Showdown in Crittertown by Justine Fontes

Chapter 1   Not Again!
    Most mice hate humans. But the way I see it, the critters who invented cheese can’t be all bad.
    Besides, these days some of my best friends are humans—the small humans of Mrs. Olson’s third grade class at Crittertown Elementary School. These kids helped save our home! So we started “hanging out” together every weekday after school. Human expressions are so strange. Hanging out has nothing to do with hangers or clotheslines. But it is fun!
    I like hanging out at the post office with my mouse friends Grayson and Nilla. You never know what you’re going to find in the trash cans, in the recycling bins, and on the snack table. Once we found half a hamburger!
    In late November the treats really piled up. We sampled homemade fudge, Christmas cookies, nuts, and a “cheese log.” That’s not as weird as it sounds. Forget trees; this was soft cheese pressed into the shape of a log. And like every other kind of cheese, it’s so delicious!
    Anyway, one night after closing time, we went upstairs for some treasure hunting. But we found something that made our fur stand on end.
    Grayson suddenly squeaked, “Closing the school!”
    Nilla dropped the muffin wrapper she’d been nibbling. “What?”
    I raced up the Priority Mail display to join Grayson at the community bulletin board. As the grandson of our colony’s leader, Grayson had an interest in politics. He often read the notices about town council meetings. Usually they just talked about the cost of snowplows and other things that didn’t matter to us. But this…
    I read the words twice and then moaned. “They can’t do it!”
    Nilla reads more slowly than I do. So she asked, “Who can’t do what?”
    Grayson answered, “The council is going to discuss closing Crittertown Elementary School!”
    Nilla squeaked with joy. “No more homework, no more math, and we could play with the children all day—not just in the afternoons! Why do you look so glum?”
    Grayson shook his head. “The kids would still have to go to school. They just wouldn’t go right here in town.”
    I read to the end of the notice. “The plan is to merge with Lakeville Elementary, which is a larger, newer school about 20 miles from here.”
    Nilla looked as sad as the time we opened the clerk’s cookie tin and found a sewing kit instead of shortbread. I hated to explain the worst part. “Our friends would have to take a bus to school. They’d be gone longer each day. And we might lose the playground.”
    Nilla wailed, “I love the playground!”
    I shrugged. “Well it’s one of the things that needs costly repairs.”
    We felt almost too low to check the snack table. But we knew the rest of the colony was counting on us. So we each grabbed a cookie to slide under the worn rubber seal on the post office’s back door.
    As soon as we entered the basement, our cookie-loving comrades swarmed.
    Someone squeaked, “Did you get any of the ones with sprinkles?”
    â€œI like icing!”
    â€œAny brownies?”

    Only our nervous friend, Twitchy, sensed something was wrong. Of course, Twitchy always thinks something is wrong. Sadly, sometimes he’s right!
    Twitchy asked questions in a frightened rush. “What is it? Have the postal bosses changed their minds? Will they be closing the office after all?”
    Grayson shook his head. “The elementary school.”
    Twitchy sighed with relief. “That’s okay. As long as we have a home.”
    Twitchy was a real stay-in-the-nest type of mouse. He hadn’t gotten to know the children yet. He couldn’t understand why this news made us so gloomy.
    Our leader, Brownback, understood. He said, “It’s not good for the town—not to mention your young friends.” Then he sighed. “But what can we do about it?”
    I thought about