Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary

the rest of his body. He pulled back his head and tried to reach Ralph with his paw. Ralph, however, was too far down the brace.
    Next Catso leaped to the floor and ran under the table. Ralph scurried up the brace so that he was above the table and beyond Catso’s reaching paw. Back to the tabletop went Catso and down the brace ran Ralph, once again beyond the stretch of those curved and groping claws.
    Frantic with frustration, the cat sprang from the table while Ralph ran up the brace. Once more Catso reached and stretched and groped. Ralph’s courage and confidence had returned. He advanced within half an inch of Catso’s longest reach. Catso tried, but could stretch his foreleg no farther.
    Ralph sat down, and said, “This could goon all day. You might as well give up. You know I’m too smart for you.”
    Catso, after one more effort to stretch farther, withdrew his paw, came out from under the table, and picked his way daintily and disdainfully through the jumble of seeds, nails, and plastic cord as if the mess was beneath his notice. He held his tail proudly erect, but he did not fool Ralph. That cat had been defeated.
    Catso squeezed out the hole in the screen door. Ralph was safe! Safe and free. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get his motorcycle away from Garf, and he would be on his way back to the Mountain View Inn. In the meantime, he settled down to feast on all the seeds that Catso had spilled for him.

8
Ralph Strikes a Bargain
    L ana was the one who discovered that Ralph was missing. The morning after Ralph’s escape she came running ahead of Aunt Jill to the craft shop. She stopped short when she looked through the screen door and saw the litter of nails, seeds, and plastic strewn about the worktable and on the floor.
    â€œAunt Jill! Aunt Jill!” she shrieked, eventhough Aunt Jill was directly behind her. “Burglars have been here, and somebody stole Garf’s mouse!”
    Ralph crouched out of sight behind a fluff of dust in the angle where the brace joined the studding. He heard campers coming.
    â€œGarf! Garf!” called Lana. “Your mouse is gone! Somebody stole your mouse!”
    â€œHey, look at the mess!” said Pete.
    â€œThe mouse cage is all bent,” observed Garf. “A thief wouldn’t have to bend the cage to open it.”
    â€œFirst a watch, now a mouse,” said another camper.
    â€œA thief in our midst!” cried Lana, eager for excitement and mystery.
    â€œAll right, boys and girls, let’s pick up the nails and seeds and roll up the plastic.” Aunt Jill’s voice was calm. This crisis was not the first she had met at Happy Acres, nor would it be the last.
    Then Ralph heard Garf’s voice saying, “Look at that hole in the screen door. It’s big enough for a cat to squeeze through.”
    Good thinking, Garf, said Ralph to himself. He had picked up this phrase from the many schoolteachers who had stayed at the Mountain View Inn while on their summer vacations.
    â€œI’ll bet Catso got my mouse,” said Garf, adding sadly, “and he was such a good mouse, too.”
    Ralph could not help being pleased by this compliment, and a little sad, too. Of course, he was a good mouse. He had known that fact all along, but hearing himself spoken of in the past made him feel that the world would have been a sadder place without him.
    â€œGarf, you’re a good detective,” said Aunt Jill. “Catso must be the guilty one.”
    â€œAunt Jill, you don’t think Catso— ate the mouse, do you?” Lana was awed by theenormity of such a crime.
    â€œI hope not, for Garf’s sake,” said Aunt Jill.
    What about my sake? thought Ralph indignantly.
    â€œWe’d better look around,” said Aunt Jill. “Perhaps the mouse is hiding someplace.”
    Instantly a mouse hunt was organized. Butterfly nets were seized, jars and boxes moved, craft materials