The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Oh dear, thought Maurice. Someone's been and gone and sent for the real one… three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars? Three hundred dollars? And we only charged thirty!

“It's you, isn't it,” said Rat-catcher 1, waving his finger at Keith. “The stupid-looking kid! You turn up, and suddenly there's all these new rats around! There's something I don't like about you! You and your funny-looking cat! If I see that funny-looking cat again it's going to have mittens!”

In the darkness of the drain, Maurice shrank back.

“Hur, hur, hur,” said Rat-catcher 2. He'd probably studied to get a thug laugh like that, Maurice thought.

“And we don't have a boss,” said Rat-catcher 1.

“Yeah, we're our own bosses,” said Rat-catcher 2.

And then the story went wrong.

“And you, miss,” said Rat-catcher 1, turning to Malicia, “are too lippy by half.” He swung his fist, lifting her off her feet and slamming her against the rat cages. The rats went mad and the cages boiled with frantic activity as she slumped to the ground.

The rat-catcher turned to Keith. “You going to try anything, kid?” he said. “You going to try anything? She was a girl so I was nice and kind but you I'll put in one of the cages—”

“Yeah, and they ain't been fed today!” said a delighted Rat-catcher 2.

Go on, kid! Maurice thought. Do something! But Keith just stood there, staring at the man.

Rat-catcher 1 looked him up and down, scornfully. “What's that you've got there, boy? A pipe? Give it here!” The pipe was grabbed from Keith's belt and he was pushed onto the floor. “A penny whistle? Think you're the rat piper, do you?” Rat-catcher 1 snapped the pipe in two and tossed the bits inside the cages. “Y'know, they say that over in Porkscratchenz the Rat Piper led all the kids out of the town. Now there was a man with the right idea!”

Keith looked up. His eyes narrowed. He got to his feet.

Here it comes, thought Maurice. He's going to leap forward with superhuman strength because he's so angry and they're going to wish he'd never been born…

Keith leapt forward with ordinary human strength, landed one punch on Rat-catcher 1 and was smacked to the floor again by a big, brutal, sledgehammer blow.

All right, all right, he got knocked down, thought Maurice as Keith struggled for breath, but he's going to get up again.

There was a shrill scream, and Maurice thought: aha!

But the scream hadn't come from the wheezing Keith. A grey figure had launched itself from the top of the rat cages right at the rat-catcher's face. It landed teeth first, and blood spurted on the rat-catcher's nose.

Aha! thought Maurice again, it's Hamnpork to the rescue! What? Mrillp! I'm thinking like the girl! I keep thinking it's a story!

The rat-catcher grabbed at the rat and held him out at arm's length by his tail. Hamnpork twisted and turned, squealing with rage. His captor dabbed at his nose with his spare hand, and stared at Hamnpork as he struggled.

“He's a bit of a fighter,” said Rat-catcher 2. “How'd he get out?”

“Not one of ours,” said Rat-catcher 1. “He's a red.”

“Red? What's red about him?”

“A red rat's a kind of grey rat, as you would very well know if you'd were an hexperienced Guild member like me,” said the rat-catcher. “They ain't local. You get 'em down on the plains. Funny to find one up here. Very funny. Greasy old devil, too. But game as anything.”

“Your nose is all runny.”

“Yeah. I know. I've had more rat bites than you've had hot dinners. Don't feel 'em any more,” said Rat-catcher 1, in a voice that suggested that the spinning, screeching Hamnpork was a lot more interesting than his colleague.

“I only have cold sausage for dinner.”

“There you are then. What a little fighter you are, to be sure. Real little devil, aren't you. Plucky as anything.”

“Kind of you to say so.”

“I was talking to the rat, mister.” He prodded Keith with his boot. “Go and tie up these two somewhere, OK? We'll put them in one of the other cellars for now. One with a proper door. And a proper lock. And no handy little trapdoors. And you give me the key.”

“She's the mayor's daughter,” said Rat-catcher 2. “Mayors can get really upset about daughters.”

“Then he'll do what he's told, right?”

“You gonna give that rat a good squeezing?”

“What, a fighter like this one? Are you joking? It's thinking like that that'll keep you a rat-catcher's assistant your whole life. I've got a much better idea. How many's in the special cage?”

Maurice watched Rat-catcher 2 go and examine one of the other cages on the far wall.

“Only two rats left. They've eaten the other four,” he reported. “Just skin left. Very neat.”

“Ah, so they'll be full o' vim and vinegar. Well, we'll see what they do to him, shall we?”

Maurice heard a little wire door open and shut.