Part 28 (2/2)

Another trill followed, like electronic birdsong, and C3PO replied again. 'Not tonight, R2. It would be far too dangerous!'

Tess was tempted to knock and join the boys, but she refrained. Better to stick to her own plan, now that she finally had the freedom to do it.

With the relief of a prisoner being released, she Switched. Even as she became a rat and began to adjust to her surroundings, processing sounds and smells, her human mind was wondering how she would survive when she couldn't Switch any longer. Like stepping back into prison, it would be. For a life sentence.

She put it out of her mind and concentrated on the present. Her rat body was supple and strong. She went silently back into Orla's room and slithered through the hole where the radiator pipe emerged. Then she was running and sliding down through the walls of the house. When she was human, Tess always thought that she could remember how it felt, but it wasn't until she became a rat again that she knew she was wrong. No memory could capture the immediacy of ratness or how it felt to be so small and yet so strong; so vulnerable and so brave. Why would anyone choose to be human, she wondered, if they could be a rat instead?

The first room that Tess came to was the sitting-room. She didn't go in. It didn't look like a promising place for foraging. There was only one rat in there as far as she could see. He was quite elderly and was having serious trouble with half a packet of fruit gums which were sticking his teeth together. He was sc.r.a.ping angrily at his jowls with his paws but was having no success. Tess noticed that he was missing one of his teeth; a top one, at the front. She wondered whether it was a casualty of an earlier fruit gum battle, but decided not to embarra.s.s him by asking. She turned and slipped away before he saw her.

In the hall-way she encountered one of the strangest rats she had ever met. She was scurrying rapidly down the stairs carrying a bread-crust that Colm must have dropped on his rambles, and as she pa.s.sed Tess she flashed an unusual greeting. Tess was pretty expert at the visual language that rats used to communicate with each other, but she had never been greeted like this before. The image was of a huge gathering of rats with Tess in the centre of it, being welcomed with joy on all sides. It was more than unusual. It was grand, larger than life, almost poetic. Tess watched as the other rat squeezed through a tiny hole at the bottom of the first stair, then she turned towards the kitchen. But part of her mind was still on the peculiar message, and she had blundered into the middle of trouble before she realised her mistake.

A mother rat had claimed the kitchen for her large, adolescent family and, for as long as they were in residence, it was a no-go area for other rats. Tess realised her mistake when the youngsters looked up from foraging around the bottom of the table legs and she found herself observed by nine practically identical faces. She turned to leave, but it was already too late.

There is nothing on earth more savage than a mother rat protecting her young. If they are threatened she will attack anything: a dog, a human, even a tractor. If she cannot stop the enemy, she will die in the attempt. In the scale of things, Tess was a pretty minor threat.

The mother rat hit her from above, leaping down from the sink where she had been keeping a careful look-out. Her weight, greatly supplemented by gravity, knocked the wind out of Tess and she was flattened for a minute, scrabbling uselessly at the slick lino floor with her claws. Above her, the mother rat crouched with bared teeth.

'Nanananana!' Tess sent rat images as clearly as her shaken mind could manage. She had a Rat name, that had been given to her a long time ago beneath the Dublin city streets, but now her mind hit upon a more appropriate nickname.

'Town Rat not hurting young rats,' she said. 'Town Rat not taking their food. Town Rat stupid; very stupid.'

She had managed to regain her feet by now, but kept her head on the floor and her throat bared in a gesture of absolute submission. Rats, Tess knew, obeyed nature's rules, one of which is that, among members of the same species, submission ends aggression. The only creatures that Tess had ever known to break that rule were human beings, but for a moment or two she wasn't sure that it would work. The mother rat took a menacing step forward and loomed over Tess. She must have been eating soap up there on the draining board; she stank of it.

'Nananana,' Tess pleaded. 'Town Rat going. Going very fast. Not looking back!'

The mother rat sent no images in return but continued to stare hard at Tess. Then, with no warning at all, she turned and walked away. Tess stayed where she was until the young rats converged on their mother in a clamour of admiration and anxious hunger. Then, with no pretence at dignity, she fled.

In the hall-way, at a safe distance, Tess stopped and groomed. With her teeth she chewed and combed her sleek, chestnut coat back into order. Then, after listening carefully for a while, she washed her face with the back of her paws. Finally, her self-respect intact again, she set off to have a look outside.

At the edge of the yard she searched long and hard with her eyes and ears, but there was no sign of the white cat. The last of the clouds had drifted away, and the sky was clearer than any she had ever seen. Despite the strength of the moon she could see stars; some close, some infinitely distant, like bright dust scattered across the night. Nearer, the mountains stood silvery and silent. They seemed to glow as though the eerie light originated with them and not with the moon. As she looked on, Tess was surprised to find that her rat mind was as capable of wonder as her human one. Where they differed was in their response to it. The human part of her was filled with impatient curiosity; a desire to explore and to understand. Her rat nature, by contrast, was content to experience the wonder, absorb it, and return to the important things in life.

Which, to a rat, usually meant food.

Tess's nose and ears soon told her where it was to be found. From the feed-shed at the end of the milking parlour she could hear delightful sounds: hasty activity, gnawing and crunching and chewing, rodent jubilation. Hunger roared in her belly. To make herself look bigger and fiercer, she puffed up her coat, prepared to fight her corner if she had to. Then, twitching and bristling, she went to join the party.

CHAPTER FOUR.

BUT EVERYTHING HAS A price. Breakfast the next morning was governed by Uncle Maurice's anger and, although Tess had been too tired to join him for the morning milking, she guessed what was on his mind even before he opened his mouth to speak.

'I've had enough of those flamin' rats. I'm getting rid of them once and for all. I don't care what it costs, I'm getting the exterminators in.'

Tess didn't know how pest control professionals went about their business, but she did know that they succeeded. If Uncle Maurice carried out his intention, most of the rats she had encountered the previous night would soon the a painful death. She shuddered at the thought, and Uncle Maurice caught sight of her.

'There's no point in being sentimental about it,' he said. 'It's all very well, you town folk coming in and thinking the countryside is full of cuddly creatures. Real life isn't like that, you know.'

Tess looked down at the table. She would never be able to tell him the reason why she was so horrified by his plans. Or what 'real life' meant to her.

'How come the cat doesn't keep them under control?' she asked.

'We have no cat,' said Uncle Maurice.

'But I saw ...'

'I said we have no cat!'

Tess decided not to push it. After a moment, Aunt Deirdre breached the silence.

'I don't know about those exterminators,' she said. 'Are you sure the chemicals they use aren't dangerous? They might be bad for Orla's asthma.'

'Orla's asthma, Orla's asthma! I'm sick and tired of hearing about Orla's flamin' asthma. The rats have to go, right? If you can come up with a better suggestion, let me know.'

He stood up, pus.h.i.+ng his chair back with such force that its feet grated on the flagged floor and made everybody's skin crawl. Then he was gone. Brian, who was his father's right-hand man, got up with an air of resignation and followed. One by one the other members of the family, even little Colm, let out a sigh of relief.

Orla was excused from was.h.i.+ng-up because the detergent gave her eczema. She entertained Colm in the sitting-room while Tess and Aunt Deirdre cleared up. Tess waited for the effects of Uncle Maurice's outburst to clear and, when she felt her aunt had cheered up sufficiently, she plucked up courage.

'Who is Uncle Declan?'

Her aunt's mood collapsed again, as if she was a balloon that had been punctured. 'Why do you ask that?' she said, and Tess thought she detected a touch of anxiety in her voice.

'No reason,' she said. 'Orla mentioned him, that's all.'

'I have no idea why she mentioned him,' said Aunt Deirdre. 'He isn't relevant at all. I have no idea what she was talking about.'

Tess waited, a.s.suming that an explanation would follow, but it didn't. On the subject of Uncle Declan, Aunt Deirdre had said all that she intended to say. In silence she finished was.h.i.+ng the dishes and in silence Tess dried them and put them away. Afterwards she slipped off again, quickly, before Orla could ask to come.

By the time she crossed the outermost boundaries of the farmland, Tess had already come up with a plan. Despite her fear she was desperately curious about the woods at the foot of the crag and she decided to use an alternative form to investigate. A bird of some sort would be ideal for getting a good look between the trees, and provided she didn't encounter that sinister raven, she should be safe enough.

A movement at the edge of her vision made her look up. A bright, red-brown hare was sitting on a rock a few yards away. Sensing Tess's eyes upon it, it froze, sitting upright on its haunches, still as the stones around it. Tess ached to Switch and join it, but she was still on the wide open hill-side. She could see no one, but there was no guarantee that no one could see her; from the height of the crag if not from the farmhouse. In the bright sunlight the fears of the previous day seemed absurd. Surely it would be safe enough to slip inside the edge of the trees, just long enough to Switch?

There was nowhere else. Her nerves on edge, Tess crossed the brittle rocks until she had reached the woods. Everything was quiet. She took a deep breath and, making herself as small and as nonchalant as possible, she manoeuvred her way past the sharp thorns and into the shadows beyond.

Straight away Tess knew that the woods were full of magic. The air was as fresh as spring water. There was a brightness about the leaf-filtered light that her eyes could barely contain, and a thousand vivid shades of green reflected it. Nothing was inert; the bark of the trees was like living skin, and the rocks were covered with velvety moss, like soft, green pelts. Between them the richly-scented earth was concealed by the leaves of wild strawberry and garlic.

Tess's fears evaporated and, overcome by the strange atmosphere, she moved forward. Here and there, in dry hollows produced by overhanging rocks or exposed roots, little heaps of empty hazelnut sh.e.l.ls had been left by mice or squirrels. The entrances to more permanent homes had been dug out of earthen banks, and musky scents drifted on the air above them like signs, warning or welcoming. There was no evidence anywhere of human visitors; no discarded wrappers or tissues or cans; no paths; no fences; no carved initials on the trees. This was the wildest place that Tess had ever encountered.

Her heart filled with excitement as she wondered what shape to take on first. As if in answer to her question, the hare that she had seen earlier came into view again as it slipped silently away into the heart of the wood. Tess took a last breath of the cool, moss-scented air and Switched.

It was a long time since she had been a hare, and she had forgotten the lean, lithe strength of it, as different from a rabbit as a wolf was from a poodle. Her long hind legs were hard and tight, coiled springs waiting to unleash their power. She listened carefully for a moment and then, unable to resist, sprang into the air. She kicked and twisted, and barely touched the ground before leaping again, mad as a March hare. Once started she couldn't stop. Her claws tore holes in the moss and released the trapped scent of the soil, but soon this was overwhelmed by the rank smell of the garlic, bruised beneath the hare's strong feet.

<script>