When You Wish upon a Rat (11 page)

“What's
with
you?” she said.

Ruth said nothing. Bonnie's sniffs and sobs filled the silence.

“So it's okay to hurt people?” Lou said, her eyes boring into Ruth's.

Ruth felt something almost like laughter rising in her chest.
As if you care about hurting people,
she thought.

“We're all here
helping
you.” Lou's tone was savage now.

“
You
think she's boring too!” Ruth said recklessly, and then immediately regretted it.

But the damage was done. A gasp of horror went through the whole group. Bonnie looked up from where she was hiding her wet face in her hands and glanced at Lou, who colored up with embarrassment because it was true. Lou's eyes flicked away to the side for a moment.

“Liar.”

“No, Lou,” Ruth came back hotly before she could think, “you're the liar. You don't even
like
her. You just need a crowd around you and … she does what you say.”

Lou's mouth fell open. The air prickled with tension.

Katy and Susie exchanged nervous looks.

Lou finally took things in hand. “Come on,” she said, turning on her heel. “Let's go.”

Ruth watched as the girls marched off after Lou.

She wanted to run after them and apologize, say it was all a misunderstanding, that of course she was grateful for their help with the shopping. But she didn't move. She stood as still as a post, hanging on to her bags.

Lou turned when they reached the corner. “Have an
interesting
life with your freaky boyfriend, loser!”

I go and look under the bridge?”

“Sure.” Ruth was touched that Howard would bother. “I'll walk over to the other side.”

The bridge was just up ahead of the sign. Howard quickened his pace and Ruth followed along behind, trying to shake off the memory of the shopping day. The sun had come out and the faint breeze was making the leaves on the trees rustle in a way that was both friendly and encouraging.

Ruth walked out into the middle of the bridge, rested her elbows on the railing, and looked down at the brown water swirling below. Of course there was no sign of Rodney. But she hadn't expected there would be.
So why had she come?
She picked up a few little sticks and tossed them one by one over the edge, watching them spin down to the water.

“Howard,” she called, and there was a faint, muffled reply, but she couldn't see him. She scrambled down the embankment
and poked about under the bridge itself, searching among the twigs, old beer cans, and faded potato chip bags. The remnants of a fire were scattered about, along with a woman's sneaker and an old newspaper. It was too faded to see the date. Ruth tried to imagine who might have last been down there. She went in deeper, right under the bridge, and shouted.

“Howard,” she called. “Hello! It's cold down here.” But this time there was only her voice echoing back like an eerie dream. Ruth closed her eyes tightly, reliving the moment when her brother threw Rodney off the bridge. Maybe if she concentrated really hard, Rodney, wherever he was, would receive her message and send one back telling her that he was okay. That was all she needed to know, really.

But nothing happened. Same as when she had gone to visit Mary Ellen's grave with flowers. Nothing had happened. When someone was gone, they were gone, and when they were dead, they were dead. A car passed overhead. Ruth opened her eyes and walked back out into the sunshine.

There was Howard, wandering around on the other side of the river, a long stick in one hand, ferociously beating the nearby bushes as though they had wronged him in some serious way. Ruth was about to yell for him to calm down and stop bashing everything when he stopped under a big gum tree and stood very still with his head thrown back. Something had caught his attention. He stood there for ages,
looking up into the branches of the tree as though under a spell.

Amused, Ruth waited for him to come out of his reverie.
What was he thinking about?

At last he lowered his head and turned around.

“Found anything?” Ruth called.

Her presence seemed to startle him. He must have been so engrossed in his own thoughts that he'd forgotten all about her.

“Not yet.” He threw the stick into the water and wandered across the bridge toward her.

“You still think we'll find him?” Ruth asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Howard said.

They settled down easily together on the bank near a tree and ate some of the biscuits and cheese that Ruth had brought.

“So what now?” Ruth mused as she picked up a small stick and threw it as far as she could into the river.

But Howard was already rolling up his jacket. He curled up on the ground and put it under his head for a pillow.

“Sleep,” he said.

“Didn't you get any last night?” Ruth was thinking of the way he'd slept on the bus.

But Howard only grunted.

Ruth took a few swigs from her juice box, then walked over to a big boulder and lay back against it. She closed her eyes.

• • •

“Took you long enough.”

Ruth heard the words as though in a dream. She sat up quickly and looked around, squinting a little. The sun was now bright. Had she fallen asleep?

“Check this out.”

Ruth looked around, startled. Who was speaking to her? She stood up. Howard was still fast asleep.

It was a familiar voice, but she couldn't see anyone. She turned to the water and … her heart did a double backflip.

There he was! Rodney! He was sliding down the bare patch of wet slope leading to the water.

She watched in stunned surprise as he ran up to the top and then, holding out both arms to steady himself just as though he were surfing or riding a skateboard, slid down the slope again, stopping himself just before the water.

“Rodney!” Ruth's voice was croaky with surprise. “Is that you?”

He turned and eyed her up and down.

“No, it's Julius Caesar.”

“Oh.” Ruth gulped. She didn't know whether to cry or laugh.
He'd survived.
She wanted to run up and hug Rodney to make sure that she wasn't imagining him, but she held herself back. He might disappear into thin air if she moved.

“Do you have any idea what it was like being thrown into the water?”

“I'm so sorry, Rodney.”

“I nearly drowned.”

“How did you get out?”

He didn't answer but ran to the top of the bank again.

“This is the first time I could get back,” Ruth called.

“Don't make excuses,” he shouted.

Ruth bit her lip and watched anxiously as he started sliding down the slope. Any minute he might misjudge the distance and … What if he ended up in the river again? That current was strong.

“So, what's up, Rodney?” Ruth asked.

“Call me
Rodin!
” Rodney said as he slid past.

“But it's not your name!”

“I've changed my name.”

“But …” Ruth didn't know why she found this so disconcerting. “Mary Ellen called you Rodney!”

He slid to a stop, walked up the bank, and stared at her.

“You can't just change it,” Ruth persisted.

“Why not?”

“It might hurt her feelings.”

“So?”

“Well …” She felt foolish.

“Do you know of a law that says you can't change your name?”

Ruth tried to think. “No, I don't. Sorry I mentioned it.”

“Oh, call me Rodney, then,” the rat grumbled. “Everyone else does!”

“I've missed you,” Ruth began.

The rat looked up at her. “I can't say I've missed
you
much,” he said.

Ruth gulped and tried to look as if she didn't care; but, in fact, knowing he hadn't missed her was almost as bad as never having found him again.

“Well. Maybe I did a little. From time to time.”

“Oh.”

“But after the horror of nearly drowning”—his whiskers trembled—“I had to try to forget and build a whole new life.”

“A whole new life?”

Ignoring her curiosity, Rodney got up, took off his boots, and started cleaning them with a stick. “You probably got sick of me sitting up there in your room anyway,” he said.

Ruth would have liked to tell him that she had absolutely loved having him in her room, and that he was far more interesting than any human being she'd ever known, apart from her aunt, but she didn't know how to say any of that without sounding like she was sucking up.

“Things at home have gone from bad to worse since you left,” she said morosely.

“In what way?” He seemed genuinely interested.

“Well, it's … a complete horror show now, you know.”

“Do you
hate
them?” Rodney asked. “Your family, I mean?”

Ruth faltered a little.
Hate
was too strong, but when she remembered the scene that morning and all the other mornings, she felt weary at the very thought of trying to explain how she felt. It was exhausting living with her family, and she saw no signs of it getting any better in the near future.

“It's complicated,” she said, “but I think maybe I was put in the wrong family.”

“Uh-huh.” The rat was staring at her; the long, spiky lashes around his eyes were lowered. “So how does
that
make you feel?”

“Like a fish out of water,” Ruth said sourly.

“Go on,” the rat said with an encouraging half smile.

But Ruth didn't know what else to say. She shrugged. “Since you left and Mary Ellen died, I'm a fish out of water.”

“Be more specific!” Rodney ordered sharply. “And by the way, I didn't
leave.
I was thrown!”

So she told him about the way everything revolved around her brothers now, how selfish and spiteful Marcus could be and how wearisome and spoiled Paul was. She described the way her mother was always running late, always in a flap, and detailed the lack of order in their lives and the lack of money. As well as all the completely stupid things her parents got involved in, like inventions and art, when they should have been concentrating on normal things, like paying off the mortgage and fixing the
house. The rat was, of course, familiar with most of it, and sympathetic too, but he listened intently with that same sneaky half smile on his face that made Ruth wonder what he was really thinking.

“Everything was better when you were around. So I came looking for you,” Ruth concluded lamely.
Why was she telling all this to a rat? She must be crazy!

Rodney brightened. He bounced up and down as though he couldn't contain himself.

“And what a good idea that was, Ruth Craze,” he puffed pompously, and scratched his head as if there were a very big idea inside just waiting to be let out. “What a very good idea!” he muttered again. “What an
excellent
idea!”

“How do you mean?”

“You want to get away from them, right?”

“Do I ever!” Ruth sighed.

“And
that
is where I come in,” he said, looking at her from under his sly, hooded eyes.

“What do you mean?” Ruth asked in bewilderment.

But the rat just chuckled. He stood up straight and gave her a mock salute. Then in about three swift movements he hopped onto a higher rock.

“It's no accident that you turned up here today,” he said cheerfully. “I can see that now. So let's get cracking. We've got to get down to business.”