Goldwhiskers

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  ‘I can’t wait to see the Crown Jewels!’ said DB. ‘Do you think we could go there first?’

  Oz grunted. DB hadn’t shut up about the Crown Jewels since leaving Washington. ‘What’s so special about a bunch of jewellery?’

  DB gaped at him. ‘Oz, this is hardly “a bunch of jewellery”,’ she snapped, sounding much more like her usual self. She flipped open a guidebook and thrust it under his nose. ‘We’re talking crowns worn by centuries of kings and queens here. We’re talking diamonds and sapphires and rubies bigger than you-know-who.’ She gave a significant nod towards the small lump nestled in Oz’s shirt pocket. ‘Plus, they’re kept in the Tower of London, where they used to chop people’s heads off.’

  Oz shrugged. ‘I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing that,’ he said grudgingly. Personally, he was looking forward to the James Bond walking tour. He’d read about it in one of his mother’s guidebooks. London was Agent 007’s home base.

  Crown jewels, castles, walking tours – whatever they did, London was going to be great, Oz thought happily. After all, London was 3,000 miles away from Washington DC, and Chester B. Arthur Elementary School. London was 3,000 miles away from the sharks.

  That’s what Oz called the bullies at his school – including Jordan Scott and Sherman ‘Tank’ Wilson, a pair of sixth-formers who lived to torment younger and weaker kids like himself. And now he’d left them far, far behind.

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

  CHAPTER THREE

  DAY ONE – MONDAY 0600 HOURS

  ‘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 celebri
ties.”’

  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.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DAY ONE – MONDAY 0800 HOURS

  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.

  ‘Rise and shine, mouselings!’

  Reluctantly, Twist opened one eye. Master was calling, and when Master called, mouselings obeyed. He blinked sleepily, then stretched and yawned. All around him, in the nests lining the room’s remotest corner, other mouselings did the same.

  ‘Morning chores first!’

  Twist climbed obediently out of his nest. He tidied it quickly, gave his furry face a quick splash in the nearby basin (a gold-rimmed china egg cup), then shuffled over to the clock face. Two other mouselings joined him, and the three of them swung open the heavy shutters covering the cubbyhole’s bank of windows. Twist opened one window a sliver and poked his nose out.

  The morning air was bracingly cold, but the rain had stopped, and the broad river below sparkled in the sunlight. Even at this early hour, barges and tourist boats ploughed its murky waters, some furrowing their way downriver towards the Tower of London, others heading in the opposite direction towards Big Ben. Across the Thames stood the London Eye, the gigantic Ferris wheel that was one of the city’s newest landmarks. Twist regarded it curiously. What would it be like to ride the wheel up, up, up into the sky? he wondered.

  ‘Finish up, mouselings, then gather round!’

  Twist shut the window reluctantly. He scurried to join the other mice as they completed their chores, taking his place alongside the rope that serviced the dumb waiter. The sun was stronger now, and as it poured through the windows, it revealed the cubbyhole to be not a bleak, cheerless space, but something more along the lines of Ali Baba’s cave. The battered floorboards were layered thickly with bright oriental carpets; the walls were hung with lengths of rich silk brocade heavily fringed in gold. At one end of the room a cheery fire blazed behind an ornate brass grate. Beside the fireplace stood a handsome, red leather chair. In the chair sat the one the mouselings called Master.

  Twist avoided looking at him. He focused instead on the task at hand, and on the mice nearby who were tidying Master’s grand bed, smoothing its linen sheets and fluffing its down coverlet and many pillows. Even after all these weeks, being in Master’s presence still inspired feelings of awe in Twist. Fear too.

  ‘Once more, lads!’ called the brawny mouseling at the head of the rope. ‘Put your backs into it!’

  Twist grunted and heaved with the others as they swayed a large basket up through a trapdoor in the floorboards. The scent of something delicious wafted out from under a napkin-covered platter inside, and Twist’s tummy rumbled. Master’s breakfast. He hoped that there would be something left over for them. When, what and how much they ate – or if they ate at all – depended entirely on Master’s mood and whims. There were plenty of times that Twist and the other mouselings had displeased Master and gone hungry as a result. Twist helped secure the basket, then assembled with the other mouselings in front of the red leather chair. Gathering his courage, he looked up. Seated in the chair was a grey rat. A huge grey rat. The most enormous rat, in fact, that Twist had ever seen.

  ‘I have a treat for you this morning,’ Master announced.

  Twist, who hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath, exhaled in relief. Master was in a good mood! He could hear it in his voice. Life was always so much easier when Master was in a good mood.

  Twist watched as Dodge, Master’s most trusted mouseling, finished applying the gold nail polish that she brushed on Master’s whiskers every morning. Long and bristling, they glittered in the morning sunlight. Dodge puffed on them briefly to set the finish, then returned the brush to its trial-sized vial, which she placed carefully in a gold-lacquered box on the table beside the red leather chair.

  ‘One of you did well last night,’ said the rat. ‘Very well. And you know Master’s rule: when one mouseling surprises, all mouselings get prizes.’ His voice was deep and melodious. It was a soothing voice. Hypnotic, almost. The tight, anxious places inside Twist relaxed when he heard Master’s voice. It made him feel safe. Not like he’d felt when he was living on the streets.

  ‘This morning’s prize is something special for breakfast. And what do you say to that?’ The big rat cupped a paw expectantly behind the colossal flap of grey fur that was his ear.

  ‘We thank you kindly, Master, giver of all that is good,’ the mice chanted obediently in response.

  The rat nodded, pleased. He scanned the crowd of mice that stood before him. ‘Twist, where are you?’

  The mouseling’s tiny heart skipped a beat at the sound of his name. ‘Here, sir!’ he squeaked.

  The rat motioned him forward with a wave of a manicured paw. Twist stepped timidly on to the soft carpet, his hind paws swallowed up completely by its deep pile. He approached the chair and bobbed his head in respect.

  ‘Barely a month on the job, this one, and already one of Master’s top performers,’ said the rat. His voice brimmed with appro
val, and Twist felt a wave of warmth creep over him from the tip of his tail to the tips of his tiny ears. He’d never been singled out before. Not like this, anyway. He’d been singled out plenty of times for punishment, especially in the beginning. But never for praise.

  The big rat waved his paw again, and Dodge reached into the box on the table. She pulled out a velvet pouch and handed it to him. The rat extracted a heavy sapphire earring and held it up in the sunlight, turning it this way and that. The precious stone gleamed as blue as the faraway sea.

  ‘Fetched us a good haul of sparklies last night, did our young Twist,’ said the rat. He eyed the other mouselings. ‘More than some of you rubbishy orphans fetch in a week. This clever one found himself a pair of toffs, he did.’ He fished out the earring’s mate, along with a diamond necklace and a sapphire and diamond ring, which he slipped over one of his enormous paws. He sat there for a moment, admiring it. ‘Haven’t seen the likes of this since…well, since Dodge herself was on the job. Isn’t that right, Dodge?’

  Dodge gave a saucy flip of her tail and smiled, but she didn’t reply. She was a mouse of few words.

  ‘This is what Master wants!’ the big rat cried, his voice rising sharply. The assembled mice drew back in alarm. He shook the jewels at them. ‘Sparklies! Not that useless rubbish most of you bring me! Master needs sparklies! Master needs – what is it those appalling Yanks call it? Master needs bling!’ The big rat heaved himself off the chair. He towered over his small band of jewel thieves, glaring. Twist gulped and shrank back. ‘And why does Master need sparklies?’ the rat snarled, leaning down towards them. ‘Master needs sparklies because of you! Because it costs money to raise ungrateful ragamuffins! Worthless orphan mouselings nobody else wants!’

  The big rat took a step forward, and every tail in the room quivered with fear. He stared at the mouselings, his gaze penetrating, hypnotic. ‘Don’t you remember what it’s like to be unwanted?’ he continued, his voice dropping to a resonant whisper. ‘To be out on the streets, alone? With no one to take care of you? No one to feed you?’