The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Darktan moved on, to Number One platoon. It was the smallest. You had to be a certain kind of rat to last a long time in the Trap Disposal Squad. You had to be slow, and patient, and thorough. You had to have a good memory. You had to be careful. You could join the squad if you were fast and slapdash and hasty. You just didn't last very long.

He looked them up and down, and smiled. He was proud of these rats. “OK, people, you know it all by now,” he said. “You don't need a long lecture from me. Just remember that this is a new town so we don't know what we're going to find. There're bound to be plenty of new types of traps, but we learn fast, don't we? Poisons, too. They might be using stuff we've never run across before, so be careful. Never rush, never run. We don't want to be like the first mouse, eh?”

“No, Darktan,” the rats chorused dutifully.

“I said, what mouse don't we want to be like?” Darktan demanded.

“We don't want to be like the first mouse!” shouted the rats.

“Right! What mouse do we want to be like?”

“The second mouse, Darktan!” said the rats, who'd had this lesson dinned into them many times.

“Right! And why do we want to be like the second mouse?”

“Because the second mouse gets the cheese, Darktan!”

“Good!” said Darktan. “Inbrine will take squad two… Bestbefore? You're promoted, you take squad three, and I hope you're as good as old Farmhouse was right up until the time she forgot how to disengage the trip-catch on a Snippet and Poison Ratsnapper Number 5. Over-confidence is our enemy! So if you see anything suspicious, any little trays you don't recognize, anything with wires and springs and stuff, you mark it and send a runner to me—yes?”

A young rat was holding up its paw.

“Yes? What's your name… miss?”

“Er… Nourishing, sir,” said the rat. “Er… can I ask a question, sir?”

“Are you new in this platoon, Nourishing?” said Darktan.

“Yes, sir! Transferred out of the Light Widdlers, sir!”

“Ah, they thought you'd be good at trap disposal, did they?”

Nourishing looked uneasy, but there was no going back now. “Er… not really, sir. They said I couldn't be any worse than I am at widdling, sir.”

There was general laughter from the ranks.

“How can a rat not be good at that?” said Darktan.

“It's just so… so… so embarrassing, sir,” said Nourishing.

Darktan sighed to himself. All this new thinking was producing some strange things. He personally approved of the idea of the Right Place, but some of the ideas the kids were coming up with were… odd.

“All right,” he said. “What was your question, Nourishing?”

“Er… you said the second mouse gets the cheese, sir?”

“That's right! That's the squad motto, Nourishing. Remember it! It is your friend!”

“Yes, sir. I will, sir. But… doesn't the first mouse get something, sir?”

Darktan stared at the young rat. He was slightly impressed that she stared back, instead of cringing. “I can see you're going to be a valuable addition to the squad, Nourishing,” he said. He raised his voice. “Squad! What does the first mouse get?”

The roar of voices made dust fall down from the ceiling. “The Trap!”

“And don't you forget it,” said Darktan. “Take 'em out, Specialoffer. I'll be with you in a minute.”

A younger rat stepped forward, and faced the squads. “Let's go, rats! Hut, hut, hut…”

The trap squads trotted away. Darktan walked over to Dangerous Beans.

“That's got us started,” he said. “If we can't get the humans looking for a good rat-catcher by tomorrow, we don't know our business.”

“We need to stay longer than that,” said Peaches. “Some of the ladies are going to have their babies.”

“I said we don't know it's safe here yet,” said Darktan.

“Do you want to be the one to tell Big Savings?” said Peaches, sweetly. Big Savings was the old head female, widely agreed to have a bite like a pick-axe and muscles like rock. She also had a short temper with males. Even Hamnpork kept out of her way when she was in a bad mood.

“Nature has to take its course, obviously,” said Darktan, quickly. “But we haven't explored. There must be other rats here.”

“Oh, the keekees all keep out of the way of us,” said Peaches.

That was true, Darktan had to agree. Ordinary rats did keep out of the way of the Changelings. Oh, there was some trouble sometimes, but the Changelings were big and healthy and could think their way through a fight. Dangerous Beans was unhappy about this but, as Hamnpork said, it was either us or them and when you got right down to it, it was a rat-eat-rat world…

“I'm going to go and join my squad,” said Darktan, still unnerved at the thought of confronting Big Savings. He moved closer. “What's up with Hamnpork?”

“He's… thinking about things,” said Peaches.

“Thinking,” said Darktan, blankly. “Oh. Right. Well, I've got traps to see to. Smell you later!”

“What is the matter with Hamnpork?” said Dangerous Beans, when he and Peaches were alone again.