The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rod - Terry Pratchett [41]
Maurice wrinkled his mud-caked forehead in amazement. Rats who couldn't smell a cat? And then he realized. He didn't smell of cat - he stank of mud, he felt like mud, in a room full of stinking mud.
He sat, still as stone, until through muddy-caked ears he heard claws heading back to the hole in the wall. Then, without opening his eyes, he crept carefully back down to the rubble and found that it had piled up against a rotten wooden door. What must have been a piece of plank, soggy as a sponge, fell out as he touched it.
A feeling of openness suggested that there was another cellar beyond. It stank of rot and burned wood.
Would the… voice know where he was if he opened his eyes now? Didn't one cellar look like another?
Perhaps this room was full of rats, too.
His eyes sprang open. There were no rats, but there was another rusted drain cover which opened into a tunnel just big enough for him to walk through. He could see a faint light.
So this is the rat world, he thought, as he tried to scrape the mud off himself. Dark and muddy and stinky and full of weird voices. I'm a cat. Sunlight and fresh air, that's my style. All I need now is a hole into the outside world and they won't see me for dust, or at least for bits of dried mud.
A voice in his head, which wasn't the mysterious voice but a voice just like his own, said: But what about the stupid-looking kid and the rest of them? You ought to help them! And Maurice thought: Where did you come from? I'll tell you what, you help them and I'll go somewhere warm, how about that?
The light at the end of the tunnel grew brighter. It still wasn't anything like daylight, or even moonlight, but anything was better than this gloom.
At least, nearly anything.
He pushed his head out of the pipe into a much larger one, made of bricks that were slimy with strange underground nastiness, and into the circle of candlelight.
'It's… Maurice?' said Peaches, staring at the mud dripping off his matted fur.
'Smells better than he usually does, then,' said Darktan, grinning in what Maurice considered was an unfriendly way.
'Oh ha, ha,' said Maurice, weakly. He wasn't in the mood for repartee.
'Ah, I knew you wouldn't let us down, old friend,' said Dangerous Beans. 'I have always said that we can depend on Maurice, at least.' He sighed deeply.
'Yes,' said Darktan, giving Maurice a much more knowing look. 'Depend on him to do what, though?'
'Oh,' said Maurice. 'Er. Good. I've found you all, then.'
'Yes,' said Darktan, in what Maurice thought was a nasty tone of voice. 'Amazing, isn't it. I expect you've been looking for a long time, too. I saw you rush off to look for us.'
'Can you help us?' said Dangerous Beans. 'We need a plan.'
'Ah, right,' said Maurice. 'I suggest we go upwards at every opportun-'
'To rescue Hamnpork,'said Darktan. 'We don't leave our people behind.'
'We don't?' said Maurice.
'We don't,' said Darktan.
'And then there's the kid,' said Peaches. 'Sardines says he's tied up with the female kid in one of the cellars.'
'Oh, well, you know, humans,' said Maurice, wrinkling his face. 'Humans and humans, you know, it's a human kind of thing, I don't think we should meddle, could be misunderstood, I know about humans, they'll sort it out'
'I don't care a ferret's shrlt for humans!' snapped Darktan. 'But those rat-catchers took Hamnpork off in a sack! You saw that room, cat! You saw the rats crammed in cages! It's the rat-catchers who are stealing the food! Sardines says there's sacks and sacks of food! And there's something else…'
'A voice,' said Maurice, before he could stop himself.
Darktan looked up, wild-eyed. 'You heard it?' he said. 'I thought it was just us!'
'The rat-catchers can hear it too,' said Maurice. 'Only they think it's their own thoughts.'
'It frightened the others,' mumbled Dangerous Beans. 'They just… stopped thinking…' He looked absolutely dejected. Open beside him, grubby with dirt and paw marks, was Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure. 'Even Toxie ran off,' he went on. 'And he knows how to write! How