For Your Paws Only Read Online Free PDF Page A

ordered. “We’re going to need their help.”

CHAPTER 4
    DAY ONE • TUESDAY • 0850 HOURS
    Roquefort Dupont, Lord of the Sewers and supreme leader of Washington, D.C.’s rat underworld, squeezed his hapless aide’s throat in an iron-clawed grip. “Gnaw, sometimes you just plain disappoint me,” he snarled, thrusting his face so close that their whiskers nearly intertwined.
    Gnaw’s close-set eyes bulged in terror. His lone ear (the other lost long ago to Dupont’s razor-sharp teeth) quivered frantically as he struggled to free himself from his boss’s grip. He didn’t know which was worse, having his air supply slowly cut off, or being so close to Dupont’s mouth. Fueled by a steady supply of garbage, his boss had the most rotten, rancid, repugnant breath of any rat in Washington. And Gnaw was getting a full blast of it.
    â€œSorry,” he managed to croak, his eyes watering.
    Dupont let go. Gnaw fell to the floor with a thud.
    â€œYour turn,” said Dupont, whipping around to where Scurvy, his other aide-de-camp, cowered beneath the desk in the Library of Congress’s Reading Room. The skinny rat’s droopy whiskers shook in terror as Dupont used his long, hairless tail to smack the book that lay open between them.
    Scurvy peered at the page. His brow puckered apprehensively. “Um, that’s an N , right? And—wait, don’t tell me! An E , and that’s a W . Let’s see . . . that spells, um . . . ”
    â€œÂ â€˜New,’ Scurvy, ‘new’! As in NEW York! As in the Big Apple!” Dupont shook his head in disgust. “Idiots! I’m surrounded by idiots!” he complained. “I can see that I’m just going to have to do this myself.”
    Dupont’s tail began to thrash back and forth angrily. “Don’t you two understand the importance of what I’m trying to do here? It’s time to take this game of rat-and-mouse to a whole new level. It’s time to finally take what we deserve! And the only way we’re going to be able to do that is to beat those wretched small-paws at their own game.”
    The rat leader’s eyes gleamed fiery red in the shadows beneath the table. His aides drew back in alarm as their boss worked himself into a rage. “It’s time we rid the world of mice once and for all! And who better to do it than I, Roquefort Dupont?” He thumped his mangy gray chest with a powerful paw.
    Gnaw began to chew anxiously on the tip of his tail.The boss was angry, and when the boss was angry, he took it out on his underlings.
    Dupont stomped back and forth beneath the desk. “Rat scum, she called me! Me, Roquefort Dupont, the descendant of royalty! The great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Camembert Dupont, who lived in a castle! Well, I won’t be insulted any longer! I won’t be kept down, held back, or pushed around. I will take my rightful place in this world, and she can’t stop me!”
    Gnaw and Scurvy exchanged a glance. Their boss was off again, ranting about Glory Goldenleaf. Ever since Halloween, he had become increasingly unhinged. His hatred for mice—and for Glory in particular—had ballooned into an outright obsession.
    â€œShe thinks rats are ignorant,” Dupont fumed. “Are we ignorant?”
    Scurvy quailed. Gnaw pulled his tail out of his mouth cautiously. “Uh, I dunno, boss,” he replied. “Are we?”
    â€œOf course not, you useless garbage trawler!” screamed Dupont. “We’re not ignorant—we’re illiterate! Don’t you know the difference?”
    Gnaw blinked, confused.
    â€œIt means we can’t READ!” Dupont thundered, thrusting his snout at him. Gnaw flinched, then popped his tail back into his mouth and began sucking it vigorously. “But that’s about to change,”