled into the grass in a dark ball.

Then he began to suck all the leaves and stems that caught his eye. But there was no milk in them.

Out of frustration, he began to pull and tear them with his teeth.

Suddenly, warm juice splashed into his mouth from one of the stems. The juice was sweet, like the milk of a mother mouse.

Peak ate this stem and began to look for others like it. He was hungry and did not see at all what was going on around him.

And the full moon was already rising above the tops of the tall grasses. Quick shadows silently swept through the air: nimble bats were chasing moths.

Quiet rustles and rustles were heard from all sides in the grass.

Someone was scurrying around there, sneaking around in the bushes, hiding in the hummocks.

Peak ate. He chewed the stems close to the ground. The stem fell and a rain of cold dew fell on the mouse. But at the end of the stem, Peak found a tasty spikelet. The mouse sat down, lifted the stem with its front paws, like hands, and quickly ate the spikelet.

Splash-splash! - something hit the ground not far from the mouse.

Pieck stopped gnawing and listened.

There was a rustling sound in the grass.

Splash-splash!

Someone was jumping across the grass right at the mouse. We must hurry back to the bushes!

Splash-splash! - jumped from behind.

Splash-splash! Splash-splash! - was heard from all sides.

Plop! - came very close ahead.

Someone's long, elongated legs flashed over the grass, and - plop! - A bug-eyed little frog plopped down to the ground right in front of Peak’s nose.

He stared at the mouse in fear. The mouse looked at his bare, slippery skin with surprise and fear...

So they sat in front of each other, and neither one nor the other knew what to do next.

And all around you could still hear the sound of plop-splat! plop-plop! - as if a whole herd of frightened frogs, fleeing from someone, was jumping across the grass.

And a light, quick rustling sound was heard closer and closer.

And then for one moment the little mouse saw: behind the little frog the long flexible body of a silver-black snake shot up.

The snake slid down, and the frog's long hind legs jerked and disappeared into its gaping mouth.

The tale about the adventures of the mouse Peak introduces the child to the world around him. The story contains a plot that shows the difficulties experienced by the mouse on his journey. The story is quite long, so there is no need to “skip” it at once. It is best to carefully discuss the action of the mouse with your baby. As you read the story, you can offer your child a kind of game. For example, ask: what would a child do in that situation. You can pretend that you don’t understand: is the mouse squeaking anxiously or happily? We are sure that the child will happily begin to explain to you the behavior of the main character. Ask a question: why was he scared by the snake, and what danger was he in? By discussing the story with your child, you can encourage your child to draw his own conclusions from what he hears.

Story Mouse Peak download:

Read the story Mouse Peak

Shipwreck

Scary night

"The Nightingale the Robber"

End of the journey

Building a house

Uninvited guest

Pantry

Snow and sleep

Horrible Awakening

On snow and ice

From trouble to trouble

The would-be musician

Mousetrap

Happy end

How a mouse became a sailor

The guys launched boats along the river. My brother cut them out of thick pieces of pine bark with a knife. My little sister was adjusting the sails from rags.

The largest boat needed a long mast.

“It needs to be from a straight branch,” said the brother, took a knife and went into the bushes.

Suddenly he shouted from there:

Mice, mice!

Little sister rushed to him.

“I cut a branch,” my brother said, “and they burst!” A whole bunch! One over here at the root. Wait, I'll take her now...

He cut the root with a knife and pulled out a tiny mouse.

How tiny he is! - my sister was surprised. - And yellow! Are there such things?

“This is a wild mouse,” the brother explained, “a field mouse.” Each breed has its own name, but I don’t know what this one is called.

Then the mouse opened his pink mouth and squeaked.

Peak! He says his name is Peak! - my sister laughed. - Look how he trembles! Ay! Yes, his ear is bleeding. It was you who wounded him with a knife when you took him out. He's in pain.

“I’ll kill him anyway,” the brother said angrily. - I kill them all: why do they steal bread from us?

Let him go,” my sister begged, “he’s small!”

But the boy did not want to listen to anything.

“I’ll throw it into the river,” he said and went to the shore.

The girl suddenly figured out how to save the mouse.

Stop! - she shouted to her brother. - You know? Let's put him on our biggest boat, and let him be a passenger!

The brother agreed to this: the mouse would drown in the river anyway. But it’s interesting to launch a boat with a live passenger.

They adjusted the sail, put the mouse in a dugout boat and set it adrift. The wind picked up the boat and drove it away from the shore. The mouse clutched tightly to the dry bark and did not move.

The guys waved to him from the shore.

At this time they were called home. They also saw how a light boat with all sails disappeared around a bend in the river.

Poor little Peak! - the girl said when they returned home. - The ship will probably be overturned by the wind, and Peak will drown.

The boy was silent. He was thinking about how he could get rid of all the mice in their closet.

Shipwreck

And the mouse was carried along on a light pine boat. The wind drove the boat further and further from the shore. High waves splashed all around. The river was wide - a whole sea for tiny Peak.

Peak was still a sucker. The guys played a cruel joke on him. It would be better if they killed him at once than to let him alone, small and defenseless, on such a dangerous journey.

And a pike rose from the bottom of the river and also swam after the boat. She waited for the seagulls to throw the mouse into the water. Then he won't be able to escape her teeth.

Peak heard the predatory cries of seagulls. He closed his eyes and waited for death.

At this time, a large bird of prey, an osprey fisherman, flew up from behind. The seagulls scattered.

The fisherman saw a mouse on a boat and a pike in the water under it. He folded his wings and rushed down.

He fell into the river next to the boat. The tip of the wing touched the sail, and the boat capsized.

When the fisherman rose heavily from the water with a pike in his claws, there was no one on the overturned boat.

The seagulls saw this from afar and flew away: they thought that the mouse had drowned.

Pieck never learned to swim. But when he got into the water, it turned out that he only had to work quickly with his paws so as not to drown. He emerged and grabbed the boat with his teeth.