Goldwhiskers (3 page)

A whole week without sharks! Oz settled back into his seat with a smile. It was almost too good to be true.

‘I never want to see another herring as long as I live,' snarled Roquefort Dupont, poking his long, ugly snout over the edge of the wharf and heaving himself up on to its weather-beaten planks. In one of his filthy paws, the supreme leader of Washington DC's rat underworld – and recently elected Big Cheese of the Global Rodent Roundtable – clutched a makeshift lead. He yanked on it, dragging a scrawny, bedraggled mouse up on to the dock beside him. ‘Don't you agree, Fumble?'

The mouse nodded listlessly. He looked miserable, and he reeked of fish. They both reeked of fish. They'd had nothing but herring to eat since a freak storm had blown them off course and the balloon
on which they'd been travelling had crash-landed in the North Sea.

Dupont's Parisian cousin, Brie de Sorbonne, leaped nimbly up beside them. ‘
Moi aussi
,' she said with a delicate shudder. ‘
Au revoir
to herring!' She looked back in distaste at the Norwegian fishing trawler anchored behind them, then glanced at a gleaming white cruise ship docked several wharves away. ‘Such a pity we weren't picked up by one of zose,' she added ruefully. ‘Now, zat's ze way to travel.'

‘After that storm, we were lucky we got picked up at all,' grunted a broad-shouldered rat who was clambering on to the dock beside her. It was Stilton Piccadilly, head of London's rat forces. Behind him, the other members of the Global Rodent Roundtable hauled themselves up the rope that tethered the fishing boat to the wharf in Oslo's harbour. The rats huddled together in the chill predawn air, their stomachs sending up a loud chorus of hungry rumbles.

Piccadilly was right. Without the
Dagmar Elisabeth
and her captain's sharp eyes, the entire GRR would be at the bottom of the sea right now instead of standing on a dock in Norway. Luckily for them, the trawler's skipper had spotted their bright balloon
afloat on the water and angled closer for a better look. He'd quickly recognized it as the replica of the Pilgrim ship
Mayflower
that had escaped from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City. The fiasco had made headlines worldwide. Grappling the balloon up on to the deck, the captain had stored it away in the ship's hold, intending to post it back to its owner as soon as he reached port. The rats, hidden in the balloon's deflated folds, had been stored along with it. They'd remained trapped aboard the
Dagmar Elisabeth
for weeks as the ship poked its way through Norway's fjords and inlets, slowly filling her cargo bays with herring.

Brie caught sight of her reflection in the window of a nearby warehouse and shrieked. Her companions whirled round, fangs bared and claws at the ready.

‘What! Where?' snarled Dupont, primed for a fight.

Brie covered her eyes with her paws and pointed wordlessly at the window with her tail. The other rats gasped as they, too, spotted themselves.

‘I'm a walking skeleton!' cried Dupont, aghast. He poked his prominent ribs in dismay.

‘Skin
und
bones,
ja
,' agreed Muenster Alexanderplatz.
The big black rat from Berlin, better known as Muenster the Monster, plucked sadly at his own gaunt hide.

It was true. The rats were an exceedingly skinny lot, thanks to the trawler's all-herring-and-nothing-but-herring diet.

Gorgonzola, the senior rodent in the group, stepped forward. His belly, though still ample, no longer scraped the ground as he walked. ‘Food,' demanded the Italian rat, ‘
pronto
. Then home. For me,
Roma
!'

Everyone stared at Dupont expectantly. As Big Cheese, he was in charge of this sort of thing. Never one to miss an opportunity to pass the buck, however, Dupont swung round and glared at Ridder Stortinget. ‘This is your neighbourhood, right? Where do we eat?'

The Norwegian rat jerked his snout away from the harbour. ‘My lair is close,' he replied. ‘Come, I show you.'

Stortinget scuttled away in the early morning darkness, and the herd of rats scuttled after him. Stilton Piccadilly, Brie and Roquefort Dupont – still dragging the pitiful heap of fur that was Fumble – brought up the rear.

When they reached the underground station where the Norwegian rat had his headquarters, the GRR quickly scattered in search of food and transportation home.

‘In a few hours I will be in Paris,' gloated Brie. ‘A bubble bath first, and then fresh croissants,
oui
?' She gave a contented sigh and glanced over at Dupont. ‘Won't you change your mind and come with me,
mon cousin
?'

‘Some other time,' said Dupont. ‘I have to get back to DC.' Roquefort Dupont was worried about his turf. He'd been gone for nearly a month now, and he was all too aware of what havoc his underlings could be wreaking in his absence. Gnaw, for instance, one of his senior aides-de-camp, had tried to take over once before, and Dupont wouldn't put it past the one-eared slimeball to try again.

Brie leaned over and kissed both of Dupont's furry cheeks. ‘
Au revoir
, zen,' she whispered silkily. ‘Until we meet again. Perhaps you will consider holding ze next Roundtable meeting in Paris? April would be
très bien
. Nothing is lovelier zan springtime in ze City of Lights.'

Tossing a wink at Stilton Piccadilly, who blushed an unattractive shade of crimson, Brie sashayed off
into the underground station's shadows. Dupont tugged on Fumble's lead. ‘Let's go.'

‘Wait,' ordered Stilton Piccadilly.

Dupont halted. He eyed the British rat suspiciously. Piccadilly pointed to a bundle of newspapers. ‘Look,' he said.

The GRR's extended voyage to Europe had reaped them one benefit. Bored to distraction on the trawler, the rats had discovered a stack of international newspapers and finally allowed Dupont – with Fumble's help – to teach them to read.

‘The London
Times
, eh?' said Dupont, squinting at the masthead. He scanned the front page. “World-Famous Opera Star to Sing in London on Christmas Eve”!' he read aloud. His tail began to whip back and forth as he inspected the photo beneath the headline. ‘It's her, isn't it?'

Piccadilly nodded.

With his razor-sharp teeth, Dupont snipped the twine that bound the papers. He dragged the top copy into the shadows and nosed through the pages in search of the rest of the article. ‘“Lavinia Levinson arrives in London today, accompanied by her family,”' Dupont muttered. Stilton Piccadilly read along over his shoulder. ‘“The diva will sing a
programme of seasonal favourites at the Royal Opera House on Christmas Eve. An exclusive reception will follow. In attendance will be members of the royal family, along with a glittering gathering of film stars and other celebrities.”'

Dupont gave another sharp tug on Fumble's lead. The mouse flinched. ‘Yessir?' he mumbled, rising on to his paws.

With all of his henchrodents far away in Washington DC, the Sewer Lord had needed a replacement underling. Fumble, a former employee of the Spy Mice Agency who had turned traitor, was now Roquefort Dupont's personal slave.

Dupont tapped the paper with his scaly tail. ‘What does that mean exactly, “accompanied by her family”?' he demanded.

Fumble shrugged. ‘Husband and son.'

‘You sure about that?'

‘Oz is an only child,' explained the mouse. ‘If he weren't travelling with them, the article would have just said “accompanied by her husband”.' He slumped back to the floor.

Dupont stared at the newspaper. Then he looked up. He gave Stilton Piccadilly a calculating glance.

‘I know exactly what you're thinking, Dupont,'
growled the British rat. ‘I can read you like a book.'

Roquefort Dupont's thin rat lips peeled back in a hideous smile. ‘I told you reading would come in handy,' he said smugly.

Piccadilly glared at him. ‘Listen, you pompous piece of sewer sludge. Let me make one thing absolutely clear. I don't like you. Not one bit. In fact, I loathe you.'

‘I can assure you that the feeling is mutual,' snarled Dupont. The two bull rats squared off, the hackles of fur round their grimy necks bristling in anger. ‘You despise me, yes,' Dupont continued, ‘but I suspect that, for once, you agree with me.'

Piccadilly was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded reluctantly.

‘And you'll help?' asked Dupont.

The British rodent eyed him. ‘What's in it for me?'

Dupont gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Greedy beggar,' he said. ‘I might have guessed there'd be a price.' He paused, considering. ‘Second-in-command of the Global Rodent Roundtable,' he said finally.

‘Deal,' snapped Stilton Piccadilly. He extended his hairless tail.

With a grimace of distaste, Dupont extended his
own as well, and the two rats shook in a formal truce. Then Dupont jerked on the lead again, yanking Fumble on to his paws.

‘Let's get a move on,' he said. ‘Washington can wait. We've got some unfinished business to take care of in London.'

High atop a building overlooking the Thames, a shaft of weak winter sunlight nudged its way into a cubbyhole concealed behind the largest clock face in London. Despite what most visitors to the city assumed, this distinction in size did not belong to Big Ben, but rather to the clock at 80 Strand, an unassuming building downriver next to the Savoy
Hotel. As the gargantuan minute hand reached the top of the hour, the feeble ray slipped through a crack in the dial and unfurled across the floor of the hidden nook, coming to rest on a tightly curled ball of fur in the far corner.

Twist stirred in his sleep. The scraps of flannel in his nest were warm, and he burrowed more deeply into them, squinching his eyes tight against the encroaching daylight. He'd been out until very late last night, and he was still very tired.