City Mouse

Chapter 16: Yassou

"Do you have a passport?"

Mouse looked over at Henry, unsure if she'd heard correctly. "Yeah, why?" She was on the floor of the family room, working on a puzzle with Leo. It had been a quiet couple of weeks since the horrible incident on the Fourth of July, a time of recuperating for all three. Leo had awakened with nightmares four or five times and gone to sleep with his father, and on two occasions, with Mouse.

"One of our photographers just broke his leg water skiing, and I have to reassign his upcoming job," Henry explained. "It's in one of my favorite places, and I was thinking it might be fun for the three of us to go, you know, a quick trip, get out of the city for a couple of weeks?"

"Sounds nice," Mouse said, smiling. "But we never discussed me being included in family vacations or anything like that. I don't mind if you want to just go with Leo. I can stay here."

"No," Leo said, looking up from the puzzle. "I want you to come! Please come." He looked from his father to Mouse, eyes wide.

"Obviously I want you to come," Henry was saying. "I wouldn't have asked otherwise. And Leo can't come if you don't, because I'll be working all day." He grinned at Mouse over his laptop. "And don't you even want to know where we'd be going?"

Mouse shrugged as she grinned back. "I don't really care. I love to travel, and it's one the great tragedies of my life that I was born too poor to do it, so wherever it is, I'm game. I heard passport, and I'm all in."

"You are my kinda person," Henry exclaimed, sitting up. "Well, for your information, it's Greece."

"Grease?" Leo repeated. "Like from cooking?"

"No, Leo, this is a different spelling," Mouse explained. "I'll show you on my laptop after we finish the puzzle." To Henry she added, "Sounds fabulous. I'd love to go to Greece. When do we leave?"

"Next week," he replied. "On Wednesday. For ten days? You have anything going on?"

Mouse shook her head. "Are you kidding? For a trip to Greece, I'm clearing my decks. I'd miss my own birthday for that!"

"How?" Leo looked confused. "Mouse, how could you miss your own birthday? Wouldn't you be wherever you were?"

"Never mind, big guy," Mouse laughed, ruffling his hair.

"We won't be in any of the big places," Henry warned Mouse. "I mean, obviously we'll fly in and out of Athens, but we'll mainly be on a little island called Ios. It has a couple of nice, west-facing beaches that get good light and have nice colored water. Not much to do, but it will be relaxing, I think," he concluded.

"I can teach Leo to swim," Mouse said firmly.

Leo looked over at her again, puzzle piece in his hand. He nodded. "I'm not very scared," he said truthfully. "Will you stay with me the whole time?"

"I'll stay with you the whole time," Mouse promised.

"Okay," Leo said.

He rose and moved to sit in her lap, a move that was not lost on his father, who was watching over the top of his laptop. He knew his son was afraid to go in open water since what had happened, which only made sense, and he'd hoped that maybe this trip to Ios, with its beaches, might be a way to get over that fear. He was glad Mouse understood, and Leo was willing to try.

So preparations were made, and five days later they were on a plane for Athens. Leo, of course, was excited about the car ride to JFK, going through security, watching the planes at the gate, and walking down the tunnel to get on the plane. Mouse wondered that his head didn't explode by the time they actually boarded the flight.