Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat (17 page)

“Why, hello!” she cried gaily, moving to Emmy with her hands outstretched. “I'm so
glad
to see you!”

Emmy smiled back, feeling a painful twist somewhere inside of her. So this is what Miss Barmy could have been like … warm and lovely and welcoming. She shook her head suddenly, to clear it. Miss Barmy was
not
like this, but for the moment, Emmy could take advantage of it.

“Miss Barmy,” she said gently, “I need a few blood samples for a science project. Would you … could you—”

“Of course,” said Miss Barmy. “Take as much as you like.”

 

“I'll get my notes organized first thing tomorrow.” The professor, on his knees in Emmy's room, was peering down the heat vent. Brian, still in his waiter's jacket, rubbed his bearded chin as a skittering sound of many small feet echoed in the wall.

Joe and the rodents tumbled out of the heat vent, already cheering.

“Hooray for Raston!”

“Ratty forever!”

“Oh, Rasty,” cried Sissy, “you're a poet and I didn't even know it!”

The Rat was surrounded by a hugging, congratulating mob. He swayed under the press, his mouth open in a foolish, ecstatic grin, his ears twitching at each compliment. Emmy watched, trying not to laugh.

“And so Raston finally gets what he's been craving all along,” said the professor, smiling.

Brian cleared his throat. “And when will the other rodents get what they want?” he asked unhappily.

Emmy glanced at him in surprise. “What's the matter?”

Brian looked away. “It's the rats,” he muttered. “Ever since Raston bit me, I can understand everything they say. And they want to get out!” he added emphatically, raising his eyes. “They can't stand it in those cages!”

“Soon,” said the professor earnestly. “But you know the police searched the Antique Rat today, looking for clues, trying to find Joe. They saw all the rats in their cages, and if they come back and suddenly all the rats are gone, it will seem even more suspicious.”

Brian slumped in his chair.

“Once Joe grows and returns to his parents, then we can set them free. But it's not safe yet.”

“I talked to Uncle Cheswick.” Brian wound the tip of his beard around a finger. “If you just let him grow, he promises to never let Miss Barmy use the rodents again.”

Emmy and the professor exchanged glances.

“Why do you care so much about Cheswick Vole?” asked the professor gently.

“He's my
uncle
,” said Brian with dignity, “and he took me out of the orphanage.” He got to his feet. “I'll go put the chinchilla in the truck. But what about the other potions we let Miss Barmy have—the Oil of Beaver and the Extract of Gerbil? Now that she's nicer, we could ask for them back—”

There was a sudden clatter as the vent cover dropped from the professor's hands.

“What did you say?” Professor Capybara's face had turned pale. “You gave her Extract of
Gerbil
? Not—triple distilled?”

“We thought it was safe enough,” said Emmy anxiously. “It just makes you more mature. What's wrong, Professor?”

He gripped her arm. “It makes you more mature, all right,” he said hoarsely. “It makes you age—” He paused, his grip loosening.

“Professor! Wake up!” Emmy shook him violently.

Professor Capybara's eyes popped open like a puppet's. “It makes you age … by a factor of three …”
he said in a thick, drowsy voice and sagged heavily to the floor, already snoring.

Emmy stared at the rumpled heap that was the professor. “If that's true,” she said slowly, “then Miss Barmy
couldn't
have meant it for herself.”

Brian looked at Emmy in horror. “But if Miss Barmy gave it to you—”

Emmy shuddered lightly, as if touched by a chill breeze.

“—you'd be over thirty years old,” Brian whispered.

 

The attempt to get the Extract of Gerbil from Miss Barmy had been unsuccessful. Her door was locked, and all their knocking had failed to rouse her.

The professor woke at last, but he was still so upset he kept falling asleep again. Emmy helped Brian get him into the truck.

“Don't be afraid,” said Brian, his worried eyes on her face. “I've got Miss Barmy's blood sample right here. Tomorrow I'll help the professor go through all his notes, and look at that chart in a good light, and … and I'll keep him calm. We'll figure something out for sure.”

Emmy nodded. Her teeth were chattering slightly in the cool night air.

“Besides,” Brian went on with an attempt at a smile, “Miss Barmy's going to stay nice for days, right? And why would she want to make you into a grown-up anyway? It doesn't make sense.”

Emmy rubbed the goose pimples on her arms. She'd always thought it would be wonderful to be a grown-up—but not all at once. Not if she had to miss everything in between.

Brian slammed the truck door and leaned out through the open window, still looking unhappy. “I'd feel better if your parents cared enough to listen to you a little. Could you get them to take you along when they leave town? Keep you out of Miss Barmy's way?”

Emmy shrugged. “Maybe.”

“They wouldn't have to care a lot,” he went on, thinking aloud. “I mean, at the orphanage there wasn't anybody who loved me the way a parent would, but some of the staff were fond of me. Emmy, if your parents were even just
fond
of you, they might listen enough to keep you safe.”

On her way up to bed, Emmy stopped at her parents' room.

“Mom?” She hesitated in the doorway. “Are you going to stay home for a while, or are you planning another trip soon?”

Her mother looked up languidly from her dressing table and dipped two fingers in a jar of cold cream. “Oh, another trip, naturally, though what I'll do in Alaska I can't imagine. I'm not sloshing about with any big clammy fish, I can tell you
that.
” She applied the cream to her face with a careful, circular motion.

“You could take me with you,” said Emmy, wandering over to the chest of drawers. She poked at a tube of wrinkle remover and gazed idly at the bottles of nail polish cluttering the surface, along with her mother's silver brush and comb set.

Her mother looked blank. “Take you with us? Whatever for?”

“Well, while Dad's fishing, you and I could do something together.” Emmy thought rapidly. “Shopping, maybe?”

“Shopping? In
Alaska
?” Kathy Addison gave a tinkling laugh. “What would we buy? A stuffed moose?”

Emmy said nothing. She was staring at the dresser top. Her mother's brush was on the left, her father's on the right …

Kathy Addison waved airily. “Don't talk nonsense, of course you can't come. We'll be going straight to Rome from there. I'm simply
dying
to see Count Zippoli and his dancing ferrets—”

I'm not going to use the Endear Mouse anyway, Emmy told herself, looking at the strands of her parents' hair tangled in the brushes.

“—and don't you have school, or something? You're in what grade now? Fourth? Sixth?”

But just in case, Emmy thought.

“—and then we've been invited to the Transylvanian Vampire's Ball, and that's hardly an event for children—”

It's silly to take them, Emmy said to herself, even as her hand quietly extracted one hair from each brush and folded them in a tissue. It's not like I'll ever really
use
them. I'll probably forget I even have them in my pocket.

E
MMY WAS EATING BREAKFAST
in the kitchen when the news came on.

“Don't tell me they haven't found that boy yet,” said Maggie, her eyes troubled. “He's been missing, what—two days now?”

Emmy nodded, her eyes never leaving the screen. Studley Jackell was having better luck this time—Joe's parents weren't trying to shut the door in his face. Mrs. Benson, pale and thin, was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Mr. Benson stood squarely in front of the microphone, looking grim and determined.

“And so young Joe Benson is still missing,” said Studley Jackell, his voice deep and booming, “and his parents are still wondering, worrying, watching, waiting—”

“He's eleven,” interrupted Mr. Benson, leaning into the microphone, “about four feet ten inches tall with thick blond hair, wearing a blue soccer jersey—”

“That's right,” said Studley, grabbing the microphone. “Joe Benson was an outstanding soccer player with hopes for the national junior team. His loss means bad news for Grayson Lake's tournament hopes—”

“What does
that
matter?” Mr. Benson's face darkened. “I don't care if Joe never plays soccer again. I just want my son back, safe at home.”

“And so do we all,” intoned Studley Jackell, smoothing back his hair and blocking Mr. Benson from the microphone in one practiced motion. “Monica, do the police have any leads?”

“Well, Studley, the police released Cheswick Vole since they had no real evidence to connect him to the disappearance of Joe Benson. But we have just been told that the police want him for questioning again—and he is nowhere to be found.”

“It's a real mystery, isn't it, Monica.”

“It certainly is, Studley. But there's nothing mysterious about the way Ron Ronson's Used Cars and Trucks saves you money!”

Maggie snapped off the TV. “I can't bear it,” she said. “Those poor parents. And that poor boy.”

“I bet Joe will turn up safe,” said Emmy, pouring milk on her cereal. “He's probably having a great time somewhere and just forgot to go home.”

“I shall pray for it,” said Maggie simply, measuring coffee into a pot.

Emmy finished her cereal quickly. Joe would want to hear what was on the news, especially the part about how his father didn't care if he ever played soccer again.

She would take Ratty and Sissy with her, she thought, rinsing her bowl. They would pick up Joe at Rodent City and then go to see Brian and the professor. A magnifying glass would help them read the fine print on the chart, and maybe make some sense out of the smudged spots, too. With all of them working on the problem, surely they could come up with something that would keep her parents from flying to Alaska tonight.

There was a scraping sound in the hall, and a soft bump at the door. Emmy's fingers tightened on her spoon as she looked up—and then she met Miss Barmy's cheery smile.

“What a lovely Saturday morning! Doesn't the sunshine just make you feel lucky to be alive?”

“I'm telling you, it's weird.” Emmy stared out the window of the Antique Rat. On the far side of the green, Mr. Bee whittled peacefully in his doorway, ducking occasionally as his wife threw another flowerpot.

“What?” Joe sprawled on the desk blotter, doodling with a broken bit of pencil. Nearby, Professor Capybara peered through the charascope, making notations on a small yellow pad.

“I
know
what Miss Barmy's done to me,” Emmy said moodily, “but when she acts so nice, I almost forget how nasty she really is.”

“Dangerous,” said the professor at once, looking up. “Terribly dangerous, as her blood sample proves. Look here.”

Emmy bent over the charascope as the professor slid a small rectangle of glass under the lens. The glowing bits she remembered swam in bright crystal patterns, replicating and splitting in a lively tumble of changing shapes. “I don't get it. That looks just like the sample of your blood I saw before.”

“It
is
my blood. Now look at this one, and compare.”

Professor Capybara replaced the slide with another and Emmy looked through the eyepiece,
blinking in surprise. The glowing brightness had become something murkier, like pond water seen several feet below the surface. The gleaming bits were still there, flipping and changing as she watched, but there was a dark edge to the patterns, and the shapes looked oddly distorted.

“Let me see,” said Joe, and Emmy lifted him to the top of the charascope, where he stood on a brass fitting and put his whole head in the left eyecup.

“Criminy! Look at the ball of nightcrawlers!”

“What?” Emmy turned quickly. “Where?”

“It just swam into view.” Joe swung out of the way as Emmy slid into the chair and bent her head.

The ball was still there, green and wriggling, made up of dark, twisted wormlike shapes. Emmy had seen one of them before, in the professor's blood; but this was a whole mass of them, writhing together. And as she watched, horrified, another worm cluster floated past, and then another.

She sat back, feeling sick.

“Not very pretty, is it?” The professor snapped off the light that illumined the slide and dusted off
his hands. “We've all got a worm or two floating around, but let them linger and grow, and—well—that's what you get.”

Emmy whirled the swivel chair so she faced away from the desk. She didn't want to waste one more minute thinking about Miss Barmy's stupid ball of resentments. “Come on, Joe,” she said, putting out her hand for him to step up on. “Let's help Brian with the chart. Your little eyes will be perfect for close-up work.”

 

Emmy walked quickly home for lunch. The sun was warm on her face and the blossoming trees filled the air with scent, but she hardly noticed. She was wondering what her own blood would look like under the charascope.

“Are we there yet?” The Rat, drowsing in the warmth of her shirt pocket, poked his nose out.

Emmy stroked his head lightly. “You should have gone with Sissy. You would have been eating lunch at Mrs. Bunjee's by now.”

“Acorn soup,” said the Rat with disdain. “That's not lunch, that's punishment.”

“Maggie might not give me any peanut-butter cups, you know.”

“Do your best,” said the Rat cheerfully. “And put me on that vine below your window—I want to climb up and play on the train.”

“But, Ratty—your ankle!”

“All better,” said the Rat briskly. “We rodents heal rapidly. Besides, I have to get in shape for the next pawball game.”

“But will they even let you play?”

The Rat's face split in a wide and ecstatic smile. “Chippy said I could—if I wrote the team song!”

 

A shadow appeared in the doorway as Emmy mounted the back steps.

“There you are, Emmaline, just in time for lunch!” Miss Barmy smiled broadly and opened the refrigerator to reveal a frosty glass. “I made a milkshake especially for you. It's delicious!”

Emmy stared at the creamy cold froth. Miss Barmy still seemed perfectly nice; it was unlikely that the milkshake contained Extract of Gerbil. And there was no explosive noise, no putrefying stench that would accompany a lie, so it must taste all right.

But Emmy wasn't going to take the risk. She hadn't forgotten the mass of green worms she had seen in the charascope.

“It's so
healthy,
Emmaline,” said Miss Barmy, holding out the glass. “I've always wanted the very best for you, you know.”

Emmy waited. A lie was a lie, no matter how much the person speaking might think it was true ….

But there was no smell at all. Emmy glanced up sharply. Surely the Oil of Beaver couldn't have worn off already?

“Really, I insist,” said Miss Barmy. “Drink it.”

Emmy's gaze traveled down from Miss Barmy's face to her fingers. Each of the nanny's fingers was bandaged. There was a strong smell of antibiotic ointment, and several of the fingers had bled through the gauze.

Miss Barmy must have scrubbed her fingers raw. And now there was no trace of Oil of Beaver left on her skin.

Emmy looked at Miss Barmy's smiling face and hooded eyes and saw that the professor had been wrong. The chinchilla effect was not going to last a week. It had not even lasted one day.

“I need to go,” Emmy said suddenly, backing toward the door.

“No,” Miss Barmy said, “you need to drink this. Now.” Her hand made a convulsive movement and she gripped her cane.

Emmy pressed her hands against the screen door. “I'm going out. I want to—to play in the park.”

Miss Barmy's breath came and went with a quick rise and fall of her chest. “You'll get dirty in the park.”

“I want to get dirty!” said Emmy passionately. “I want to catch frogs and climb trees and—and build forts—”

“Besides, you have a tennis lesson in an hour.” Miss Barmy's voice was thin. “And little theater and basket weaving after that.”

“I take too many classes,” said Emmy. “Do you know what I think?”

Miss Barmy's lip lifted in a slight sneer.

“I think that kids should have time to just play. On their own. With no grown-ups around, trying to organize them.”

“Do you indeed?” Miss Barmy said softly. “Well”—she looked down, smoothing her palm over the top of her cane—“perhaps you are right.”

Emmy narrowed her eyes. It couldn't be this easy. Standing up to Miss Barmy had never worked before.

Miss Barmy was still looking down. Emmy followed her gaze.

The nanny was stroking her cane, running her hand over the carved faces. Some of the blood from her fingertips left rust-colored streaks on the white, polished wood of the cane.

Watching, Emmy felt a chill. The tiny hairs on her arms lifted.

Miss Barmy, still looking down, smiled. “Yes, Emmaline. You
should
go to the park. Absolutely. Right now, if you like.”

 

Emmy was out. Still a nagging uneasiness in the corner of her mind, vague and undefined, kept her from going too far away, and she kicked a stone along her street, thinking things through.

Should she spy on Miss Barmy? But what good would that do? Extract of Gerbil was taken in through the mouth, so as long as Emmy didn't eat or drink anything the nanny had touched, she would be safe. It wasn't that hard to go without lunch for once—and she could always make it up later.

She would go to the Antique Rat. Maybe the Professor and Brian and Joe had found something that would work on her parents.

Emmy tossed back her bangs, suddenly annoyed. She was tired of waiting for other people to find something that would work. All right, then, she would just do the chinchilla trick again. Maybe she could build niceness up in Miss Barmy's system, the same way Miss Barmy had built up the opposite in her parents!

Emmy trotted purposefully up the hill toward Main Street. It was a good plan, if temporary. In fact, she could just keep on using the chinchilla over and over until her parents came home from Alaska and Rome and wherever else they were going. It would mean weeks of strategy and careful timing, but it was better than stabbing the Endear Mouse in the heart.

A small blue car turned the corner ahead and came toward Emmy. She ducked behind a convenient hedge as it slowed down. She'd caught a glimpse of the driver through the window, and he looked suspiciously like Dr. Leander, the school psychologist. The last thing Emmy wanted was to get into another discussion about
problems.

Dr. Leander stopped the car, unfolded a map, and looked vaguely around. Emmy shrank back into the shadow of the hedge. The polite thing to do would be to offer assistance, but Emmy already had to talk to him twice each month and that was more than enough. It wasn't easy to talk to someone who kept searching for signs of mental illness. And finding them, probably, thought Emmy with a little grin, remembering the last time.

Dr. Leander drove slowly on, down the hill and toward the lake. Emmy watched absently—until the car turned down her own driveway. And then the nagging, uneasy feeling that had been hanging over her sharpened, came to a point, and pricked her with a sense of clear and looming danger.