The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“Then I shall dream there and… never wake up,” said Hamnpork. His head sagged again. “This isn't… the way a… an old rat should die,” he mumbled. “Not… like this. Not… in the light.”

Darktan nodded urgently at Sardines, who snuffed out the candle with his hat. The damp, thick underground darkness closed in.

“Darktan,” Hamnpork whispered. “You need to know this…”

Sardines strained his ears to hear the old leader's last words to Darktan. Then, a few seconds later, he shivered. He could smell the change in the world.

There was movement in the darkness. A match burst into life and the candle flame grew again, bringing shadows back into the world.

Hamnpork was lying very still.

“Do we have to eat him now?” said someone.

“He's… gone,” said Darktan. Somehow, the idea of eating Hamnpork didn't feel right. “Bury him,” he said. “And mark the place so we know he's there.”

There was a sense of relief in the group. However much anyone might have respected Hamnpork, he was still a bit on the whiffy side, even for a rat.

A rat at the front of the crowd looked uncertain. “Er… when you say ‘mark the place’,” it said, “do you mean like we mark other places where we bury things?”

“He means by widdling on it,” said the rat beside him.

Darktan looked at Sardines, who shrugged. Darktan had a sinking feeling inside. When you were the leader, everyone waited to see what you said. And there was still no sign of the white rat.

He was on his own.

He thought hard for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes,” he said at last. “He'd like that. It's very… ratty. But do this, too. Draw it on the ground above him.”

He scraped a sign on the ground:

“‘He was a rat from a long line of rats and he thought about rats’,” said Sardines. “Good one, boss.”

“And will he come back like Darktan did?” said someone else.

“If he does, he'll get really mad if we've eaten him,” said a voice. There was some nervous laughter.

“Listen, I didn't—” Darktan began, but Sardines nudged him.

“Word in your ear, guv?” he said, raising his charred hat politely.

“Yes, yes…” Darktan was getting worried. He'd never had so many rats watching him so closely. He followed Sardines away from the group.

“You know I used to hang around in the theatre an' that,” said Sardines. “And you pick up stuff in the theatre. And the thing is… look, what I'm saying is, you're the leader, right? So you got to act like you know what you're doing, OK? If the leader doesn't know what he's doing, no-one else does, either.”

“I only know what I'm doing when I'm dismantling traps,” said Darktan.

“All right, think of the future as a great big trap,” said Sardines. “With no cheese.”

“That is not a lot of help!”

“And you should let them think what they like about you and… that scar you've got,” said Sardines. “That's my advice, guv.”

“But I didn't die, Sardines!”

“Something happened, didn't it? You were going to set fire to the place. I watched you. Something happened to you in the trap. Don't ask me what it was, I just do tap-dancing. I'm just a little rat. Always will be, boss. But there's big rats like Inbrine and Sellby and a bunch of others, boss, and now Hamnpork's dead they might think they should be the leader. Get my drift?”

“No.”

Sardines sighed. “I reckon you do, boss. Do we want a lot of scrapping amongst ourselves at a time like this?”

“No!”

“Right! Well, thanks to chattery little Nourishing, you're the rat that looked the Bone Rat right in the face and came back, aren't you…?”

“Yes, but she…”

“Seems to me, boss, that anyone who could stare down the Bone Rat… well, no-one is going to want to mess with him, am I right? A rat who wears the teeth-marks of the Bone Rat like a belt? Uh-uh, no. Rats'll follow a rat like that. Time like this, rats need someone to follow. That was a good thing you did back there, with ol' Hamnpork. Burying him and widdling on top and putting a sign on him… well, the old rats like that, and so do the young ones. Shows 'em you're thinking for everyone.” Sardines put his head on one side, and grinned a worried grin.

“I can see I'm going to have to watch you, Sardines,” said Darktan. “You think like Maurice.”

“Don't worry about me, boss. I'm small. I gotta dance. I wouldn't be any good at leadering.”

Thinking for everyone, Darktan thought. The white rat… “Where is Dangerous Beans?” he said, looking around. “Isn't he here?”

“Haven't seen him, boss.”

“What? We need him! He's got the map in his head.”

“Map, boss?” Sardines looked concerned. “I thought you drew maps in the mud.”

“Not a map like a picture of tunnels and traps! A map of… of what we are and where we're going…”

“Oh, you mean like that lovely island? Never really believed in it, boss,”

“I don't know about any islands, I really don't,” said Darktan. “But when I was in that… place, I… saw the shape of an idea. There's been a war between humans and rats for ever! It's got to end. And here, now, in this place, with these rats… I can see that it can. This might be the only time and the only place where it can. I can see the shape of an idea in my head but I can't think of the words for it, do you understand? So we need the white rat, because he knows the map for thinking. We've got to think our way out of this. Running around and squeaking won't work any more!”

“You're doing fine so far, boss,” said the dancer, patting him on the shoulder.

“It's all going wrong,” said Darktan, trying to keep his voice down. “We need him! I need him!”

“I'll get some squads together, boss, if you show me where to start looking,” said Sardines meekly.

“In the drains, not far from the cages,” said Darktan. “Maurice was with him,” he added.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing, guv?” said Sardines. “You know what Hamnpork always said: ‘You can always trust a cat—’”

“‘—to be a cat’. Yes. I know. I wish I knew the answer to that, Sardines.”

Sardines stepped closer. “Can I ask a question, guv?”

“Of course.”

“What was it Hamnpork whispered to you just before he died? Special leader wisdom, was it?”

“Good advice,” said Darktan. “Good advice.”

Maurice blinked. Very slowly, his tongue wound itself back in. He flattened his ears and, legs moving in silent slow motion, crept along beside the gutter.

Right under the grating there was something pale. The red streak was coming from further upstream, and divided in two as it flowed around the thing, before becoming one swirling thread again.

Maurice reached it. It was a rolled-up scrap of paper, sodden with water and stained with red. He extended a claw and fished it out. It flopped on the side of the gutter and, as Maurice gently peeled the paper apart, he saw the smudged pictures drawn in thick pencil. He knew what they were. He'd learned them, one day when he had nothing better to do. They were stupidly simple.

“No Rat Shall…” he began. Then there was a damp mess, down to the bit that read: “We are not like other Rats”.

“Oh, no,” he said. They wouldn't drop this, would they? Peaches carried it around as though it was a hugely precious thing—