The Mouse family had moved back to the forest, and into their old house. “I’m so glad to be living near all our friends again,” said Ma Mouse, as they raked their front lawn. It had started to look unkempt while the house had been vacant, and Ma liked everything neat and tidy. “Even though living at the college was a fun time.”
“Now that we’ve seen the hustle and bustle of the college,” said Pa, “I think we can really appreciate living in the forest. More than we used to, I mean.”
“Oh, I think so too,” said Ma. “Why, before the college I didn’t even realize that we were living off the grid.”
“I’d never even heard of the grid!” laughed Pa.
Hare was just coming up the path to bring Ma and Pa a housewarming gift. “What’s that about a grid?” he asked.
“Hello Hare,” said Pa.
“Our friends can just stop by to see us again,” said Ma happily. “I’ll pop inside and make some tea.”
“Wait, Ma,” said Hare. He handed her a package. “I brought some tea cakes as a housewarming gift.”
“Oh goody,” said Ma, and hurried inside with them.
“You were asking about the grid?” said Pa.
“I just overheard what you were saying,” said Hare. “I don’t mean to intrude if it’s private.”
“Not at all, not at all,” said Pa. “It’s something we learned about at the college. What we’re doing here in the forest is ‘living off the grid.’”
“Is that good?” asked Hare.
“I think so,” said Pa. “At least that’s the way it sounded. Lots of people in the town seemed to want to do it.”
“But what does it mean?” asked Hare. “What’s a grid?”
“Well now,” said Pa, “that’s a bit of a puzzle, that is. I’ve been wondering a bit about that myself. Tried to find out when we were still back there, but with all the packing up and getting ready, I ran out of time. Still, I have some possibilities…”
Hare remembered Pa Mouse and the ‘possibilities’ he liked to talk about. It was a word he used when he had a few different ideas about the same thing, but didn’t know which one was right. Hare remembered thinking that most of them turned out to be silly, but he wasn’t about to mention that to Pa.
“Do tell,” said Hare, doing his best to keep his ears from drooping too obviously.
“My first possibility is that the ‘grid’ has to do with the college itself,” said Pa. “I noticed one time when I was exploring that if you look up at the floor in the big building where we worked…”
“Looked UP at the floor?” asked Hare.
“Don’t forget I’m a mouse,” said Pa. “When we explore, we do it from underneath. Or inside. We’re too small to be the outside kind of explorers.”
“That makes sense,” said Hare. “Please continue.”
“What I noticed,” said Pa, “was that underneath, there are bars of metal going one way, all in a line. Holding up the floor, I imagine. And then there are other bars of metal going the other way, all in their own rows. And the rows criss-cross. Criss-crossing is a grid.”
“I think I understand,” nodded Hare. “When you move away from the college, you aren’t in that building any more, so you’re ‘off the grid.’ Pa, that actually makes sense!” Hare tried not to show how surprised he was that one of Pa’s ‘possibilities’ was so reasonable.
“Thanks,” said Pa, “but then I got to thinking, Hare, and I thought that the college isn’t just that one building. It’s a lot of buildings.”
“And do all of them have grids under the floors?”
“Every one of them I checked did, but there’s more to the college than just buildings.”
“There is?” asked Hare, who didn’t know much about the college.
“For sure,” said Pa. “There are paths outside, and there’s lots of food. You put buildings, paths, and food together, and there you have it; a college. To my way of thinking, at least.”
“And that gave you an idea for a different possibility, I bet,” said Hare.
“Indeed it did,” said Pa. “I got to thinking that if you IMAGINE those things like they were part of an IMAGINARY floor…”
“Hang on, you’re losing me,” said Hare.
“Look at it this way,” said Pa, “if you have buildings, paths, and food, and that makes a college, then the college must be more than just things. It must be an idea. Because if you pile food on a path next to a building, you don’t instantly end up with another college.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. Tried it myself. Several times. Now, mind you, I was on to something, because after the first few tries it started to attract attention. Some people would gather around and point, and even talk about it. But I hung around and listened to what they were saying, and it wasn’t ‘oh look, there’s a new college.’ Nope, the words I mostly heard were ‘another mess’ and ‘who’s going to clean this up.’”
“Hmmm…So I guess what you’re trying to say is that it’s not just the paths and the buildings and the food — it’s the way they’re combined, and what they’re combined for?”
“‘Zactly!” said Pa. “And that there, Hare, is an idea. And what’s an idea? It’s something you ‘magined up. So I say you could just ‘magine up an idea about how that stuff goes together. If you do that, why not ‘magine that it all goes together just like a building with floors — and that means there’s a grid.”
“So ‘off the grid’ just means ‘away from the college’, so you’re not part of the imaginary grid?” asked Hare.
“Yup, you got it,” said Pa.
“Wow,” said Hare, “you really learned a lot of stuff at college, Pa.”
“Nah,” said Pa, “that’s not really what college is all about. Like I said, it’s the paths, the buildings, and the food. But mostly the food, I think. And that’s how I came up with my third possibility.”
“What’s that one?” asked Hare. In spite of himself, he was actually interested.
“It’s the food,” said Pa, “and how they serve it. They’ve got this one building with all the food. It’s called the ‘cafeteria.’ The best part is out back, but sometimes we had a look inside too. There were lots of people in there — they like food too, I guess. But the way they carry it around is on these squarish things.”
“Squarish things?”
“Like trays,” said Pa, “but they’re not real trays like we have in the forest. You know, like the ones you use for tea cakes.”“
“Oh, you mean my bark tray, and my tray made out of sticks, and my flat rock tray?”
“Right,” said Pa, “those are real trays, but at the cafeteria they’ve got fake ones. Dunno what they’re made of — some kinda stuff that’s stinky and no use for much — but the thing is, they’re kinda square. And that means if you arrange ‘em — and those people, they’re crazy about arranging things — you can end up with a grid.”
“Aha,” said Hare, “so if you aren’t eating in the cafeteria any more, you’re ‘off the grid.’ I get it, Pa. I like all three of your possibilities!” And that’s something that’s never happened before, thought Hare.
“So anyway,” said Pa, “we’re living off the grid, and that means we don’t have buildings, paths, and food, or it means we just don’t live at the college, or it means we don’t eat in the cafeteria. I don’t know which one it is.”
Just then Ma came out carrying a proper tray (made of leaves and sticks) loaded with cups of tea and Hare’s teacakes. “I don’t know which one it is either,” said Hare. “But let’s sit down and have some snacks while we think about it.”
