The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (7 page)

“Anyone there? Only the stick is bending…” said the voice.

The cupboard was massive, the wood so old
that time had turned it black and as solid and heavy as stone.

“That's not a rat talking, is it?” said Malicia. “Please tell me rats can't talk!”

“In fact it's bending quite a bit now,” said the voice, which was slightly muffled.

Maurice squinted into the space behind the cubpoard.

“I can see him,” he said. “He wedged the stick in the jaws as they closed! Wotcha, Sardines, how're you doing?”

“Fine, boss,” said Sardines in the gloom. “If it wasn't for this trap, I'd say everything was perfect. Did I mention the stick is bending?”

“Yes, you said.”

“It's bent some more since then, boss.”

Keith grabbed one end of the cupboard and grunted as he tried to move it.

“It's like a rock!” he said.

“It's full of crockery,” said Malicia, now quite bewildered. “But rats don't
really
talk, do they?”

“Get out of the way!” shouted Keith. He grabbed the back edge of the dresser with both hands, braced one foot against the wall, and heaved.

Slowly, like a mighty forest tree, the cupboard
pitched forward. The crockery started to fall out as it tipped, plate slipping off plate like one glorious chaotic deal from a very expensive pack of cards. Even so, some of them survived the fall onto the floor, and so did some of the cups and saucers as the cupboard opened and added to the fun, but that didn't make any difference because then the huge, heavy woodwork thundered down on top of them.

One miraculously whole plate rolled past Keith, spinning round and round and getting lower on the floor with the
groiyoiyoiyooooinnnnggg
sound you always get in these distressing circumstances.

Keith reached down to the trap, grabbing Sardines. As he pulled the rat up, the stick gave way and the trap snapped shut. A bit of the stick spun away through the air.

“Are you all right?” said Keith.

“Well, boss, all I can say is it's a good job rats don't wear underwear…thanks, boss,” said Sardines.

There was the sound of a tapping foot.

Malicia, with arms folded and an expression like a thunderstorm, looked at Sardines, and then at Maurice, and then at stupid-looking Keith, and then at the wreckage on the floor.

“Er…sorry about the mess,” said Keith. “But he was—”

She waved this away.

“O-kay,” she said, as if she'd been thinking deeply. “It goes like this, I think. The rat is a magical rat. I bet he's not the only one. Something happened to him, or them, and now they're really quite intelligent, despite the tap dancing. And…they're friends with the cat. So…why would rats and a cat be friends? And it goes…there's some kind of an arrangement, right? I know! Don't tell me, don't tell me…”

“Huh?” said Keith.

“I shouldn't think anyone ever has to tell you
anything
,” said Maurice.

“…it's something to do with plagues of rats, right? All those towns we've heard about…well, you heard about them too, and so you got together with thingy here—”

“Keith,” said Keith.

“—yes—and so you go from town to town pretending to be a plague of rats, and thingy—”

“Keith.”

“—yes—pretends to be a rat piper and you all follow him out. Right? It's all a big swindle, yes?”

Sardines looked up at Maurice.

“She's got us dead to rights, boss,” he said.

“So now you've got to give me a good reason why I don't call the Watch out on you,” said Malicia triumphantly.

I don't have to, Maurice thought, because you won't. Gosh, humans are so
easy.

He rubbed up against Malicia's legs and gave her a smirk.

“If you do, you'll never find out how the story ends,” he said.

“Ah, it'll end with you going to
prison
,” said Malicia, but Maurice saw her staring at stupid-looking Keith and at Sardines. Sardines still had his little straw hat on. When it comes to attracting attention, that sort of thing counts for a lot.

When he saw her frowning at him, Sardines hastily removed his straw hat and held it in front of him, by the brim.

“There's something
I'd
like to find out, boss,” he said, “if we're finding out things.”

Malicia raised an eyebrow.

“Well?” she said. “And don't call me boss!”

“I'd like to find out why there's no rats in this city, guv'nor,” said Sardines. He tap-danced a few steps nervously. Malicia could glare better than a cat.

“What do you mean, no rats?” she said. “There's a
plague
of rats! And you're a rat, anyway!”

“There's rat runs all over the place and there's
a few dead rats, but we haven't found a living rat anywhere, guv'nor.”

Malicia leaned down. “But
you
are a
rat
,” she said.

“Yes, guv. But
we
only arrived this morning.”

Sardines grinned nervously as Malicia gave him another long stare.

“Would you like some cheese?” she said. “I'm afraid it's only mousetrap.”

“I don't think so, thanks very much all the same,” said Sardines, very carefully and politely.

“It's no use—I think it really is time to tell the truth,” said Keith.

“Nonononononono,” said Maurice, who
hated
that kind of thing. “It's all because—”

“You were right, miss,” said Keith wearily. “We go from town to town with a bunch of rats and fool people into giving us money to leave. That's what we do. I'm sorry we've been doing it. This was going to be the last time. I'm very sorry. You shared your food with us, and you haven't got much, either. We ought to be ashamed.”

It seemed to Maurice, while he was watching Malicia make up her mind, that her mind worked in a different way from other people's minds. She understood all the hard things without even thinking. Magical rats? Yeah, yeah.
Talking cats? Been there, done that. It was the simple things that were hard.

Her lips were moving. She was, Maurice realized,
making up a story out of it
.

“So…” she said, “you come along with your trained rats—”

“We prefer ‘educated rodents,' guv,” said Sardines.

“—all right, your educated rodents, and you move into a city, and…what happens to the rats that are there already?”

Sardines looked helplessly at Maurice. Maurice nodded at him to keep on. They were all going to be in big trouble if Malicia didn't make up a story she liked.

“They keep out of our way, boss, I mean guv,” said Sardines.

“Can they talk too?”

“No, guv.”

“I think the Clan thinks of them a bit like monkeys,” said Keith.

“I was talking to Sardines,” said Malicia.

“Sorry,” said Keith.

“And there's no other rats here
at all
?” Malicia went on.

“No, guv. A few old skeletons and some piles of poisons and lots of traps, boss. But no rats, boss.”

“But the rat catchers nail up a load of rat tails every day!”

“I speak as I find, boss. Guv. No rats, boss. Guv. No other rats anywhere we've been, boss guv.”

“Have you ever
looked
at the rat tails, miss?” asked Maurice.

“What do you mean?” asked Malicia.

“They're fake,” said Maurice. “Some of them, anyway. They're just old leather bootlaces. I saw some in the street.”

“They weren't real tails?” asked Keith.

“I'm a cat. You think I don't know what rats' tails look like?”

“Surely people would notice!” said Malicia.

“Yeah?” said Maurice. “Do you know what an aglet is?”

“Aglet? Aglet? What's an aglet got to do with anything?” snapped Malicia.

“It's those little metal bits on the ends of shoelaces,” said Maurice.

“How come a cat knows a word like that?” asked the girl.

“Everyone's got to know
something
,” said Maurice. “Have you ever looked closely at the rat tails?”

“Of course not. You can get the plague from rats!” said Malicia.

“That's right, your legs explode,” said Maurice, grinning. “That's why you didn't see the aglets. Your legs exploded lately, Sardines?”

“Not today, boss,” said Sardines. “Mind you, it's not even lunchtime yet.”

Malicia looked, well, grim.

“Ah-
ha
,” she said, and it seemed to Maurice that the “ha” had a very nasty edge to it.

“So…you're not going to tell the Watch about us?” he ventured hopefully.

“What, that I've been talking to a rat and a cat?” said Malicia. “Of course not. They'll tell my father I've been telling stories, and I'll get locked out of my room again.”

“You get locked
out
of your room as a punishment?” said Maurice.

“Yes. It means I can't get at my books. I'm rather a special person, as you may have guessed,” said Malicia proudly. “Haven't you heard of the Sisters Grim? Agonista and Eviscera Grim? They were my grandmother and my great-aunt. They wrote…fairy tales.”

Ah, so we're temporarily out of trouble here, thought Maurice. Best to keep her talking.

“I'm not a big reader, as cats go,” he said. “So what were these, then? Stories about little people with wings going tinkle-tinkle?”

“No,” said Malicia. “They were not big on tinkling little people. They wrote…
real
fairy tales. Ones with lots of blood and bones and bats and rats in them.
I've
inherited the storytelling talent,” she added.

“I kind of thought you had,” said Maurice.

“And if there's no rats under the town, but the rat catchers are nailing up
bootlaces
, I smell a rat,” said Malicia.

“Sorry,” said Sardines. “I think that was me. I'm a bit nervous—”

There were sounds from upstairs.

“Quick, go out across the backyard!” Malicia commanded. “Get up into the hayloft over the stable! I'll bring you some food! I know exactly how this sort of thing goes!”

R
atty Rupert was the bravest rat that ever was. Everyone in Furry Bottom said so.

—From
Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure

Darktan was in a tunnel several streets away, hanging from four bits of string attached to his harness. These were tied onto a stick, which had been balanced like a seesaw on the back of a very fat rat; two other rats were sitting on the other end, and several other rats were steering it.

Darktan was hanging just above the teeth of the big steel trap that completely filled the tunnel.

He squeaked the signal to stop. The stick vibrated a little under his weight.

“I'm right over the cheese,” he said. “Smells like Lancre Blue Vein, Extra Tasty. Not been
touched. Pretty old, too. Move me in about two paws.”
*

The stick bounced up and down as he was pushed forward.

“Careful, sir,” said one of the younger rats who crowded the tunnel behind the Trap Disposal Squad.

Darktan grunted and looked down at the teeth, an inch away from his nose. He pulled a short piece of wood out of one of his belts; a tiny sliver of mirror had been glued to one end of it.

“You lot move the candle this way a bit,” he commanded. “That's right. That's right. Let's see, now….” He pushed the mirror past the teeth and turned it gently. “Ah, just as I thought—it's a Prattle and Johnson Little Snapper, sure enough. One of the old Mk.3s, but with the extra safety catch. That's come a long way. Okay. We know about these, don't we? Cheese for tea, lads!”

There was nervous laughter from the watchers, but a voice said, “Oh, they're
easy….
”

“Who said that?”
asked Darktan sharply.

There was silence. Darktan craned his head back. The young rats had carefully moved aside,
leaving one looking very, very alone.

“Ah, Nourishing,” said Darktan, turning back to the trap's trigger mechanism. “Easy, is it? Glad to hear it. You can show us how it's done, then.”

“Er, when I said easy…” Nourishing began. “I mean, Inbrine showed me on the practice trap, and he said—”

“No need to be modest,” said Darktan, a gleam in his eye. “It's all ready. I'll just watch, shall I? You can get into the harness and do it, can you?”

“—but, but, but, I couldn't see too well when he showed us, now that I come to think about it, and, and, and—”

“I'll tell you what,” said Darktan, “
I'll
work on the trap, shall I?”

Nourishing looked very relieved.

“And you can tell me
exactly
what to do,” Dartkan added.

“Er…” Nourishing began. Now she looked like a rat prepared to rejoin the widdling squad really quickly.

“Jolly good,” said Darktan. He carefully put his mirror away and pulled a length of metal out of his harness. He prodded the trap carefully. Nourishing shuddered at the sound of metal on metal. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, here's a bar
and a little spring and a catch. What shall I do now, Miss Nourishing?”

“Er, er, er,” Nourishing stuttered.

“Things are
creaking
here, Miss Nourishing,” said Darktan from the depths of the trap.

“Er, er, you wedge the thingy…”

“Which one
is
the thingy, Miss Nourishing? Take your time, whoops, this bit of metal is wobbling, but don't let me hurry you in any way…”

“You wedge the, er, the thingy, er, the thingy…er…” Nourishing's eyes rolled wildly.

“Maybe it's this big SNAP argh argh argh….”

Nourishing fainted.

Darktan slipped out of the harness and dropped onto the trap.

“All fixed,” he said. “I've clipped it firm—it won't go off now. You boys can drag it out of the way.” He walked back to the squad and dropped a lump of hairy cheese onto Nourishing's quivering stomach. “It's very important in the trap business to be definite, you see. You're definite or you're dead. The second mouse gets the cheese.” Darktan sniffed. “Well, no human coming here would have any difficulty thinking there's rats around
now
…”

The other trainees laughed in the nervous, tittering way of people who've seen someone else
attract the teacher's attention and are glad it isn't them.

Darktan unrolled a scrap of paper. He was a rat of action, and the idea that the world could be pinned down in little signs worried him a bit. But he could see how useful it was. When he drew pictures of a tunnel layout, the paper
remembered
. It didn't get confused by new smells. Other rats, if they knew how to read, could see in their heads what the writer had seen.

He'd invented maps. It was a drawing of the world.

“Amazing stuff, this new technology,” he said. “So…there's poison marked here, two tunnels back. Did you see to it, Inbrine?”

“Buried and widdled on,” said Inbrine, his deputy. “It was the gray Number Two poison, too.”

“Good rat,” said Darktan. “That's nasty eating.”

“There were dead
keekees
all around it.”

“I'll bet there were. No antidote for that stuff.”

“We found trays of Number One and Number Three too,” said Inbrine. “Lots of them.”

“You can survive Number One poison if you're sensible,” said Darktan. “Remember that, all of you. And if you ever eat Number Three poison, we've got some stuff that'll sort you out.
I mean, you'll live in the end, but there'll be a day or two when you'd wish you were dead—”

“There's
lots
of poison, Darktan,” said Inbrine nervously. “More than I've ever seen before. Rat bones all over the place.”

“Important safety tip there, then,” said Darktan, setting off along a new tunnel. “Don't eat a dead rat unless you know what they died of. Otherwise you'll die of it, too.”

“Dangerous Beans says he thinks we shouldn't eat rats at all,” said Inbrine.

“Yeah, well, maybe,” said Darktan. “But out in the tunnels you have to be practical. Never let good food go to waste. And someone wake up Nourishing!”

“A
lot
of poison,” said Inbrine, as the squad moved on. “They must really
hate
rats here.”

Darktan didn't answer. He could see people were already getting nervous. There was a smell of fear in the rat runs. They'd never come across so much poison before. Darktan didn't usually worry about anything, and he hated to feel the worry starting, deep in his bones—

A small rat, out of breath, scurried up the tunnel and crouched in front of him.

“Kidney, sir, Number Three Heavy Widdlers,” it burst out. “We've found a trap, sir! Not like the
usual sort! Fresh walked right into it! Please come!”

 

There was a lot of straw in the loft over the stable, and the heat of the horses coming up from below made it quite snug.

Keith was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling and humming to himself. Maurice was watching his lunch, which was twitching its nose.

Right up until the time he pounced, Maurice looked like a sleek killing machine.

It all went wrong just before he jumped. His rear rose, it waggled faster and faster from side to side, his tail slashed at the air like a snake, and then he dived forward, claws out—

“Squeak!”

“Okay, here's the deal,” said Maurice to the shivering ball in his claws. “You only have to say something. Anything. ‘Let me go,' maybe, or even ‘Help!'
Squeak
does not cut the mustard. It's just a noise. Just ask, and I'll let you go. No one can say I'm not highly moral in that respect.”

“Squeak!” screamed the mouse.

“Fair enough,” said Maurice, and killed it instantly. He carried it back to the corner, where Keith was now sitting up in the straw and eating a pickled beef sandwich.

“It couldn't talk,” said Maurice hurriedly.

“I didn't ask you,” said Keith.

“I mean, I gave it a chance,” said Maurice. “You heard me, right? It only had to say it didn't want to be eaten.”

“Good.”

“It's all right for you—I mean, it's not as though you have to speak to sandwiches,” said Maurice, as if he was still bothered about something.

“I wouldn't know what to say to them,” said Keith.

“And I'd like to point out that I didn't play with it, either,” said Maurice. “One swipe with the ol' paw and it was ‘good-bye, that's all she wrote,' except that obviously the mouse didn't write anything, not being intelligent
in any way
.”

“I believe you,” said Keith.

“It never felt a thing,” Maurice went on.

There was a scream from somewhere in a nearby street, and then the sound of crockery breaking. There had been quite a lot of that in the last half hour.

“Sounds like the lads are still at work,” said Maurice, carrying the dead mouse behind a pile of hay. “Nothing gets a good scream like Sardines dancing across the table.”

The stable doors opened. A man came in, harnessed two of the horses, and led them out. Shortly afterward, there was the sound of a coach leaving the yard.

A few seconds later there were three loud knocks from below.

They were repeated. And then they were repeated again. Finally, Malicia's voice said, “Are you two up there or not?”

Keith crawled out of the hay and looked down.

“Yes,” he said.

“Didn't you hear the secret knock?” asked Malicia, staring up at him in annoyance.

“It didn't sound like a secret knock,” said Maurice, his mouth full.

“Is that Maurice's voice?” said Malicia suspiciously.

“Yes,” said Keith. “You'll have to excuse him—he's eating someone.”

Maurice swallowed quickly. “It's not
someone
!” he hissed. “It's not
someone
unless it can talk! Otherwise it's just food!”

“It
is
a secret knock!” Malicia snapped. “I know about these things! And you're supposed to give the secret knock in return!”

“But if it's just someone knocking on the door
in, you know, general high spirits, and we knock back, what are they going to think is up here?” said Maurice. “An extremely heavy beetle?”

Malicia went uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Then she said, “Good point, good point. I know—I'll shout ‘It's me, Malicia!' and
then
give the secret knock, and that way you'll know it's me and you can give the secret knock back. Okay?”

“Why don't we just say, ‘Hello, we're up here'?” asked Keith innocently.

Malicia sighed. “Don't you have
any
sense of drama? Look, my father's gone off to the Rathaus to see the other council members. He said the crockery was the last straw!”

“The crockery?” said Maurice. “You told him about Sardines?”

“I had to say I'd been frightened by a huge rat and tried to climb up the cupboard to escape,” said Malicia.

“You lied?”

“I just told a story,” said Malicia calmly. “It was a good one, too. It was much more true than the truth would sound. A tap-dancing rat? Anyway, he wasn't really interested because there's been a
lot
of complaints today. Your tame rats are really upsetting people. I am gloating.”

“They're not
our
rats, they're
their
rats,” said Keith.

“And they always work fast,” said Maurice proudly. “They don't mess about when it comes to…messing about.”

“One town we were in last month, the council advertised for a rat piper the very next morning,” said Keith. “That was Sardines's big day.”

“My father shouted a lot and sent for Blunkett and Spears, too,” said Malicia. “They're the rat catchers! And you know what that means, don't you?”

Maurice and Keith looked at one another.

“Let's pretend we don't,” said Maurice.

“It means we can break into their shed and solve the mystery of the bootlace tails!” said Malicia. She gave Maurice a critical look. “Of course, it would be more…satisfying if we were four children and a dog, which is the right number for an adventure, but we'll make do with what we've got.”

“Hey, we don't do breaking and entering—we just steal from governments!” said Maurice.

“Er, only governments who aren't people's fathers, obviously,” said Keith.

“So?” said Malicia, giving Keith an odd look.

“That's not the same as being criminals!” said Maurice.

“Ah, but when we've got the evidence, we can take it to the council, and then it won't be criminal at all because we will be saving the day,” said Malicia, with weary patience. “Of course, it may be that the council and the Watch are in league with the rat catchers, so we shouldn't trust
anyone
. Really, haven't you people
ever
read a book? It'll be dark soon, and I'll come over and pick you up and we can shimmy the nodger.”

“Can we?” said Keith.

“Yes. With a hairpin,” said Malicia. “I know it's possible, because I've read about it hundreds of times.”

“What kind of nodger is it?” asked Maurice.

“A big one,” said Malicia. “That makes it easier, of course.” She turned around abruptly and ran out of the stable.

“Maurice?” said Keith.

“Yes?” said the cat.

“What
is
a nodger and how do you shimmy it?”

“I don't know. A lock, maybe?”

“But you said—”

“Yes, but I was just trying to keep her talking in case she turned violent,” said Maurice. “She's gone in the head, if you ask me. She's one of
those people like…actors. You know. Acting all the time. Not living in the real world at all. Like it's all a big story. Dangerous Beans is a bit like that. Highly dangerous person, in my opinion.”