The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (18 page)

“Rat kings can talk to people, can't they?” said Keith. “Has it been talking to us?”

“But this is real life,” said Malicia.

“I thought it was an adventure,” said Keith.

“Damn! I forgot,” said Malicia. “What're they doing?”

It was almost as if the rats were melting. They were no longer upright, attentive statues. Something like panic was spreading through them again.

Then other rats poured out of the walls, running madly across the floor. They were much bigger than the caged ones. One of them bit Keith on the ankle, and he kicked it away.

“Try to stamp on them, but don't lose your balance, whatever you do!” he said. “These are
not
friendly!”

“
Tread
on them?” said Malicia. “Yuk!”

“You mean you haven't got anything in your bag to fight rats? This is a rat catchers' lair! You've got plenty of stuff for pirates and bandits and robbers!”

“Yes, but there's never been a book about having an adventure in a rat catchers' hut!” Malicia shouted. “Ow! One's on my neck! One's on my neck! And there's another one!” She bent down frantically to shake the rats loose and reared up as one leaped at her face.

Keith grabbed her hand. “
Don't
fall over!
They'll go mad if you do! Try to get to the door!”

“They're so fast!” Malicia panted. “Now there's another one on my
hair—
”

“Hold still, stupid human!” said a voice in her ear. “Hold quite still or I'll
gnaw
you!”

There was a scrabble of claws and a swish, and a rat dropped past her eyes. Then another rat thumped onto her shoulder and slid away.

“Right!” said the voice at the back of her neck. “Now
don't
move,
don't
tread on anyone, and keep out of the way!”

“What was
that
?” Malicia gasped, as she felt something slide down her skirt.

“I think it was the one they call Big Savings,” said Keith. “Here comes the Clan!”

More rats were pouring into the room, but these moved differently. They stayed together and spread out into a line that moved forward slowly. When an enemy rat attacked it, the line would close up over it quickly, like a fist, and when it opened again, that rat was dead.

Only when the surviving rats smelled the terror of their fellows and tried to escape from the room did the attacking line break, becoming pairs of rats that, with terrible purpose, hunted down one scurrying enemy after another and
brought them down with a bite.

And then, seconds after it started, the war was over. The squeaking of a few lucky refugees faded into the walls.

There was a ragged cheer from the Clan, the cheer that says, “I'm still alive! After all that!”

“Darktan?” said Keith. “What happened to you?”

Darktan reared up and pointed a paw to the door at the other end of the cellar.

“If you want to help, open that door!” he shouted. “Move it!” Then he darted into a drain, with the rest of the squad pouring in after him. One of them tap-danced as he went.

A
nd there he found Mr. Bunnsy, tangled in the brambles and his blue coat all torn.

—From
Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure

The rat king raged.

The watching rats clutched at their heads, Peaches shrieked and stumbled back, the last flaring match flying out of her hand.

But something of Maurice survived that roar, that
storm
of thought. Some tiny part hid behind some brain cell and cowered as the rest of Maurice was blown away. Thoughts peeled back and vanished in the gale. No more talking, no more wondering, no more seeing the world as something
out
there. Layers of his mind streamed past as the blast stripped away everything that he'd thought of as
me
, leaving only the brain of a cat. A bright cat, but still…just a cat.

Nothing but a cat. All the way back to the
forest and the cave, the tusk and the claw…

Just a cat.

And you can always trust a cat to be a cat.

The cat blinked. It was bewildered and angry. Its ears went flat. Its eyes flashed green.

It couldn't think. It didn't think. It was instinct that moved it now, something that operated right down at the level of its roaring blood.

It was a cat, and there was a twitching squeaky thing, and what cats do to twitching squeaking things is this: They
leap
.

The rat king fought back. Teeth snapped at the cat, it was tangled in fighting rats, and it yowled as it rolled across the floor. More rats poured in, rats that could kill a dog…but now, just for a few seconds, this cat could have brought down a wolf.

It didn't notice the crackling flame as the dropped match set fire to some straw. It ignored the other rats breaking ranks and running. It paid no attention to the thickening smoke.

What it wanted to do was
kill things
.

Some dark river deep inside had been dammed up over the months. It had spent too much time helpless and fuming while little squeaky people ran around in front of it. It had longed to leap and bite and kill. It had longed to be a
proper cat
.
And now the cat was out of the bag, and so much ancestral fight and spite and viciousness was flowing through Maurice's veins that it sparked off his claws.

And as the cat rolled and struggled and bit, a weak little voice all the way at the back of his tiny brain, cowering out of the way, the last tiny bit of him that was still Maurice and not a blood-crazed maniac, said, “Now! Bite
here
!”

Teeth and claws closed on a lump made up of eight knotted tails and tore it apart.

The tiny part of what had once been the
me
of Maurice heard a thought shoot past.

Noooo—ooo—oo—o…

And then it died away, and the room was full of rats, just rats, nothing more than rats, fighting to get out of the way of a furious, spitting, snarling, bloodthirsty cat, catching up on catness. It clawed and bit and ripped and pounced and turned to see a small white rat that had not moved throughout the whole fight. It brought its claws down—

Dangerous Beans screamed.

“Maurice!”

 

The door rattled, and rattled again as Keith's boot hit the lock for the second time. On the
third blow the wood split and burst apart.

There was a wall of fire at the other end of the cellar. The flames were dark and evil, as much thick smoke as fire. The Clan were scrambling in through the grating and spreading out on either side, staring at the flames.

“Oh, no! Come on, there's buckets next door!” said Keith.

“But—” Malicia began.

“
We've
got to do it! Quickly! This is a big-people job!”

The flames hissed and popped. Everywhere, on fire or lying on the floor beyond the flames, were dead rats. Sometimes there were only
bits
of dead rats.

“What happened here?” asked Darktan.

“Looks like a war, guv,” said Sardines, sniffing the bodies.

“Can we get round it?”

“Too hot, boss. Sorry, but we—Isn't that Peaches?”

She was sprawled close to the flames, mumbling to herself and covered in mud.

Darktan crouched down. She opened her eyes blearily.

“Are you all right, Peaches? What's happened to Dangerous Beans?”

Sardines wordlessly tapped him on the shoulder and pointed.

Coming through the fire, a shadow…

It padded slowly between walls of flame.

For a moment the waving air made it look huge, like some monster emerging from a cave, and then it became…just a cat.

Smoke poured off its fur. What wasn't smoking was caked with mud. One eye was shut. The cat was leaving a trail of blood, and every few footsteps it sagged a little.

It had a small bundle of white fur in its mouth.

It reached Darktan and continued past without a glance. It was growling all the time, under its breath.

“Is that
Maurice
?” said Sardines.

“That's Dangerous Beans he's carrying!” shouted Darktan. “Stop that cat!” But Maurice had stopped by himself, turned, lain down with his paws in front of him, and looked blearily at the rats.

Then he gently dropped the bundle to the floor. He prodded it once or twice, to see if it would move.

He blinked slowly when it didn't move. He looked puzzled, in a kind of slow-motion way. He opened his mouth to yawn, and smoke came out. Then he put his head down and died.

 

The world seemed to Maurice to be full of the ghost light you get before dawn, when it's just bright enough to see things but not bright enough to see colors.

He sat up and washed himself.

There were rats and humans running around, very, very slowly. Somehow they didn't concern him much. Whatever it was they thought they had to be doing, they were doing it. Other people were rushing about, in a silent, ghostly way, and Maurice was not. This seemed a pretty good arrangement.

And his eye didn't hurt and his skin wasn't painful and his paws weren't torn, which was a big improvement on matters as they had stood recently.

Now that he came to think about it, he wasn't quite sure
what
had happened recently. Something wretchedly bad, obviously.

There was something Maurice-shaped lying beside him, like a three-dimensional shadow. He stared at it, then turned when in this soundless ghost world he heard a noise.

There was movement near the wall. A small figure was striding across the floor toward the
small lump that was Dangerous Beans. It was rat sized, but it was much more solid than the rest of the rats, and unlike any rat he'd seen before, it wore a black robe.

A rat in clothes, he thought. But this one did not belong in a
Mr. Bunnsy
book. Just poking out from the hood of the robe was the bony nose of a rat skull. And it was carrying a tiny scythe over its shoulder.

The other rats and the humans, who were drifting back and forth with buckets, paid it no attention. Some of them walked right through it. The rat and Maurice seemed to be in a separate world of their own.

It's the Bone Rat, thought Maurice. It's the Grim Squeaker. He's come for Dangerous Beans.

After all I've been through? That is not
happening
!

He sprang into the air and landed on the Bone Rat. The little scythe skidded across the floor.

“Okay, mister, let's hear you talk—” Maurice began.

S
QUEAK
!

“Er…” said Maurice, as the horrible awareness of what he'd done caught up with him.

A hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him up, higher and higher, and then
turned him around. Maurice stopped struggling immediately.

He was being held by another figure, much taller, human size, but with the same style of black robe, a much bigger scythe, and a definite lack of skin around the face. Strictly speaking, there was a considerable lack of face about the face, too. It was just bone.

D
ESIST FROM ATTACKING MY ASSOCIATE
, M
AURICE
, said Death.

“Yessir, Mr. Death, sir! Atoncesir!” said Maurice quickly. “Noproblemsir!”

I
HAVEN'T SEEN YOU LATELY
, M
AURICE
.

“Nosir,” said Maurice, relaxing slightly. “Been very careful, sir. Looking both ways when I cross the street and everything, sir.”

A
ND HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE LEFT NOW
?

“Six, sir. Six. Six out of nine. Very definitely. Very definitely six lives, sir.”

Death looked surprised.

B
UT YOU WERE RUN OVER BY A CART ONLY LAST MONTH, WEREN'T YOU
?

“That, sir? Barely grazed me, sir. Got away with hardly a scratch, sir.”

E
XACTLY
!

“Oh.”

T
HAT MAKES FIVE LIVES
, M
AURICE
. U
P UNTIL
TODAY'S ADVENTURE
.

“Fair enough, sir. Fair enough.” Maurice swallowed. Oh, well, might as well try. “So let's say I'm left with three, right?”

T
HREE
? I
WAS ONLY GOING TO TAKE ONE
. Y
OU CAN'T LOSE MORE THAN ONE LIFE AT A TIME, EVEN IF YOU'RE A CAT
. T
HAT LEAVES YOU FOUR
, M
AURICE
.

“And I say take two, sir,” said Maurice urgently. “Two, and call it quits?”

Death and Maurice looked down at the faint, shadowy outline of Dangerous Beans. Some other rats were standing around him now, picking him up.

A
RE YOU SURE
? asked Death. A
FTER ALL
,
HE IS ARAT
.

“Yessir. That's where it all gets complicated, sir.”

Y
OU CAN'T EXPLAIN
?

“Yessir. Don't know why, sir. Everything's been a bit odd lately, sir.”

T
HAT IS VERY UNCATLIKE OF YOU
, M
AURICE
. I'
M AMAZED
.

“I'm pretty shocked too, sir. I just hope no one finds out, sir.”

Death lowered Maurice to the floor, next to his body.

Y
OU LEAVE ME LITTLE CHOICE
. T
HE SUM IS CORRECT
,
EVEN THOUGH IT IS AMAZING
. W
E CAME FOR TWO
,
AND TWO WE WILL TAKE
. T
HE BALANCE IS PRESERVED
.

“Can I ask a question, sir?” said Maurice, as Death turned to go.

Y
OU MAY NOT GET AN ANSWER
.

“I suppose there isn't a Big Cat in the Sky, is there?”

I'
M SURPRISED AT YOU, MAURICE
. O
F COURSE THERE ARE NO CAT GODS
. T
HAT WOULD BE TOO MUCH LIKE
…
WORK
.

Maurice nodded. One good thing about being a cat, apart from the extra lives, was that the theology was a lot simpler.

“I won't remember all this, will I, sir?” he said. “It'd be just too embarrassing.”

O
F COURSE NOT
, M
AURICE
…. “Maurice?”

Colors returned to the world, and Keith was stroking him. Every bit of Maurice stung or ached. How could fur ache? And his paws screamed at him, and one eye felt like a lump of ice, and his lungs were full of fire.

“We thought you were dead!” said Keith. “Malicia was going to bury you in her backyard! She says she's already got a black veil.”

“What, in her adventuring bag?”

“Certainly,” said Malicia. “Supposing we'd ended up on a raft in a river full of flesh-eating—”

“Yeah, right, thanks,” growled Maurice. The air stank of burned wood and dirty steam.

“Are you all right?” asked Keith, still looking worried. “You're a lucky black cat now!”

“Ha ha, yes, ha ha,” said Maurice gloomily. He pushed himself up painfully.

“The little rat okay?” he asked, trying to look around.

“He was out just like you, but when they tried to move him, he coughed up a lot of muck. He's not well, but he's getting better.”

“All's well that ends—” Maurice began, and then winced. “I can't turn my head very well,” he said.

“You're covered in rat bites, that's why.”

“What's my tail like?” asked Maurice.

“Oh, fine. It's nearly all there.”

“Oh, well. All's well that ends well, then. Adventure over, time for tea and buns, just like the girl says.”

“No,” said Keith. “There's still the piper.”

“Can't they just give him a dollar for his trouble and tell him to go away?”

“Not the rat piper,” said Keith. “You don't say
that sort of thing to the rat piper.”

“Nasty piece of work, is he?”

“I don't know. He sounds like it. But we've got a plan.”

Maurice growled. “
You've
got a plan?” he said. “You made it up?”

“Me and Darktan and Malicia.”

“Tell me your wonderful plan,” said Maurice with a sigh.

“We're going to keep the
keekees
caged up, and no rats will come out to follow the piper. That way he'll look pretty silly, eh?” said Malicia.

“That's
it
? That's your plan?”

“You don't think it'll work?” asked Keith. “Malicia says he'll be so embarrassed, he'll leave.”

“You don't know anything about people, do you?” Maurice sighed again.

“What? I'm a person!” said Malicia.

“So?
Cats
know about people. We have to. No one else can open cupboards. Look, even the rat king had a better plan than that. A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've
lost
. Understand?
This
is what you have to do…. No, it wouldn't work—we'd need a lot of cotton…”