He was still shrieking as he lurched awake.
“Oh,” he gasped. “A dream! Just a silly dream.” He had not dreamed of his sister since…since….
Forget it. It’s over. His paws trembled as he drew them over his head and along his whiskers. Usually grooming calmed him, but he couldn’t stop shaking. He snorted, began to pace.
Perhaps a snack would clear his head. Papa looked through his stash of food. Picking out a chunk of pungent cheese, he nibbled. He couldn’t stop seeing his sister’s face. Nia’s face. Her skin hanging on her…shrivelled eyes that stared…her curving teeth…
The lump of cheese stuck in his throat. Papa spat it out, gagging, as a voice called, “Chairman?”
Papa screamed.
“Sir?” asked the voice.
“Leave me, Nia!” he shrieked.
A head peeked around the corner of his burrow entrance. The guard. A young pup who looked like it had just been weaned from its mama. The guard’s eyes were huge. “Are…are you okay, Beloved Chairman?” he stammered.
Papa glared at the guard, his chest heaving. “Stop staring at me or I’ll rip out your eyes and feed them to the gulls.”
The guard’s head ducked back behind the corner. “Y-yes, sir! S-someone to see you…Mister Chairman…sir!”
“Well then send him in, imbecile!” hissed Papa.
A figure filled the entrance. “No need, I’m here. Hello, Papa.”
Fin. He was back.
FIFTY-ONE
“How he worried about you, you who travelled this wrecked world. Then, when he heard you were well, he threw off his fears.”
Petrarch, 1350
Fin stepped into his uncle’s nest.
“Fin!” cried Papa, and bounded to him in one leap.
Circling, bobbing, climbing over each other, paws touching faces, whiskers trembling, Fin realized how much he’d missed his uncle.
Their words collided, tumbling over each other.
“Oh Papa! I’m so glad to see you…!”
“My boy! My boy has returned!”
“I missed you so much, Papa!”
“Knew you were alive, boy! Knew it…!”
But suddenly Papa stiffened. Sniffing Fin up and down, he said, “Where’ve you been, boy?”
Fin pulled away and didn’t say anything, his eyes fixed to the floor.
Papa scowled. “Where have you been, boy?”
“I—I have seen so much, Papa,” said Fin. “There’s so much I want to say.” Pulling his gaze up, he looked his uncle in the eyes. “That’s why I came back.”
“Back from where? What are you talking about, Nephew?”
“Well, I got…hurt,” began Fin. “I led my squad of Plague Rats to the target, but then I hurt my paw. It got stuck in some metal teeth and was broken. Until it healed I couldn’t go far. Luckily I found a park that had lots of benches and trees. I foraged there until my paw healed. Then I came back.”
“That’s it?” Papa’s eyes hadn’t left his nephew’s.
Fin could see that Papa knew he was hiding something. “Yeah,” he said, his ears burning. “A stupid seagull almost got me. I escaped by a whisker.”
“By a whisker, you say? Hmm.” Papa’s brows furrowed. “Seagulls are cruel, yes, but stupid?”
“I just meant that the thing almost killed me. It was jabbing its beak, and—”
“That’s when the seagull got your foot.”
“No! No, I mean, I had already hurt my foot—”
“Oh?” Papa’s eyebrows raised. “Where was this park, you say? Near the target? It would have to be if your paw was hurt so badly that you could not return.”
“Look, I’m back now, okay? Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do,” said Papa, but his eyes narrowed. Fin looked away. His uncle continued. “I talked to your lieutenant when you didn’t return. Scrubbs, wasn’t it? I ordered her to complete the mission with a different squad of Plague Rats after you went missing. Got her head bashed in attacking the two-leg.”
Blood thrummed in Fin’s ears. Papa was speaking again, but Fin couldn’t hear him. Attacking the two-leg. Was it dead? Was his little two-leg dead? Because of him?
Papa was staring at him. Fin babbled, “Sorry, my…my paw has been hurting me, and I’m just a little tired.” Then, with an effort, he said, “I’m sorry Scrubbs is dead.”
Papa snorted. “I’m not. It could have been you.”
“Did they…kill…the target?” asked Fin.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Papa. “A good Tunnel Rat to the end. Sadly, there’s no way to know, Nephew. Our weapon does not work that fast. Ha, ha!”
“No, of course not.”
“Come now, make a nest in your old corner—”
“I’d like my own burrow,” said Fin quickly. He added with a smile, “I’m not a day-old pup anymore, you know.”
Papa looked surprised. “If that’s what you want. My nephew is back from the dead. If he wants his own nest, he gets his own nest.” Papa smiled, but he looked weary. More white streaked his once jet-black fur, and there was a hunch to his back that Fin hadn’t seen before.
“Are you okay?” asked Fin.
Papa rested his cheek against Fin’s and murmured, “I am now, Nephew. I am now.”
FIFTY-TWO
“Without knowing it, we were carrying death on our lips.”
Gabriele de’ Mussis, 1348
Hello in there!” Fin called down a hole. He was in the foulest area of the Tunnels—as far from the Uppers as a rat could get. “Is there a Mister Scratch here, please?”
A wriggling pink nose appeared in the nest entrance, sniffing the air. It froze mid-sniff. “Fin?” squeaked a familiar voice. “Can’t be.” A couple more sniffs.
A white furry head poked out. Scratch’s red marble eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head and roll away. He shrieked, “Fin! Fin is back! Fin is back!” Scratch flew out of the nest and tackled Fin.
Fin rolled him over and pinned Scratch, chomping his ear. Scratch tried to bite him back.
“Ha! Too slow!” said Fin. “Still blind as a naked mole rat!”
“Oh! Oh! I can’t believe it! I really can’t believe it! Fin! You are alive! Everyone said you were dead, but Scratch said, ‘Nope! Fin is alive, he’s alive!’ I knew it! I knew it! Ha, ha!”
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up now, okay?” said Fin laughing. He tackled Scratch again, and they cascaded through the burrow opening, rolling down the slope into the nest. At the bottom they whumped to a stop. Fin gasped. Scratch’s nest smelled like raw sewage.
Fin tried to keep from wrinkling his nose. “I…I…looked all over for you. Why did you move…here?”
The smile had dropped from Scratch’s face. He sniffed. “Maybe I like it here.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. No, it’s nice here.” Fin stepped back from Scratch and looked around. The walls dripped. The dirt floor was freezing and damp.
Scratch’s eyes were lowered. “I like it here. I do. The other one was too fancy. I’m a simple rat, and I like simple things…” His voice trailed off.
Red mucous ringed Scratch’s nostrils. The fur around his haunch was reddish-brown, stained from grooming himself with a dripping nose. His bony ribs heaved with each breath, and he wheezed and rattled like an ancient one.
“Why are you really here?” asked Fin.
Scratch sniffed and shrugged. “Dunno. You went missing. My cozy nest in the Uppers went missing too. They kicked me out. Once you were gone, Scratch was nobody. I found this abandoned nest, and I’ve been taking care of myself!”
“But you should have talked to Papa! He would’ve taken care of you,” said Fin. “After all, you’re my best friend.”
“The Beloved Chairman is too important to worry about Scratch’s comings and
goings,” sniffed Scratch. His red eyes slid to Fin’s. “I haven’t forgotten what you ordered me to do. No, no, don’t worry! I didn’t tell…didn’t tell a whisker of your precious secret. Not even a whisker!”
Scratch sighed then sneezed loudly. Nose dripping, he scratched behind his ear with a grimy hind foot.
Your precious secret.
Fin had ordered Scratch to warn Zumi, and then Fin had disappeared, leaving his friend to fend for himself. Scratch could have betrayed him to keep his comfortable life, but he didn’t. Fin’s best friend had suffered because of him, and he hadn’t even thought about it until now.
He forced a smile. “Come on, buddy! You’re moving in with me! I have my own burrow now. It’s near Papa’s, so it’s nice.”
“Really?” squealed Scratch.
“Really!” Nipping at Scratch’s rump to get him moving, Fin bustled him up the slope and into the outer Tunnel.
Scratch chattered non-stop. “Oh, I knew you’d come back, Fin, and I knew you wouldn’t forget your little buddy Scratch. When everyone else was saying, ‘Where’s Fin? Where’s Fin?’ I didn’t say a word. I just kept my mouth shut, and I said to myself, ‘Scratch, you know old Fin will be back and then he’ll make everything right again.’”
Scratch talked so much that Fin laughed out loud. The guilt he felt about abandoning his friend eased a little.
Fin led Scratch to the burrow, and the two friends settled in, each with a fresh heap of rags. Scratch could hardly contain himself. “Oh, it’s dry and the air…I can breathe! I can actually breathe! Oh! You can’t imagine what I’ve gone through…the sneezing…the constant dripping! And that damp, it gets right into your bones.” Finally settled into his soft nest and still chattering, Scratch drifted off to sleep mid-sentence.
As the sun rose over the silent market, and as his friend’s snores rattled the burrow, Fin slipped out.
***
The visitor sniffs around the burrow entrance. Yes, the old rat Hobbs is still here. The visitor creeps down the hole, unseen, unannounced.
At first Hobbs is frightened. He has plenty of reason to fear. After all, he has been “visited” before. But as the visitor talks, quickly, urgently, the old rat finally trusts.
After the visitor leaves out the front entrance, Hobbs wriggles through the bolt hole and scurries through the Lower Tunnels, whispering the new plan against the Plague War. In those damp, fear-ridden Tunnels, seeds of hope grow.
The old rat has many burrows to visit, including the one far away by the warehouses along the wharf. The sun travels across the sky and then dips down into the horizon.
The Resistance gathers.
FIFTY-THREE
“It seems to me as if the end of the world is very near.”
Petrarch, 1350
The frost-covered pavement glimmered in the moonlight as Scratch and Fin foraged their way to the market. It was the first moonrise since Fin had returned.
Fin’s breath chuffed before him as he and Scratch walked the well-worn path along the alley’s walls. The path was as familiar to him as if he’d never left. But something was missing. Yes, there was the old smell of wet stone and dirt, of crushed smoke sticks, of sewer gas steaming up from the manhole covers—there was never any shortage of those kinds of smells in the harbour city. But the delectable aromas that had made Fin’s whiskers quiver—the smell of sausages, pastries, sticky buns—they were gone, replaced with another. A gut-twisting smell that reminded Fin of the warehouse: the stink of death.
Dead rats littered the alley. They lay on either side, raked into piles. Snow lay on top of the mounds.
There was no sign of any two-legs. Fin’s paw began to throb.
They reached the market. Once bustling and dangerous, it stood silent. The fishmonger’s stall was closed. Only the smell remained.
“Come on!” shouted Scratch. Bounding forward, he skidded on the ice. His paws flew out from under him and he plunged into a snow bank. “Ha, ha!” Popping out his head, he shook off the snow like a tiny white dog, squealing ultrasonically, “Now who’s the mouse? Ha!”
He charged at Fin in a mock attack. Fin jumped aside, in no mood to play, but stopped himself. Scratch stood in front of him, his cheeks pulled back in a taut grin. His friend looked like a skeleton. His back was hunched, his ribs heaved, and red mucous fringed his nose like a moustache. But there was a fragile gleam of joy in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
In spite of the throb in his paw and the ache in his gut, Fin hollered, “You’d better run!” Even with his limp Fin could have easily caught Scratch. Instead, he nipped at his tail. Then, on purpose, he tripped and rolled over.
“Ha! Now you have to run!” yelled Scratch. He nipped at Fin who jumped to his feet and ran. Scampering up and down through the empty stalls, the two of them played, frisking and wrestling down the aisles of the once forbidden market.
“Enough! I give up!” cried Fin.
“Nope! No giving up!” shrieked Scratch. “Not until you admit it. Say you’re a mouse!”
“All right!” said Fin. “You’re a mouse!”
“Hey…ha, ha! No fair! No fair!” But Scratch stopped suddenly, his eyes bulging. He stared at something behind Fin.
Crouched in the shadow of a stall, a mere tail-length away, sat Papa.
FIFTY-FOUR
“The disciples of evil have brought down the temple. No longer do they tend to the needy and sickly sheep.”
Anonymous poem on the plague, fourteenth century
Papa!” said Fin. “What are you doing here?”
His uncle said nothing.
Scratch looked as if he’d shrunk two sizes. Crouching low, he bobbed his head over and over. “Oh! Oh! Such an honour! It is such an honour to see you again, sir! Oh! I’m sure you don’t remember me, after all why should you? I’m just a nobody! But I want to say, Beloved Chairman, how much I admire you and how much—”
Papa interrupted him. “Of course I remember you. My nephew’s loyal friend.”
Head still bobbing, Scratch chattered, “Ha, ha! That’s right! That’s right!” The tip of his nose dripped, and his paws were purple with cold, but Scratch blinked up at Papa with a big grin on his face. He wiped his nose on his paw, still blinking happily.
“Go to your nest,” said Papa. “I wish to walk with my nephew.”
Scratch blinked back and forth between uncle and nephew as he backed away. “Of course! Of course, sir! Absolutely!” He disappeared, nodding and bobbing, around the corner.
Fin turned to his uncle. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you,” said Papa. “To give you something. Will you walk with me?” Without waiting for an answer, Papa started down the aisle. An icy draft whistled through the empty halls, making a low moaning sound, as uncle and nephew walked side by side through the market.
Where plump sausages had once festooned a stall, there was now bare boards. A piece of trash, trapped under the stall leg, flapped in the drafty hall. A crumpled newspaper rolled by.
Papa stood in front of the empty stall, his eyes gleaming. “This is yours. My gift to you, dear Nephew. You have always loved the market, and now no one shall keep you from it.”
Fin was stunned. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
Papa tilted his head. “Don’t you like my gift?”
In spite of the cold, sweat prickled along Fin’s fur. “Yes, of course! But it’s so…different, now. I mean, don’t you think we’ve done enough?”
His uncle stiffened.
Fin laughed quickly. “I mean, we…we sure taught the two-legs a lesson, but don’t you think it’s…enough? There’s no food anymore, and the Lowers…I walked through them, Papa, and there’s nobody. It’s empty, or they’re all hiding—”
“Enough.”
“Papa, I’m not trying to—”
&nbs
p; “Silence!” Papa stepped backwards. “I have waited for my nephew, begged the Old Ones for his return. Do not tell me he has returned as a coward!”
“No, of course not, but—”
“This is war, Fin!” he said. “War to pay back generations of destruction, of murder. War is hard on the weak! Does that mean we weep and wail, rip our fur for the ones who will always be crushed, will always die, whether it’s by a cruel two-leg boot or for the Common Good?”
“I don’t know, Papa, but when I look around I see—”
“Progress! You see progress! And there is no progress without pain! Without sacrifice! It is the burden of leadership!”
“But, Papa…” Fin’s voice trailed off under his uncle’s stare. He looked away. “I…I just think it should stop now.”
Papa snorted. “We must stop it then. Council Member Fin has decided.”
Fin’s ears burned. “Stop it, Papa.”
“Council guides the Tunnels, Nephew,” said Papa. “Council sees our glorious future. Council has the Common Good in mind!”
“And you are Chairman of the Council,” said Fin quietly.
“Yes! I am Chairman of the Council! Because I know what must be done! And I am not afraid to do it!”
Fin said nothing. He limped a few steps away and gazed out over the empty market. “I’ve never told you this, but I dream of my mother. I dream of her all the time.”
Behind him, his uncle drew in a breath. Fin turned to look at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just miss my dear sister.” Papa began to groom himself, licking his paws and pulling them over his ears.
Fin nodded. “For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what she was telling me.”
Papa paused his grooming and looked at him. “And now you can?”
The Great & the Small Page 18