The Rescuers

In a world where mice maintain a secret network dedicated to aiding prisoners, the Prisoners' Aid Society holds a full meeting in the Moot-house, a great empty wine cask fitted with matchbox benches. Madam Chairwoman Mouse presides as the Secretary describes the Black Castle, a fearsome prison on a cliff above a raging river, with windowless dungeons cut into rock. An elderly member wearing the Society's highest honor, the Jean Fromage Medal, recounts his own failed assignment there, warning that not even a mouse can reach the prisoners and that the Head Jailer's cat is twice natural size and four times as fierce.

Madam Chairwoman proposes something unprecedented: Rather than merely cheering this prisoner, they will rescue him. The prisoner is a Norwegian poet, and she argues poets deserve the Society's special effort. She proposes enlisting Miss Bianca, a white mouse belonging to the Ambassador's son, who lives in a Porcelain Pagoda in the Embassy schoolroom. Because the Ambassador is being transferred to Norway, Miss Bianca will travel in the Diplomatic Bag within two days. Her mission is to find the bravest mouse in Norway and send him back. When skeptics question whether a mouse raised in luxury has the necessary courage, Bernard, a short, sturdy pantry mouse who wears the Tybalt Star for gallantry in the face of cats, volunteers to persuade her.

Bernard visits Miss Bianca in her exquisite Pagoda, with its gilded eaves and golden bells. She is sleek and silvery-white, with deep brown eyes and a silver chain around her neck. Her gracious manners put Bernard at ease, but she declines the mission, saying her devotion to the Boy is earnest enough. When she reveals she writes poetry, Bernard is thrilled because the prisoner is also a poet, and he blurts out the entire plan. Miss Bianca faints but is ultimately moved by Bernard's fervent appeal and agrees.

Three days later, Miss Bianca reaches Oslo. That night she descends to the Embassy cellar, where 50 Norwegian mice hold a raucous party in sea boots and stocking caps. She announces herself as a delegate seeking the bravest mouse in Norway, and a Petty Officer selects Nils, a rough but steady-eyed sailor, who agrees at once. Miss Bianca attempts to draw a navigation chart but produces only a sketch resembling a garden-party hat. Realizing Nils will navigate by a useless drawing, she impulsively offers to guide him back in person, motivated partly by duty and partly by a growing attachment to Bernard.

The month-long sea voyage is miserable for Miss Bianca, who is seasick for weeks while Nils thrives. When they dock, Miss Bianca spots the Boy's lost model speedboat, an atomic-powered craft, bobbing at the landing steps. Nils masters it and, navigating by the sketch, drives 100 miles through lakes and rivers to the Embassy.

At the Moot-house, Madam Chairwoman triumphantly presents Nils and Miss Bianca. Bernard, overcome at seeing Miss Bianca again, pushes forward until their whiskers touch. When volunteers are called for the Black Castle mission, Bernard instantly offers, and Miss Bianca volunteers too. Madam Chairwoman explains they will travel by provision wagon, which visits the Castle once a year. At dawn, the three mice board the wagon and hide between flour sacks.

The two-week journey begins joyfully through October countryside but grows bleak as they enter the Barrens, a stony waste strewn with bones of prisoners who died on the march. On the 14th day, the Black Castle's iron gate swings open. Inside, the courtyard is grim and windowless, with carrion crows overhead. The mice find the only mousehole in the Castle, in the Head Jailer's sitting room, and soon encounter Mamelouk, an enormous black half-Persian cat who rules the Castle. Bernard masks their scent and warns Miss Bianca never to leave alone.

Two months pass in frustration. The dungeons are unreachable: Prisoners are sealed deep in rock, fed through ceiling grids from a corridor behind a locked iron door too tight for a mouse. Mamelouk accompanies the jailer on rounds, and there is no exit except the gate. Then Nils carelessly leaves Miss Bianca alone, and a broken sash cord traps him and Bernard outside while Mamelouk enters the sitting room. Miss Bianca, unafraid of cats from fond memories of a white Persian, steps out and charms Mamelouk. He intends to kill her, but when he flings her through the air, she lands in his thick fur and clings on. Deep in his coat, she discovers a scrap of cloth bearing words written in blood. Nils translates: The prisoner is alive and asking whether he will ever see Norway again.

Their determination renewed, they divide tasks. Miss Bianca cultivates Mamelouk and learns that every New Year's Eve, all jailers feast until they are too ill to function the next morning. Meanwhile, Nils discovers that the river has exposed an old water gate at the cliff's base, with granite steps ascending to a corridor at dungeon level. They form a plan to get the jailer's keys, free the prisoner, and escape through the water gate. But when Nils and Bernard return carelessly to the sitting room, Mamelouk pins them both with one paw. Miss Bianca saves them through quick-witted flattery, convincing the vain cat to look away long enough for them to wrench free.

On New Year's morning, the jailer lies collapsed asleep against the dungeon corridor door, but the keys dangle overhead in the lock, far out of reach. Bernard climbs the jailer's body from foot to scalp, launches himself at the keys, and brings them crashing down. Nils runs from grid to grid calling Norwegian words until someone answers at the last grating. They push the keys through and jump down. Nils and Bernard stretch Bernard's spotted handkerchief as a net, and Miss Bianca jumps into it.

The prisoner is so thin they cannot tell if he is old or young. He huddles on his bunk, the keys untouched, as though he has given up hope. Nils speaks to him until comprehension dawns. The mice bow, and the prisoner, a poet who finds the astonishing quite natural, bows back. At the third key, his cell door opens. He follows the mice down the water gate steps, where a raft waits tied to the old mooring ring. But his foot slips, and the river's undertow sucks him under. Nils and Bernard dive in but cannot hold him. On the raft, a raft-woman kicks a hencoop overboard in fright at seeing Miss Bianca, and the hencoop lands in the drowning poet's arms as he surfaces for the last time. The raft-men haul him aboard. All are soaked but alive.

The discreet raft-people provide dry clothing and ask no questions. The mice travel in the poet's pockets as the raft carries them through the Barrens to friendly farmland. The poet grows stronger daily, and their return to the Moot-house is tumultuous. All three receive the Nils and Miss Bianca Medal, struck in silver.

Miss Bianca gives Nils the Boy's speedboat as a parting gift, and he departs for Norway. The poet bids them farewell, promising to write a poem about Miss Bianca and praising Bernard as the stoutest soul he has ever known. Alone with Miss Bianca, Bernard begins to speak of his feelings, but an Embassy footman recognizes her and scoops her up to send her back to the Boy by Diplomatic Bag. She calls down that she leaves not for her Porcelain Pagoda but because she must return to the Boy. Bernard bravely accepts, having always known she would go back. In the epilogue, Nils reaches Norway, the poet publishes his poem, and Bernard becomes Secretary of the Prisoners' Aid Society. Miss Bianca, reunited with the Boy in her Porcelain Pagoda, is happy in the life that suits her best. But none of them ever forget each other, or their famous adventures in the Black Castle.