The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“What have you got in there?” asked Maurice. “Everything?”

“The grapnel and rope ladder take up a lot of the room,” said Malicia, still feeling around. “And then there's the big medicine kit, and the small medicine kit, and the knife, and the other knife, and the sewing kit, and the mirror for sending signals and… these…”

She pulled out a small bundle of black cloth. When she unrolled it, Maurice saw the gleam of metal.

“Ah,” he said. “Lock picks, right? I've seen burglars at work—”

“Hair pins,” said Malicia, selecting one. “Hair pins always work in the books I've read. You just push it into the keyhole and twiddle. I have a selection of pre-bent ones.”

Once again, Maurice felt a little chill at the back of his head. They work in stories, he thought. Oh dear me. “And how come you know so much about picking locks?” he said.

“I told you, they lock me out of my room to punish me,” said Malicia, twiddling.

Maurice had seen thieves at work. Men breaking into buildings at night hated to see dogs, but they didn't mind cats. Cats never attempted to tear their throats out. And what thieves tended to have, he knew, were complicated little tools which were used with great care and precision. They didn't use stupi—

Click!

“Good,” said Malicia, in a satisfied voice.

“That was just luck,” said Maurice, as the padlock swung free. He looked up at Keith. “You think it's just luck too, eh, kid?”

“How would I know?” said Keith. “I've never seen it done before.”

“I knew it would work,” said Malicia. “It worked in the fairy-story The Seventh Wife of Greenbeard, where she broke out of his Room of Terror and stabbed him in the eye with a frozen herring.”

“That was a fairy-story?” said Keith.

“Yes,” said Malicia, proudly. “Right out of Grim Fairy-Tales.”

“You've got some bad fairies in these parts,” said Maurice, shaking his head.

Malicia pushed the door open. “Oh, no,” she moaned. “I didn't expect this…”

Somewhere below Maurice's paws, and about a street away, the one local rat that the Changelings had found alive was crouched in front of Dangerous Beans. The squads had been called back. This was not turning out to be a good day.

Traps that didn't kill, Darktan thought. You found them sometimes. Sometimes humans wanted to catch rats alive.

Darktan didn't trust humans who wanted to catch rats alive. Honest traps that killed outright… well, they were bad, but you could usually avoid them and at least there was something clean about them. Live traps were like poison. They cheated.

Dangerous Beans was watching the newcomer. It was strange, but the rat who could think the most un-rat-like thoughts was also the best at talking to keekees, except that talking wasn't the right word. No-one, not even Hamnpork, had a sense of smell like Dangerous Beans.

The new rat certainly wasn't giving any trouble. For one thing, it was surrounded by rats who were big and well-fed and tough, so its body was respectfully saying sir as hard as it could. The Changelings had also given it some food, which it was engulfing rather than eating.

“She was in a box,” said Darktan, who was drawing on the floor with a stick. “There's a lot of them here.”

“I got caught in one once,” said Hamnpork. “Then a female human came along and tipped me out over the garden wall. Couldn't see the point of it.”

“I believe some humans do it to be kind,” said Peaches. “They get the rat out of the house without killing them.”

“Didn't do her any good, anyway,” said Hamnpork, with satisfaction. “I went back next night and widdled on the cheese.”

“I don't think anyone is trying to be kind here,” said Darktan. “There was another rat in there with her. At least,” he added, “there was part of a rat in there with her. I think she'd been eating it to stay alive.”

“Very sensible,” nodded Hamnpork.

“We found something else,” Darktan said, still drawing furrows in the dirt. “Can you see these, sir?”

He'd drawn lines and squiggles on the floor.

“Hrumph. I can see them, but I don't have to know what they are,” said Hamnpork. He rubbed his nose. “I've never needed any more than this.”

Darktan gave a patient sigh. “Then smell, sir, that this is a… a picture of all the tunnels we've explored today. It's… the shape I have in my head. We've explored a lot of the town. There's a lot of the…” he glanced at Peaches, “a lot of the kind traps, mostly empty. There's poison all over the place. It's mostly quite old. Lots of empty live traps. Lots of killer traps, still set. And no live rats. None at all, except for our… new friend. We know there's something very odd. I sniffed around a bit near where I found her, and I smelled rats. Lots of rats. I mean lots.”

“Alive?” said Dangerous Beans.

“Yes.”

“All in one place?”

“It smells that way,” said Darktan. “I think a squad should go and look.”