The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents Read Online Free PDF Page B

one!”
    â€œDon’t you think there’s something wrong with a town where people’d pay more than a dollar for a loaf of bread?” said the kid. “And pay half a dollar for a rat tail?”
    â€œJust so long as they’ve got enough money left to pay the piper,” said Maurice. “Bit of luck there already being a plague of rats here, eh? Quick, pat me on the head, there’s a girl watching us.”
    The kid looked up. There was a girl watching them. People were passing up and down the street, and some of them walked between the kid and the girl, but she stood stock-still and just stared at him. And at Maurice. She had the same nail-you-to-the-wall expression that he associated with Peaches. She looked like the kind of person who asked questions. And her hair was too red and her nose was too long. And she wore a long black dress with black lace fringing. No good comes of that sort of thing.
    She marched across the street and confronted the kid.
    â€œYou’re new, aren’t you? Come here looking for work, have you? Probably sacked from your last job, I expect. Probably because you fellasleep, and things got spoiled. That was probably what it was. Or you ran away because he beat you with a big stick, although,” she added, as another idea struck her, “you probably deserved it because of being lazy. And then you probably stole the cat, knowing how much people would pay for a cat here. And you must have gone mad with hunger, because you were talking to the cat and everyone knows that cats can’t talk.”
    â€œCan’t say a single word,” said Maurice.
    â€œAnd probably you’re a mysterious boy who—” The girl stopped and gave Maurice a puzzled look. He arched his back and said “Prppt,” which is Cat language for “Biscuits!”
    â€œDid that cat just say something?” she demanded.
    â€œI thought that everyone knew that cats can’t talk,” said the kid.
    â€œAh, but maybe you were apprentice to a wizard,” said the girl. “Yes, that sounds about right. That’ll do for now. You were an apprentice to a wizard, but you fell asleep and let the cauldron of bubbling green stuff boil over, and he threatened to turn you into a, a, a—”
    â€œGerbil,” said Maurice helpfully.
    â€œâ€”a gerbil, and you stole his magical cat because you hated it so much and—what’s agerbil? Did that cat just say ‘gerbil’?”
    â€œDon’t look at me!” said the kid. “I’m just standing here!”
    â€œAll right, and then you brought the cat here because you know there’s a terrible famine and that’s why you were going to sell it and that man would have given you ten dollars, you know, if you’d held out for it.”
    â€œTen dollars is too much money even for a good ratter,” said the kid.
    â€œRatter? He wasn’t interested in catching rats!” said the red-haired girl. “Everyone’s hungry here! There’s at least two meals on that cat!”
    â€œWhat? You eat cats here?” said Maurice, his tail fluffing like a brush.
    The girl leaned down to Maurice with a dreadful grin, just like the one that Peaches always wore when she’d won an argument with him, and prodded him on the nose with a finger.
    â€œ Got you!” she said. “You fell for a very simple trick! I think you two had better come with me, don’t you? Or I’ll scream. And people listen to me when I’m screaming!”

CHAPTER 3
    N ever go into the Dark Wood, my friend,” said Ratty Rupert. “There are bad things in there.”
    â€”From Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure
    Far below Maurice’s paws the rats were creeping through the undertown of Bad Blintz. Old towns are like that. People build down as well as up. Cellars butt against other cellars, and some of the cellars get forgotten—except by creatures that want to stay out