Mrs. Frisby wakes up to find her youngest son, Timothy, is extremely sick. She goes to see Mr. Ages for help. He informs her that Timothy has pneumonia and can' t be moved for 3 weeks.
Moving day is coming, and if Mrs. Frisby can't move, her home and her family will be destroyed by the farmers plow.
Mrs. Frisby goes to the owl for advice. He suggests she go to the Rats for help.
Mrs. Frisby, goes to the Rats, and when they learn she is Jonathan Frisby's widow, they agree to help. Mrs. Frisby learns how her husband and the Rats came to live on the farm.
Mrs. Frisby gets caught by the farmer's youngest son while drugging the cat, so the Rats can move her house. While she waits in a cage, she overhears the farmer talking to the NIMH people, who will be coming out to look for the missing rats.
Mrs. Frisby escapes her cage with the help of Justin, one of the Rats, and she tells him about the researchers from NIMH coming.
The Rats are successful in moving Mrs. Frisby's house. They then leave the farm, escaping once again from the researchers of NIMH, and head off to thorn valley to start a new life.
Setting
The story takes place in the country, on a farm.
The rats of NIMH, are a group of escaped laboratory rats who are highly intelligent. Mr. Ages, is a mouse who also escaped NIMH along with Jonathan Frisby. (Mrs. Frisby's late husband.)
It is early spring, and the ground is just beginning to thaw.
Narrative Elements
Characters
Mrs. Frisby and her family, are field mice who live in a cinder block in the garden.
Mr. Fitzgibbons and his family live on the farm. They have a cat named dragon, who is a constant threat to the mice and rats.
