by Lynne Jonell
It felt like another world, dappled with slanting light and shifting green, and the suck and slap of the river against the sides of the little canoe was oddly peaceful. Raston climbed down from Emmy’s shoulder and perched on the bow of the canoe, gazing down at the water. No one spoke for a long minute—and then the silence was broken by a snicker.
“Get a load of the rat in the feather skirt. What’s he going to do, dance Swan Lake?”
Emmy glanced up through the leaves to see two large brown rats lounging on the stone walk that ran under the bridge, with their feet dangling over the edge.
“Nah, he’s just a pet. Humans like to play dress-up with ’em.”
The first rat scratched an armpit. “Some rodents have no dignity.”
“Well, the wild ones don’t even know what dignity is. And if they’re pets, they’re already degraded, man.”
Raston, who had forgotten to take off his feather duster, reared back, his ears pink. “You—you—I’m not—”
“Aw, isn’t that cute?” The first rat peered at Raston through the leaves. “He’s trying to talk.”
“You can tell he’s not one of us. Too stupid-looking. No vocabulary to speak of, no appreciation for the finer things in life.”
“Speaking of the finer things, dude, it’s sundown—let’s go to The Surly! I’ll buy the first ginger beer!”
The Rat, crimson to the tip of his tail, jumped into the bottom of the canoe where he ripped off the feather duster and stomped on it. Then he scrambled back up to the bow, only to see the two rats swimming strongly away from shore.
“Come back and fight like a rat!” Raston shook his paw in the air.
“You should have said that while they were still here,” said Joe, grinning.
“What, you think I didn’t want to fight them? I’ve been doing exercises!”
“Yeah, for how long, one day?”
Emmy parted the leaves with her hand and watched as the rats grew smaller the farther they swam, their sleek backs showing clearly amid the brilliant orange-and-gold ripples. Then suddenly the last bright edge of sun was gone. The river turned the color of lead, and the rats were small, dark blotches in dark water, and then Emmy couldn’t see them at all.
But they hadn’t changed direction. They were swimming straight for the long island in the middle of the Mohawk, and as Emmy turned to Joe, she could see that he had been watching, too.
“That’s not far,” Joe said. “Not even a quarter of a mile. We could paddle there, easy.”
They had to go home first, of course. The sun was setting, and Aunt Melly would be worried.
But after the elderly aunts had gone to bed, the children had a conference in the girls’ bedroom with Ratty. Joe, seated on the floor with the Rat on his knee, tried delicately to explain the situation.
“We think we should try to find Sissy,” he said.
Raston’s ears popped up. “But she’s with Ratmom! And they’re going to send the bats for me tomorrow night … or maybe the next. Sissy promised!”
“Er … right.” Joe glanced at the others. “But we’d feel better if we knew where Sissy was. And when we ran into those two rats by the river—”
“Big meanies,” said Raston, picking at his toes.
“Yeah, well, they didn’t understand about the feather duster. But they were going to that island—”
“To some place called The Surly,” Emmy added.
“And it sounded like there would be a bunch of other rats there. Don’t you see, Ratty? If we paddle over and drop you off, you could ask around, and maybe somebody somewhere would have seen Sissy, or heard of your ratmom, or know where the bats hang out.”
“But what if they make fun of me again?” The Rat tapped his claws together in a nervous tattoo. “Or what if we find Sissy but she’s too busy for me?”
Joe scoffed. “When has Sissy ever been too busy for you? She’s the most adoring sister in the world. And no one will make fun of you as long as you don’t show up in a feather skirt.”
The Rat kneaded his paws together, one over the other. “But what if—” He swallowed and tried again. “What if Ratmom really doesn’t want me?” He stopped, and looked away. He sniffled.
Emmy took a tissue from the bedside table and dabbed at the Rat’s eyes. “If we find her, she’ll want you. Of course she’ll want you.”
Raston climbed slowly off Joe’s knee to the faded blue carpet and stood there for a moment, looking small and forlorn. “Are you going now?”
Emmy glanced out into the hall. A thin line of light still showed under Aunt Melly’s bedroom door. “We’ll have to wait awhile.”
The Rat hugged himself, his shoulders slightly hunched. “I’ll just … go on, then. I have some more exercises to do.” He shuffled out of the room and down the hall, his tail dragging.
Ana turned to Emmy and Joe. “I wish you weren’t going on the river in the dark. Aunt Melly would be terribly worried. And it’s not even safe.”
“But if we wait till daytime, the rodents will all be asleep,” said Joe.
“We’ll be careful,” Emmy said. “But Sissy is in trouble. We’ve got to find her.”
The water was black as oil, and cold. Emmy shivered, huddled in the small canoe, as Joe paddled strongly away from shore. She had gotten her feet wet shoving off, and the bottoms of her jeans were clammy and chilly against her calves.
The river moved under them, smooth and silent, and a flicker of moonlight dipped in and out among the long ripples. Everything was shadow; the bridges stood like giants with legs of stone.
Joe grunted, digging the paddle deeper into the inky water.
“What’s wrong?” Emmy asked. “Are you getting tired?”
“More current—in the middle,” he said between his teeth. “Got to—steer upstream—so we don’t miss—the island.”
Emmy gripped the sides of the canoe with both hands and gazed across the water. The island ahead was darker than the surrounding night, and the trees looked solid as a wall.
The Rat, tucked inside Emmy’s life jacket, poked his nose out as the land came ever closer. Emmy could feel him trembling against her chest, and she stroked him gently between the ears. “Don’t worry, Ratty. You’ll do fine.”
“But where are we going?” His voice cracked. “It’s all so dark.”
“Shh!” Joe’s paddle stilled, and the canoe drifted into slack water.
On the upstream bridge a single car sped past, its headlights streaking. Somewhere behind them a fish jumped, slapping the water. And from the island there came a steady rasp of crickets, and a stirring of leaves, and a faint sound of wild, squeaking laughter.
Joe picked up the paddle and quietly poled the canoe along the shallows.
“Watch out for the rock,” Emmy whispered.
Joe pressed the paddle against a large, square boulder that suddenly loomed out of the darkness, and with a slight grating sound, the canoe went past. As they rounded the far edge, the laughter grew suddenly louder, and flickering light gleamed from within a tangled mass of roots hanging just above the water.
Emmy put out a silent hand, grabbed a dark knob of wood, and hung on. The canoe, rocking slightly, inched beneath the overhanging bank into deep shadow.
The twisted, polished roots looped in and around one another, and inside them were hollow spaces lit by a hundred tiny torches. But the hollow spaces weren’t empty. They were crammed with rodents—a mass of heaving, laughing, shouting rodents, sitting at tiny tables, hoisting thimble-sized mugs, swaying with their paws on one another’s shoulders as they squeaked with raucous laughter. Over the main arched entrance a painted sign read THE SURLY RAT, and a thin haze of smoke pooled in the room behind it.
Raston crept onto Emmy’s shoulder and gazed at the spectacle, his mouth half open. “Let’s go back,” he whispered urgently. “Ratmom would never go to a place like this.”
19
“BUT SOMEBODY HERE might know where she is,” Emmy whispered back, fallin
g silent as two burly rats came to the arched entrance, holding a struggling chipmunk between them.
“Out you go,” said the largest rat, and with no further comment, the chipmunk was tossed in a high, flying arc. There was a tiny wail, a small splash, and then a sound of thrashing paws.
“Rough crowd tonight, Jacky,” said the big rat, picking his teeth. “Even the chipmunks are dancing on tables.”
Jacky leaned on a curving root, watching the chipmunk’s progress to shore. “I haven’t seen the ’munk yet who could hold his ginger beer.” He laughed and spat into the water. “Unlike old Della Rat. She can put away five bottlecaps full in one night, Sal—I’ve seen her.”
“Is she here tonight again?” Sal yawned and stretched, knocking against the sign that swung from a paper-clip chain. “She does that same old routine with the song and the potted fern every time she comes. I can’t believe anybody still buys her drinks.”
“It’s a pretty good trick with the fern, though.” Jacky shrugged his muscular shoulders. “I can’t figure out how she does it.”
Sal chuckled. “She doesn’t even know how she does it. I was here the night when she did it the first time, and she was just as surprised as the rest of us.”
Emmy watched the bouncer rats move inside, shouldering their way through the crowd. She could feel the Rat stirring uneasily on her shoulder.
“Okay, Ratty, go on in,” said Joe quietly. “Here, I’ll give you a lift.” He picked up the Rat and set him on a thick root, just out of the light.
The Rat struggled free. “We’re looking in the wrong place! She would never come near a place like this—not my mother, not the sweetest ratmommy ever—”
“All the same, you’ve got to ask around,” said Joe.
“If I were hung on the highest hill,” Raston quoted, standing on his hind legs, “Ratmom o’ mine, O Ratmom o’ mine, I know whose love would follow me still—”
“Oh, come on already—”
“She was an angel!” The Rat stamped his hind foot on the wood as he paced. “All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to her mother love! Are you seriously saying that the noblest and best rodent ever to rock a ratling’s cradle could be found here, in this low, trashy, common riverfront bar?”
“Hush, Ratty!” Emmy slid the canoe farther into the shadows as Sal stuck his nose out of the front entrance and looked around.
“Hey, you!”
Raston, whose pacing had taken him one step into the lighted part of the root system, froze. “Who, me?”
“If you want to listen to the music, buddy, come in and buy a drink like everyone else—you don’t hang around outside, listening for free, at The Surly!”
The Rat cast one panicked, pleading look over his shoulder and moved forward as if he were being dragged.
Sal clapped him on the back. “What’ll it be, rat-boy? Ginger beer? Root beer? Pear cider?”
“Root beer,” the Rat said faintly, and he was ushered inside.
The tinkling of a toy piano sounded above the babble of voices. The crowd quieted a little as a sultry, slurred voice began to sing.
All by myself in Schenectady,
All by myself in this bar …
“Psst!” Joe hissed. “Emmy, can you see?”
Emmy shook her head. “But everybody’s inside now. Maybe we can get closer.”
I cry all alone for my ratlings dear
So unhappy here
I cry a tear …
Emmy switched her grip on the roots and floated the canoe forward, inch by inch. Just under the entrance to the riverfront bar, Joe grabbed a protruding root and poked his head up slowly, peering inside.
All by myself I get lonely
Since my husband was crunched by a cat …
“What’s going on?” Emmy whispered. “Can you see Ratty?”
Joe nodded, and sat down. “He’s at a little table at the side. Somebody just filled his bottlecap again. And there’s this sort of sloppy-looking rodent up on stage, kind of swaying while she sings, with this—I don’t know, it looks like a fern or something. In a pot. If that’s Della,” he finished, “she looks pretty weird to me.”
Since my ratlings were stolen right out of the nest
I can’t get no rest
I don’t care how I’m dressed …
Emmy stood up carefully, paying attention to her balance, and got a grip on a knobby root as the canoe rocked beneath her. The crowd had grown quieter with each succeeding line, and as Emmy put her eye to the entrance, all rodent attention was focused on the stage where a large, heavy rat was singing to a potted plant.
Della did look sloppy. One sock was brown and one was black, her shapeless dress had a torn hem, and her soiled cardigan sweater had been buttoned unevenly, so the bottom right corner hung down. In one paw she held a large bottlecap of something foamy, which spilled into her neck fur every time she took a swallow. But in spite of all that, she could sing.
Della’s low, throaty voice gained in power as she barreled into the final lines, scraping on the high notes with emotion. Even from a distance, Emmy could see the shine of tears on the furry face.
Now I guzzle root beer
As I … cry … a teeeeeeear!
Every rodent seemed to be holding its breath. Over against the side wall, Raston had frozen with his cup halfway to his lips. Then, as the last, sobbing note died away, Della leaned over the green fern, and one single tear dropped on the topmost frond.
And the fern died. There was no other way to put it, Emmy thought as she watched it shrivel, curling up and dwindling down into nothing at all. It had been green and thriving, and now there was nothing left but dirt in a pot.
The bar erupted in a mixture of applause and heckling. Near Emmy, a couple of gophers snickered.
“That’s all she does? What’s the big deal? I can kill a plant.”
“I can too,” said the second gopher. “All I have to do is lift my leg, like this—”
The gophers fell into fits of giggles and staggered off, holding their stomachs. Emmy looked around for Raston, but the crowd was suddenly moving and restless again, and the table where he had been sitting was empty.
Emmy was suddenly, overwhelmingly tired. It was way past her bedtime, and Ratty didn’t seem to be asking anyone any questions. She was just about to sit down in the canoe again—the crowd’s attention had shifted, and she might be spotted—when a piercing shriek filled the thick, smoky air.
Every head turned to the stage, where Della was still standing with a pot in her hand. Her attention was not on the plant (or what was left of it), but rather on a young gray rat with a white patch behind his left ear.
It was Raston. And while Emmy watched, Della shrieked again, tossed the pot over her shoulder, and clutched him in her massive arms.
“Rasty!” she cried. “Come to Mommy!”
Raston turned his head at the last moment to avoid being smothered and stared desperately with one eye, his other mashed against Della’s enormous chest.
“What’s going on?” Joe whispered loudly from the bottom of the canoe. “Let me see!” He grabbed a protruding root and pulled himself up next to Emmy, while the canoe rocked unsteadily.
“My sweet little Rasty-Roo!” blubbered Della. Her arms clenched even tighter, and Raston’s hind feet kicked frantically as his nose and mouth were completely engulfed.
“She’s cutting off his air!” Joe shouted. “Hey, lady! Let him go!”
The silence was instant and complete. Every rodent whirled, ears pricked on high alert, to stare in shock at Emmy’s and Joe’s large and human faces—and in the next moment the bar was a mass of heaving fur swarming for the exits. Dark, sinuous shadows slipped into the night with a scrabbling sound of claws on wood and a rustling in the underbrush above. In thirty seconds there was no sound but the wash of the river against the pebbled shore.
Della’s arms slackened and the Rat backed away, his sides heaving, as the bouncers pushed past the empty tables.
“Your humans chased away the paying customers.” Jacky gripped Raston’s right elbow, and the Rat’s toes dragged the floor as they propelled him forward.
The bouncers grinned at Emmy’s and Joe’s faces in the entrance, baring their long, yellowed teeth. “You humans can back away so we can toss him out, or …”
“Or what?” said Joe rashly.
“Or this,” said Sal, chuckling as he shifted his grip on the Rat.
“We have our ways,” said Jacky, reaching under Raston’s hairy arms.
“Oooooh! Nooooo! Hee hee hee heeeeee—help! Mommeeeeee!”
“Stop tickling my boy!” cried Della, charging heavily toward the bouncers. “Hang on, baby. Ratmom will save you!”
Emmy and Joe sat down abruptly, nearly upsetting the canoe. They steadied it just in time to look up and see the Rat soaring overhead, a dark, flailing blot against the starlit sky, and hear his high, faint squeal.
There was a splash. From inside the bar came a sound like nuts cracking, or perhaps two small skulls being violently smacked together, and then a thunderous series of footsteps.
“Ratmommy is coming!” Della screamed, and she launched her ponderous bulk up and over the rooted railing.
There was another splash, distinctly louder, and a burbling thrashing sound intermixed with squeaks. Emmy grabbed the paddle and pushed off in the direction of the considerable noise being made by the rats.
As it turned out, the noise was solely Ratmom’s, because Raston was completely underwater.
“Hang on, baby—Mommy’s got you,” wheezed Della, swimming vigorously with one arm while the other gripped her submerged son in a headlock. “Don’t struggle! I’ve taken Lifesaving 101!”
Raston’s tail—the only part of him above water—whipped frantically from side to side as his mother swam on.
“Holy cats, she’s drowning him,” said Joe. “Quick, Emmy, the paddle!”
Emmy pushed the paddle underneath the thrashing rodents, lifted, and almost dropped them again. “Help, Joe! They’re heavy!”