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George thought that the first thing to do was to break the kitchen floor. He ran and got his hammer and his screw-driver. "I'll have this old floor up in a moment," said George.

He put the screw-driver under the first board and tried to raise it.

"No, we must not break the floor. Let us have a good search first," said Mr. Little. "You can put that hammer away where you got it."

"Oh, all right," said George. "I see that nobody in this house thinks about Stuart but me."

Mrs. Little began to cry.

"My poor dear little son!" she said. "I know that we shall never find him!"

"If you yourself cannot go down a mousehole it does not mean that Stuart cannot," said Mr. Little. "Please don't cry."

"Maybe we must put some food down into the hole," said George. "The police did it when a man got stuck in a cave. I read about it myself."

George ran to the dining-room and came back with a cup of apple-sauce.

"We can pour some apple-sauce into the hole, and it will run down to Stuart," he said.

"Stop that!" cried Mr. Little. "George, will you kindly let me handle this situation? Put the apple-sauce away immediately!" And he looked angrily at George.

"I only tried to help my own brother," said George and carried the apple-sauce back.

"Let us call Stuart," said Mrs. Little. "It is quite possible that he has lost his way."

"Very well," said Mr. Little. "I will count three, we shall call Stuart, then we shall all keep quiet for three seconds and wait for the answer." He took out his watch.

Mr. and Mrs. Little and George went down on their hands and knees and put their mouths close to the mousehole. Then they all called: "Stu-ooooo-art!" And then they all kept quiet for three seconds.

Stuart heard them from the rolled-up shade and called back, "Here I am!" But his voice was too weak, and nobody heard him.

"Again," said Mr. Little. "One, two, three -- Stu-ooooo-art!" But there was no answer.

Mrs. Little went up to her bedroom, lay down and began to cry. Mr. Little went to the telephone and rang up the Bureau of Missing Persons. But when the man from the Bureau asked for a description of Stuart and Mr. Little told him that he was only two inches high, the man angrily hung up.

George went down the cellar in order to find another entrance to the mousehole. He moved and pushed trunks, boxes, baskets, flower pots and broken chairs, but he did not find any hole. Instead he found an old rowing machine; he became interested in it, carried it upstairs and rowed the whole morning.

When lunch time came, all three sat down to lunch. But it was a sad meal. They tried not to look at the small empty chair near Mrs. Little's glass of water. Stuart's parents could not eat, and even George ate nothing but some apple-sauce.

After lunch Mrs. Little began to cry again.

"I'm sure that Stuart is dead," she said.

"Nonsense, nonsense!" answered Mr. Little.

"If he is dead," said George, "we must pull down all the shades in the house." And he ran to one of the windows and began to pull down the shade.

"George!" shouted Mr. Little. "Stop it! This is idiotic!"

But the shade rolled down, and Stuart dropped out of the shade on the window-sill.

"Mum, look who is here!" cried George.

"You pulled down that shade in time," said Stuart. "That's all I can say." He was weak and hungry.

Mrs. Little was so glad to see him that she began to cry again. Of course, everybody wanted to know what had happened. And Stuart told them the whole story while he had his lunch.

"So you see, it was simply an accident," he said. "As to my hat and stick which you found near the mousehole, you can draw your own conclusion."

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This version of Stuart Little was originally published in Moscow, in 1964.  All rights are reserved by respective copyright owners and this version must not be used in any other but private ESL study settings.  Hard or electronic copies for business purposes are prohibited.

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