CHAPTER 4

Curiosity Killed The Mouse

Fievel woke up the next morning feeling exactly the same. He had a feeling that something bad would inevitably happen today. Like if he didn't want it to happen, he shouldn't take another step out the door for the entire day. But he ignored this feeling and went through his morning routine like normal. When he got to the fruit stand, Mr. Hollows told Fievel that he had to go help Johnny steal some fruit and that he would probably be gone until evening and that Fievel had to look after the stand until he got back. Fievel saw this as an opportunity to do some snooping around later.

So Fievel looked after the stand, a little angry that Mr. Hollows had to be gone on the busiest day of the week. Usually Mr. Hollows was there to help him deal with the large packs of customers. After a while, the line started to disappear as everyone who got tired of waiting went to lunch, and Fievel waited until the line was only a few people long and he told them that he had to leave for lunch and to come back later. Fievel went inside of Mr. Hollows' house and looked around. He searched through the desk in Mr. Hollows' study. He hadn't found anything when he heard the front door open and shut. Fievel panicked and hid under the desk and held his breath. He heard footsteps walk to the desk and stop in front of it.

"FIEVEL!" shouted a voice above the desk at the same as something hit the top of the desk very hard with a loud bang. Fievel jumped and hit his head on the bottom of the desk. The person who shouted ran to the other side of the desk and looked under it. Fievel looked up and saw Lorena staring down at him.

"Lorena!" said Fievel sharply. "You nearly scared me to death."

"That was the goal," said Lorena with a smile. She gave him her hand and started to help him up when Fievel felt his foot hit something on the floor and stopped her. He looked down and saw a book with a strip of tape across the cover. There had been a book taped to the underside of the desk and Fievel knocked it off when he hit his head. He picked it up and started skimming through it.

"What is it?" asked Lorena.

"It's Mr. Hollows' journal," said Fievel.

"Good," said Lorena excitedly. "Does he date the entries?"

"Yeah," said Fievel. "His last entry was a couple weeks ago."

"Okay," said Lorena. "Look to see if he wrote anything on or around August fourth two years ago." Fievel turned to front of the journal and looked through the early entries and found three entries between August first and sixth two years ago, but none one the fourth itself. He read the three entries he found.

"'Arrived in New Jersey today,'" Fievel read aloud from the first entry. "'Searching for private detective that has been asking questions about smuggling operations.'" Fievel heard Lorena gasp quietly. Fievel read the next entry that was dated on August third.

"'Found private detective,'" read Fievel. "'Going to confront him tomorrow. Hoping to be able to settle this civilly. May have to resort to drastic measures, though.'" Fievel read the last entry.

"'I killed the private detective today,'" Fievel read. "'His name was Milo. I regret having to do this, but I had no other choice. I left his body in the alley...'" Fievel stopped there. He heard Lorena sniff. He looked at each page again and saw a note that was scrawled in the lower corner of each page. They all said "Burn after writing.". Fievel tore each one out and folded them all and pocketed them.

"Well I guess he's our guy," said Lorena quietly.

"Yeah," said Fievel. Then they heard the door unlock and open. Fievel quietly told Lorena to hide under the bed on the other side of the room and he taped the journal back to the underside of the desk. He got up and met Mr. Hollows in the doorway to his study.

"Whoa!" shouted Mr. Hollows when he saw Fievel pop out in front of him. "Fievel, my gosh. You scared me again. Stop doing that. What are you doing in here? I thought you were out having lunch with that girl."

"No, she's not having lunch with me today," said Fievel. "I was looking for some food."

"Oh, okay," said Mr. Hollows. "It's in the kitchen down the hall."

"Right, sorry," said Fievel. "Hey, what are you doing back early?"

"I came back for lunch," said Mr. Hollows. "And I wanted to make sure that you were doing okay here on our busy day."

"I'm fine," said Fievel. He was about to leave when they heard a noose that stopped Fievel's heart in its beat. They heard a soft thump come from under the desk. Mr. Hollows and Fievel both knew what it was. Mr. Hollows went and looked under the desk and picked up the book. Fievel thought about running, but if he tried, Mr. Hollows would cut him off before he could get out the door. Mr. Hollows flipped through the journal and stopped at a place that Fievel knew was where he had torn the pages from. Fievel knew that what happened next wasn't going to be good and that there was a possibility he wouldn't be leaving this place alive. He backed up towards the bed slowly as Mr. Hollows set the journal down.

"It's very unfortunate that you saw that, Fievel," he said quietly. "Now I gotta take care of you too. You had to go snooping in my business, didn't you?"

"Why'd you kill him?" asked Fievel nervously.

"I had to," said Mr. Hollows. "It was either him or me."

"No it wasn't," said Fievel, changing from nervous to confident in a second. He knew that if he went down here, he wasn't going like some scared, little mouse. "Your life wasn't in any danger. You would have gone to prison. He could still be alive today. But you killed him to stay out of jail."

"The people I was smuggling had some mean friends that were still in prison," said Mr. Hollows. "They would have killed me while I was behind bars with them." Mr. Hollows picked up a small knife from his desk and slowly advanced on Fievel. Fievel backed up against the bed and sat down against it. He grabbed the folded up pages out of his pocket and pushed them under the bed, hoping that Lorena would grab them. He knew he was gonna die; why not let it happen so she could escape with the damning evidence.

"Now they don't have a prison," said Mr. Hollows. "I won't survive a day exiled outside. So now I need to kill you too." He slowly came up to Fievel, with knife in hand.

"I'm sorry, Fievel," he whispered quietly. Then he plunged the knife into Fievel's chest, right under his shoulder. Fievel opened his mouth, he felt his throat vibrate, but he didn't hear a scream. He couldn't hear anything. All he could feel was pain. The pain of the knife in his chest. He looked up and saw Mr. Hollows. Then he saw Mr. Hollows jerk back suddenly and then fall over on his side. Behind him was Lorena, holding a large book with both hands. She bent down toward him.

"I got the pages," she said. He could barely hear her. "I'll go get help. Hold on for a minute Fievel." He saw her run out of the room. Then he felt dizzy. He saw the room start to rotate in front of him and he felt the floor hit his face. His vision started to blur and he blacked out.

TO BE CONTINUED...