The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (15 page)

Darktan licked his stomach. Nourishing was right. He looked perforated.

“I was just lucky,” he said.

“No rat has ever come alive out of a trap,” Nourishing repeated. “Did you see the Big Rat?”

“The what?”

“The Big Rat!”

“Oh, that,” said Darktan. He was going to add, “No, I don't go in for that nonsense,” but stopped. He could remember the light, and then the darkness ahead of him. It hadn't seemed
bad
. He'd almost felt sorry that Nourishing had got him out. In the trap all the pain had been a long way off. And there had been no more hard decisions.

He settled for saying, “Is Hamnpork all right?”

“Sort of. I mean, we can't see any wounds that won't heal. He's had worse. But, well, he was pretty old. Nearly three years.”

“Was?” said Darktan.

“
Is
pretty old, I mean, sir. Sardines sent me to find you because we'll need you to help us get him back, but—” She gave Darktan a doubtful look.

“It's all right—I'm sure it looks nastier than it is,” said Darktan, wincing. “Let's get up there, shall we?”

An old building full of handholds for a rat. No one noticed the two of them as they climbed up from manger to saddle harness to hayrack. Besides, no one was looking for them. Some of the
keekees
had taken the Jacko route to freedom, and the dogs were going mad searching for them and fighting with one another. So were the men. Darktan knew a little bit about beer, since he had gone about his business under pubs and breweries, and the rats had often wondered why humans sometimes liked to switch their brains off. To the rats, living in the center of a web of sound and light and smells, it made no sense at all.

To Darktan, now, it didn't sound quite so bad.
The idea that, for a while, you could forget things and not have a head buzzing with troublesome thoughts…well, that seemed quite attractive.

He couldn't remember a lot about life before he'd been Changed, but he was certain that it hadn't been so
complicated
. Oh, bad things had happened, because life on the heap had been pretty hard. But when they were over they were over, and tomorrow was a new day.

Rats didn't think about tomorrow. There was just a faint sensation that more things would happen. It wasn't
thinking
. And there was no “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong.” They were
new
ideas.

Ideas! That was their world now! Big questions and big answers, about life, and how you had to live it, and what you were for. New ideas spilled into Darktan's weary head.

And among the ideas, in the middle of his head, he saw the little figure of Dangerous Beans.

Darktan had never talked much to the little white rat or the little female who scurried around after him and drew pictures of the things he'd been thinking about. Darktan liked people who were
practical
.

But now he thought: He's a trap hunter, just
like me. He goes ahead of us and finds the dangerous ideas and thinks about them and traps them in words and makes them safe, and then he shows us the way through.

We
need
him…we need him
now
. Otherwise we're all running around like rats in a barrel….

Much later on, when Nourishing was old and gray around the muzzle, and smelled a bit strange, she dictated the story of the climb and how she heard Darktan muttering to himself. The Darktan she'd pulled out of the trap, she said, was a different rat. It was as though his thoughts had slowed down but got bigger.

The strangest bit, she said, was when they reached the beam. Darktan made sure that Hamnpork was all right and then picked up the match he'd shown to Nourishing.

“He struck it on an old bit of iron,” said Nourishing, “and then he walked out along the beam with it flaring, and down below I could see all the crowd and the hay racks and the straw all over the place, and the humans milling around, just like, hah, just like rats…and I thought, If you drop that, mister, the place will fill with smoke in a few seconds, and they've locked the doors, and by the time they realize it,
they'll be caught like, hah, yeah, like rats in a barrel, and we'll be away along the gutters.

“But he just stood there, looking down, until the match went out. Then he put it down and helped us with Hamnpork and never said a word about it. I asked him about it later on, after all the stuff with the piper and everything, and he said, ‘Yes. Rats in a barrel.' And that's all he said about it.”

 

“What was it you really put in the sugar?” asked Keith, as he led the way back to the secret trapdoor.

“Cascara,” said Malicia.

“That's not a poison, is it?”

“No, it's a laxative.”

“What's that?”

“It makes you…go.”

“Go where?”

“Not
where
, stupid. You just…go. I don't particularly want to draw you a picture.”

“Oh. You mean…
go
.”

“That's right.”

“And you just happened to have it on you?”

“Yes. Of course. It was in the big medicine bag.”

“You mean you take something like
that
just
for something like this?”

“Of course. It could easily be necessary.”

“How?” asked Keith, climbing the ladder.

“Well, supposing we were kidnapped? Suppose we ended up right down near the sea? Supposing we were captured by pirates? Pirates have a very monotonous diet, which might be why they're angry all the time. Or supposing we escaped and swam ashore and ended up on an island where's there's nothing but coconuts? They have a very binding effect.”

“Yes, but…but…
anything
can happen! If you think like that, you'll end up taking just about everything in case of anything!”

“That's why it's such a big bag,” said Malicia calmly, pulling herself through the trapdoor and dusting herself off.

Keith sighed. “How much did you give them?”

“Lots. But they should be all right if they don't take too much of the antidote.”

“What did you give them for the antidote?”

“Cascara.”

“Malicia, you are not a nice person.”

“Really?
You
wanted to poison them with the
real
poison, and
you
were getting very imaginative—all that stuff about their stomachs melting.”

“Yes, but rats are my friends. Some of the poisons really do that. And…sort of…making the antidote
more
of the poison—”

“It's not a poison. It's a medicine. They'll feel lovely and clean afterward.”

“All right, all right. But—giving it to them as the antidote as well, that's a bit…a bit…”

“Clever? Narratively satisfying?” said Malicia.

“I suppose so.”

Malicia looked around.

“Where's your cat? I thought he was following us.”

“Sometimes he just wanders off. And he's not my cat.”

“Yes, you're his boy. But a young man with a smart cat can go a long way, you know.”

“How?”

“There was Puss in Boots, obviously,” said Malicia, “and of course everyone knows about Dick Livingstone and his wonderful cat, don't they?”

“I don't,” said Keith.

“It's a very famous story!”

“Sorry. I haven't been able to read for very long.”

“Really? Well, Dick Livingstone was a penniless
boy who became Lord Mayor of Übergurgl because his cat was so good at catching…er…pigeons. The town was overrun with…pigeons, yes, and in fact later on he even married a sultan's daughter because his cat cleared all the…pigeons out of her father's royal palace—”

“It was rats really, wasn't it?” asked Keith glumly.

“I'm sorry, yes.”

“And it was just a story,” said Keith. “Never mind stories about mayors. Are there
really
stories about rat kings? Rats have kings? I've never heard of it. How does it work?”

“Not the way you think. They've been known about for years. They really do exist, you know. Just like on the sign outside.”

“What, the rats with their tails all knotted together? How do—”

There was a loud and persistent knocking on the door. Some of it sounded as though it was being done with someone's boot.

Malicia went over to it and pulled back the bolts.

“Yes?” she said coldly, as the night air poured in.

There was a group of angry men outside. The leader, who looked as though he was only the
leader because he happened to be the one in front, took a step back when he saw Malicia's angry stare.

“Oh…it's you, miss,” he said, suddenly embarrassed.

“Yes. My father's the mayor, you know,” said Malicia.

“Er…yes. We all know.”

“Why're you all holding sticks?” asked Malicia.

“Er…we want to talk to the rat catchers,” said the spokesman. He tried to look past her, and she stood aside.

“There's no one in here but us,” she said. “Unless you think there's a trapdoor to a maze of underground cellars where desperate animals are caged up and vast supplies of stolen food are hoarded?”

The man gave her another nervous look. “You and your stories, miss,” he said.

“Has there been some trouble?” asked Malicia.

“We think they were a…a bit naughty,” said the man. He blanched under the look she gave him.

“Yes?” she said.

“They cheated us in the rat pit!” said a man behind him, made bold because there was someone else between him and Malicia. “They
must've
trained
those rats! One of them flew around on a string!”

“And one of them bit my Jacko on the—the—on the unmentionables!” said someone farther back. “You can't tell me it wasn't trained to do that!”

“I saw one with a hat on this morning,” said Malicia.

“There's been a good deal too many strange rats today,” said another man. “My mum said she saw one
dancing
on the kitchen shelves! And when my granddad got up and reached for his false teeth, he said a rat
bit
him with them. Bit him with his own teeth!”

“What, wearing them?” said Malicia.

“No, it just snapped them around in the air! And a lady down our street opened her pantry door, and there were rats swimming in the cream bowl. Not just swimming, either! They'd been
trained.
They were making kind of patterns, and diving and waving their legs in the air and stuff!”

“You mean
synchronized
swimming?” said Malicia. “Who's telling stories now, eh?”

“Are you
sure
you don't know where those men are?” asked the leader suspiciously. “People said they headed this way.”

Malicia rolled her eyes. “All right, yes,” she
said. “They got here, and a talking cat helped us to feed them poison, and now they're locked in a cellar.”

The men looked at her.

“Yeah, right,” said the leader, turning away. “Well, if you
do
see them, tell them we're looking for them, okay?”

Malicia shut the door.

“It's terrible, not being believed,” she said.

“Now tell me about rat kings,” Keith said.

A
nd as night fell, Mr. Bunnsy remembered: There's something terrible in the Dark Wood.

—From
Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure

Why am I doing this? Maurice asked himself as he squirmed along a pipe. Cats are not
built
for this stuff!

Because we are a kind person at heart, said his conscience.

No, I'm not, thought Maurice.

Actually, that's true, said his conscience. But we don't want to tell that to Dangerous Beans, do we? The little wobbly nose?
He
thinks we're a hero!

Well, I'm not, thought Maurice.

Then why are we scrabbling around underground trying to find him?

Well,
obviously
it's because he's the one with the big dream about finding the rat island, and
without him the rats won't cooperate and I won't get paid, said Maurice.

We're a
cat
! What does a cat need money for?

Because I have a Retirement Plan, thought Maurice. I'm four years old already! Once I've made a pile, I'm headed for a nice home with a big fire and a nice old lady giving me cream every day. I've got it all worked out, every detail.

Why should she give us a home? We're smelly, we've got ragged ears, we've got something nasty and itchy on our leg, we look like someone kicked us in the face—why should an old lady take us in instead of a fluffy little kitten?

Aha! But black cats are
lucky
, thought Maurice.

Really? Well, we don't want to be first with the bad news, but we're not black! We're a sort of mucky tabby!

There's such a thing as dyes, thought Maurice. A couple of packets of black dye, hold my breath for a minute, and it's hello, cream and fish for the rest of my life. Good plan, eh?

And what about the luck? asked the conscience.

Ah! That's the clever bit. A black cat who brings in a gold coin every month or so, wouldn't you say that's a lucky cat to have?

His conscience fell silent. Probably amazed at
the cleverness of the plan, Maurice told himself.

He had to admit that he was cleverer at plans than at underground navigation. He wasn't exactly lost, because cats never get lost. He merely didn't know where everything else was. There wasn't a lot of earth under the town, that was certain. Cellars and gratings and pipeways and ancient sewers and crypts and bits of forgotten buildings formed a sort of honeycomb. Even humans could get around down here, Maurice thought. The rat catchers certainly had.

He could smell rats everywhere. He wondered about calling out to Dangerous Beans but decided against it. Calling out might help him find out where the little rat was, but it'd also alert…
anyone else
to where Maurice was. Those big rats had been, well, big, and nasty-looking.

Now he was in a small, square tunnel with lead pipes in it. There was even a hiss of escaping steam, and here and there warm water dripped into a gutter that ran along the bottom of the tunnel. Up ahead was a grating leading up to the street. Faint light came through it.

The water in the gutter looked clean. Maurice was thirsty. He leaned down, tongue out—

There was a thin, bright-red streak curling gently in the water….

 

Hamnpork seemed confused and half asleep, but he knew enough to hold on to Sardines' tail as the rats made their way back from the stable. It was a slow journey. Sardines didn't think the old rat would manage the clotheslines. They skulked along gutters, and along drains, hiding in nothing more than the cloak of night.

A few rats were milling around in the cellar when they finally arrived. By then Darktan and Sardines were walking on either side of Hamnpork, who was barely moving his legs.

There was still a candle burning in the cellar. Darktan was surprised. But a lot of things had happened in the last hour.

They let Hamnpork sink to the floor, where he lay, breathing heavily. His body shook with each breath.

“Poison, guv?” whispered Sardines.

“No, I think it was all just too much for him,” said Darktan. “Just too much.”

Hamnpork opened one eye.

“Am…I…still…the…leader?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said Darktan.

“Need…to…sleep…”

Darktan looked around the circle. Rats were creeping toward the group. He could see them
whispering to one another. They kept staring at him. He tried to spot the pale shape of Dangerous Beans.

“Nourishing…tells me…you saw the…tunnel…of the…Big Rat,” said Hamnpork.

Darktan glared at Nourishing, who looked embarrassed.

“I saw…something, yes,” he said.

“Then I shall dream my way there and…never wake up,” said Hamnpork. His head sagged again. “This isn't…the way a…an old rat should die,” he mumbled. “Not…like this. Not…in the light.”

Darktan nodded urgently at Sardines, who snuffed out the candle with his hat. The damp, thick underground darkness closed in.

“Darktan,” Hamnpork whispered. “You need to know this.”

Sardines strained his ears to hear the old leader's last words to Darktan. Then, a few seconds later, he shivered. He could smell the change in the world.

There was movement in the darkness. A match burst into life, and the candle flame grew again, bringing shadows back into the world.

Hamnpork was lying very still.

“Do we have to eat him now?” asked someone.

“He's…gone,” said Darktan. Somehow the idea of eating Hamnpork didn't feel right. “Bury him,” he said. “And mark the place so we know he's there.”

There was a sense of relief in the group. However much anyone might have respected Hamnpork, he was still a bit on the whiffy side, even for a rat.

But a rat at the front of the crowd looked uncertain. “Er…when you say ‘mark the place,'” he said, “do you mean like we mark other places where we bury things?”

“He means by widdling on it,” said the rat beside him.

Darktan looked at Sardines, who shrugged. Darktan had a sinking feeling inside. When you were the leader, everyone waited to see what you said. And there was still no sign of the white rat.

He was on his own.

He thought hard for a moment and then nodded.

“Yes,” he said at last. “He'd like that. It's very…ratty. But do this, too. Draw it in the dirt above him.”

He scraped a sign on the ground:

“‘He was a rat from a long line of rats, and he thought about rats,'” said Sardines. “Good one, boss.”

“And will he come back like Darktan did?” asked someone else.

“If he does, he'll get really mad if we've eaten him,” said a voice. There was some nervous laughter.

“Listen, I didn't—” Darktan began, but Sardines nudged him.

“Word in your ear, guv?” he said, raising his charred hat politely.

“Yes, yes…” Darktan was getting nervous.
He'd never had so many rats watching him so closely.

He followed Sardines away from the group.

“You know I used to hang around in the theater an' that,” said Sardines quietly. “And you pick up stuff in the theater. And the thing is…Look, what I'm saying is, you're the leader, right? So you got to act like you know what you're doing, okay? If the leader doesn't know what he's doing, no one else does, either.”

“I only know what I'm doing when I'm dismantling traps,” said Darktan.

“All right, think of the future as a great big trap,” said Sardines. “With no cheese.”

“That is
not
a
lot
of
help
!”

“And you should let them think what they like about you and…that scar you've got,” said Sardines. “That's my advice, guv.”

“But I didn't die, Sardines!”

“Are you sure?”

“Huh?”

“
Something
happened, didn't it? You were going to set fire to the place with all the humans in it. And you decided not to. I watched you. Something happened to you in the trap. Don't ask me what it was, I just do tap dancing. I'm just a little rat. Always will be, boss. But there's big
rats like Inbrine and Sellby and a bunch of others, boss, and now that Hamnpork's dead, they might think
they
should be the leader. Get my drift?”

“No.”

Sardines sighed. “I reckon you do, boss. Do we want a lot of scrapping amongst ourselves at a time like this?”

“No!”

“Right! Well, thanks to chattery little Nourishing, you're the rat that looked the Bone Rat right in the face and came back, aren't you?”

“Yes, but she—”

“Seems to me, boss, that anyone who could stare down the Bone Rat…well, no one is going to want to mess with
him
, am I right? A man who wears the teethmarks of the Bone Rat like a belt? Uh-uh,
no
. People'll
follow
a rat like that. Time like this, people
need
someone to follow. That was a good thing you did back there, with ol' Hamnpork. Burying him and widdling on top
and
putting a sign on him—well, the old rats like that, and so do the young ones. Shows 'em you're thinking for everyone.”

Sardines put his head to one side and grinned a worried grin.

“I can see I'm going to have to watch you,
Sardines,” said Darktan. “
You
think like Maurice.”

“Don't worry about me, boss. I'm small. I gotta dance. I wouldn't be any good at leadering.”

Thinking for everyone, Darktan thought. Like the white rat…

“Where
is
Dangerous Beans?” he said, looking around. “Isn't he here?”

“Haven't seen him, boss.”

“What? We need him! He's got the map in his head.”

“Map, boss?” Sardines looked concerned. “I thought you drew maps in the mud—”

“Not a map like a picture of tunnels and traps, Sardines. A map of…of what we are and where we're going…”

“Oh, you mean like that lovely island? Never really believed in it, boss.”

“I don't know about any islands,” said Darktan. “But when I was in that…place, I…saw the shape of an idea. There's been a war between humans and rats forever! It's got to end. And here, now, in this place, with these rats…I can see that it can. This might be the only time and the only place where it can. I can see the shape of an idea in my head, but I can't think of the
words
for it, do you understand? So we need the white rat, because he knows the map for thinking.
We've got to think our way out of this. Running around and squeaking won't work anymore.”

“You're doing fine so far, boss,” said the dancer, patting him on the shoulder.

“It's all going wrong,” said Darktan, trying to keep his voice down. “We need him.
I
need him.”

“I'll get some squads together, boss, if you show me where to start looking,” said Sardines meekly.

“In the drains, not far from the cages,” said Darktan. “Maurice was with him,” he added.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing, guv?” said Sardines. “You know what Hamnpork always said: ‘You can always trust a cat—'”

“‘—to be a cat.' Yes. I know. I wish I knew the answer to that, Sardines.”

Sardines stepped closer.

“Can I ask a question, guv?”

“Of course.”

“What was it Hamnpork whispered to you just before he died? Special leader wisdom, was it?”

“Good advice,” said Darktan. “Good advice.”

 

Maurice blinked. Very slowly, his tongue wound itself back in.

He flattened his ears and, legs moving in silent
slow motion, crept along beside the gutter.

Right under the grating there was something pale. The red streak was coming from farther upstream, and divided in two as it flowed around the thing, before becoming one swirling thread again.

Maurice reached it. It was a rolled-up scrap of paper, sodden with water and stained with red.

He extended a claw and fished it out. It flopped on the side of the gutter, and as Maurice gently peeled the paper apart, he saw the smudged pictures drawn in thick pencil. He knew what they were. He'd learned them, one day when he had nothing better to do. They were stupidly simple.

“No Rat Shall…” he began. Then there was a damp mess, down to the bit that read: “We Are Not Like Other Rats.”

“Oh, no,” he said. They wouldn't drop this, would they? Not the Thoughts. Peaches carried it around as though it was a hugely precious thing—

Will I find them first?
said an alien voice in Maurice's head.
Or perhaps I have….

Maurice ran, skidding on the slimy stone as the tunnel turned a corner.

What strange things they are, CAT. Rats that think they are not rats. Shall I be like
you? Shall I act like a CAT? Shall I keep one of them alive? FOR A WHILE?