by Lynne Jonell
She found her voice at last. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said with an effort. Her gaze fell on Thomas, and she had an inspired excuse. “I’m babysitting.”
“You are not!” said Thomas indignantly, and the three girls exchanged glances.
“Well, have fun—whatever you’re doing,” said Kate in a bright, false voice, and the girls walked off, giggling.
Emmy wanted to kick something. It was so unfair! Every time—every single time she had a chance to do something normal, something ordinary, something that regular kids did all the time …
The front door slammed. Joe skimmed down the sidewalk and vaulted into the back of the truck. “Let’s go!” he called, hanging over the side. “Next stop, the Antique Rat!”
The children sat in the cargo bed of the truck with their legs stretched out straight. The Rat, who had found a pair of G.I. Joe field glasses in Emmy’s bag, took a position on the ledge behind the window and swept the horizon with a professional air.
“Ah, the old ‘enemy agents pretending to go to the candy store’ trick,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ll keep my eye on them for you, Chief.”
“Which one of us is ‘Chief’?” murmured Joe.
“I’ll be Chief,” Thomas volunteered, raising his hand.
Raston frowned. “You can’t be the chief. You’re Special Agent 99.”
“Oh,” said Thomas.
“It’s Emmy’s turn to be captain today,” said Joe. “Remember Good Fort?”
“Golden Fortress, said Emmy automatically.
“Gophers with Flugelhorns? I certainly do,” said the Rat.
“Right. So, since she’s captain of the good ship G.F., I can be chief of … whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Making the world safe for rodents,” said the Rat promptly. “But if you want details, I’m spying on three enemy agents who are pretending to be innocent schoolgirls.”
Emmy slid onto her back as the truck passed the girls, and stared at the sky. Its pure blue was deepening to cobalt, and high in the east she could see the pale disk of the moon, like a coin rubbed thin.
She was going to be awfully lonely in the next few weeks without Joe. “What did your dad say?” she asked as the truck rumbled on down the street.
“He’s going to call the airlines and the camp and try to get a refund.”
“Really?” Emmy watched some birds soaring overhead, trying to feel hopeful but wishing Joe hadn’t said “try.”
“He was picking up the phone when I left.” Joe leaned forward, seemingly unworried. “What’s in the bag?”
“Doll clothes.” Emmy sat up. “We’ve got to have something to wear to the party, remember?”
Joe scowled. “I’ll go as I am, thanks.”
Emmy shook her head firmly. “You can’t. But you can go in uniform.”
“Seriously?” Joe brightened.
“Yup. If you’re in the military, that’s what you’re supposed to wear.” Emmy grabbed for the side of the truck as Brian barreled around a corner.
“All right! Hear that, Ratty?”
Raston looked fixedly through his binoculars, ignoring Joe, and Emmy rose to her knees. They had entered the backstreets, and the Rat’s binoculars were aimed directly at the shoe shop. No, the sign out front, for he read the words aloud:
“The Home for Troubled Girls.” Raston lowered the binoculars. “Now, that sounds suspicious.”
Joe glanced at Emmy. “Miss Barmy was going to send you there, right? Remember Mrs. B and her flowerpots.”
“Maybe that’s where the girls are!” Thomas bounced up excitedly.
“What girls?” Joe grabbed the back of Thomas’s shirt. “Sit down, or you’ll fall out of the truck.”
“You know, the girls on the cane—with the carved faces?”
“They’re dead.” Emmy looked at Thomas’s stricken face and amended, “Well, Priscilla’s dead, anyway. And Mr. Peebles said the girls’ parents were all dead. So it stands to reason—”
“They can’t be dead.” Thomas gripped the side of the truck with dimpled fists. “Maybe they’re just prisoners in that house.”
“They’re not,” said Emmy flatly. “The police even searched it. Mr. Peebles said Mr. B only put up that sign outside because they had a dollhouse inside with that same ‘Troubled Girls’ sign on it. He thought it was cute or something.”
“Stupid, more like,” said Joe in disgust.
“I want them to be alive,” said Thomas stubbornly, his blue eyes troubled.
“Better pray for a miracle, then,” said Joe. “You’re going to need one. What were their names again? Ana, and—and Carrot—”
“Berit,” corrected Thomas, counting on his fingers. “Lisa. Lee. And—who was the last one, again?”
“Merry Pumpkin,” said Emmy with a sigh.
Thomas was fascinated with the shrinking process. He sat on a swivel chair at the Antique Rat and watched as the Rat bit the others one by one.
“Do it again!” he said, round-eyed, as Professor Capybara shrank down, down, until he was doll-sized, perfectly attired in the gray pinstriped suit that shrank with him.
“The lad is strangely bloodthirsty,” said the Rat.
Joe grinned and held out his finger for a bite. “I’m melting … melting!” he cried, writhing as he shrank. “Oh, what a world, what a world …” He collapsed in a tiny heap on the desk blotter.
Emmy sat on the broad desk that abutted the window of the Antique Rat, and braced herself as the Rat’s teeth grazed her finger. Her stomach contracted, as if she were on an elevator dropping fast, and her arms and legs prickled intensely. When at last it was over, she opened her eyes to see a gigantic and beaming Thomas overhead.
“I want to do it!” he cried, twirling in the swivel chair. “I want to shrink, too!”
“Not tonight,” said the professor firmly, stretching high to pull the chain of the desk lamp. “You’d need Cecilia’s kiss to grow again, and she’s in Rodent City.”
“But I could go with them!” Thomas was near tears.
“Only then you couldn’t help me with the experiments,” Brian pointed out.
“And you get to order pizza,” Joe added, using the stapler for a springboard. “Hey, Brian, want anything stapled? I can jump on the end, like this—”
Thomas wiped the back of his chubby hand across his eyes. “Can I look through the charascope again?”
“Of course,” said Brian kindly. “Now, what would you like? Pepperoni?”
“Sausage and onion,” said Thomas, sniffing a little as Brian led him away. “And would you call me Agent 99, please?”
It took some time to find doll clothes that fit. And although Emmy was tempted by a pair of Barbie’s high-heeled shoes, she couldn’t walk in them without tripping. At last she took an armful of clothes behind an open book and grimly tried on the lot.
She ended up with something blue and shimmery, with enough stretch so she could get it on and still be able to breathe, and a pair of flat silver slippers. Relieved, she came out from behind the book to see Joe looking handsome in a dress uniform of blue and gold, and the professor looking anxiously at his watch. “Brian!” he called.
Emmy walked across the desktop to gaze through the window. Across the way, jars in the window of the candy shop glowed with colors of lemon, cherry, and sour apple, and girls’ shadows moved. She felt a small dull pain in her chest.
“Here I am, Professor. Will this do?” Brian set a cat carrier down on the desk, complete with airholes and a side door.
“Admirably, my boy, admirably,” said the professor. “We won’t be in it long. But where is Raston?”
Emmy, still gazing out the window, caught sight of a small gray form creeping across the street and up to the Antique Rat. “He’s coming to the door,” she said, surprised. “How did he get outside?”
Brian opened the door. But it was Sissy who came in, tired, dusty, and footsore.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped
. “I’ve tried and tried to find him.” She limped across the floor, her satchel dragging, and gazed up as Emmy looked down over the edge of the desk. “I’m having trouble following his scent—I think I’m getting a cold—but that’s no excuse, of course,” she added hastily, wiping her nose. “At the Speedy Rodent Messenger Service, we never make excuses.” She looked anxiously around the room. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen him anywhere?” she asked faintly.
“Seen who?” said Raston, leaping from behind a stack of books and skidding across the desktop in a belted trenchcoat and dark glasses.
“Rasty!” Sissy fumbled with the straps of her satchel, pulled out a battered peanut-butter cup, and held it up with pride. “Delivery accomplished!” she said, and collapsed.
The carrying case was clean, dry, and large enough for the five of them. Cecilia, more or less recovered, went inside, followed by Raston, Joe, and the professor. Emmy stepped in last of all, and Brian shut the door with a snap.
Suddenly they were plunged into a deep-brown gloom. Thin pencils of light came in through the airholes, crisscrossing above, but they didn’t illumine much. Emmy was glad of the dark; she couldn’t see the Rat’s accusing eyes.
She had only meant to make Sissy happy by giving her a delivery to make. It was hardly an urgent delivery—nobody ever died for lack of a peanut-butter cup—but Cecilia had spent the afternoon dragging herself from place to place, searching for her brother, and getting sick in the process.
She tried too hard; that was the whole problem. It wasn’t Emmy’s fault that Sissy was the anxious type.
Brian cleared his throat high above them, and the steady joggle of his long strides turned to an uneven sliding as he stopped and set the carrier down. There was a scraping sound, as of shoes on cement, and the creak of a large body settling on a wooden bench.
“We must be at the tunnel entrance,” whispered the professor. “What’s he waiting for?”
A slight vibration trembled through the bottom of the case, and Emmy turned her head. A sound of voices, high and giggling, came in faintly and grew steadily louder.
“… but don’t you think she’s stuck-up?”
“She’s rich enough, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t think she’s stuck-up, exactly,” protested a third. “Just … different.”
Emmy recognized Meg’s voice with a rush of silent gratitude. But Kate cut across the others.
“Well, I think she’s stuck-up. Every time I invite her to do something, she makes up a stupid excuse …” The voices faded, became indistinguishable, as the girls passed the place where Brian sat. A last fragment of conversation wafted back: “… never going to ask her to do anything again …”
Silence. A fumbling sound at the latch of the pet carrier, and a click as the side door was opened. Five small figures pressed toward the opening, formal clothes rustling.
Emmy looked dully past Brian’s ankles, large and hairy, to a sweep of grass beyond. She could see the girls in the distance, walking away. She winced.
Joe turned to the professor. “But why are we on the green?”
“Keep your voice down, lad … They haven’t cleared the front entrance yet of the mess from that infernal jackhammer. Follow me, everyone.”
The small man in gray pinstripes ducked his head and entered a hole, cleverly hidden beneath the low, spreading branches of a yew and angling down beneath the bench’s concrete slab.
Sissy muffled another sneeze in her paw, and turned to whisper to Emmy as she passed. “I’m sorry—truly, I am. I’ll do better with the next message.”
“It’s okay,” Emmy protested, but Sissy had already disappeared after the others.
Emmy looked at the gaping mouth of the tunnel.
“Go!” said Brian urgently, as a slobbering, snuffling sound came to Emmy’s ears, along with a bounding vibration of the earth and a smell of damp dog. Emmy glanced up to see a gigantic white puppy approaching faster than she could have believed possible.
The puppy’s high-pitched yapping brought her to her senses. With a shimmer of blue, she caught up her long dress and scampered into the hole.
THE TUNNEL WENT ON and on, dimly lit by a long string of twinkle lights. Some of the bulbs were out, and in those patches the tunnel was dark indeed, and smelled strongly of worms.
“Criminy,” said Joe over his shoulder, “what if we met a worm?”
Emmy gripped the professor’s coattails and tried not to think about the size a worm would be, or its moist pink-and-brown squishiness. And then she tried not to think about screaming. And just as she was deciding she could not possibly think about the tunnel collapsing all around her and burying her alive, they came to a section where track was laid, and the walls were rough timbers instead of packed dirt, and a handcart stood ready. The lighting was better, too, and when they all got on the cart and Joe and Ratty pumped the handle and they began to roll smoothly down the track, Emmy breathed a little easier. In a minute the rough timbers changed to smooth paneling, and the twinkle lights changed to sconces of gleaming brass, and then the track stopped abruptly and they were standing on a polished parquet floor with padded benches on either side. Just before them was a carved wooden archway hung with velvet curtains of a deep forest green.
From behind the curtains came the vague muffled noise of many voices talking all at once, combined with the clink of bottles and an occasional shriek of laughter. Professor Capybara pulled back the heavy curtains and the sound spilled out in a burst of light and color and a vaguely familiar scent.
“Oh, here you are at last, Professor! And Raston and Joe—my, don’t you two look handsome—and Emmy dear! I’m so glad to see you again!” Mrs. Bunjee, swathed in violet silk, flung her furry arms wide and clasped Emmy to her chest.
Emmy tried not to breathe in. Chipmunk fur up her nose always made her sneeze, and she wasn’t sure that her dress could stand the strain.
“And, Cecilia, how lovely that you’re here! You’ll want to run up and put on your party dress; it’s laid out and pressed.”
Emmy looked up, but she couldn’t pinpoint the Bunjee loft out of so many others that ringed the city. Was it on the fourth level, or the fifth?
Rodent City had been built in the crawl space of the art gallery. Its walls were of red brick, and rough wooden uprights supported the floor above. But the massive pillars were connected by carved trusses, and twiggy lofts, and swinging ladders, all hung with garlands of twinkling Christmas lights like stars on a rope. And tonight, for the party, the central area on the ground floor had been covered with tables and lit with candles, creating a festive look.
“I have to deliver my message first.” Sissy straightened the badge on her jacket and stood proudly, her eyes bright and her voice pitched above the noise of the crowd. “A message for Mrs. Bunjee, of Rodent City, from Emmy Addison. Do not—repeat—do not trust Miss Barmy or Cheswick Vole. More information later.”
The hum of conversation near them died down, and Emmy winced. That message should have been given in private. Still, Sissy had remembered it word for word …
Emmy looked around. What was wrong? Sissy had blurted out her message at an awkward time, but that shouldn’t have caused Mrs. Bunjee to look so annoyed, or stopped all conversation nearby.
“Didn’t I say it right?” Sissy whispered to Emmy, wiping her nose on her paw.
A light, tinkling laugh broke the silence, and an amused voice spoke clearly from the outer edges of the group. “Emmaline always did like to make jokes …”
Emmy’s breath stopped. She felt as if she’d been hit in the chest.
The crowd parted to reveal a piebald rat, elegant in a rose-and-silver gown, with curled whiskers and a sparkling tiara between her ears. “… but perhaps she’s still too young to realize there is a time and place for everything, even her delightful sense of humor.”
A black rat with a sleek coat and a red bow tie murmured something in her ear.
“Of course I forgive her, Chesw
ick. She’s a lovely, dear child, and then she’s an Addison, too. I’m sure that someday her manners will reflect her training.” Miss Barmy smiled at the rodents around her, dimpled charmingly, and waved at Emmy. “Have a wonderful time at the party, little Emmaline, and don’t forget to thank your hostess.”
The rodents crowded around her again, not without a few disparaging looks at Emmy, and the conversation rose to its previous hum. Emmy took a step backward—she hardly knew what she was doing—and bumped into Joe.
“Wow,” he said, very low.
“You almost have to admire her,” said Professor Capybara. “Such a splendid example of manipulation! A textbook case!”
Emmy didn’t trust herself to speak as she watched the piebald rat move gracefully away. With growing outrage she saw that the rat’s dress was made of several Barbie gowns, re-cut and stitched together in a striking pattern.
“Did I do it wrong?” Sissy sneezed again and turned to her brother, bewildered. “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a messenger.”
Mrs. Bunjee turned, paws on her hips. “The problem isn’t with the messenger; it’s with the message. Cecilia, dear, go get your dress on, and don’t forget a handkerchief—your nose is running. Raston, bring her to table three afterward—you’re sitting with the Gopnichiks and the Grebblers. Don’t forget to congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Grebbler on their new litter—they had four boys and two girls.”
“Gophers,” muttered the Rat, taking Sissy by the elbow. “Oh, joy.”
“Now, Emmy,” said Mrs. Bunjee firmly. “No matter what Miss Barmy has done in the past, she deserves our support and help.”
“Deserves?” said Joe, with a rising inflection.
“Everyone deserves a second chance.” The chipmunk looked from Joe to Emmy to the professor, her face calm and certain. “Miss Barmy wants to turn over a new leaf. She told me while we were sewing her dress.”
“My dress,” Emmy said in a choked voice. “And I’ll bet she watched while you did all the work.”
Mrs. Bunjee shrugged. “It’s true that she didn’t know how to sew, but she did pay me—very well, I might add.”
