The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Sometimes, the best friendships must be kept a secret, and the best way to protect those friends is to keep them out of sight. Ralph’s friendship with Keith must remain under wraps: The hotel, and Keith’s parents, would have Ralph and his family eradicated. They certainly wouldn’t believe any stories about a talking mouse, so Keith must also conceal his extraordinary friend. Mouse and boy manage to keep their project away from the eyes of prying adults, and Ralph’s dream of riding a motorcycle comes true. To protect Ralph, Keith makes him promise to only ride the motorcycle at night, when he is least likely to be detected.

Keith knows that his mother dislikes mice, especially if they are underfoot. When he finds Ralph trying to ride his toy motorcycle, he knows he must keep this a secret from his mother so that he and Ralph can continue playing together. For his part, Ralph wants to remain invisible to the other hotel guests and staff because most humans regard mice as pests. Mice therefore live secret lives, and Ralph’s tendency to venture out into the hallways risks revealing their presence.

Ralph tries to hide himself and the motorcycle from the maid when she vacuums Keith’s room, but he gets tangled inside the pile of dirty linens. He ends up in a laundry bin and must chew his way out to escape death in the washing machine. Doing so, however, reveals his presence to the hotel staff, who promptly declare war on the mice. Ralph’s adventures break the rule of secrecy among rodents, and he must go to great lengths to make the resulting problems go away.

The most important secret is Ralph’s search for an aspirin pill to help Keith during his illness. If Ralph fails to keep his quest hidden, the adults will focus on capturing him, and Keith won’t get the medicine he desperately needs. The boy will stop bringing food to Ralph’s mouse family, and they’ll face a desperate choice between hunger and risking the hotel’s gauntlet of traps and poisons to find food. Quite aside from keeping their fun friendship hidden, Keith’s medical emergency creates a paramount reason for boy and mouse to keep their activities strictly secret.

Ralph can’t hide himself from one visitor—the little terrier in Room 211. Ralph discovers that it’s useful to have the dog know about him: He uses the dog’s angry barking to waken its human companion, who assumes the pooch needs to go outside and takes him to the elevator. This chain of events allows Ralph to get downstairs, retrieve the aspirin pill that Keith desperately needs, and return it upstairs to the boy. Additionally, the owl, another predatory creature, is always on the lookout for a mouse to eat. The owl that lives in the trees outside the hotel becomes a lethal danger for Ralph when he gets tossed outside. As a mouse, Ralph is a natural expert at hiding his presence. He manages to sneak through some foliage, evade the owl, and escape back inside the hotel.

Other than Keith, only one human at the hotel knows about Ralph. Matt the bellhop witnesses Ralph driving the little motorcycle. Matt enjoys the idea of a tiny mouse riding a tiny toy and helps Keith and Ralph keep their excursions private. By carefully managing the secret of their unusual friendship, Ralph and Keith protect their adventures together while the other humans at the hotel remain none the wiser.