Part 4 (2/2)

'Happy us,' said Tess. 'Boy, girl, sitting on the coal, huh? Boy smoking cigarette, huh? Talking, huh?'

'Us four sleeping,' said Kevin. 'Curled together, warm.'

It was not an image that appealed to Tess, though it clearly did to him. She was still not entirely comfortable about being a rat and, besides that, it would be the first time that she had allowed herself to sleep as an animal. It was an idea that had always scared her a little, not only because she might sleep longer than she meant to and arrive home late, but because sleeping was a kind of forgetting and she was afraid that she might not remember who she was when she woke up.

Kevin nudged her with his shoulder and wrinkled his nose. Then he darted on ahead and, resigning herself, Tess followed.

The four rats slept throughout the day in a snug and well concealed hole beneath a portakabin at the entrance to the coal-yard. It was far from being a sound sleep, because the floor above their heads was walked on almost constantly, and the sounds of men's voices filtered through the wood. Lorries pa.s.sed in and out all day, their tyres crunching on the coal dust, alarmingly close. But Tess didn't mind. Rat dreams were strange and frightening and it was a relief to be woken from time to time and to be able to remember where she was and why. Sometimes Kevin woke with her and they would exchange a few images and touch noses for comfort before they went back to sleep. Sometimes the rat with the bitten ear woke too and moved in small, irritated circles, trying to get comfortable again. Long Nose, it seemed, didn't wake at all, but snored and sighed throughout all the coming and going in ignorant contentment.

The best sleep came in the three or four hours between the closing of the yard and the arrival of darkness. Those hours pa.s.sed like minutes but refreshed the four rats better than any before them. They spent a few minutes cleaning themselves when they woke, then emerged, bright-eyed and sleek, into the strange, orange gloom that covers cities at night. A few flakes of snow were falling, but there was little wind, and the rats were in no danger of getting cold as long as they kept moving. They were hungry, though, and Tess was about to discover that the hunger of a rat bore no relation to any hunger she had ever known. It began as a warm and rather pleasant sensation which made her feel energetic and strong, but within an hour it had grown larger and more demanding, and her feeling had changed to one of enormous courage and pride. She was sure that she would have stolen a bone from a dog at that moment, and longed for a chance to prove it.

'Eat, huh?' she blasted at Kevin.

He jumped at the force of her message but answered calmly: 'Bas.e.m.e.nt, dark, black bags, flash restaurant, a few streets.'

Tess held on to the image of the diners in their expensive clothes, taking their time over their food. Her parents brought her to that kind of place from time to time, but she was sure that Kevin would never have been in one, at least not while he was human. She decided that she would bring him out, when all this was over. She had her own account in the post office, and she would buy him some new clothes, if he would let her. It was a pleasant fantasy. She would be on familiar territory. He would be on edge, worse than usual, but she'd make him feel at ease and make sure he got the best the restaurant had to offer.

'Long Nose.'

Not again. Tess almost squeaked in annoyance. She was tempted to use the pent-up urgency of her hunger to jump on him and box his ears, but just in time she realised that he was probably hungry, too. By now they were back among the rat runs that honeycomb the foundations of the city, and Tess had allowed herself to fall back behind Kevin again and into the company of Long Nose.

'You, huh?' he said.

Tess was as stuck as before. To make time, she said: 'Him, huh?' and sent an image of the rat with the chewed ear.

'One black whisker.'

Tess hadn't noticed. 'Him, huh?' she said, indicating Kevin.

The image that came back was a disturbing one, an awful random mixture of rat features combined with the rat's version of what a boy is. Tess had no desire to have a name-image anything like that.

'You, huh?' said Long Nose again.

Tess said nothing.

'Huh? Huh?'

When she still made no reply, he gave her a command that no rat will ever refuse, because too often their lives depend upon it.

'Freeze!'

Tess froze. But Long Nose did not. He walked all around her from her nose to her tail, muttering to himself. 'Huh? Huh? Nananana. Nope. Huh?' He tugged at her tail and her whiskers, prodded her nose and looked into her ears. He lifted her feet and counted her teeth and made her sit up on her tail while he examined her belly, all the while saying: 'Huh? Nope. Nanana. Nope.' At last he went round behind her and started fiddling with her tail again.

'Tail two toes short, huh?' he said.

Tess didn't catch the image. 'Huh?' she said.

'Three toes, four toes, huh?'

'Huh?' She turned around to see what he was doing, just as he bit off the last inch and a half of her tail.

Tess squeaked and swung round ready to attack, but Long Nose looked amazed and offered his throat in defence.

'Hurt!' she said. 'Tail, yowch!'

'Seven toes,' said Long Nose, holding up the end of her tail and measuring it against his front paw. 'You, Tail Short Seven Toes.'

Tess examined the wound on her tail and was surprised to see that it was hardly bleeding at all. Nor was it anywhere near as sore as she had expected. She could live with it, she decided, and would almost have forgiven Long Nose had she not turned round to find him contentedly eating the end of her tail for his breakfast. She shot him an insult that even he could not fail to understand, and ran ahead to find Kevin.

The rats feasted on the rubbish in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the restaurant. There were other rats there, too, pleased to meet the newcomers and exchange the latest gossip. One of them, a handsome fellow who introduced himself to Tess as Stuck Six Days in a Gutter Pipe, showed her how to recognise rat poison and scatter bits of it around to make it look as if it had been eaten. Then he helped her to find the choicest bits of leftover food, such as fish spines, chicken hearts and slivers of soap. Tess accepted them as graciously as her rat nature permitted, but it seemed to her with her great hunger that anything she ate was as good as the next thing, and that was even better.

There was plenty for everyone and the place seemed to have a constant turnover of rodent customers who came and went in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on. Stuck Six Days in a Gutter Pipe wrinkled his nose suavely at Tess as he left, but the effect was slightly spoiled by the chicken leg in his mouth that he was taking home for the children.

When Tess had eaten all she could, she joined Kevin and One Black Whisker in a quiet corner where they were chatting with two unknown rats.

'Guides,' Kevin told her. 'Long Nose, One Black Whisker curled up asleep in the couch on the waste ground. Little old woman sitting beside a fire, many streets. Long Nose and One Black Whisker confused, lost.'

'Many street, huh?' said Tess. 'Boy, girl walking, riding on a bus. Owls, pigeons flying. Us rats going slowly. Us rats very tired. Us rats sleeping.'

'Boy, girl scratching their heads,' said Kevin. 'Looking at maps, shrugging their shoulders.'

'Us rats swimming in sewers, us rats in slimy black drainpipes.'

'Girl going into her house, huh?' Kevin's black eyes were cold and mistrustful and Tess knew her own must have looked the same. But he was right. There was no turning back now, and no way of knowing where to go without the guidance of the city rats. She showed Kevin her teeth for spite, but a few minutes later they were back on the rat highways with their new guides.

CHAPTER NINE.

FOR THREE MORE NIGHTS Tess and Kevin travelled through the rats' city underground, changing guides twice more along the way. They ate from rubbish bins knocked over by dogs, from shop store-rooms and from the shelves of poorly guarded kitchens. When they reached the outskirts of the city they began to travel above the ground, and they stopped many times along the way in urban gardens to feed on fresh vegetables and tasty sc.r.a.ps from compost heaps. Rats, it seemed, were never short of food.

On the fourth day, dawn found them in one of the most affluent areas of the country. Green fields and trees surrounded impressive houses, both old and new, owned by those people who could afford the luxury of having the best of both worlds. Tess was aware that her parents had checked out areas like this before they settled on the house beside the park. The air was so fresh and the country smells so sweet that she found herself regretting their choice. What was puzzling her, though, was that the sort of area they were in didn't fit at all with the picture the rats had given her of the little old lady who was waiting beside the fire.

'Little old lady, huh?' she said to their latest guide. Her name was Nose Broken by a Mousetrap, and it was easy to see why.

'Yep, yep, little old lady,' she said, and darted through a hedge into a field of lush gra.s.s.

It was not snowing now, but there had been several light snowfalls over the last few days, and because of the relentless cold, whatever snow had settled had remained. It stuck to the rats now as they dislodged it from the gra.s.s, and melted in dark patches on their glossy coats. They stayed close in to the hedge to avoid the eyes of dogs or hawks or pa.s.sersby, and soon they crossed into a second meadow, and then a third. A road ran parallel to their route, between the meadows and the widely s.p.a.ced houses on the opposite side, and the occasional car pa.s.sed along it, driving slowly because of the icy conditions. After a while, Tess realised by the change in sound that the hedge they were following was no longer beside the road but running away from it and out into the open country.

'Road, huh?' she said. 'Little old lady house, huh?'

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