The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Darktan knew a little bit about beer, since he had gone about his business under pubs and breweries, and the rats had often wondered why humans sometimes liked to switch their brains off. To the rats, living in the centre of a web of sound and light and smells, it made no sense at all.

To Darktan, now, it didn't sound quite so bad. The idea that, for a while, you could forget things and not have a head buzzing with troublesome thoughts… well, that seemed quite attractive.

He couldn't remember a lot about life before he'd been Changed, but he was certain that it hadn't been so complicated. Oh, bad things had happened, because life on the tip had been pretty hard. But when they were over, they were over, and tomorrow was a new day.

Rats didn't think about tomorrow. There was just a faint sensation that more things would happen. It wasn't thinking. And there was no “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong”. They were new ideas.

Ideas! That was their world now! Big questions and big answers, about life, and how you had to live it, and what you were for. New ideas spilled into Darktan's weary head.

And among the ideas, in the middle of his head, he saw the little figure of Dangerous Beans.

Darktan had never talked much to the little white rat or the little female who scurried around after him and drew pictures of the things he'd been thinking about. Darktan liked people who were practical.

But now he thought: he's a trap-hunter! Just like me! He goes ahead of us and finds the dangerous ideas and thinks about them and traps them in words and makes them safe and shows us the way through.

We need him… we need him now. Otherwise, we're all running around like rats in a barrel…

Much later on, when Nourishing was old and grey around the muzzle, and smelled a bit strange, she dictated the story of the climb and how she'd heard Darktan muttering to himself. The Darktan that she'd pulled out of the trap, she said, was a different rat. It was as though his thoughts had slowed down but got bigger.

The strangest bit, she said, was when they reached the beam. Darktan made sure that Hamnpork was all right, and then picked up the match he'd shown to Nourishing.

“He struck it on an old bit of iron,” said Nourishing, “and then he walked out along the beam with it flaring, and down below I could see all the crowd, the hay racks and the straw all over the place, and the people milling around, just like, hah, just like rats… and I thought, if you drop that, mister, the place will fill with smoke in a few seconds and they've locked the doors and by the time they realize it they'll be caught like, hah, yeah, like rats in a barrel and we'll be away along the gutters.”

“But he just stood there, looking down, until the match went out. Then he put it down and helped us with Hamnpork and never said a word about it. I asked him about it later on, after all the stuff with the piper and everything, and he said, ‘Yes. Rats in a barrel.’ And that's all he said about it.”

“What was it you really put in the sugar?” said Keith, as he led the way back to the secret trapdoor.

“Cascara,” said Malicia.

“That's not a poison, is it?”

“No, it's a laxative.”

“What's that?”

“It makes you… go.”

“Go where?”

“Not where, stupid. You just… go. I don't particularly want to draw you a picture.”

“Oh. You mean… go.”

“That's right.”

“And you just happened to have it on you?”

“Yes. Of course. It was in the big medicine bag.”

“You mean you take something like that out just for something like this?”

“Of course. It could easily be necessary.”

“How?” said Keith, climbing the ladder.

“Well, supposing we were kidnapped? Suppose we ended up at sea? Supposing we were captured by pirates? Pirates have a very monotonous diet, which might be why they're angry all the time. Or supposing we escaped and swam ashore and ended up on an island where there's nothing but coconuts? They have a very binding effect.”

“Yes, but… but… anything can happen! If you think like that, you'd end up taking just about everything in case of anything!”

“That's why it's such a big bag,” said Malicia calmly, pulling herself through the trapdoor and dusting herself off.

Keith sighed. “How much did you give them?”

“Lots. But they should be all right if they don't take too much of the antidote.”

“What did you give them for the antidote?”

“Cascara.”

“Malicia, you are not a nice person.”

“Really? You wanted to poison them with the real poison, and you were getting very imaginative with all that stuff about their stomachs melting.”

“Yes, but rats are my friends. Some of the poisons really do that. And… sort of… making the antidote more of the poison—”

“It's not a poison. It's a medicine. They'll feel lovely and clean afterwards.”

“All right, all right. But… giving it to them as the antidote as well, that's a bit… a bit…”

“Clever? Narratively satisfying?” said Malicia.

“I suppose so,” Keith admitted reluctantly.

Malicia looked around. “Where's your cat? I thought he was following us.”

“Sometimes he just wanders off. And he's not my cat.”

“Yes, you're his boy. But a young man with a smart cat can go a long way, you know.”

“How?”

“There was Puss in Boots, obviously,” said Malicia, “and of course everyone knows about Dick Livingstone and his wonderful cat, don't they?”

“I don't,” said Keith.

“It's a very famous story!”

“Sorry. I haven't been able to read for very long.”

“Really? Well, Dick Livingstone was a penniless boy who became Lord Mayor of Ubergurgl because his cat was so good at catching… er… pigeons. The town was overrun with… pigeons, yes, and in fact later on he even married a sultan's daughter because his cat cleared all the… pigeons out of her father's royal palace—”

“It was rats really, wasn't it?” said Keith, glumly.

“I'm sorry, yes.”

“And it was just a story,” said Keith. “Look, are there really stories about rat kings? Rats have kings? I've never heard of it. How does it work?”

“Not the way you think. They've been known about for years. They really do exist, you know. Just like on the sign outside.”

“What, the rats with their tails all knotted together? How do—?”

There was a loud and persistent knocking on the door. Some of it sounded as though it was being done with someone's boot.

Malicia went over to it and pulled back the bolts. “Yes?” she said, coldly, as the night air poured in.

There was a group of angry men outside. The leader, who looked as though he was only the leader because he happened to be the one in front, took a step back when he saw Malicia.

“Oh… it's you, miss…”

“Yes. My father's the mayor, you know,” said Malicia.

“Er… yes. We all know.”