We’re yanked to a stop, and my blindfold is ripped off.

I blink rapidly as I stare up at a bright-blue sky. Where did the forest go? And why do I feel like I’m standing on a cloud? I look down. Oh, yes. I see now. I am standing at the edge of a cliff.

A waterfall is flowing a few feet away from us, crashing into a deep abyss below. I can’t see the bottom of the ravine, but I can see the angry, rushing water. I try to take a step back and feel a poke in my back.

“Don’t move!” the pirate mouse barks. He has his cane pointed at me again. It’s rather pointy.

“Look, we don’t want to be like Humpty Dumpty and have a great fall, okay?” Logan says. The mouse has removed the others’ blindfolds as well. “Heights make me dizzy. Could we please move away from the ledge?”

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Heath sounds calm. “We were lost and trying to find someone who could help us.”

“Red Riding Hood is not your friend,” says the pirate mouse. “She doesn’t even know you.”

“You know Red?” I ask excitedly, straining to see my captors. There are three of them. How did he know? Maybe Lily spoke to a local who told the mice who we were looking for!

“Stop talking! We’re the ones doing the talking, you see? And we want you to leave.”

“No problem,” says Sasha. “We don’t even want to be in the woods.”

“Good! We don’t want you here!” says a mouse with a squeaky voice. “We want you to go home.”

“We can’t go home.” Raina’s voice waffles. “We’ve been banished.”

“Banished?” says the captor with the squeaky voice. “Where did you say you’re from?”

“We didn’t.” Enough with the games. I can’t negotiate if I can’t see my captor. I twist around to see their faces.

All three of our captors are human-sized mice. They’re covered from head to toe in gray fur, and they’re wearing black sunglasses and different-colored pirate bandannas. They’re each holding a wooden cane as a weapon. Long gray tails hang loosely behind them. They look awfully familiar… Are these the famous Three Blind Mice? Last I heard, they’d regrown their tails the farmer had cut off and built a house out of wood chips. I’ve never heard of them living a life of thievery.

“Go ahead and get a good look. Just know it will be your last,” says a mouse with a red bandanna.

Carefully, my friends and I turn away from the chasm and shuffle in a line closer to our mice captors.

The first one, the one with the black bandanna, pokes me in the ribs again. “I said, ‘Who are you?’” Its voice is gruffer.

“There’s no need to be rough,” Heath tells it. “Calm down, and we’ll get you a nice piece of Gouda.”

The mouse throws its cane up in the air. “Just because one mouse likes cheese doesn’t mean we all like cheese. How judgmental can a pretty-boy prince be? Toss them over.”