‘He’s not going to do any more listening now, that’s for certain,’ he said. ‘The face looks familiar. Apart from the bulging eyes and the tongue hanging out, that is.’
‘Er, you talked to Fresh in the muster this morning, sir,’ said a rat. ‘Told him he was raised to be a widdler and to get on with it, sir.’
Darktan’s expression remained blank. Then he said, ‘We’ve got to go. We’re finding a lot of traps all over.
We’ll work our way back to you. No-one is to go any further along that tunnel, understood? Everyone say “yes, Darktan”!’
‘Yes, Darktan,’ the rats chorused.
‘And one of you stand guard,’ said Darktan. ‘There could be more traps up that way.’
‘What shall we do with Fresh, sir?’ said Tomato.
‘Don’t eat the green wobbly bit,’ said Darktan, and hurried off.
Traps! he thought. There were too many of them. And too much poison. Even the experienced members of the squad were getting nervous now. He didn’t like to come across unknown things. You found out what unknown things were when they killed you.
The rats were spreading out under the town, and it was like no other town they’d found. The whole place was a rat trap. They hadn’t found a single living keekee. Not one. That wasn’t normal. Everywhere had rats. Where you got humans, you got rats.
And on top of everything else the young rats were spending too much time worrying about… things. Things you couldn’t see or smell. Shadow things. Darktan shook his head. There was no room in the tunnels for that sort of thinking. Life was real, life was practical, and life could get taken away really quickly if you weren’t paying attention…
He noticed Nourishing looking around and sniffing the air as they trotted along a pipe.
‘That’s right,’ he said approvingly. ‘You can’t be too careful. Never rush in. Even the rat in front of you might have been lucky and missed the trigger.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Don’t worry too much, though.’
‘He did look awfully… flat, sir.’
‘Fools rush in, Nourishing. Fools rush in…’
Darktan could sense the fear spreading. It worried him. If the Changelings panicked, they’d panic as rats. And the tunnels in this city were no place for a terrified rat to be running. But if one rat broke ranks and ran, then most of them would follow. Smell held sway in the tunnels. When things went well, everyone felt good. When fear arrived, it flowed through the runs like flood-water. Panic in the rat world was a kind of disease that could be caught too easily.
Things did not get any better when they caught up with the rest of the trap-squad. This time, they’d found a new poison.
‘Not to worry,’ said Darktan, who was worried. ‘We’ve come across new poisons before, right?’
‘Not for ages,’ said a rat. ‘Remember that one in Scrote? With the sparkly blue bits? It burned if you got it on your feet? People ran into it before they knew?’
‘They’ve got that here?’
‘You’d better come and see.’
In one of the tunnels a rat was lying on its side. Its feet were curled up tight, like fists. It was whimpering.
Darktan took one look and knew that, for this rat, it was all over. It was only a matter of time. For the rats back in Scrote, it had been a matter of horrible time.
‘I could bite her in the back of the neck,’ a rat volunteered. ‘It’d be all over quickly.’
‘It’s a kind thought, but that stuff gets into the blood,’ said Darktan. ‘Find a snapper trap that hasn’t been made safe. Do it carefully.’
‘ Put a rat in a trap, sir?’ said Nourishing.
‘Yes! Better die fast than slow!’
‘Even so, it’s—’ the rat who had volunteered to do the biting started to protest.
The hairs around Darktan’s face stood out. He reared up and showed his teeth. ‘Do what you’re told or I’ll bite you!’ he roared.
The other rat crouched back. ‘All right, Darktan, all right…’
‘And warn all the other squads!’ Darktan bellowed. ‘This isn’t rat-catching, this is war! Everyone’s to pull back smartly! No-one touch nothing! We’re going to— Yes? What is it this time?’
A small rat had crept up to Darktan. As the trap-hunter spun around, the rat crouched hurriedly, almost rolling on its back to show how small and harmless it was.
‘Please, sir…’ it mumbled.
‘Yes?’
‘This time we’ve found a live one…’
CHAPTER 6
There were big adventures and small adventures, Mr Bunnsy knew. You didn’t get told what size they were going to be before you started. Sometimes you could have a big adventure even when you were
standing still.
— From Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure
‘Hello? Hello, it’s me. And I’m going to give the secret knock now! There were three knocks on the stable door, and then Malicia’s voice rose again with ‘Hello, did you hear the secret knock?’
‘Perhaps she’ll go away if we keep quiet,’ said Keith, in the straw.
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Maurice. He raised his voice and called out, ‘We’re up here!’
‘You’ve still got to give the secret knock,’ shouted Malicia.
‘Oh, prbllttrrrp,’ said Maurice under his breath, and fortunately no human knows how bad a swearword that is in cat language. ‘Look, this is me, OK? A cat? Which talks? How will you recognize me? Shall I wear a red carnation?’
‘I don’t think you’re a proper talking cat, anyway,’ said Malicia, climbing the ladder. She was still wearing black, and had bundled up her hair under a black scarf. She also had a big bag slung from her shoulder.
‘Gosh, you’ve got that right,’ said Maurice.
‘I mean, you don’t wear boots and a sword and have a big hat with a feather in it,’ said the girl, pulling herself into the loft.
Maurice gave her a long stare. ‘Boots?’ he said at last. ‘On these paws?’
‘Oh, it was in a picture in a book I read,’ said Malicia, calmly. ‘A silly one for children. Full of animals that dressed up as humans.’
It crossed Maurice’s cat mind, and not for the first time, that if he moved fast he could be out of the city in five minutes and on to a barge or something.
Once, when he was no more than a kitten, he’d been taken home by a small girl who’d dressed him up in doll’s clothes and sat him at a small table with a couple of dolls and three-quarters of a teddy bear. He’d managed to escape through an open window, but it had taken him all day to get out of the dress. That girl could have been Malicia. She thought animals were just people who hadn’t been paying enough attention.
‘I don’t do clothes,’ he said. It wasn’t much of a line, but it was probably better than saying ‘I think you are a loony’.
‘Could be an improvement,’ said Malicia. ‘It’s nearly dark. Let’s go! We shall move like cats!’
‘Oh, right,’ said Maurice. ‘I expect I can do that.’
Although, he thought a few minutes later, no cats ever moved like Malicia. She obviously thought that it was no good looking inconspicuous unless people could see that you were being inconspicuous. People in the street actually stopped to watch her as she sidled along walls and scuttled from one doorway to another. Maurice and Keith strolled along after her. No-one paid them any attention.
Eventually, in a narrow street, she stopped at a black building with a big wooden sign hanging over the door.
The sign showed a lot of rats, a sort of star made of rats, with all their tails tied together in a big knot.
‘Sign of the ancient Guild of Rat-catchers,’ whispered Malicia, swinging her bag off her shoulder.
‘I know,’ said Keith. ‘It looks horrible.’
‘Makes an interesting design, though,’ said Malicia.
One of the most significant things about the door below the sign was the big padlock holding it shut. Odd, Maurice thought. If rats make your legs explode, why do rat-catchers have to have a big lock on their shed?
‘Luckily, I’m prepared for every eventuality,’ said Malicia, and reached into her bag. There was a sound as of lumps of metal and bottles being moved around.
‘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.’