“We can’t make squeaky toys without squeaky mice,′ growls the cats’ leader. Meanwhile, down at the wrestling arena, Sumo Mouse turns out to be not a real sumo champion or rikishi, but a scrawny barber named Yama who ‘trained’ to be a rikishi like his forefathers.”
“Fog Benson had captured him when the cub was six months old. He had killed Ben’s mother and brought the young bear to town to show him off. And because Ben had cried for hours for his lost mother, Fog had laughingly named him ‘Squeaky Ben,’ after a local character with a querulous voice. As the cub grew and it became apparent his size would be tremendous, the ‘Squeaky’ part was dropped.”
“Often Katy would wish that she someday could be
something quiet and simple like a lovely elm tree,
or a ramshackle barn all alone on a hill
where the noisiest thing was a squeaky windmill.”