Chapter 3

The Brisbys

He didn't want to believe this, he really didn't want to. It couldn't be real. Did that field mouse actually speak to him?

No. He thought. Animals don't talk. I must be hallucinating.

He hadn't moved anything and he just kept staring at the field mouse bewildered. The field mouse was staring at Chris in fear but in wonder at the same time. They didn't say anything for a while and just kept staring at each other not batting an eye.

"Sir… are you alright?" The field mouse asked.

Chris gasped and he then pointed his finger at her. "You talk! You actually talk!"

The mouse blinked a few times. "Yes… I do. You talk as well." The mouse crawled up to Chris and Chris didn't like it and he had his hands up towards the mouse so she wouldn't come any closer to him. The mouse stopped a few feet away from him and tilted her head as she looked at him. "Are you… human?"

Chris looked at himself as he put his hands down. He then looked back at the mouse. "Why? Do I not look like one?"

He looked like himself again, but what wasn't like himself was his size. He was around the mouse's height but he was a little taller than her.

The mouse he was staring at had brown fur and blue eyes. What Chris couldn't get over on the mouse was that she was wearing a bright, red cape like she could be Little Red Riding Hood. The only difference between those two was Little Red Riding Hood was not a mouse.

The mouse pressed her lips together and kept them like that for some time as she continued to study Chris more. "You look human it's just that… I've never spoken to one before. I've seen them before but not up this close."

How could he understand that mouse? Did that stone have something to do with it? This whole thing was just jumbling up his brain like it was a messy room.

Chris looked at the stone he threw to the ground and it laid there as every nonliving object would. He walked over to it-even though he was still pissed at it-and when he got to it he picked it up. Why wouldn't it transform him back into his normal size? Why did it shrink him? And more importantly, where did it come from?

He heard the mouse walk up to him and as he did, he turned around and the mouse was standing near him. "I saw what happened. I've never seen anything like that happen before."

Chris looked back at the stone and as he did he then noticed something on the back of the stone. He looked at it closely and he saw that there were letters engraved on there. On it, it read: Have courage and determination and the power within will be your savior.

What Chris just read made him furrow his brow confused. What the f-

"I'm Mrs. Brisby," the field mouse said. "Elizabeth Brisby. What's your name?"

Chris looked at the mouse that was named Elizabeth Brisby and he then put the stone with the chain on it around his neck-even though he didn't want to. "I'm Christopher Fitzgibbons, but a lot call me Chris for short."

Mrs. Brisby's jaw dropped. "Fitzgibbons?"

Chris looked at Mrs. Brisby confused. "Yeah, that's what I just said."

Mrs. Brisby looked as though she saw a zombie apocalypse occur before her very eyes. Chris didn't know what to feel at the moment.

"You're a Fitzgibbon, you live on that farm."

Chris opened his mouth and then he closed it. "What?"

"You said your last name was Fitzgibbons, then that would mean you live on that farm."

He took a moment to process what Mrs. Brisby just said. She understood what humans said. He wondered how that could be possible. If animals could understand what humans say then why couldn't the humans understand what the animals were saying? He felt like ripping his hair out at this very moment.

"How do you know about my family?"

"Everyone knows of the Fitzgibbons that live on the farm. There's the farmer, his wife, his son, and their cat named Dragon." Mrs. Brisby then narrowed her eyes in confusion. "How come I've never seen or heard about you before?"

Chris felt as though he was going to have a heart attack. It was like hearing her say that she and the other animals have been stalking his family like some of those creepy people would. He's heard news of people being stalked by some and eventually they get kidnapped and never seen again. The thought of animals being involved in that kind of scenario could only make him shudder.

Chris then cleared his throat awkwardly. "I actually don't live on the farm. I'm from the city and I'm here on vacation for my photography career. My family members you speak of are my Uncle Paul, my Aunt Beth, and my cousin, Billy. As for Dragon… well, let's just say that I don't like that creepy cat."

Mrs. Brisby looked at Chris curiously. "You're from the city? I've heard about it a lot from others but I've never seen it in real life before. But I've never heard of… what was it? Photigrophy?"

Chris couldn't believe he was talking to a mouse. "Photography: it's an art. Well not like painting or drawing but…" Chris looked at his damaged camera and he then pointed his finger at it and looked back at Mrs. Brisby. "You see that?" Mrs. Brisby nodded. "That's a camera. It takes pictures of things I see."

"Pictures? Camera?"

"It's like… oh, how do I explain it?" Chris thought and then he snapped his fingers when an idea hit him. "Okay, look." Chris stood still like a statue and then he did some sort of pose like he could be a model.

Mrs. Brisby looked at Chris like he was weird. "What on earth are you doing?"

"We humans pose when it comes to taking pictures and when we do we have to stay very still and let the camera do the magic. Then the pictures that are taken on the camera are stored on what we call film and on the film is of someone or scenery and it stays still and it never moves. Kind of like a tree."

He thought what he tried to explain to Mrs. Brisby sounded kind of stupid. It would've been a whole lot easier to explain it to her if he could just actually show her but he couldn't. Because for one: he was small. Two: his camera broke and he definitely needed to buy a new one as soon as he got back to his normal size and fast. But he knew damn well those things cost a lot of money.

"Oh," Mrs. Brisby said. She then looked to the sky and then she looked back at Chris. "I need to get back home. Do you have anywhere to go for the night?"

Chris looked around him and the only place he could think of that he knew about in this area was the farm. He just couldn't go back to the farm, not yet anyway. The thought of any other human being seeing him as a tiny human could only make him think that there'll be scientists experimenting and testing on him. He could already picture that nightmare happening.

He didn't know where he would go. If he tried to spend the night out here all alone, wild animals would probably try to attack him for food. One word popped into his head as he thought about the wild animals out here. Goner.

"No… I can't go back to the farm," Chris said. "Not like this."

Mrs. Brisby gave Chris a gentle smile. "Well, you can come with me if you'd like. I'd hate for you to be alone out here. It'll be dark out soon and being out here in the dark can be very dangerous."

Chris looked at Mrs. Brisby surprised. He hadn't done anything to help her but yet she was offering to let him stay at her place. It was very nice of her, Chris couldn't deny it, but he somehow felt that this was very wrong. He didn't know how her family would react when they saw him. He thought maybe he was jumping to conclusions and that maybe they would be very nice like Mrs. Brisby was to him. But would they really?

"Are you sure?" Chris asked. "I'd hate to intrude and I wouldn't want to alarm your husband or your kids."

"Oh, no," Mrs. Brisby said. "You don't have to worry about anything. You won't be intruding, I'm inviting you over."

"You're actually okay with this?"

"Of course I'm okay with this. You can stay for as long as you like so you can find a way to get back to your normal size. My children will be surprised to see someone as yourself, but they'll be on their best behavior towards you." Mrs. Brisby's eyes went down sadly. "As for my husband… he is no longer with us."

Chris's eyes widened. From the way she was looking right now he could tell that Mrs. Brisby missed her husband very much. He never had a wife before but he did have a girlfriend once. Tiffany Ashwood, but their relationship didn't last long because of their differences and Chris ended up breaking up with her. He never even thought about it but now that he did, he thought she looked like a whore back then. It sounded mean but he didn't care because she was always a bratty woman.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Chris said. "He must've meant something to you."

"Thank you, Chris," Mrs. Brisby said. "So would you like to come with me?"

He thought it would do him some good to stay at Mrs. Brisby's home. Besides, how could he pass up on her offer? "Alright, I'll come."

Mrs. Brisby beamed. "Well, whenever you're ready we should go."

"Just let me grab my knife and then we can go."

Chris didn't need a lot of effort to search for his knife and he found it in under one minute and when he did he put it back in his pocket and then he followed Mrs. Brisby to her home.

He watched Mrs. Brisby and the other Fitzgibbon member, Chris travel to Mrs. Brisby's home through his crystal-ball-like machine. He has seen what the future holds and what he saw was something he has never seen before. It all involves around Mrs. Brisby and Chris. He knew because he was a prophet for the rats. Not only was he the prophet for them but he was also their leader.

He has known of Chris's existence and he knew because Chris once saved one of the rats here when he was younger. The rat was as young as Chris and she always referred to him as a good man. Nicodemus could tell that Chris was a good man from what he was seeing.

"Jonathon," Nicodemus said. "I sense that Christopher Fitzgibbons will help her throughout the journey that is to come for the both of them… Not only will he help her but she will help him as well. What is to come will be very dangerous… but I have faith that they will fight through with it together."

He continued to watch as Mrs. Brisby and Chris travel to Mrs. Brisby's home.

His feet were killing him from all the running he's been doing. He was doing the best he could to keep up with Mrs. Brisby but she was much faster than him as she was running on all fours. He wished his water bottle shrunk with him because he felt dehydrated. He felt his shirt getting sweaty all over the place under his denim jacket and he felt like a mess. When he was in high school he was on the track team and he was a great runner but he never ran this much in his life and he felt embarrassed because at this moment he felt as though he was out of shape because his legs felt like Jell-O and the insides of him were burning like fire.

Eventually, Mrs. Brisby stopped and as she did, Chris took the time to stop and put his hands on his knees and he tried to catch his breath. Mrs. Brisby didn't look out of breath and she then began to walk. After a few more seconds of catching his breath, Chris began to follow Mrs. Brisby by walking. Even walking was still making him feel out of breath and he could already feel sores. All he wanted to do was dip his whole body in a bathtub full of ice.

Mrs. Brisby looked over her shoulder at Chris as she was walking. "Are you alright, Chris?"

Chris tried to smile at Mrs. Brisby. "Yeah, I've just never ran so much like this before."

Mrs. Brisby smiled at Chris. "Well, we're almost there."

They kept walking and as they did Chris started to notice a bright light up ahead of them and when he got a closer look at where the light was coming from he could see it coming out from some sort of house. Mrs. Brisby was walking towards it as Chris was following her and that's when he figured that it must've been her home. He couldn't tell what the house was made of but he could see a large leaf settling on top of it like was a roof along with an old, rusty-looking can from what Chris could tell was a chimney and the only reason he knew that was because smoke was coming out of it. Then he saw some sort of saucepan on top of the house and on the inside of it was a round piece of glass.

Chris furrowed his brow in confusion towards the saucepan and the round piece of glass. Is that supposed to be a window?

Chris decided not to ask Mrs. Brisby that question because he didn't want to look stupid, but he was pretty sure it was supposed to be a window. But what he didn't get was why there was a light coming from her house and why there was smoke coming from this supposed chimney. He then wondered if his kind was actually missing out on a whole lot from these animals.

As they got near the entryway, Chris got a better look at the house and he saw that the house was actually a cinder block. He didn't even realize that living in cinder blocks was a thing for mice. He then followed Mrs. Brisby into the house.

"Children," Mrs. Brisby called out. "I'm home."

When Chris saw the inside of the house his jaw dropped. There was a stairway leading to a lower floor and all over the walls were beautiful looking designs. There were candles lighting up the room, crafted furniture, woven carpets, pieces of fabric hanging up near holes, and some human objects hanging in places. He thought this place was very impressive looking. He couldn't even imagine how long it took to make this place look so homely. It looked nothing like he pictured Mrs. Brisby's home but this was quite something to him.

He wished he had a camera right now.

He couldn't believe he never noticed her house before while he was taking photos, but he guessed he was too caught up in other surroundings to even see Mrs. Brisby's house. It's not like he even knew about it anyway.

Then he saw three little mice and they all came near the end of the stairway as Mrs. Brisby made her way down and when she got to the bottom, the three little mice greeted her. Chris guessed that these three were her children. There were two girls and one boy.

One girl being the tallest had light brown fur, a big pink bow on the top of her head, and a purple dress with the skirt of it being puffy. The other girl being smaller than the other two kids had beige fur and a green bow tied around her like she could be a Christmas present. Then the boy being a medium size compared to the two girls had grey-brown fur and a blue shirt.

Chris thought Mrs. Brisby had some nice looking kids.

He didn't know what to do but he stayed near the entryway just in case things didn't go according to plan. But he didn't want to just walk away just like that and be rude to Mrs. Brisby. She seemed very kind and was even allowing him to stay in her home. He knew he should repay her for her generosity but what could a human like him give a mouse in return?

"It's about time, Brisby," Chris did not expect to hear another voice in this home besides Mrs. Brisby and her children's voices and this voice sounded like a grouchy person. When Chris turned his head he saw an old looking shrew wearing a light, blue apron, a purple scarf, and a light orange knitted hat and she was walking with a stick that was used as a cane. "I really must be somewhere."

"Of course, Auntie Shrew," Mrs. Brisby said as the tall girl wrapped a large blue scarf around the shrew that Mrs. Brisby called Auntie Shrew.

Chris knew that there was no way that this shrew was related to this family. There was just no way.

The shrew was about to ascend the steps and as she was about to she then gasped in fear when she saw Chris. She was about to fall on her back but Mrs. Brisby managed to steady her in time before she was close to hitting the ground. The shrew pointed a shaky finger at Chris. "What is that? Why is it in here, Brisby?"

When the kids looked up and they saw Chris they stared bewildered. Chris didn't know what to say. What could he say? He tried to think of what to say that wouldn't sound stupid.

What kind of amused him though was that the shrew didn't even realize that he was human. It was pretty obvious because he had no fur on him, no big ears, and no tail. What he had on him were skin and hair.

"Auntie Shrew," Mrs. Brisby said gently. "Please calm down, he won't hurt anyone. I met him today, his name is Christopher Fitzgibbons. He goes for Chris for short."

Chris knew he should do something before he made himself look awkward. He mustered the best smile he could and he waved a little. "Uh… hi."

The kids kept staring at Chris bewildered. However, the shrew was then narrowing her eyes at him. "Fitzgibbons, then that means he's a human and lives on that farm," the shrew said. "A tiny human. I would've thought that all humans were bigger."

Chris thought she sounded very rude and sarcastic but he tried not to get too worked up about this because he didn't want to cause any problems. But it seemed to him that a lot of these animals knew his family name. His guess was it all had to do with his uncle Paul and the rest that lived on the farm.

"I'm actually a big human," Chris said. "But I shrunk to this very size here and it's kind of a long story…"

"Humph, whether you were or not I don't have time for this nonsense," the shrew then looked at Mrs. Brisby. "Good day." She then ascended the stairs and as she was about to walk out she shouldered Chris out of the way without even looking at him and Chris swore to god she heard her mumble under her breath, "Smelly human."

Nice to meet you too, you old grouch, Chris wanted to say towards the shrew.

"I'm sorry, Chris," Mrs. Brisby said as Chris looked at her. "That's Auntie Shrew, she often comes over here."

Chris smiled at Mrs. Brisby, even though he got a little irritated by the way the shrew acted towards him. "It's alright, I mean it's not every day an animal comes across a tiny human."

"You can come down here, Chris."

Chris nodded and wondered if he should take off his shoes like his aunt would want him too. He probably thought it didn't matter since Mrs. Brisby and her children were field mice. He descended down the stairs and then stopped when he got on the next floor.

"Chris, these are my children," Mrs. Brisby said as she gestured to them. "My oldest daughter, Teresa, my son, Martin, my youngest daughter, Cynthia, and…" Mrs. Brisby looked around her confused. "Children, where's Timothy?"

"He's still in his room," Teresa said. "He hasn't come out of there all day."

Mrs. Brisby looked towards a cloth that was hanging up near a hole. It had three different cloth colors stitched together: light pink, purple, and a vomit green. "Odd, that at all doesn't seem like him." Mrs. Brisby looked at Chris. "Do you mind staying alone with the children for a little bit? I need to check on my son."

Chris smiled. "That's not a problem at all."

Mrs. Brisby smiled and then she went into the hole of where she was looking at, disappearing behind the cloth.

Chris looked at the kids and they were observing him. Then the boy named Martin walked up to Chris. "Are you actually human?"

Chris cleared his throat. "I sure am, kid."

The little girl named Cynthia got near Chris and was pointing at something. "That's pretty."

Chris looked at the stone that was around his neck. He then looked back at Cynthia and smiled. He thought she was adorable. He still hated the stone though. "It is isn't it? I found this a while ago. You wanna look at it?"

Cynthia nodded while gleaming and Chris got on his knee so Cynthia could have a better look at the stone. She held the stone and looked at it very closely in awe and Teresa and Martin looked as well.

"It's so shiny," Cynthia said.

Martin then looked back at Chris. "So if you are human then how are you so small?"

Chris looked at Martin and sighed. "Alright, here's how it went-" Chris then started to tell the story of what he was doing, how he came across the stone, how he met their mother, and so forth and the children listened with interest and they would often question him and Chris answered the best he could.

In the end the children all ended up saying: "Wow."

Then Mrs. Brisby came out of the hole that was covered by the cloth and she looked extremely worried. Chris and the children looked at her confused.

"Mommy, you okay?" Cynthia asked.

Mrs. Brisby smiled weakly at Cynthia. "I'm fine, sweetheart. It's getting late and it's time for bed, children."

Martin groaned. "Mom, can I stay up a little longer? I still have so many questions to ask Chris."

"You can ask Chris more questions tomorrow, but it's time for bed. Now hurry along." Even though Martin looked really eager to ask Chris more questions, he and the girls obeyed Mrs. Brisby, said their goodnights to their mother and Mrs. Brisby did as well, and the children went to their rooms to go to bed. Mrs. Brisby looked at Chris. "Let me grab something for you." Mrs. Brisby slipped into a room and a minute later she popped back out with a blanket, a pillow, and a purple shirt. She handed those items to Chris and Chris took them. "I'm sorry I don't have a more comfortable place for you to sleep for the night. Will you be alright sleeping on the floor?"

"No need to worry, Mrs. Brisby," Chris said. "I've slept on the ground many times in my life and I'm used to it. Thank you, though, for what you've done."

Mrs. Brisby smiled weakly even though Chris could tell that something was worrying her. "You're welcome. Goodnight, Chris."

"Goodnight, Mrs. Brisby."

Mrs. Brisby slipped back into the same room and as she did, Chris found a spot on the floor to sleep on and he then placed his pillow on the ground and his blanket. He looked at his shirt and he saw that it was still sweaty but he didn't mind. He took off his shoes, his jacket, and his shirt and he placed them near him. He then put on the shirt Mrs. Brisby gave to him and it fit him like a glove.

Chris then yawned and he felt really tired. He laid down and when he did he then started to fluff out his pillow and when he thought he fluffed it enough, he pulled his blanket over his body and he then he placed his head on his arm.

He then touched the stone and looked at it. He needed to find a way to transform back into his normal size and the only way he could was to try and figure out how to get the stone to work. How could he get it to work if it won't cooperate with him?

A/N- Well another chapter down, and all I can say is that I'm glad I could finally get another chapter in after a while. It took a long time to write but I feel proud of getting chapter 3 down. I will have the next chapter out as soon as possible.