The Bag of Bones (12 page)

“I don’t need looking after,” Letty snapped — and then softened. “But thanks for the offer.” Her shoulders drooped. “Sorry. You don’t get much kindness in here. Only from Loobly. She was kind to everyone, even the rats.” Letty bent down and fished about under the sink. “Look at this. The only thing she ever owned, and Fatso tried to take it away from her.” She pulled out an old and battered shoe. It was extremely grubby, but the thought crossed Gracie’s mind that it could have been made of silk, or even satin. “Poor little Loo,” Letty went on. “She cried for days after he stole it — but I got it back. Snuck into his office and took it. Dunno what he wanted it for, except the shiny buckle. It was chucked in a bin by the time I found it. No buckle by then, of course.”

Gracie smiled at Letty. “That was really kind of you. And he didn’t see you?”

The older girl sniffed. “Never noticed. Loo and I found this hidey-hole under the sink so she could keep it safe.”

“If it was so special, why didn’t she take it with her when she ran away?” Gracie asked.

Letty’s eyes opened wide, and she looked at the shoe as if it might have some kind of answer before tucking it back in its hiding place. “I never thought of that. You’re right. Hey! Maybe Loobly didn’t run away! Maybe . . .” Her powers of imagination ran out. “Maybe she’s
dead
!”

“But she might not be,” Gracie said encouragingly. “Perhaps we could find out. If you wanted, that is.”

Letty looked doubtful. “Don’t see what we could do.”

“Well . . .” Gracie hesitated. “Do you think there’s any way I could get a message out of here? To a friend?”

“That’ll be a boy, then.”

“How did you know?” Gracie asked in surprise.

“You were blushing. Where does he live?” Letty tipped yet another bucketful of socks into the sink. “And keep working. If we haven’t cleared these by the end of the day, there’ll be no supper.”

Gracie found herself blushing an even deeper red. “Erm . . . in the palace. Gorebreath Palace.”

“One of the footmen, is he? Heard they’re tall and tasty.” Letty elbowed Gracie in the ribs. “Well . . . you might just be lucky. There’s a pile of clean sheets going back there this afternoon. You could tuck in a note and hope it gets there.”

Gracie’s heart began to beat faster. Would a note addressed to Prince Marcus ever reach him? She imagined the chambermaids giggling and throwing it away . . . or would they? It had to be worth trying. “OK,” she said. “Where do I find a bit of paper and a pen?”

Letty looked furtively left and right, then dug in her pocket. She produced a torn paper bag and a stump of pencil. “Here you go. And it’s that bundle by the door. See? The one with the label. You can tuck your note into the top.”

Gracie took the pencil and paper, licked the end of the pencil, and wrote, “Dear Marcus, PLEASE HELP! I’m stuck in the orphanage.” And then she stopped. Should she write, “Love, Gracie”? Or was that assuming too much?

“Hurry up!” Letty hissed. “The carrier’ll be around any minute.”

Gracie hastily wrote, “Yours, Gracie,” and ran across to the bundle addressed to Gorebreath Palace. She was just in time; as she hurried back to her sink, a burly man came striding in. He swept up the bundle, along with three or four others, and heaved them onto his back. As he stood for a moment balancing his load, the note fluttered out and fell to the ground in front of him.

With a grunt he bent to pick it up, and a wide grin spread across his face as he read it. “Trying to get out, girls?” he said, and leered at Letty and Gracie. “So which one of you’s Gracie?”

Gracie stepped forward at once. “I’m Loobly, and she’s Letty,” and she pointed to the older girl. “There’s no Gracie here. Not that we know of.”

“Hmph. We’ll see what Mr. Brandersby has to say,” the man said, and he waved the note in the air before tucking it carefully into a pocket. “Could be worth a pint of something for a poor thirsty man, this could. Bye-bye, girls!” And he marched out of the washhouse, still grinning to himself.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Letty was white with anger.

“I’m sorry,” Gracie said. “I really, really am.”

Letty gave her a cold stare, then shrugged. “At least you were quick enough with the names,” she said grudgingly. “Here. We need to hang these up. I’ll show you the way.” And she led Gracie out into a stone-paved drying yard, where the surrounding walls were topped with broken glass. “Get pegging!”

Gracie, staggering under the weight of the basket of sodden socks, did as she was told. Her head was aching badly, and she was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to see her beloved crones again. She reached for a handful of pegs and began to peg sock after sock after sock onto the sagging clothesline.

“Hurry up,” Letty said impatiently. “You’ll have to be quicker than that! I’ll go and get the next basket.” As she hurried back into the washhouse, Gracie rubbed her eyes and reached for yet another sock.

High above the orphanage, a very small bat dived into a victory roll followed by two twirls and a triumphant spiral before zooming away.

Truda Hangnail was smiling, and it was not the sort of smile designed to make anyone feel happy. Evangeline could feel cold chills running up and down her spine, and Ms. Scurrilous and Mrs. Prag were trembling. Mrs. Vibble’s teeth were chattering; even Mrs. Cringe shivered. Bodalisk was aware of an unpleasant tingling under his fur as he led the way out of the long tunnel and onto the top of a large water tank set high in the wall of the wine cellars of Wadingburn Palace. Below, in among the wooden casks and racks of dusty glass bottles, heaved a restless mass of rats.

“We can see better from here, ma’am,” Bodalisk announced. “Not a lot of us are allowed on the tank, as it happens.” He pulled on a whisker. “Just . . . just us seniors.” He glanced at Evangeline to see if she was impressed, but she was staring down in horror. Bodalisk mistook her expression for admiration and smirked. “Fine body of brothers and sisters, ain’t it? Could overrun the palace any day if we wanted, but we keep to ourselves.”

“What was that?” Truda’s eyes were gleaming. “How could you overrun the palace?”

Bodalisk looked at her in surprise. “We’ve got runs everywhere. Whole place is riddled with them. But there’s no point in causing trouble. We go where we want, and we live as we please, but we stick to the Rule of Rat. Out of Sight and Around the Edge. Keeps the Large Ones happier that way.”

“The Large Ones?” Evangeline asked faintly.

“
You
know.” Bodalisk shrugged. “Humans. And Huwomans. People. There’s a queen here, you know. This”— he waved an arm —“is a queen’s house. The Large Ones call it a palace. Wadingburn Palace.”

Evangeline gave the rat a feeble smile. “Fancy that.”

Truda was stroking her whiskery chin and inspecting the milling hordes beneath her. Her expression was one of extreme cunning. “Who’s the leader here?”

Bodalisk shook his head. “No leader, ma’am. Brother Burwash went missing, been gone for days now. Shame . . . he was a good leader, he was. Now we’ve got to choose between Brother Squint, Brother Bolder, and Brother Mildew, and they’re all three just as bad as one another —”

Ms. Scurrilous interrupted with an offended cough. “Ahem. Are there no — erm — sisters?”

“Sisters?” Bodalisk sounded appalled. “Certainly not!”

Truda cut in before Ms. Scurrilous could begin to argue. “So there’s no other leader, then? No kings or queens, nor anything of that kind?”

“We rats are a democracy,” Bodalisk told her. “We don’t believe in inherited power.”

“Hmm.” Truda had her hands in her pockets. “Could be you’re right, thinking that way. None of this la-di-da Bluebelly the Twenty-eighth nonsense for you, then.”

Bodalisk was about to reply but was interrupted by a shrill whistle from the floor below. A well-rounded rat with self-important whiskers was climbing onto an old and battered cardboard box that served as a platform. “That’s Brother Snirkles,” Bodalisk whispered. “He’ll open the debate.”

Brother Snirkles blew again on his whistle, and the squeakings and mutterings faded into silence. “Brothers and sisters,” he began, “we are here to mourn the passing of Brother Burwash.”

“Wail! Wail for Brother Burwash!” called a shrill voice from the crowd.

“Hush, Sister Millifee!” Brother Snirkles looked angrily in the direction the voice had come from. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Brother Burwash has left us. He has gone to the great rat heaven down below, where the sewers are filled with succulent bacon rinds and yellow-crusted cheeses and plump little raisins and —”

“Get on with it!” This voice came from another part of the cellar and was deeper in tone.

Brother Snirkles looked anxious and shifted from one foot to the other before continuing. “Yes, of course, Brother Squint. Whatever you say, Brother. Erm . . . where was I? Oh, yes . . . We are here to bid our leader farewell and to regret the manner of his passing —”

“Get ON with it, Snirkles!” The voice interrupted again. “We all know he’s vanished. Missing, believed dead. Bad show and all that, but it’s time to vote. Some of us have better things to do than to listen to you droning on and on and on. In fact, when I’m leader, we won’t be having —”

“And who said you were going to be chosen, Squint?” There was a sudden flurry at the side of the cardboard box, and an exceptionally bulky rat climbed up to join the unfortunate Snirkles. He folded his arms and gazed around. “What you need is me. I’m a plain-speaking rat, but I know what’s what. Bolder by name, and bolder by nature. I’ll take you rats where you’ve never been before, I will.”

There was an interested murmuring, and Bolder grinned, showing a set of viciously sharp teeth.

“How many of you are aware that changes are in the air?” he demanded. “How many of you know that Queen Bluebell the Twenty-eighth, ruler of Wadingburn —”

“But not of us rats!” shouted a voice.

“Exactly. How many of you know that the ruler of Wadingburn is about to declare her successor?”

There was a muttering from the rats, and many heads nodded.

“We heard her talking last night,” said one.

“And the night before,” said another.

“Couldn’t make up her mind at all,” said a third.

“What’s it matter, anyway?” asked a very small rat with very few whiskers.

Brother Bolder frowned. “It matters a great deal, my foolish friend. Bluebell may have left us alone, but a new time is coming upon us. We — who listen under floorboards and skulk behind skirtings — we hear these things. Already our runways and passages are fraught with danger, and traps are set that never were set before. Already the rat catcher is called for. Already the rat catcher’s dog is sniffing and whining —”

“Wail! Wail for the ratcatcher’s dog —”

“SILENCE, Sister Millifee!” Brother Bolder stamped his foot. “We will not wail! Our time for wailing is gone. Now is the time for action. Now is the time for us to rise against our oppressors, before it is too late!”

As Brother Bolder paused there were loud and enthusiastic shouts from the floor, as well as a good deal of air-punching.

“Vote for Brother Bolder!” yelled a voice, quickly followed by many others.

“Uh-oh,” Bodalisk breathed in Evangeline’s ear. “Brother Bolder’s going to cause trouble. . . .”

“It’s time to rise!” Brother Bolder began to march around the top of the cardboard box. “What have the Large Ones done for us? Are they not our enemies? Who among us has ever had kindness from a Large One? Who knows of —”

“Excuse me!” A single skinny arm waved in the air.

Brother Bolder stopped and stared in amazement. “What? Who’s that?”

“Excuse me!” The owner of the arm was elderly and apologetic. “Sorry, Brother Bolder, very sorry — but it’s Brother Brokenbiscuit here. I feel I ought to mention Loobly. . . . Loobly Higgins.”

Evangeline Droop and Truda Hangnail jumped.

“She’s been a real friend to me,” Brother Brokenbiscuit went on. “And to my dear sister and her husband. A
best
friend, even though she is a Large One. Why, we’ve known her since she was a tiny girl, and she’s never —”

“That’s enough!” Brother Bolder was acutely aware that the militant atmosphere was fading fast. “One Large One is an exception, not the rule! Is she here? No! Is she cheering with us? No! Has she ever waved a flag on our behalf, demanding the end to all rat catchers and their fiendish dogs? I think not!”