Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat (3 page)

She paused on the landing, catching her breath. That ungrateful Rat.
Now
she knew why rats had such a bad reputation.

She glared through the half-open door to the dance studio. The smell of stale socks assailed her nose as a dozen sweaty little girls in leotards leaped awkwardly. And suddenly Emmy couldn't stand the thought of pulling on a leotard and sweating with them.

She gazed crossly into the alley below. She wouldn't go to dance class. She wouldn't go. What was the use of trying to do everything she was supposed to when nobody ever cared anyway?

Emmy was flooded with a fierce excitement. She pelted down the sagging stairs and skidded onto the sidewalk. She looked up and down the street—at all the shops she had visited with Miss Barmy—and then she caught sight of the alley again. It stretched out before her, dark and messy and forbidding.

She hesitated. It looked dirty. It looked dangerous.

She stepped in.

E
MMY WALKED QUICKLY
down the narrow alley, her footsteps echoing off the walls that rose on either side of her like a canyon of sooty brick. A smell of overripe fruit and spoiled meat curled up from the brimming trash cans.

But then there was light again, and a central triangle of patchy grass like a little park, and a wonderful maze of backstreets that she had never seen before, crammed with shops.

Emmy gazed around, delighted. Miss Barmy had only taken her to stores where mannequins wore expensive suits and jewelers spoke in quiet voices over glass countertops. These shops were—well—shabbier, but they looked a lot more interesting.

She wandered by a candy store, its window filled with colorful jars—peppermints, gumdrops, chocolate nibbles, all packed full of sugar, and not a tofu bar in sight! A smiling woman was handing out caramels at the door … they were unwrapped. They
probably weren't at all sanitary. Emmy took three and popped them in her mouth all at once.

An exuberant puppy, small, white, and yappy, bounced out of a side street and went straight for Emmy's ankles, drooling. Emmy got another caramel from the lady and dropped it in the dog's mouth.

There was a tattoo parlor with foreign-looking letters on its sign and a big, hairy man getting tattooed right in the window. Emmy watched in fascination as the needle was poked into his back. She wasn't exactly sure what was being tattooed, but she was fairly certain Miss Barmy wouldn't have approved.

There was a small grocery that smelled of fish and a bakery that smelled of vanilla and almonds. A narrow building next door carried the sign
HOME FOR TROUBLED GIRLS
, and Emmy giggled, feeling unaccountably wild and silly. “Troubled, that's me,” she said gaily to the puppy, dancing a few steps to the flamenco music blaring from the shop across the street.

No wonder Miss Barmy never came here. No expensive clothes to buy, no fashionable people to impress, and no health-food stores anywhere. There
was
a shoe store, though. Emmy looked at it doubtfully. Miss Barmy always had metal tips put on her shoes. Emmy thought that maybe she just liked to hear herself walk.

There was a white-haired man outside the shoeshop door who was sitting on a little stool, whittling a block of wood. He was soft-looking, rather like a dumpling dressed in old clothes, and his face was wrinkled.

Emmy edged closer. A long, curly shaving peeled off his knife.

“Want to see, missy?” he asked, as the puppy pounced on the wood shaving. “Mister Bee don't mind none.” The old man ran a hand through what was left of his hair and looked up at Emmy with a gentle expression.

“Who's Mr. Bee? Is he your boss?” Emmy reached out a finger, touching the small pointed face of the little carving. Was it an otter? Or maybe a—

Crash!
A flowerpot, thrown from above, broke on the sidewalk.

“MIS-TER BEE! Are you
working
, or are you
jabbering
?”

The screech came from an upstairs window. Emmy looked up, startled. There was nothing to be seen but a scrawny hand pulling back the lace curtains and shaking a finger.

“Working, dear!” called the chubby old man, instantly picking up his knife again. “Working hard, as always, my little rosebud!”

There was a vigorous snort. “Then see that you keep at it, you old fool!” Another flowerpot flew past, just missing Emmy's foot.

The man leaned closer to Emmy. “
I'm
Mister Bee,” he whispered, “and up there—that's my boss. Missus Bee. Here, step under the awning so she don't hit you.”

He glanced up at the window, chuckling. “She's a beautiful woman, my Addie, but she's always had a bit of a temper.”

Beautiful? Emmy craned her neck, but the scrawny hand, yellow as a chicken leg, was all she could see.

“Mis-ter BEE!”

Emmy dodged a violently thrown cup and saucer and fled toward the corner, where there stood a stately house of faded blue. She ducked behind a sign
that read
P
.
PEEBLES
,
ATTORNEY AT LAW
and looked back at Mr. Bee. He was sweeping up the broken pieces as calmly as if he did it every day.

Relieved to be out of range, Emmy cut across the tip of the green to what looked like a pet shop, on the next corner. A painted sign swung from the doorway. Emmy ran closer to see, and the puppy followed, barking happily. On the sign was painted a familiar gray form, and beneath it, tall, spidery letters spelled out
THE ANTIQUE RAT
.

The storefront was old-fashioned–looking, with vine-covered brick and broad windowsills. Emmy pressed her nose to the smudged and dusty glass. She could make out carved tables and chairs … she slumped, disappointed. It was just an ordinary antique store—the kind that the housekeeper, Mrs. Brecksniff, had dragged her into more than once when Miss Barmy had her day off. There were no cages, or rats, or any pets at all.

Emmy looked down at her feet, where the excitable puppy was licking her shoe. Maybe her parents would allow her to keep the puppy if she asked them. Sometimes, when they came home from a trip, they were very loving for a while. Emmy was
scratching the puppy behind the ears, considering this, when a familiar rhythm stopped her cold.

It was the sound of footsteps. Firm footsteps. Rapid, purposeful footsteps, made by shoes with metal tips, and every so often another thunking sound, out of rhythm.

The puppy whimpered, and Emmy drifted like smoke deep into the shadowed entryway. Only one person in the world sounded like that when she walked.

Fighting an inner dread, Emmy quietly turned the brass doorknob of the Antique Rat. A bell tinkled faintly in a back room, and a fine dusting of grime sifted down from the top of the frame. Emmy eased the door shut and stood behind it. She could see a bit of the street from this angle, and her breath quickened as a woman's legs came into view, along with a swinging cane. Lizard-skin shoes stopped abruptly, pointing at the storefront, and the cane came to rest. Miss Barmy was looking in the window.

Emmy flattened herself against the door. She didn't need to look at the cane to see it. Made of hardwood, polished almost white, it was intricately carved with miniature faces, their hair intertwined.
Miss Barmy said they were the faces of people she had taken care of. She'd promised that someday she would have Emmy's face carved on one of the blank patches.

Emmy suppressed a shudder. Every grown-up who ever saw the cane told Emmy she was a lucky girl to have such a remarkable nanny. But something about the little faces bothered her.

The footsteps started up again. Emmy could hear them passing the window, scraping on the step, and stopping at the door. She slid sideways, silent as a cat, and crouched behind a large and dusty dresser just as the doorknob turned.

“Yes?” said a voice: a teenage boy, Emmy guessed. She pressed her face against the side of the dresser, breathing softly. It wasn't that she was afraid of Miss Barmy—not exactly, she told herself. It would just be so much easier if she didn't have to explain skipping ballet.

All was quiet. Emmy could almost feel Miss Barmy's eyes looking the person up and down.

“May I help you?” The boy's voice was patient.

“Who are you? Where is Mr. Vole?” Miss Barmy's usually silken voice sounded abrupt.

“My uncle is out just now. Is there something I can do for you?”

The cane tapped on the floorboards. “I can't wait. I'll leave a message.”

“Yes?”

“Tell your—uncle, did you say?—that I want the usual,” Miss Barmy said sharply. “Tomorrow evening, ten minutes to six, on the dot.”

“The … the usual?”

“He'll know what I mean. And I want it delivered quietly, you understand? Come to the back door and knock twice. I'll be waiting.”

There was a soft sound of scratching, like a pencil on paper. “And the name?”

“He'll know who I am,” Miss Barmy said coldly. “I'm the one who doesn't pay.”

“D—doesn't pay?” the boy stammered. “I don't think my uncle will allow—I mean, his rates are very expensive—”

“They're
exorbitant
, young man, they're highway robbery. Fortunately, Mr. Vole and I have an agreement. Oh, he'll be very glad to let me have the usual, for no fee at all. You'll see.”

“Yes, ma'am. And where should it be delivered?”

“The old Addison mansion on Grayson Lake. It's the last house on Loon's Bay Road. Don't forget—five fifty tomorrow, back door, double knock.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

There was a gritty sound of shoes turning, of steps, of the door creaking open.

Emmy held her breath.

“Tell your uncle to see to it personally,” Miss Barmy said, “or I shall be
seriously
disturbed.”

Emmy poked her head out as the footsteps died away.

The boy was tall and slightly pudgy, with stooped shoulders and a pale complexion. His ears stuck out from hair that needed a trim, but he looked at her kindly.

Emmy felt awkward. Should she apologize for listening in and hearing Miss Barmy order—what
had
she ordered, anyway? She glanced out the window in time to see Miss Barmy disappear into the shoe shop across the street.

Emmy shut her eyes. She had had a narrow escape.

“Feeling kind of shaky?” The boy's hand on her elbow was warm. “Here, sit down. It's the rats, you know.”

“The … the rats?” Emmy sat obediently on a green velvet chair embroidered with small white creatures.

“They make some people queasy.” The boy waved his hand at the cluttered interior of the shop. “My uncle's got rats on the brain.”

Emmy followed the boy's gaze. The shop was packed with furniture of all kinds—small round tables, straight-backed chairs, great gilded mirrors—and on every piece there was painted or carved or embroidered some kind of rodent for decoration.

“Do people actually—” Emmy paused, feeling that the question she wanted to ask was not quite polite.

“Buy this stuff?” The boy grinned and shifted his broom. “Not much. But sometimes people come for the real ones.”

“Your uncle sells rats?” Emmy was struck by a thought. “Does he catch them himself?” She waited for the answer, thinking worriedly of Rat,
her
rat. He was rude and ungrateful, but he was still her friend. Emmy didn't think she could bear to see him caged again.

The boy shrugged. “I don't know,” he admitted.
“But my uncle doesn't collect ordinary rats, and the people who come here don't want ordinary rats.”

He laughed, tucking a notebook and pencil into his back pocket. “I wouldn't even say that the people who come here are ordinary people. A little weird, most of them.”

Emmy nodded. Miss Barmy was weird enough. What had she been doing in a rat shop, and what was it she wanted delivered to Emmy's house tomorrow evening at ten minutes to six?

Emmy passed a hand over her forehead. Ballet probably wasn't over yet. If she ran, she could make some excuse about why she was late. If she turned around and walked out right now, she could be through the dark alley and back in her safe and ordinary world in two minutes flat.

The boy peered at her. “You still look kind of squeamish. Rats are okay, once you get to know them. Better than people, sometimes.” His smile became a bit uncertain. “Want something to drink?”

Emmy nodded.

The boy led the way to an alcove in the rear of the store with a lumpy maroon couch. “Have a seat. I'll
be right back.” He opened a door behind the couch and clumped up a set of long, narrow stairs.

There were books stacked on the couch with titles like
My Life Among the Rats: A Memoir
and
Scientific Rodentology 101.
Emmy was paging through one called
Lemmings or Leaders?
when she heard a rustling sort of noise. Instinctively, she pulled up her feet and looked under the couch.

There it was again! Something
had
rustled, behind that doorway hung with a red velvet curtain.

The boy tromped down the stairs. “Here.” He held out a glass of something fizzy. “My name's Brian. What's yours?”

“Emmy.” She took a sip and smiled at Brian. He was the homeliest teenager she had ever seen, but also—in an odd way—the nicest looking. He smiled back.

“Do you want to see the rats? You won't be able to buy any—nobody buys them, they only rent them anyway—”

“You
rent
rats?”

“Uncle says they're so rare, nobody can afford them. But it doesn't cost anything to look.”

Emmy thought Brian might be surprised at what
she could afford, but she followed him through the doorway hung with red velvet. A slight animal odor made her nose wrinkle, and she stepped inside with a feeling that she was entering another world. The faint noises from the street were suddenly muffled as the heavy velvet dropped behind her, and in the silence she could hear a rustling as every animal in the cages—or so it seemed—turned to face her. She held back a gasp as a large rodent with bright orange teeth lifted its head.

“Don't worry, that's just the beaver.” Brian patted the top of the cage. “She's big but she's gentle. Aren't you, girl?”

A bell tinkled lightly. “I'll be right back,” Brian said, brushing through the velvet curtain.

Was a beaver a rat? Perhaps a sort of cousin.

The beaver gazed at her through tired-looking eyes. “Poor thing,” said Emmy, moving on.

Cage after cage held some kind of rodent, from the Giant Rat of Sumatra to the tiniest vole, each with its own label, and most seemed irritable, or worse. Emmy was beginning to wonder if the Rat had been a particularly good-tempered specimen after all when she caught sight of a very small mouse
with big ears and huge, dark eyes. It looked appealingly at her and touched one small paw to the bars of its cage.