The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (22 page)

“I know. I can smell it,” said Dangerous Beans.

The rats all looked again at the remains of the Book.

“It's a lie,” said Peaches.

“Maybe it's just a pretty story,” said Sardines.

“Yes,” said Dangerous Beans. “Yes.” He turned his misty pink eyes to Darktan, who had to stop himself from stepping back, and added: “Perhaps it's a map.”

 

If it was a story, and not real life, then humans and rats would have shaken hands and gone on into a bright new future.

But since it was real life, there had to be a contract. A war that had been going on since people first lived in houses could not end with just a happy smile. And there had to be a committee. There was much detail to be discussed. The town council was on it, and most of the senior rats, and Maurice marched up and down the table, joining in.

Darktan sat at one end. He wanted to sleep. His wound ached, his teeth ached, and he hadn't eaten for ages. For hours the argument flowed backward and forward over his drooping head. He didn't pay attention to who was doing the talking. Most of the time it seemed to be everyone.

“Next item: Compulsory bells on all cats. Agreed?”

“Can we just get back to clause thirty, Mr., er, Maurice? You saying killing a rat would be murder?” said Raufman.

“Yes. Of course.”

“But it's just—”

“Talk to the paw, mister, 'cos the whiskers don't want to know!”

“The cat is right,” said the mayor. “You're out of order, Mr. Raufman! We've
been
though this.”

“Then what about if a rat steals from me?”

“Ahem. Then that'll be theft, and the rat will have to go before the justices,” said a little voice.

“Oh, young—?” said Raufman.

“Peaches. I'm a rat, sir.”

“And…er…and the Watch officers will be able to get down the rat tunnels, will they?” asked Hauptmann.

“Yes! Because there will be rat officers in the Watch. There'll have to be,” said Maurice. “No problem!”

“Really? And what does Sergeant Doppelpunkt think about that?” snapped Raufman. “Sergeant Doppelpunkt?”

“Er…dunno, sir. Could be all right, I suppose. I know
I
couldn't get down a rat hole. We'd
have to make the badges smaller, of course.”

“I take it that the rat Watch would only arrest rats, yes?”

The sergeant scratched his head. “No, sir. The way I see it, they'd arrest anyone who needed arresting.”

“What? Surely you wouldn't suggest a rat officer could be allowed to arrest a
human
?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” said the sergeant.

“What?”

“Well, if your rat's a proper sworn-in Watchman…I mean, a Watchrat…then you can't go around saying you're not allowed to arrest anyone bigger than you, can you? Could be useful, a rat Watchman. I understand they have this trick where they run up your trouser leg—”

“Gentlemen, we should move on. I suggest this one goes to the subcommittee,” said the mayor.

“Which one, sir? We've already got seventeen!”

There was a snort from one of the councilors. This was Mr. Schlummer, who was ninety-five and had been peacefully asleep all morning. The snort meant that he was waking up.

He stared at the other side of the table. His whiskers moved.

“There's a
rat
there!” he said, pointing. “Look,
mm, bold as brass! A rat! In a
hat
!”

“Yes, sir. This is a meeting to talk to the rats, sir,” said the person beside him.

He looked down and fumbled for his glasses.

“Wassat?” he said. He looked closer. “Here,” he said, “aren't, mm,
you
a rat, too?”

“Yes, sir. Name of Nourishing, sir. We're here to talk to humans. To stop all the trouble.”

Mr. Schlummer stared at the rat. Then he looked across the table at Sardines, who raised his hat. Then he looked at the mayor, who nodded. He looked at everyone again, his lips moving as he tried to sort this out.

“You're
all
talking?” he said at last.

“Yes, sir,” said Nourishing.

“So…who's doing the listening?” he asked.

“I expect that'll happen later on,” said Maurice.

Mr. Schlummer glared at him.

“Are you a cat?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” said Maurice.

Mr. Schlummer digested this point too.

“I thought we used to kill rats?” he said, as if he wasn't quite certain anymore.

“Yes, but you see, sir, this is the future,” said Maurice.

“Is it?” said Mr. Schlummer. “Really? I always wondered when the future was going to happen. Oh, well. Cats talk now, too? Well done! Got to move with the, mm, the…things that move, obviously. Wake me up when they bring the tea in.”

He settled happily back in his chair and after a while began to snore.

Around him the arguments started again, and kept going. A lot of people talked. Some people listened. Occasionally, they agreed…and moved on…and argued again. But the piles of paper on the table grew bigger, and looked more and more official.

Darktan realized that someone was watching him. At the other end of the table the mayor was giving him a long, thoughtful stare.

As he watched, the man leaned back and said something to a clerk, who nodded and walked around the table, past the arguing people, until he reached Darktan.

He leaned down.

“Can…you…un-der-stand…me?” he said, pronouncing each word very carefully.

“Yes…be-cause…I'm…not…stu-pid,” said Darktan.

“Oh, er…the mayor wonders if he can see
you in his private office,” said the clerk. “The door over there. I could help you down, if you like.”

“I could bite your finger, if you like,” said Darktan. The mayor was already walking away from the table. Darktan slid down and followed him. No one paid any attention to either of them.

The mayor waited until Darktan's tail was out of the way and carefully shut the door.

The room was small and untidy. Paper occupied most flat surfaces. Bookcases filled several of the walls; extra books and more papers were stuffed in between the tops of the books and the bottoms of the next shelves.

The mayor, moving with exaggerated delicacy, went and sat in a big, rather tatty swivel chair, then looked down at Darktan.

“I'm going to get this wrong,” he said. “I thought we should have a…a little talk. Can I pick you up? I mean, it'd be easier to talk to you if you were on my desk.”

“Really?” said Darktan. “I might say it'd be easier to talk to
you
if you lay flat on the floor.” He sighed. He was too tired for these games. “Look, if you put your hand flat on the floor, I'll stand on it and you can raise it up to the height
of the desk,” he said, “but if you try any tricks, I'll bite your thumb off.”

The mayor lifted him up with extreme caution. Darktan hopped off into the mass of papers, empty teacups, and old pens that covered the battered leather top, and stood looking up at the embarrassed man.

“Er…do you have to do much paperwork in your job?” asked the mayor.

“Peaches writes things down,” said Darktan bluntly.

“That's the little female rat who coughs before she speaks, isn't it?” said the mayor.

“That's right.”

“She's very…definite, isn't she,” said the mayor, and now Darktan could see that he was sweating. “She's rather frightening some of the councilors, ha ha.”

“Ha ha,” said Darktan.

The mayor looked miserable. He seemed to be searching for something to say.

“You are, er, settling in well?” he said.

“I spent part of last night fighting a dog in a rat pit, and then I think I was stuck in a rat trap for a while,” said Darktan, in a voice like ice. “And then there was a bit of a war. Apart from that, I can't complain.”

The mayor gave him a long, worried stare. For the first time he could remember, Darktan felt sorry for a human. The mayor seemed to be as tired as Darktan felt.

“Look,” he said, “I think it might work, if that's what you want to ask me.”

The mayor brightened up. “You do?” he said. “There's a lot of arguing.”

“That's why I think it might work,” said Darktan. “Men and rats arguing. You're not poisoning our cheese, and we're not widdling in your jam. It's not going to be easy, but it's a start.”

“But there's something I have to know,” said the mayor.

“Yes?”

“You
could
have poisoned our wells. You
could
have set fire to our houses. My daughter tells me you are very…advanced. You don't owe us anything. Why didn't you?”

“I asked myself that, too,” said Darktan. “And I told myself: What good would it do? What would we have done afterward? Gone to another town? Gone through all this again? Would killing you have made anything
better
for us? Sooner or later we'd have to talk to humans. It might as well be you.”

“I'm glad you like us!” said the mayor.

Darktan opened his mouth to say: Like you? No, we just don't hate you enough. We're not
friends
.

But…

There would be no more rat pits. No more traps, no more poisons. True, he was going to have to explain to the Clan what a Watch was, and why rat policemen might chase rats who broke the new Rules. They weren't going to like that. They weren't going to like that
at all
. Even a rat with the marks of the Bone Rat's teeth on him was going to have difficulty with that. But Maurice had said: They'll do this, you'll do that. No one will lose very much, and everyone will gain a lot. The town will prosper,
everyone's
children will grow up, and suddenly it'll all be
normal
.

And everyone likes things to be
normal
. They don't like to see normal things changed. It must be worth a try, thought Darktan.

“Now I want to ask you a question,” he said. “You've been the leader for…how long?”

“Ten years,” said the mayor.

“Isn't it hard?”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Everyone argues with me all the time,” said the mayor. “Although I must say I'm expecting a little less arguing if all this works
out. But it's not an easy job.”

“It's ridiculous to have to shout all the time just to get things done,” said Darktan.

“That's right,” said the mayor.

“And everyone expects you to decide things,” said Darktan.

“True.”

“The last leader gave me some advice just before he died, and do you know what it was? ‘Don't eat the green wobbly bit'!”

“Good advice?” asked the mayor.

“In his world, yes,” said Darktan. “But all
he
had to do was be big and tough and fight all the other rats that wanted to be leader.”

“It's a bit like that with the council,” said the mayor.

“What?” said Darktan. “You
bite
them in the
neck
?”

“Not yet,” said the mayor. “But it's a tempting thought, I must say.”

“It's just all a lot more complicated than I ever thought it would be!” said Darktan, bewildered. “To be a leader you have to learn to shout! But after you've learned to shout, you have to learn not to!”

“Right again,” said the mayor. “That's how it works.” He put his hand down on the desk, palm
up. “May I?” he said. “I want to show you something.”

Darktan stepped aboard and kept his balance as the mayor carried him over to the window and set him down on the sill.

“See the river?” said the mayor. “See the houses? See the people in the streets? I have to make it all work. Well, not the river, obviously, that works by itself. And every year it turns out that I haven't upset enough people for them to choose anyone else as mayor. So I have to do it again. It's a lot more complicated than I ever thought it would be.”

“What, for you, too? But you're a human!” said Darktan in astonishment.

“Hah! You think that makes it easier?
I
thought rats were wild and free!”

“Hah!” said Darktan.

They both stared out the window. Down in the square below, Keith and Malicia were walking along, deep in conversation.

“If you like,” said the mayor after a while, “you could have a little desk here in my office—”

“I'll live underground, thank you all the same,” said Darktan, pulling himself together. “Little desks are a bit too Mr. Bunnsy.”

The mayor sighed. “I suppose so. Er…” He
looked as if he was about to share some guilty secret and, in a way, he was. “I did like those books when I was a boy, though. Of course I knew it was all nonsense, but all the same, it was nice to think that—”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Darktan. “But the rabbit was stupid. Who ever heard of a rabbit talking?”

“Oh, yes. I never liked the rabbit,” said the mayor.

“No one likes the rabbit,” said Darktan.

“It was the minor characters everyone liked,” said the mayor. “Ratty Rupert and Phil the Pheasant and Olly the Snake—”

“Oh, come
on
,” said Darktan. “Olly the Snake had a collar and tie!”

“Well?”

“Well, how did it stay on? A snake is tube-shaped!”

“Do you know, I never thought of it like that,” said the mayor. “Silly, really. He'd wriggle out of it, wouldn't he?”

“And vests on rats don't work.”

“No?”

“No,” said Darktan. “I tried it. Tool belts are fine, but not vests. Dangerous Beans got quite upset about that. But I told him, you've got to be
practical
.”

“It's just like I always tell my daughter,” said the man. “Stories are just stories. Life is complicated enough as it is. We have to plan for the real world. There's no room for the fantastic.”