23 June 2011 SECRETS AT SEA by Richard Peck, Dial, October 2011, 256p., ISBN: 978-0-8037-3455-5

Zeppo: Say fellas, I think I hear someone.
Groucho: Well, if it's the captain, I'm gonna have a few words with him.  My hot water's been cold for three days and I haven't got room enough in here to swing a cat. 
In fact, I haven't even got a cat.

Chico: My grandfather can swing a cat.

Groucho: He can?
Chico: Hey, that'd make a good job for him. 

"The Fenimore humans were away.  I crept down the silent house, inside the walls to Aunt Fannie's, dragging the sack along the narrow trail.  It was well-trod.  Mice come from all over to seek Aunt Fannie's advice.  When I came to her door, one of her nieces -- Mona -- was barring it.

"All mice of Aunt Fannie's years have nieces, and she used hers to fetch and carry for her.

"Mona looked me up and down and saw my finery was new.  She twitched.  'Oh, it's you, Helena.  I don't know if she --'

"'Who is it?' Aunt Fannie cried out from the depths of her gloomy room.

"'It's only Helena Cranston from across the hedge,' Mona cried back.  Aunt Fannie says she's deaf, though she hears everything.

"'I've been expecting her,' she bellowed.

"She expects a lot.  And she claims she knows everything.

"Mona led me forth into the dreary, hollowed-out chamber, into Aunt Fannie's presence.  Her throne was an old cast-off powder puff.  She sat on it, draped in shawls, though it was hot as August in here.  You never saw an older mouse.  She'd gone past gray to bald patches.  Though she only had one tooth left, it was a big one.

"Spectacles are rare on a mouse, except in some silly children's book.  But Aunt Fannie wore a pair.  They were made out of bent wire and chips of lens from a human's reading glasses.  They seemed to work for her.  I'll say this for Aunt Fannie: She sees better than she looks."

In 1897, with preparations underway for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, honoring her sixty years on the throne, the human Cranston family from New York's Hudson Valley (the Upstairs Cranstons) are setting sail for London.  They are off to seek a suitable match for their awkward firstborn daughter Olive.  And -- thanks to the advice of Aunt Fannie --  the Cranston mouse family, consisting of Helena and her three mice siblings (the Downstairs Cranstons), will similarly find themselves onboard a British cruise ship.

Award-winning author Richard Peck, who is still but a lad, compared to Victoria and Aunt Fannie, introduces us to a raucous and unforgettable boatload of characters, half of whom are mice, and four of whom are the Downstairs Cranston siblings:

Helena, who narrates the story, is fond of reminding us that she is the eldest of the siblings.  She can sometimes be a bit critical.  But let me tell you from personal experience: being the eldest certainly presents its own set of challenges. 

Louisa is the bold sister.  She has a relationship with Camilla, the younger of the two Upstairs Cranston teenage sisters.  Oftentimes, in the middle of the night, Louisa creeps upstairs, sits quietly on Camilla's bed, and Camilla confides in her.

Beatrice is the timid mouse sister.  Or so it seems to Helena...

And Lamont is the bothersome little brother.  He'll be the death of Helena with all of his typical boy mannerisms such as taking dangerous chances and bolting his food and not always being in school when he's supposed to be.

"I got to get to rockin' get my hat off the rack

I got the boogie woogie like a knife in the back

So be my guest you've got nothin' to lose

Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise."

-- Huey "Piano" Smith

"We sailed away to London, England, Louise and Beatrice, Lamont and I.  We began our journey by steamer trunk -- that biggest trunk that had stood open for days in Camilla's bedroom, filling up with her new finery.  It had drawers inside. 

"We packed a morsel of food, for we little knew where our next meal was coming from.  But we took not a stitch of clothes, as we had no luggage.  Mice don't.  Still, fur is perfectly suitable for traveling.  Lamont naturally wanted to take everything he had.  Boys collect things -- anything useless.  Lamont wanted to take all his collections: the birds' bones and the collar buttons and that ball of twine that kept getting bigger and bigger in his room.  He was a regular pack rat, though smaller.  'No, Lamont,' I told him."

For so many of the characters we will come to know -- both mouse and human -- this cruise on which they are embarking will be the journey of a lifetime. 

Richie Partington, MLIS
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