Here another ten rats stood, baffled, in a semicircle. Behind them they had deposited a jumble of equipment: odd-shaped metal bars, pulleys, wooden structures that looked like ladders, other pieces of wood that resembled small logs. But between the rats and Mrs Frisby’s front door stood a small, defiant figure. The rats, looking enormous by comparison, remained a respectful distance away from her.
‘Why,’ said Mrs Frisby to Justin, ‘it’s the shrew!’
‘Yes,’ said Justin, ‘and acting shrewish.’
One of the rats was speaking. Mrs Frisby recognized Arthur.
‘… but I told you, ma’am, we do have Mrs Frisby’s permission. She wants us to move her house. Ask the children. Call them out.’
‘Don’t tell me that. What have you done with Mrs Frisby? It’s a good thing the children haven’t heard you. They’d be frightened half to death! If Mrs Frisby wanted you to move her house, she’d be here.’
‘It’s all right,’ called Mrs Frisby, running forward. ‘I’m here.’
‘Mrs Frisby!’ said the shrew. ‘You’re just in time. I heard a noise, and came out and found these — creatures — trying to dig up your house.’
‘I tried to explain it to her,’ said Arthur. ‘But she won’t believe me.’
‘I certainly won’t,’ said the shrew. ‘He said you asked him to dig up your house. Thieving rats!’
‘It’s true,’ Mrs Frisby said. ‘I did ask them, and they said they would. It’s very kind of them.’
‘Kind?’ said the shrew, ‘Great hulking beasts. What do you mean?’
It took several more minutes of reassurance by Mrs Frisby before the shrew grudgingly moved aside, still muttering warnings. ‘I wouldn’t trust them. How do you know they’ll do what they say?’ That, of course, Mrs Frisby could not explain to her.
The rats now commenced to dig busily at the dirt on top of and around Mrs Frisby’s cement block. Justin said: ‘I’ve got to go and talk to Nicodemus. You’d better get the children out.’ Mrs Frisby hurried into her house.
She found them waiting in the living room, unaware of the small crisis that had been taking place outside. As Justin had said, they did not seem worried.
‘We were scared at first,’ Teresa said. ‘But then one of the rats came to see us. He couldn’t come in, but he called to us, and we came out, Martin and I. He said his name was Justin. Have you met him? He’s very nice.’
‘I’ve met him,’ said Mrs Frisby. ‘Now we’d better go outside. They’re getting ready to move the house.’
‘I’m ready,’ said Timothy. ‘I’m all wrapped up like a scarecrow.’
Martin and Teresa had taken pieces of warm cloth from the bed and tied them around him. Mrs Frisby could not see him in the dark, but when she touched him she found they had even tied a piece like a bonnet around his head and ears.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘And we’re lucky — it’s a warm night, and dry.’
They went up the small tunnel to the garden and watched in the moonlight from a hillock a few feet away. The rats had finished digging the new hole, and all twenty of them were working near the house. It was a sight to see.
As soon as the earth had been cleared from the top and sides of the cement block, so that it lay fully exposed in its hole, all of the rats turned to the pile of equipment. Under Arthur’s direction the ladder-like structures became a scaffolding — four small towers standing one near each corner of the block. Across the tops of these the rats fastened strong, light bars of metal, probably, Mrs Frisby thought, from the Toy Tinker’s truck.
From these bars they now hung pulleys wound with strong, thin cord, and at the ends of the cords they fastened hooks, which they slipped into the oval-shaped holes in the block and pulled taut. Five strong rats stood by each cord. One of them, Mrs Frisby noticed, was bigger than the rest: her friend Brutus.
‘Heave!’ called Arthur.
The twenty rats strained on the cords, and the block rose an inch. Each rat stepped back a pace.
‘Heave!’ Another inch.
Slowly, the heavy block rose from the hole until it hung two inches above level ground.
‘Steady,’ said Arthur. ‘Get the rollers.’
Eight rats, two from each group, ran to the round pieces of wood Mrs Frisby had noticed earlier; these resembled sawed-up pieces of broom handle, each about a foot long.
Two rats to a roller, they slipped four of these under the cement block so that they lay athwart the hole, like bars across a window.
‘Lower away,’ said Arthur, and the cement block came to rest gently on the rollers.
‘Let’s see how it rolls.’
They slipped the ropes free of the pulleys and re-hooked two of them to the front of the block. Nine rats now manned each rope; two stayed behind, watching the rollers.
‘Heave!’
The rollers turned and the heavy block slid forward easily, like a truck on wheels, in the direction of the new hole. When it moved off the hindmost of the rollers, as it did every few inches, the two rats in the rear would quickly pick that one up and replace it under the front of the block.
Almost like a game of leap-frog, Mrs Frisby thought. But a well-rehearsed game; the rats had planned carefully; they knew exactly what they were doing; they moved with precision and never wasted a motion.
Within a very few minutes the first of the rollers lay across the new hole; then the second, and finally all four. The block was poised and in position; the hole was exactly the right size and shape. The rats had even dug out a new pantry-hole in one corner, and carved out the small tunnel that would connect the two rooms of the house.
The towers and the pulleys were put up again, and the whole process of lifting and lowering was done in reverse; the rollers were pulled away and the block was eased slowly into its new home.
‘It’s done!’ cried Mrs Frisby. She felt like applauding.
‘Not quite yet,’ said Arthur over his shoulder. To the other rats he said: ‘Get the shovels and the backpacks.’
Pausing a moment to rest, he explained to Mrs Frisby: ‘We’re going to cover it with turf, and then we’ve got to fill up the old hole with the dirt from the new one, or Mr Fitzgibbon will wonder who’s been digging up his garden. Also, we’ve still to dig you an entrance hole.’
In her excitement Mrs Frisby had forgotten this small detail. She could not get into her house. Now she watched in awe as Arthur and Brutus, using two small, sharp, long-handled shovels, dug the narrow tunnel down to her living room. It took them somewhat less than five minutes. It had taken her all day to dig the other one.
‘Now,’ said Arthur, ‘you can put your children to bed. We’ll take care of the rest.’
At the Meeting
Mrs Frisby slept well and soundly, the day just finished having been the longest and hardest she had ever known.
She awoke in the morning with a smile. Her house was warm, and it was safe at last. Her children slept peacefully beside her; Timothy’s breathing was quiet and easy. They could stay in the house, now, as long as they needed to. On some warm day later in the spring, when Timothy was strong again, they would move to the summer house down by the brook. Another nice thing, she thought — when they left the house she would close up the entrance tunnel so that no one could find it; undisturbed by the plough, it would be ready and waiting for them in the fall. It could be theirs forever, thanks to the rats.
The rats! In her half-dreaming state she had forgotten. They were in terrible danger. What would they do? She felt as if she ought to go and offer to help them. But help how? She could think of nothing she could do.
At that moment she heard a voice calling her name from above.
‘Mrs Frisby.’
She left the bed and went to the bottom of the entrance hole.
‘Yes? Who’s calling?’
‘It’s me, Brutus. Can you come up?’
Mrs Frisby climbed up and out of her front door, blinking in the early morning sunlight,
�
�Nicodemus wants to know if you can come with me. He’s having a meeting.’
‘Just let me wake the children and tell them.’
Two minutes later she was walking with Brutus towards the rosebush.
‘What does Nicodemus want?’
‘It’s about the men. Justin told us last night. Nicodemus thinks they may be from Nimh. He wants to ask you more about what Mr Fitzgibbon said.’
That morning there were two rats on sentry duty — one just inside the entrance to the rosebush, watching Mr Fitzgibbon’s house, another at the arch where Brutus had stood. All the rest were gathered in the large assembly room Mrs Frisby had seen when she got out of the lift. Nicodemus, Justin, Arthur and two other rats sat on the raised platform at the end. The rest sat facing them, filling every square inch of floor space except for an aisle up the centre.
Mrs Frisby had never seen so many rats. Even the young ones were present; she spotted Isabella, staring up at the platform with wide, round eyes. Some of the mothers held small babies at their sides. Most of them looked anxious; there was an air of tension, but none of panic.
Brutus led her up the centre aisle to the raised platform. There was a table on it, covered with papers, and one vacant space, where a chair had been placed for Mrs Frisby. The rats waited in complete silence while she sat down.
Then Nicodemus said, quite formally: ‘Justin has told us all that happened. Mrs Frisby, it seems you have more than repaid us for the help we gave you in moving your house. Just as your husband did once, you have saved us from a disaster: Death or capture — we do not yet know which.’
Justin gave her a wink. ‘Mrs Frisby had a taste of capture herself last night.’
‘Would you tell us, as well as you can remember it, word for word what Mr Fitzgibbon said — about the rats, about the men who were at the store?’
‘As well as I can remember it.’ Mrs Frisby’s voice sounded small in the big room. ‘Mr Fitzgibbon said a strange thing had happened in the hardware store — Henderson’s, he called it.’
Her memory was good; she had listened with great care to what Mr Fitzgibbon had said, and she was able to recall the whole conversation word for word. The rats sat quietly while she told it.
Then Nicodemus went back over it, asking questions.
‘You say that Mr Fitzgibbon said six or seven rats. Did he ever say which number it really was?’
‘No, I don’t think he paid much attention to the number.’
‘Jenner’s group was seven,’ said Justin. ‘But it could be a coincidence.’
‘Did he say how far away the town was where this happened? Or did he name it?’
‘No. But it must not be very far. He’d been there and back that day.’
‘Did anyone see his car go out?’ Nicodemus asked the others.
‘I heard it,’ Brutus said. ‘I was on duty. It went after lunch.’
‘And he was back by dinner. But which direction? If we knew, we might send someone. You see,’ Nicodemus explained to Mrs Frisby, ‘we need to know who those men are. If they’re from Nimh, things are much worse for us.’
‘We’d never make it,’ said Arthur. ‘Driving at, say, forty or fifty miles an hour, Mr Fitzgibbon might have gone fifteen or twenty miles in any direction, and returned easily the same afternoon. On the map’ — there was a road map on the table — ‘you can see it could have been any one of half a dozen small towns. And each of them might have a hardware store.
‘You’re right, of course,’ said Nicodemus. ‘Without the name, that idea is hopeless.’ He turned back to Mrs Frisby. ‘Mr Fitzgibbon said the rats were grouped around the motor “as if trying to move it”?’
‘That’s what he said the store owner told him. He didn’t see it himself.’
‘And that the motor was plugged in.’
‘“Had been left plugged in”,’ Mrs Frisby quoted.
‘But we don’t know who plugged it in.’
‘I got the impression,’ Mrs Frisby said, ‘from the way he said it, that the storeowner had left it plugged in. But I’m not sure.’
‘That would make sense,’ Arthur said. ‘If it was Jenner, and if they had plugged it in themselves, they’d have known better than to try to move it. So they must not have realized. It was probably pretty dark in the store.’
‘Poor Jenner,’ said Nicodemus. ‘I wish he had stayed with us.’
‘It will be poor us,’ said one of the rats at the table (Mrs Frisby did not know his name), ‘if we don’t get on with this.’
‘He did not mention the doctor’s name,’ Nicodemus said. ‘Did he say even a word about what he looked like?’
‘No.’
‘Did he describe the truck at all?’
‘No. Only that it was full of equipment.’
‘Are you sure about the headlines in the local paper: “Mechanized Rats Invade Hardware Store”?’
‘I’m sure that’s what Mr Fitzgibbon said it was. But I don’t think he saw it. He didn’t say so.’
‘In a way, that’s the most puzzling thing about the whole story,’ Nicodemus said,
‘Why is that?’ asked Justin.
‘Because the headline doesn’t really fit the facts. You don’t call a bunch of dead rats mechanized just because you find them on a shelf near a motor.’
‘Maybe not,’ said the nameless rat. ‘But then why did the newspaper say that?’
‘I’m wondering,’ Nicodemus said, ‘if perhaps there wasn’t more to the story. Some stronger reason to think they were really taking the motor away, or that they knew how to use it.’
‘Maybe some other motors had been stolen,’ Justin said. ‘Or some tools. That would make them seem mechanized.’
‘It would,’ said Nicodemus. ‘And it would explain what the doctor meant when he said they had more checking to do in the town.’
‘They’re looking for the things that were missing,’ Arthur said, sounding suddenly worried. ‘They’re looking for Jenner’s headquarters. And if they find it …’
‘We’re just guessing, of course,’ Nicodemus said. ‘But it’s a possibility.’
‘And a bad one.’
‘It means,’ Nicodemus continued, ‘that we have no choice. We’ve got to assume they’re from Nimh. We’ve also got to assume that by now they may have found Jenner’s headquarters — whatever cave or cavern they were using.’
‘And,’ said Justin, ‘that now they’re looking for us.’
‘Why for us?’ asked one of the rats. ‘Why wouldn’t they think Jenner’s group are the only ones?’
‘They might,’ Nicodemus admitted, ‘but I don’t think so. After all, they know that there were twenty of us originally. Why should there be only seven now? And we already know that they’re coming out here — in quite a hurry at that. So if they’re from Nimh, obviously they are looking for us.’
‘I think,’ said Arthur, ‘that we’ve got to make some plans, and quickly.’
‘I agree,’ said Nicodemus. ‘It’s a new situation, and a tricky one. We won’t be able to do everything we hoped to. There isn’t time. And somehow we have to convince the exterminators, when they come, that we aren’t more of the mechanized rats they’re looking for.
‘We won’t be able to move any more food to Thorn Valley,’ Nicodemus continued. ‘We’ll have to get along on what we’ve already got stored there — about an eighteen-month supply, if we’re careful. The seeds, I believe, are already moved.’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur. ‘The last load went yesterday.’
‘So with luck, we’ll have our own first crops this summer and autumn.
‘We won’t have time to destroy the motors, or the books, or the furniture as we planned. Instead, we’ll move everything to the cave. And then we’ll seal off all the entrances to the cave as if it had never existed.’
‘That can be done,’ Arthur said.
‘But there’s more. We’ve got to pull all the wires and lights from the tunnel — they’re likely to dig it up. And
the carpet. We’ve got to tear down the arch.
‘Then, when all that’s done, when everything is hidden in the cave, we’ll fill in the stairway and the lift shaft. We’ll seal off everything except the upper storage room and the tunnels leading in the front and out of the back.
‘When they dig, let them find that room. It’s as big as an ordinary rat hole.
‘Justin, tonight, take a group of a dozen or so. Go to the Fitzgibbons’ dustbin. Bring back a load of the worst-smelling rubbish you can find. The storage room is going to become an ordinary, typical rat hole, not in the least mechanized or civilized.’
Nicodemus turned to Arthur: ‘What do you think?’
‘I think we can do it all. We won’t get much sleep, though.’
Justin said: ‘But there’s one more thing. Won’t they think it’s odd — especially if they’re from Nimh — finding just an empty hole?’
Nicodemus said: ‘I was coming to that.’ He sounded suddenly very tired. ‘Tomorrow morning, as soon as it’s light, the main group leaves for Thorn Valley. But some of us will have to stay behind. As Justin says, if they find just an empty hole, they’re sure to be suspicious, and they’ll keep on digging. So when they come with their gas truck, they’ve got to find some rats here. A rear guard. I’d say at least ten.’
Mrs Frisby walked slowly home, keeping to the edge of the woods, keeping out of sight.
Justin had instantly volunteered for the rear guard. Brutus was second, and behind him, eight more; there were fifty more waiting behind them. ‘Enough, enough,’ said Nicodemus. Isabella, in tears, had run forward. ‘I want to stay, please,’ she had pleaded, looking despairingly at Justin. ‘No children,’ said Nicodemus, and her mother led her away, still weeping.
Those ten, the ten who would remain, did not face certain death, nor certain capture. The exterminators (they presumed) would make noise, especially if they cleared away the rosebush. The rats would be alerted. When the men pumped gas (as expected) into the hole, the pump would also make a noise; the air below would move as the gas flowed in. When they felt that, the rats would scramble out of the back exit, past the sealed-off cave, emerge as noisily as possible in the blackberry bramble — indeed, show themselves — and dash off into the woods.
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH Page 15