The Black Paw

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  The DB5 had been moved into the ballroom for the party. Enthroned on a pedestal in the centre of the room, it revolved slowly under the disco ball. Inside, a scarecrow in a tuxedo gripped the wheel. Outside, Tank and Jordan were practically glued to its gleaming silver hood.

  ‘Target in range,’ Oz said crisply into his microphone. ‘We're going in.’

  ‘OK, kids, it's time to rock and roll,’ Glory replied. ‘Good luck.’

  The Trojan Horse stepped on to the dance floor. All around them, couples were swaying to the strains of ‘Secret Agent Man’.

  ‘Let's make this good,’ said Oz.

  ‘I'm behind you all the way, DB replied with a nervous snort of laughter. ‘Get it? Behind?’

  ‘Pathetic,’ said Oz, but he smiled anyway.

  Slowly at first, and then with a little more assurance, Oz and DB began to dance. They tried to stay in tandem as they kicked out first one leg and then the other, moving their hips and shoulders to the beat. All the while, they were drawing closer to the car.

  ‘Oh look, the Trojan Horse is dancing!’ cried the woman dressed as Emma Peel. She was shimmying with her bald James Bond. ‘How cute!’

  ‘She won't think it's so cute if the Trojan Horse kicks her,’ muttered DB.

  ‘Hang on, DB,’ said Oz. ‘We're almost there.’

  As the song came to an end, the Trojan Horse lowered its head. ‘The name is Levinson, Oz Levinson,’ murmured Oz, and he charged straight at Jordan and Tank, ramming them with his full weight. His classmates' legs flew out from under them and they landed in a heap on the floor.

  ‘Watch it!’ cried Tank angrily.

  Neither Oz nor DB said a word. Oz turned away, and DB swung her shoulders from side to side. The Trojan Horse's rear end wagged tauntingly at the two boys.

  ‘Who's in there, anyway?’ demanded Jordan, scrambling to his feet and brushing off his tuxedo. He peered into one of the eyeholes.

  ‘Hey, I know those trainers,’ said Tank, pointing at DB’s feet. DB stuck out a skinny leg and waved a red trainer at them.

  ‘Dogbones!’ said Jordan in disgust. ‘Dogbones and Fatboy. I should have known.’

  Oz and DB trotted slowly forward, circling the sports car. The band had swung into the theme song from Mission: Impossible and the dancers drew back to make room for the costumed creature.

  ‘Where do you think you're going?’ called Jordan. ‘Get back here!’

  Oz and DB ignored him and kept trotting around the Aston Martin. Jordan raced after them. As Oz came around the other side, he stopped short. Tank stood in front of him, blocking the way. His arms were crossed over his beefy chest. He'd doubled back and cut them off.

  ‘Nowhere to run, Fatboy,’ he said, wagging his golden finger at them.

  ‘Yeah,’ added Jordan, panting as he caught up. ‘You two losers are in for it now.’

  The music was still playing, but the party-goers closest to them had stopped dancing. Out of the corner of one of the eyeholes, Oz saw Mrs Busby enter the ballroom. She frowned when she spotted Jordan and Tank.

  ‘I think it's time Double-O-Lard here did a little dance just for us,’ said Jordan.

  ‘Dance or run,’ echoed Tank. ‘Which is it going to be?’

  Oz couldn't see them, but he knew that up above, all along the exposed pipes that ran across the ceiling, Julius and the rest of the mice were watching him. ‘I'm booking balcony seats,’ Julius had joked yesterday after Glory described her plan. ‘Wouldn't miss this for the world.’

  Oz wasn't alone any more. He had friends. Brave, loyal friends. And for the first time in a long time he didn't wish he were invisible. In fact, he was downright glad everyone could see him. He was never going to slip under the radar again. He was Oz Levinson, secret agent. Conqueror of Roquefort Dupont. Rescuer of spy mice.

  Reaching up, he removed the donkey head. ‘I'm not going to run,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Dance, then, Fatboy,’ said Jordan.

  Oz didn't move.

  ‘I said dance!’

  ‘My name,’ Oz said slowly and carefully, ‘is not Fatboy.’ He glanced upward. He hoped that Julius could hear him. ‘My name is Ozymandias.’

  ‘And besides, it's the fat lady you need to watch out for,’ added DB, wriggling out from underneath the rear end of the costume.

  ‘What fat lady?’ said Tank, looking around.

  Oz smiled. ‘The one who's about to SING!’

  As soon as Oz shouted the word ‘sing’, Glory and Bunsen shot out from their hiding place under the Aston Martin. Glory ran up Jordan's trouser leg; Bunsen ran up Tank's.

  For a moment, time stood still. Oz and DB waited, both of them smiling broadly in anticipation. And then Jordan began to jerk his tuxedoed leg frantically back and forth.

  ‘What the – get it OUT!’ he cried.

  Tank's eyes widened in terror as Bunsen scampered up and down inside his pants. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He began to hop wildly from one leg to the other and finally emitted a high-pitched shriek.

  The mice moved up inside the boys' shirts. Jordan and Tank began twitching their arms and slapping at themselves, but Glory and Bunsen were far too fast for them. Up and down through their clothes the mice ran, and up and down jumped Jordan and Tank, gyrating wildly.

  ‘Nice moves, boys!’ called someone from the crowd, and the party-goers started clapping to the music.

  ‘What do you call that dance, son?’ cried an elderly Supreme Court judge dressed as the Pink Panther.

  ‘Looks like the jerk to me!’ said the Julius Caesar.

  ‘More like two jerks!’ called DB, and the crowd hooted.

  Frantic by now, Jordan scrambled up on to the hood of the James Bond car.

  ‘Go, Double-O-Seven!’ shouted someone behind them, as he twitched and shook and slapped at his clothes. Tank was rolling on the floor at this point, close to tears.

  As the band swung into the familiar ‘dun-duhduh-dun-dun' opening notes of the James Bond theme song, the car's headlights switched on and the gun ports flipped open, emitting sharp bursts of light. The delighted crowd began to cheer.

  Oz and DB slapped each other a high five.

  ‘Are you getting this?’ DB's mother called excitedly to her camera crew.

  Herbie, the museum security guard, began to make his way through the crowd. ‘You kids get down off there!’ he called.

  Just as he reached the revolving podium, in one last desperate attempt to rid himself of his unseen tormentor, Jordan Scott pulled down his trousers. The crowd exploded with laughter. In the confusion, Oz saw Glory scoot out from one trouser leg and vanish again under the car.

  ‘Nice boxers!’ someone shouted.

  Jordan Scott quickly crouched down, but not before the crowd – and the cameras – got a good look at his underpants. Big, baggy, bright red underpants. Almost as red as Jordan's face. They were covered with large white hearts, inside of which were the words ‘Hot Stuff’.

  Herbie grabbed him by the collar and yanked him off the Aston Martin. ‘Come on, Hot Stuff,’ he said in disgust. ‘Party's over.’

  ‘They're my dad's,’ mumbled Jordan as he and Tank were hustled out of the ballroom. ‘They were the only ones that were clean.’

  As the excitement died down and the music picked up again, Luigi Levinson and Amelia Bean approached their children.

  ‘I do not believe I just saw that,’ said DB's mother.

  ‘What was that all about?’ asked Oz's father.

  DB looked at Oz. Oz looked at DB. They grinned and slapped each other a high five.

  Oz turned to the grown-ups. ‘I think you could say that the fat lady just sang.’

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘Strange happenings in downtown DC tonight,’ announced DB's mother from the TV screen.

  Oz and DB were back at Oz's house, sitting in the living room, eating chocolate chip cookies and watching the ten o'clock news.

  On screen, Amelia Bean stared
soberly into the camera as footage of the rat mob appeared on the screen behind her. ‘Wildlife experts at the National Zoo say it must have been the influence of the full moon that caused rats to flood the streets of our nation's capital this evening. A masquerade party at the International Spy Museum was briefly interrupted by the commotion, but in an amazing twist of events, an unlikely pied piper in the form of a pigeon led the rodents away.’

  DB hoisted her glass of milk at the screen in a toast. ‘Go, B-Nut and Hank!’ she said.

  ‘The rats charted a course through the heart of downtown and ended up at the Tidal Basin. They were last seen swimming towards the Potomac. Meanwhile, city officials interviewed by Channel Twelve hastened to assure the public that the Metro is still safe to ride. An extermination team will be working through the night inspecting all lines and subway cars to ensure a smooth commute by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Bingo,’ said Oz softly. He glanced down at the tiny object in his hand. It wasn't anything special, really, just a gold button foraged from a navy blazer left in the Spy Museum's lost-and-found. The Spy Mice Agency logo had been etched on to the front of it, and a small safety pin was glued to the back. Oz was proud to have it all the same.

  ‘Honorary field agents for the Spy Mice Agency,’ he said, holding it up to the light. ‘I still can't believe Julius gave us these.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said DB, admiring hers as well.

  Espionage, Julius had told them a short while ago in a solemn ceremony down at Checkpoint Charlie, was a shadowy business.

  ‘It's not always possible to publicly thank those who have served courageously,’ he explained. ‘If word got out that the Mouse Code has been broken, and that our agency has had contact with humans, it could create chaos throughout the Guilds. The Council must never know.’ He waved a paw at Glory, Bunsen, B-Nut and the Steel Acorns. ‘But we all know, and we won't forget. And we also know how to find you if we ever need you again.’

  At this, Glory had winked at them both and tapped the phone booth door with her elegant little paw.

  ‘Dead drop,’ she whispered.

  Oz's father poked his head in from the kitchen. ‘What do you two little pumpkin pies have there?’ he asked curiously.

  Oz and DB hastily pocketed their badges of honour. ‘Nothing, Dad. Just some leftover Hallowe'en candy from the party,’ Oz replied.

  ‘Say, isn't that your classmate?’ said his father, pointing at the television.

  Sure enough, as footage of Jordan's wild dance atop the Aston Martin appeared, Amelia Bean's voice-over continued: ‘On the lighter side, there were more strange happenings in the city tonight. During the Spy Museum's popular “Come as Your Favourite Spy” masquerade party, two students from the Chester B. Arthur Elementary School seemed more intent on undressing than on dressing up.’

  The camera caught Tank rolling on the floor, then zoomed in for a close-up of Jordan Scott's boxer shorts. Oz started to laugh. It would be a long time before the sharks lived that one down.

  His father gave a rueful smile. ‘Poor kids,’ he said. ‘How embarrassing! Though from what Mrs Busby told me, they deserved it. Do you know one of the caterers found a gym bag from your school just inside the Ninth Street employee entrance? There was a rat inside, of all things! Those two troublemakers must have been planning to cause a ruckus.’

  Oz and DB exchanged a guilty glance.

  ‘What happened to the rat, Dad?’ asked Oz.

  ‘Scared the caterer so badly he dropped the bag,’ Luigi Levinson continued, shaking his head. ‘Along with a tray of stuffed mushrooms. The rat ran for the door. Probably down at the river right now, skinny-dipping with all his friends.’ Still shaking his head, he left the room.

  ‘So Dupont escaped,’ mused DB.

  Oz reached into his pocket and pulled out the button badge. ‘Somehow I don't think we've seen the last of that slimy rodent,’ he said, tracing the Spy Mice Agency insignia – a mouse in dark glasses – with his fingertip. ‘Not by a long shot.’

  Back at the Spy Mice Agency, the party was winding down.

  Only a few mice remained on the dance floor, swaying to the sweet strains of ‘That Old Mouse Magic’. The Steel Acorns had rocked the crowd to their hard-driving beat earlier in the evening as the jubilant mice celebrated their victory over the rats. Now, however, the band was in a more mellow mood. On stage, B-Nut crooned the words to the familiar melody, eyes closed and tail swishing gently back and forth to the music's slow rhythm. Behind him, Lip and Romeo strummed their electric guitars, while Nutmeg kept time by drawing a pastry brush lightly over his drum set's cymbals (foraged soup can lids).

  The Foragers had gone all out to help transform the space under the Spy City Cafe floor into a breathtaking ballroom. A handsome silk scarf (found under one of the restaurant's booths) had been tacked to the ceiling in loose billows, giving the spacious room the look of an exotic tent. Tinsel (salvaged from a recycled Christmas tree) had been draped along the walls, and hundreds of birthday candles were clustered on tables made from animal cracker boxes covered with bright scraps of wrapping paper. A disco ball had even been fashioned by gluing silver sequins to an old tennis ball. It twirled slowly from the string that held it to the ceiling, shimmering in the candlelight.

  On the far side of the room, Julius sat on a sofa made from a sponge covered with a piece of velvet. He was deep in conversation with several Council members and Dumbarton Goldenleaf. Next to the general sat a glowing Gingersnap Goldenleaf, her husband's paw clasped tightly in her own.

  The song came to an end, and Gingersnap yawned. ‘We should be getting home soon,’ she whispered. ‘The last pigeons will be leaving soon, and I need to check on Truffle and Taffy.’

  Her husband patted her cheek fondly. Just a few more minutes, dear,’ he said. ‘I’m sure our babies are fine. Blueberry and Pumpkin will have everything under control.’

  Fumble trundled by just then, pushing a small cart (half of an eyeglasses case outfitted with wheels foraged from broken inline skates). Julius, who was not entirely convinced that his stout staff member had acted innocently in squealing on Bunsen and Glory, had assigned Fumble to clean-up crew as punishment.

  Glory, who was seated next to her mother, saluted him with her punch cup.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said.

  Fumble didn't reply.

  ‘You missed a pile of sunflower seeds someone spilled over there,’ said Glory helpfully, pointing towards the stage. Her colleague glared at her, seemed about to say something, then slumped and trundled on.

  Glory smiled and took a sip of strawberry punch. She twitched her elegant little nose. The bubbles from the ginger ale in the mixture tickled. Then she yawned. It had been a very long evening. A wonderful evening, but a very long one.

  Someone cleared his throat. She looked up to see Bunsen standing in front of her. He'd cleaned off the shoe polish, and his fur gleamed snowy white again in the candlelight. The tip of his nose was as pink as the punch. Glory peered at it and frowned. ‘Are you coming down with something?’ she asked her colleague.

  ‘Me?’ squeaked Bunsen.

  ‘Your nose,’ said Glory. ‘It's all pink.’

  Bunsen hastily covered it with his paw. ‘Oh, that,’ he said. ‘Uh, well –’

  Gingersnap Goldenleaf leaned over to her daughter. ‘He's blushing, you goose,’ she whispered in Glory's ear. ‘Probably wants to ask you to dance. Put the poor fellow out of his misery.’

  Now it was Glory's turn to blush. ‘Oh,’ she said. She handed her punch cup to her mother and stood up. ‘Would you like to dance?’

  The slim white lab mouse nodded. Holding out his paw, he led Glory out on to the dance floor as the Steel Acorns struck up the opening bars of ‘Whiskers in the Moonlight’. Bunsen shyly wrapped his paw around Glory's waist and pulled her close. They began to sway to the music.

  ‘Glory, I –’

  ‘Wasn't this an amazing day?’ said Glory.

  Bunsen glanced down at Glory, wh
o had pressed her furry cheek close to his. ‘Truly amazing,’ he said.

  ‘Did you ever dream something like this could happen?’

  ‘Mmm-hmmm,’ murmured Bunsen, closing his eyes. ‘Often.’ He began to hum.

  Glory drew back. ‘You did?’

  Her colleague's eyes flew open. ‘Oh, I mean, uh – no! Never!’ Bunsen cleared his throat. ‘Unbelievable!’

  Glory smiled and snuggled close again. ‘I know, isn't it?’ she continued. ‘We got the Kiss of Death back, and we got my father back – and I got my job back!’ she said happily.

  ‘And don't forget your Silver Skateboard,’ added Bunsen.

  Glory glanced over at the far wall, against which she'd propped her shiny new skateboard. ‘Oh, I won't, believe me,’ she said, sighing in contentment. ‘Truly an amazing day. And to top it all off, we foiled Operation P.E.S.T. Control! Though it's a shame Dupont escaped from the Mouse Guard.’ She pulled away again. ‘Oh, I almost forgot!’

  ‘What?’ said her colleague.

  ‘You got promoted, Bunsen. Congratulations!’ Glory held out her paw.

  Bunsen shook it, ducking his head modestly. ‘That certainly was a surprise,’ he said. ‘I never dreamed – never expected – well, you know, being just a lab mouse and all…’

  Just a lab mouse?’ cried Glory. ‘Bunsen, you are true blue. And besides, you should never be ashamed of who you are!’ A rueful smile flickered across her face at these words, and her bright little eyes flew over to where her boss sat, still talking to her father. Good old Julius. Glory hesitated a moment, then confided, ‘You know, I'm half house mouse myself.’

  There. She'd said it. The sky hadn't fallen in. The world hadn't come to an end.

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ said Bunsen.

  ‘You do?’ Glory blinked at him.

  ‘Sure, everybody knows that. Besides, it's a nice half.’ Bunsen's nose and the tip of his tail turned bright pink again. ‘Of course, I like your other half too. In fact,' he finished boldly, ‘I like everything about you.’

  ‘Oh my,’ said Glory. She stared at Bunsen. For once she was speechless.