The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Mr. Bunnsy had a lot of friends in Furry Bottom. But what Mr. Bunnsy was friendly with more than anything else was food.

—From “Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure”

This was the plan.

And it was a good plan. Even the rats, even Peaches, had to admit that it had worked.

Everyone knew about plagues of rats. There were famous stories about the rat pipers, who made their living going from town to town getting rid of plagues of rats. Of course there weren't just rat plagues—sometimes there were plagues of accordion-players, bricks tied up with string, or fish—but it was the rats everyone knew about.

And that, really, was it. You didn't need many rats for a plague, not if they knew their business. One rat, popping up here and there, squeaking loudly, taking a bath in the fresh cream and widdling in the flour, could be a plague all by himself.

After a few days of this, it was amazing how glad people were to see the stupid-looking kid with his magical rat pipe. And they were amazed when rats poured out of every hole to follow him out of the town. They were so amazed that they didn't bother much about the fact that there were only a few hundred rats.

They'd have been really amazed if they'd ever found out that the rats and the piper met up with a cat somewhere in the bushes out of town, and solemnly counted out the money.

Bad Blintz was waking up when Maurice entered with the kid. No-one bothered them, although Maurice got a lot of interest. This did not worry him. He knew he was interesting. Cats walked as if they owned the place anyway, and the world was full of stupid-looking kids and people weren't rushing to see another one.

It looked as though today was a market day, but there weren't many stalls and they were mostly selling, well, junk. Old pans, pots, used shoes… the kind of things people have to sell when they're short of money.

Maurice had seen plenty of markets, on their journeys through other towns, and he knew how they should go.

“There should be fat women selling chickens,” he said. “And people selling sweets for the kids, and ribbons. Tumblers and clowns. Even weasel jugglers, if you're lucky.”

“There's nothing like that. There's hardly anything to buy, by the look of it,” said the kid. “I thought you said this was a rich town, Maurice.”

“Well, it looked rich,” said Maurice. “All those big fields in the valley, all those boats on the river… you'd think the streets'd be paved with gold!”

The kid looked up. “Funny thing,” he said.

“What?”

“The people look poor,” he said. “It's the buildings that look rich.”

And they did. Maurice wasn't an expert on architecture but the wooden buildings had been carefully carved and painted. He noticed something else, too. There was nothing careful about the sign that had been nailed up on the nearest wall.

It said:

RATS WANTED DEAD!

50 PENCE PER TAIL!

APPLY TO: THE RAT-CATCHERS

C/O THE RATHAUS

The kid was staring at it.

“They must really want to get rid of their rats here,” said Maurice, cheerfully.

“No-one has ever offered a reward of half a dollar a tail!” said the kid.

“I told you this would be the big one,” said Maurice. “We'll be sitting on a pile of gold before the week's out!”

“What's a rat house?” said the kid, doubtfully. “It can't be a house for rats, can it? And why is everyone staring at you?”

“I'm a handsome-looking cat,” said Maurice. Even so, it was a little surprising. People were nudging one another and pointing at him. “You'd think they'd never seen a cat before,” he muttered, staring at the big building across the street. It was a big, square building, surrounded by people, and the sign said: RATHAUS. “Rathouse's just the local word for… like the council house, the town hall,” he said. “It's nothing to do with rats, amusing though it may be.”

“You really know a lot of words, Maurice,” said the kid, admiringly.

“I amaze myself, sometimes,” said Maurice.

A queue of people were standing in front of one huge open door. Other people, who had presumably done whatever it was the queue was queuing to do, were emerging from another doorway in ones and twos. They were all carrying loaves of bread.

“Shall we queue up too?” said the kid.

“I shouldn't think so,” said Maurice, carefully.

“Why not?”

“See those men on the door? They look like watchmen. They've got big truncheons. And everyone's showing them a bit of paper as they go past. I don't like the look of that,” said Maurice. “That looks like government to me.”

“We haven't done anything wrong,” said the kid. “Not here, anyway.”

“You never know, with governments. Just sit still here, kid. I'll take a look.”

People did look at Maurice when he stalked into the building, but it seemed that in a town beset by rats a cat was quite popular. A man did try to pick him up, but lost interest when Maurice turned and clawed the back of his hand.

The queue wound into a big hall and passed in front of a long trestle table. There, each person showed their piece of paper to two women in front of a big tray of bread, and were given some bread. Then they moved on to a man with a vat of sausages, and got considerably less sausage.

Watching over all this, and occasionally saying something to the food servers, was the mayor. Maurice recognized him instantly because he had a gold chain around his neck. He had run across a lot of mayors since working with the rats. This one was different from the rest. He was smaller, far more worried, and had a bald spot that he'd tried to cover with three strands of hair. He was a lot thinner than other mayors Maurice had seen, too. He didn't look as if he'd been bought by the ton.

So… food is scarce, Maurice thought. They're having to ration it out. Looks like they'll be, needing a piper any day now. Lucky for us we arrived just in time…

He walked out again, but this time a bit faster, because he realized that someone was playing a pipe. It was, as he feared, the kid. He'd put his cap on the ground in front of him, and had even accumulated a few coins. The queue had bent round so that people could hear him, and one or two small children were actually dancing.

Maurice was only an expert on cat singing, which of standing two inches in front of other cats and screaming at them until they give in. Human music always sounded thin and watery to him. But people tapped their feet when they heard the kid play. They smiled for a while.