Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [80]
“Oh,” said Stanley, taken aback.
“Oh, sir,” corrected the black rat. “Right, Rat 101—”
“Rat 101?”
“Rat 101, sir. I demand some respect around here, Rat 101, and I intend to get it. We start with numbers. Each Message Rat is to be known by number only. A numbered rat is an efficient rat where I come from.”
“Where do you come from?” ventured Stanley.
“Sir. Never you mind,” barked the black rat. “Now, I have a job for you, 101.” The black rat fished out a piece of paper from the basket that he had winched up from the Customer Office below. It was a message order, and Stanley noticed that it was written on headed note paper from the Palace of the Custodians. And it was signed by the Supreme Custodian no less.
But for some reason that Stanley did not understand, the actual message he was to deliver was not from the Supreme Custodian, but from Silas Heap. And it was to be delivered to Marcia Overstrand.
“Oh, bother,” said Stanley, his heart sinking. Another trip across the Marram Marshes dodging that Marsh Python was not what he had hoped for.
“Oh, bother, sir,” corrected the black rat. “The acceptance of this job is not optional,” he barked. “And one last thing, Rat 101. Confidential status withdrawn.”
“What? You can’t do that!”
“Sir. You can’t do that, sir. Can do it. Have, in fact, done it.” The black rat allowed a smug smile to drift past his whiskers.
“But I’ve got all my exams, and I’ve only just done my Higher Confidentials. And I came top—”
“And I came top, sir. Too bad. Confidential status revoked. End of story. Dismissed.”
“But—but—” spluttered Stanley.
“Now push off,” snapped the black rat, his tail flicking angrily.
Stanley pushed off.
Downstairs, Stanley dropped the paperwork off at the Customer Office as usual. The Office Rat scrutinized the message sheet and poked a stubby paw at Marcia’s name.
“Know where to find her, do you?” he inquired.
“Of course,” said Stanley.
“Good. That’s what we like to hear,” said the rat.
“Weird,” muttered Stanley to himself. He didn’t much like the new staff at the Rat Office, and he wondered what had happened to the nice old rats who used to run it.
It was a long and perilous journey that Stanley undertook that MidWinter Feast Day.
First he hitched a lift on a small barge taking wood down to the Port. Unfortunately for Stanley, the barge skipper believed in keeping the ship’s cat lean and mean, and mean it certainly was. Stanley spent the journey desperately trying to avoid the cat, which was an extremely large orange animal with big yellow fangs and very bad breath. His luck ran out just before Deppen Ditch when he was cornered by the cat and a burly sailor wielding a large plank, and Stanley was forced to make an early exit from the barge.
The river water was freezing, and the tide was running fast, sweeping Stanley downstream as he struggled to keep his head above water in the tide race. It was not until Stanley had reached the Port that he was finally able to struggle ashore at the harbor.
Stanley lay on the bottom of the harbor steps, looking like nothing more than a limp piece of wet fur. He was too exhausted to go any farther. Voices drifted past above him on the harbor wall.
“Ooh, Ma, look! There’s a dead rat on those steps. Can I take it home and boil it up for its skeleton?”
“No, Petunia, you can’t.”
“But I haven’t got a rat skeleton, Ma.”
“And you’re not having one either. Come on.”
Stanley thought to himself that if Petunia had taken him home he wouldn’t have objected to a nice soak in a pan of boiling water. At least it would have warmed him up a bit.
When he did finally stagger to his feet and drag himself up the harbor steps, he knew he had to get warm and find food before he could carry on his journey. And so he followed his nose to a bakery and sneaked inside, where he lay shivering beside the ovens, slowly warming through. A scream from the baker’s wife and a hefty swipe with a broom eventually sent him on his way, but not before he had managed to eat most of a jam doughnut and nibble holes through