In fact, when he wasn’t killing them, Jim the Rat had a great way with animals of all sorts, and could never refuse the offer of another pet. Even the latest addition to his menagerie already felt this.
Magnus sat, silent for once, in the mink trap which had been placed on the kitchen table, and watched the short fat bald figure moving neatly and quickly around the crowded room. Soon he heard a sizzling noise, and then there came to his uplifted nose the most heavenly smell. For once he did not shout, but only murmured, ‘Nice. Nice. Me like,’ as the sausages browned and bubbled in the pan.
At the low noise Jim the Rat turned from the stove. As soon as he had reached home he had inspected Magnus from every angle, his duck-pond eyes shining with excitement as his suspicions were confirmed, for in every way, he saw clearly, this was a mouse. In every way, that is, except for one – its giant size. Indeed, indeed, he had captured a King Mouse! He addressed Magnus accordingly.
‘What’s up then, Your Majesty?’ he said.
Magnus could not understand the rumbling voice but something in him liked the sound of it.
‘What you got?’ he said. ‘Smell good. You give Magnus some? Magnus hungry.’
Jim the Rat in his turn heard only a jumble of urgent throaty squeaks but there was no mistaking the meaning of them. The way to the royal heart, he thought, is through the royal stomach, and he speared a sausage and held it close to the trap.
Magnus stood up to his full height, his feet upon the wire, his nose a-quiver, whiskers twitching, pleading eyes almost bolting from his head.
‘Nice man!’ he said. ‘Nice grub! Magnus want bite!’
‘Make a meal fit for a king,’ said Jim the Rat, ‘pork sausages do. But we don’t want to burn the royal mouth, Your Majesty, so you’ll have to wait a minute,’ and he put the sausage on a plate to cool and turned away to see to the rest.
The old Magnus would have been ranting and raging by now at not having his wishes immediately granted, but already something in his association with the ratcatcher had changed him. He stayed quiet, his eyes glued to the source of that marvellous smell, his tongue flickering over his lips.
At last Jim sat down to his own breakfast, but he did not begin until he had tested the heat of the first sausage in his fingers. He cut off a piece and offered it to the King Mouse.
‘May it please Your Majesty,’ he said.
The old Magnus would have bolted it and bawled for more, but the times were changing. Man and mouse ate steadily, watching each other the while and enjoying the food the more for the other’s enjoyment. By the time Magnus had finished his bit of sausage, Jim the Rat had worked his way through three, and two rashers of bacon, and an egg.
They continued their conversation, which was no less companionable because neither could understand the other’s tongue.
‘Nice grub!’ said Magnus, cleaning the grease from his whiskers. ‘Me like! You got more, man?’
‘Pretty good was it?’ asked Jim the Rat, mopping his plate with a slice of bread. ‘Meet with the royal approval, did it? What does Your Majesty fancy now?’
He cut another thick slice of bread from the loaf, cut off a finger from it about as long as his own and proffered it. Magnus drew it through the wire quite gently, and Jim allowed the tips of his finger and thumb to follow it in. As he had guessed, Magnus did not bite. Already the connection was made in his mind between nice things and nice man, so nice fingers and nice thumb.
‘Good boy,’ said Jim, forgetting for a moment that this was not the way to address a King. He slapped butter and honey on the rest of the slice.
‘Magnus want,’ said Magnus hastily, and pushed his dry bread back out for the same treatment.
By the end of breakfast a firm bond had been established between the pair. Jim took the day off from ratcatching and by the end of it had taught Magnus to come to the wire of the trap when called.
That evening the cottager telephoned.
‘You coming round soon, Jim? I’ve been keeping the shed door closed like you said.’
‘I’ve been. You can open it,’ Jim said. ‘I reckon I’ve solved your little problem.’ He winked at the watching Magnus.
‘I told you it was rats, Jim, I knew it. That old nose of yours was wrong for once, eh?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well, now, what do I owe you?’
‘No, that’s all right, don’t bother,’ Jim said. He suddenly felt he did not want to take money for this unique and extraordinary new pet. He gazed fondly on Magnus. A ratcatcher may look at a King Mouse, he thought.
‘Look, tell you what, Jim,’ the cottager said.
‘My missus says we ought to get rid of the old rabbit. Says it’s his food the rats and mice come after. Be any good to you? You can have his hutch and all.’
‘Well, thanks.’
‘All right then, let’s leave it like this. Next time you’re by with the van, you pick him up. OK?’
‘Thanks,’ said Jim the Rat. ‘Maybe you could go in with him, Your Majesty,’ he said as he put the phone down. ‘Be company for you. After all, you can’t stay in that mink trap for ever. But first I’ve got to get you really tame.’
And so for the next several days Jim spent every minute that he could spare from his work in training the King Mouse.
For a reward of food, Magnus learned not only to come, but to sit and to stay on command. Smarties, Jim found, were a useful form of payment. To Magnus, they seemed like a heavenly variety of Porker Pill.
In fact, the training was a two-way affair, for a short sharp squeak would always persuade the soft-hearted Jim to hand over an extra Smartie. He could not of course know that the squeak was an order for ‘More!’
By the end of a week, Jim the Rat had nerved himself to do what he knew he must if his control over the King Mouse was to be proved. He took what precautions he could. First he cleared the kitchen of cats. Then he closed all the doors and windows, and armed himself with a new packet of Smarties. Then he opened the door of the trap.
TWELVE
Nightmare
Jim need not have worried. Magnus had no desire to run away from someone who supplied such a wonderful variety of delicious things to eat.
Soon he began to go everywhere perched upon Jim’s shoulder, even to travel with him in the van (though Jim was careful to hide him away when they met other humans; a food offering would always persuade Magnus into a box, away from curious eyes, or, at the end of the day, back into the safety of the mink trap).
But suddenly one night, something happened which completely altered the best-laid plans of mouse and man.
Everything at Jim the Rat’s cottage was quiet. Upstairs, Jim snored. Outside in the orchard the donkey dozed and the goats snoozed, and in their houses the hens and the ducks slumbered soundly. Only the hunting cats stalked through the shadowy moonlight.
In the mink trap on the kitchen table Magnus Powermouse slept also, but fitfully. Maybe it was the fault of supper – Jim had been generous with his own toasted cheese, and there had been a square of chocolate for afters – but tummy-ache and nightmares invaded Magnus’s rest. He dreamed that he was in the grip of some monstrous bird of prey, so real a dream that he could feel its cruel talons piercing his stomach, and he woke with a scream of ‘MUMM-YY!’
At that very moment, as chance would have it, there was a mouse on the table looking for scraps, a female mouse, a mouse of a warm brown colour, a mouse that looked in the light of the dying fire very much like Madeleine.
‘Mummy?’ cried Magnus once again before his nose told him that of course it was not. The stranger vanished and he was wide awake. And all at once a great flood of homesickness swept over him. He pictured his parents, even now happily asleep with kind Uncle Roland, his parents to whom he had barely given a thought for many days, and he cried. He recalled how his little mother had toiled and slaved to find enough food for him when he was a baby, and he cried yet more. He saw his poor father cruelly caught by the foot and wept bitter
ly.
‘All my fault!’ howled Magnus in the mink trap. ‘All because Magnus was so greedy. Nasty, nasty Magnus!’
By morning he had reduced himself to a state of abject misery, convinced that he would never see his mother and father again. If indeed they were still alive. Probably they had already been trapped, or poisoned, or eaten by the cat, or had simply died of a broken heart. As he surely must. And soon!
The moment Jim the Rat came downstairs, he could see that something was very wrong. Magnus was hunched in a corner of the trap and did not even look up when Jim opened the door.
Usually he would be waiting eagerly for the first ‘Come’ and ‘Sit’, the first Smartie reward, and the first ‘Good boy’, but now he took no notice whatsoever of any command and no interest in any food that was offered. Jim even produced that favourite, a Mars Bar, and waved it under Magnus’s nose, but it might as well have been a block of wood.
Ordinarily by now Magnus would have been happily perched upon Jim’s shoulder while the ratcatcher went through his early morning routine – cats let in, hens and ducks let out, goats milked, greetings exchanged with donkey, everything fed – but this morning Jim had to do it alone.
He did not think to close the mink trap door.
As he went about his chores Jim wondered what to do. If the King Mouse was really ill, he must call the vet. But that would give the game away, people would get to hear about such an extraordinary animal, it would be in the papers, on the telly, there would be no privacy, no peace. Oh, I’ll leave it a while, he thought, maybe it’s just a tummy upset, not surprising really when you consider how much he eats. But when he came back into the kitchen, the mink trap was empty.
‘Your Majesty!’ cried Jim anxiously. ‘Where are you?’ But there was no sound in reply. Only the songbirds in their cages piped and whistled. He looked fearfully for the cats, but, curiously, they had all disappeared. He searched the room from top to bottom but found nothing. He ran outside, calling ‘Come! Come! Good boy!’ but there was no sign. He can’t have gone far, thought Jim the Rat.
In fact Magnus had gone quite a long way. He had walked out of the trap in a kind of daze of unhappiness, for all he could think of now was how to try to find his way back to his mother and father, whom he had deserted and left to some terrible fate or other. He had quite forgotten that he had been taken from them against his will. He was full of guilt, and of anger against himself, against Fate, against anything that got in his way.
What got in his way was a large black cat.
All three of Jim’s cats had been waiting for just such an opportunity as this. For weeks now they had been able to see, to smell and to hear Magnus. Now they could give their other two senses a turn. Touch him! And then taste him!
When Magnus first came out of his refuge, none of them moved. They sat around the table slit-eyed, tail-tips twitching. Cattily, they began to talk amongst themselves in soft spiteful voices.
‘E’s a big un, ain’t ’e, Ginger?’
‘What, bist scared of un then, Tibbles?’
‘Don’t talk so daft. I’ll soon give ee what for.’
‘Who said you could have ’im? You leave un to me-ow.’
‘No, to me-ow!’
The big black, the boss cat, settled the argument. He suddenly moved forward until he sat below Magnus, directly blocking his line of flight to the open back door. His claws were unleashed, every muscle was tensed and his tail moved slowly from side to side in a wide arc. He raised his head and his pale eyes looked directly into the dark ones above.
‘Blackie’s going to take un then!’ they said.
‘Old Blackie’ll ’ave un!’
‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry then, Blackie. Play around with un a bit! Let’s see a bit of sport!’
Surprise, as any fighting soldier knows, is a very valuable weapon in battle, and what happened next took the black cat completely by surprise. At one instant he was crouched in all the glory of his strength, the very picture of a mighty hunter. At the next he was struck full in the face by the furious missile that was Magnus, and scratched and buffeted and knocked off balance. Yowling with fright and hurt pride and a badly bitten ear, he dashed beneath the kitchen dresser for shelter.
Rooted to the spot, Ginger and Tibbles watched the giant mouse dash out through the back door, while under the dresser Blackie mewed like a cuffed kitten.
THIRTEEN
I’ll Be Jugged!
In years to come the story of the battle in Jim the Rat’s kitchen grew to epic proportions. The great Magnus Powermouse had taken on ten, twenty cats, mouse mothers told their children. He had put them all to flight, killing many, severely wounding others, sparing none. (‘Mind you don’t try anything like that, dear. You’re only little, and he was a giant among mice.’)
But just at the moment the giant among mice was at a loss. The blind fury which had prompted his fearless attack upon the cat had worn off and suddenly he realized, as he ran headlong away from Jim’s cottage, that although he was now determined to find his parents, he did not know the way.
He stopped in the middle of a large field and tested the wind with upraised snout but to no avail. He stood upon his hind legs and gazed around but even to a giant mouse the view ended at the next hedge. He threw back his head and yelled at the top of his voice. ‘MUMM-YYY!! DADD-YYY!!’ yelled Magnus to the skies above, but there was no answer save for the whistle of the wind.
After a moment however he heard the thump of feet and saw a strange animal coming across the field towards him. It leaped and twirled and turned somersaults and chased its own tail, all at the highest speed; and when it eventually reached Magnus, it took no notice of him, but stood upon its hindlegs and with its forefeet wildly punched the air.
‘Left!’ and ‘Right!’ cried the animal. ‘Jab! Jab! Use your jab! Now get away and use your left! Draw him! Now the counter-punch! Right cross to the jaw! And an uppercut to finish him!’ And it dropped down on all fours, puffing and panting.
Magnus had never seen a hare before and did not know that the month was March. However, it bore some vague resemblance to Uncle Roland and so might presumably be kindly. He decided to ask it the way to go.
‘Which way Mummy and Daddy?’ said Magnus politely.
The hare turned its head slightly. Its large mad eyes were set on the side of its head so that it could not see comfortably when pointing its nose at him.
‘Hey! A king-sized mouse! Fan-tastic! What did you say, boy?’ it said, and it shot suddenly up in the air like a jack-in-the-box and landed facing in the other direction. Magnus repeated his question.
‘Mummy and Daddy are dead and gone,’ it said in a sing-song voice.
‘Clamped in the long dogs’ jaws
Or killed by the hounds of the beagling folk
Who hang up their masks and paws
Or caught in the mesh of the poacher’s net
Or filled with the sportsman’s lead.
Don’t know how, but I tell you now,
Mummy and Daddy are dead.’
It stood upright and began boxing again.
‘My mummy and daddy?’ cried Magnus in an agony. ‘Dead?’
‘No, not your mummy and daddy, stupid – Duck! Feint! Left jab! Now, hook him with your right! – My mummy and daddy.’
‘But which way my mummy and daddy?’ said Magnus.
‘Look, boy,’ said the hare. ‘How should I know? You might as well ask me where my Aunt Fanny is.’
‘Where your Aunt Fanny?’ said Magnus obediently.
The hare looked sideways at him for a moment. Then it shook its head so that its very long ears wobbled wildly.
‘Crazy boy,’ it said reflectively. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Magnus.’
‘Well, how’d you like to go a couple of rounds with me, Magnus? Come on, boy, put up your dooks.’ It stood up on its hindlegs once again and began to dance around Magnus, battering the air above his head with a perfect flurry of blo
ws.
Eventually, since this display provoked no reaction but bewilderment, it dropped down and began to graze.
‘What’s dooks?’ said Magnus.
With a sigh, the hare swallowed a mouthful of grass. ‘Dooks, Magnus,’ it said, ‘are the things on the end of your arms. Fists. Used in fisticuffs. Boxing. You like me to teach you how to, boy?’
‘How to what?’
‘Box.’
‘You put Magnus in box?’
‘Magnus,’ said the hare in a tone of patient weariness, ‘you and I operate on different intellectual planes.’
‘Don’t understand.’
‘Exactly. Now listen, crazy boy, and I’ll try to explain to you about the noble art of self-defence,’ said the hare, and he rose upright once again and struck an attitude, advancing one hind foot and holding one forepaw up before his face, the other being tucked defensively against his chin. His mad eyes smouldered, and he cried out in ringing tones:
‘If you can stand and fight with any fellow
And take a punch and hand one out as well,
If you can show you’re true blue and not yellow
And keep your end up till the final bell;
If you can brave the clouting and the clinching
And battle on until the fight is won,
If you can face the onslaught without flinching
Or giving ground – you’ll be a Hare, my son!’
Magnus Powermouse Page 6
