The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

And that will be a very lucky town, because then there'll be rules, see?”

“Not exactly, no,” said the mayor.

“Well, in this lucky town, right, a lady making, as it might be, a tray of cakes, well, all she'll need to do is shout down the nearest rat hole and say, ‘Good morning, rats, there's one cake for you, I'll be much obliged if'n you didn't touch the rest of them’, and the rats will say ‘Right you are, missus, no problem at all’. And then—”

“Are you saying we should bribe the rats?” said the mayor.

“Cheaper than pipers. Cheaper than rat-catchers,” said Maurice. “Anyway, it'll be wages. Wages for what, I hear you cry?”

“Did I cry that?” said the mayor.

“You were going to,” said Maurice. “And I was going to tell you that it'd be wages for… for vermin control.”

“What? But rats are ver—”

“Don't say it!” said Darktan.

“Vermin like cockroaches,” said Maurice, smoothly. “I can see you've got a lot of them here.”

“Can they talk?” said the mayor. Now he had the slightly hunted expression of anyone who'd been talked to by Maurice for any length of time. It said “I'm going where I don't want to go, but I don't know how to get off.”

“No,” said Maurice. “Nor can the mice, and nor can norma—can other rats. Well, vermin'll be a thing of the past in that lucky town, because its new rats will be like a police force. Why, the Clan'll guard your larders—sorry, I mean the larders in that town. No rat-catchers required. Think of the savings. But that'll only be the start. The will be getting richer, too, in the lucky town.”

“How?” said Hauptmann the woodcarver, sharply.

“Because rats will be working for them,” said Maurice. “They have to gnaw all the time to wear their teeth down, so they might as well be making cuckoo clocks. And the clockmakers will be doing well, too,”

“Why?” said Hopwick the clockmaker.

“Tiny little paws, very good with little springs and things,” said Maurice. “And then—”

“Would they just do cuckoo clocks, or could they do other stuff?” said Hauptmann.

“—and then there's the whole tourism aspect,” said Maurice. “For example, the Rat Clock. You know that clock they've got in Bonk? In the town square? Little figures come out every quarter of an hour and bang the bells? Cling bong bang, bing clong bong? Very popular, you can get postcards and everything. Big attraction. People come a long way just to stand there waiting for it. Well, the lucky town will have rats striking the bells!”

“So what you're saying,” said the clockmaker, “is that if we that is, if the lucky town had a special big clock, and rats, people might come to see it?”

“And stand around waiting for up to a quarter of an hour,” said someone.

“A perfect time to buy hand-crafted models of the clock,” said the clockmaker.

People began to think about this.

“Mugs with rats on,” said a potter.

“Hand-gnawed souvenir wooden cups and plates,” said Hauptmann.

“Cuddly toy rats!”

“Rats-on-a-stick!”

Darktan took a deep breath. Maurice said, quickly, “Good idea. Made of toffee, naturally.” He glanced towards Keith. “And I expect the town would want to employ its very own rat piper, even. You know. For ceremonial purposes. ‘Have your picture drawn with the Official Rat Piper and his Rats’, sort of thing.”

“Any chance of a small theatre?” said a little voice.

Darktan spun around. “Sardines!” he said.

“Well, guv, I thought if everyone was getting in on the act—” Sardines protested.

“Maurice, we ought to talk about this,” said Dangerous Beans, tugging at the cat's leg.

“Excuse me a moment,” said Maurice, giving the mayor a quick grin, “I need to consult with my clients. Of course,” he added, “I'm talking about the lucky town. Which won't be this one because, of course, when my clients move out some new rats will move in. There are always more rats. And they won't talk, and they won't have rules, and they'll widdle in the cream and you'll have to find some new rat-catchers, ones you can trust, and you won't have as much money because everyone will be going to the other town. Just a thought.”

He marched down the table and turned to the rats.

“I was doing so well!” he said. “You could be on ten per cent, you know? Your faces on mugs, everything!”

“And is this what we fought for all night?” spat Darktan. “To be pets?”

“Maurice, this isn't right,” said Dangerous Beans. “Surely it is better to appeal to the common bond between intelligent species than—”

“I don't know about intelligent species. We're dealing with humans here,” said Maurice. “Do you know about wars? Very popular with humans. They fight other humans. Not hugely big on common bonding.”

“Yes, but we are not—”

“Now listen,” said Maurice. “Ten minutes ago these people thought you were pests. Now they think you're… useful. Who knows what I can have them thinking in half an hour?”

“You want us to work for them?” said Darktan. “We've won our place here!”

“You'll be working for yourself,” said Maurice. “Look, these people aren't philosophers. They're just… everyday. They don't understand about the tunnels. This is a market town. You've got to approach them the right way. Anyway, you will keep other rats away, and you won't go around widdling in the jam, so you might as well get thanked for it.” He tried again. “There's going to be a lot of shouting, right, yeah. And then sooner or later you have to talk.” He saw the bewilderment still glazing their eyes, and turned to Sardines in desperation. “Help me,” he said.

“He's right, boss. You've got to give 'em a show,” said Sardines, dancing a few steps nervously.

“They'll laugh at us!” said Darktan.

“Better laugh than scream, boss. It's a start. You gotta dance, boss. You can think and you can fight, but the world's always movin', and if you wanna stay ahead you gotta dance.” He raised his hat and twirled his cane. On the other side of the room, a couple of humans saw him and chuckled. “See?” he said.

“I'd hoped there was an island somewhere,” said Dangerous Beans. “A place where rats could really be rats.”

“And we've seen where that leads,” said Darktan. “And, you know, I don't think there're any wonderful islands in the distance for people like us. Not for us.” He sighed. “If there's a wonderful island anywhere, it's here. But I'm not intending to dance.”

“Figure of speech, boss, figure of speech,” said Sardines, hopping from one foot to the other.

There was a thump from the other end of the table. The mayor had hit it with his fist. “We've got to be practical!” he was saying. “How much worse off can we be? They can talk. I'm not going to go all through this again, understand? We've got food, we've got a lot of the money back, we survived the piper… these are lucky rats…”

The figures of Keith and Malicia loomed over the rats.

“It sounds as if my father's coming round to the idea,” said Malicia. “What about you?”

“Discussions are continuing,” said Maurice.

“I… er… I'm sorr… er… look, Maurice told me where to look and I found this in the tunnel,” said Malicia. The pages were stuck together, and they were all stained, and they had been sewn together by a very impatient person, but it was still recognizable as “Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure”. “I had to lift up a lot of drain gratings to find all the pages,” she said.

The rats looked at it. Then they looked at Dangerous Beans.

“It's Mr. Bunn–” Peaches began.

“I know. I can smell it,” said Dangerous Beans.