Oh, Rats!

by Tor Seidler

  Junior was stunned. He’d been thinking of rounding up the gang for some swimming and diving, only hesitating because Phoenix might come and show him up again. He’d never dreamed he was old enough to hold such an important position.

  It didn’t take him long to warm to the notion, however. And then things brightened even more as a weary Phoenix crept off to the crate to catch a few winks.

  “Let’s hit the dock!” Junior said.

  Lucy was about to join him when she noticed that Mrs. P. had appeared in her doorway. Lucy veered over there, and Mrs. P. showed her a vial of pills she’d put together for the rats to take along on their evacuation.

  “Actually, it looks like we might not need to evacuate,” Lucy told her. “There’s no sign of the humans.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when the pier began to tremble.

  14

  ROTTEN EGGS

  MRS. P. NEARLY DROPPED THE VIAL.

  “Earthquake?” she guessed.

  Lucy didn’t know what this meant, so Mrs. P. explained that it was when the earth got a little cough. She’d experienced one in her youth. But as the trembling intensified, Mrs. P. sensed this was more than a little cough and sent Lucy over to the pier door to investigate. Other rats were rushing there too, and they watched in alarm as three flatbed trucks drove onto the pier. One was carrying a bulldozer, another a backhoe, a third a dumpster. A pickup truck with a big spool of wire fencing in back pulled up as well, along with another pickup and a green van.

  This green van was the cause of the demolition crew’s late arrival. It belonged to an explosives expert named Neil Sullivan. Sully, as he was known, lived in Brooklyn, and if he had a job in Manhattan, he usually took the Battery Tunnel, as he had this morning. But the President of the United States happened to be in town that day to give an address at the United Nations, and as part of heightened security the police were doing random searches at bridges and tunnels. Sully’s van was stopped, and he was arrested. He knew perfectly well that transporting explosives through city tunnels was illegal, but in twenty years he’d never been stopped, and he’d carelessly left a couple of blasting caps from his last job in the back of the van. When he got to the police precinct, he was allowed a phone call. He called the crew chief who’d hired him for the job. The crew chief called the real estate developer who’d hired him for the job. The developer, a rich and powerful man named P. J. Weeks, called his doubles tennis partner, the deputy mayor. The deputy mayor called the precinct, and Sully was released. All of which resulted in a six-hour delay.

  The rats, who of course knew nothing of this, were thrown into a turmoil—at least most of them. Back on the wobbly dock Junior and the gang frolicked away, oblivious, while Phoenix was sound asleep in his papery nest, and Beckett was so absorbed in an article in a Scientific American about a rat-maze experiment that he didn’t notice the trembling.

  Lucy dashed back to Mrs. P. to report that she’d been right about the humans and their machinery, then she dashed to her crate to tell Beckett he’d been right too, half dragging him to the pier door. They were just in time to see two humans approaching. Beckett couldn’t resist poking his head out.

  “Get a load of that!” said Sully, standing in front of the notice. “The rats are giving us a heads-up!”

  “Some kid’s idea of a joke,” said the crew chief. “He ought to be in juvie.”

  “Maybe he’ll learn some penmanship there,” Sully said, laughing.

  The crew chief sniggered.

  “My son has to see this,” Sully said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “He’s got a pet rat. White, with red eyes.”

  He took a photo, as did the crew chief.

  “Got the dynamite you wanted,” the crew chief said. “Kind of old school, isn’t it?”

  Sully shrugged. “Easier for a small job like this. Shouldn’t take much to bring this old gal to her knees.”

  “Too late to do much today. Figure out where you want to put your charges, and we’ll get things set up. We’ll start work first thing in the AM.”

  “Give me a hand with this door, will you?”

  Though Beckett was mastering their written language, he couldn’t understand a word of the spoken variety, so he was as startled as the other rats when the door started sliding open. They sprinted for their crates, kicking up dust in every direction, and the first thing Sully did as he stepped inside was sneeze. He kept sneezing as he walked around checking support beams. But not even that was enough to wake Phoenix, so Lucy and Beckett finally dragged him from his nest. When he peered out of the crate, Phoenix was amazed to see the human inspector and the giant machines through the open pier door.

  “Did the humans read your message?” he asked.

  Beckett grunted. “But I don’t think they put much stock in it.”

  Sully walked out of the pier building and came back a minute later pushing a handcart with a small trunk on it. After dumping the trunk, he wheeled the handcart back outside and put his shoulder to the door, sliding it shut with a forbidding creak.

  Phoenix followed Lucy and Beckett over to the door to watch Sully climb into his green van and drive away. The flatbed trucks had already gone, leaving behind the bulldozer and backhoe and dumpster. The remaining humans were unspooling the wire fencing across the front of the pier area. Once the fence was up, they cut a gate in it, hung up a couple of signs, then piled into the pickups and drove away as well.

  The rats started creeping out of hiding. First they checked out the ominous machinery looming outside, then they went back inside and gathered around the mysterious trunk. Augustus gave it a good sniff and declared that it contained rotten eggs.

  “Why would they bring rotten eggs?” asked the youngest elder.

  “To drive us out with the smell,” Augustus suggested.

  “I rather like it,” the middle elder said, sniffing.

  While other rats were weighing in on the smell, Beckett told them the trunk contained explosives, but with all the sniffing, no one heard him. Lucy hissed “shhhh” and asked Beckett to repeat himself.

  “It says ‘Danger Explosives’ right there on the side,” he said.

  Since he’d been proven right about the notice on the door, the rats now took him more seriously. Many of them looked apprehensive, but Augustus looked downright shell-shocked.

  “You mean they’re going to blow us to bits?” he said.

  “Stands to reason,” said Beckett.

  “Then what in the world are we doing here?”

  So saying, Augustus sped out the back of the pier and returned moments later with his soaking-wet son, fresh off the dock. As he pulled his son toward the front of the pier, other wet young rats burst in through the back crack.

  “Junior, where are you going?” cried Emily.

  “Where are we going, Father?” Junior asked. “And what about Mom?”

  “If anybody sees Helen,” Augustus cried, “tell her we’re down in Battery Park. I advise the rest of you to come too!” And with that he dragged his son under the sliding door.

  In the wake of their departure, rats ran every which way, racing to gather up their belongings and follow him. As the pier descended into pandemonium, Mrs. P. squeezed out of her crate.

  “Rats!” she boomed.

  Rats stopped in place as if quick-frozen. Then, like metal chips drawn to a magnet, they migrated toward Mrs. P. As she had earlier on the cleat, she gathered Lucy and Beckett and Phoenix to her side.

  “It’s twilight,” Mrs. P. said, checking the pier windows. “The humans are surely gone for the day, so let’s not panic. Instead let’s give these”—young rats was on the tip of her tongue when she remembered Phoenix wasn’t a rat—“these youngsters one more chance to try to short the humans’ grid and maybe change their minds.”

  All eyes fixed on Phoenix. Lucy grabbed his paw.

  “Will you do it, Phoenix?” she asked.

  “I can try,” he said, his left whiskers twitching.
>
  In desperate situations rats will clutch at the flimsiest of straws. Exchanging hopeful glances, many volunteered to go along to the substation. But Mrs. P. reminded them that such a mission called for ratlike stealth.

  “You three go, since it’s your brainchild,” she said, indicating Lucy and Beckett and Phoenix. “But wait until dark.”

  “I could use a little more sleep,” Phoenix admitted.

  Back in the crate the sleep-deprived squirrel curled up in his papery nest, but even though Lucy and Beckett were very quiet—Beckett didn’t even rustle a page—Phoenix couldn’t drop off. He was suddenly feeling strangely alive, in a way he hadn’t since rescuing Tyrone on the windy tower. When the light leaking into the crate began to fade, he abandoned the napping idea.

  Quite a group followed the three of them out under the pier door into the night. Now that they were convinced of Beckett’s reading ability, they wanted to know the meaning of the signs on the temporary fence. Beckett had little trouble deciphering them in the glow from the city lights.

  “That one says ‘Danger, Keep Out,’ ” he said, pointing. “And that one says, ‘No Trespassing.’ ”

  “Are we trespassing?” a very young rat asked.

  “It’s a matter of perspective,” Beckett said.

  The very young rat pretended he understood and joined the other rats in wishing the team good luck. Off they went. They reached the West Side Highway just as the signal turned red, so they scooted across. On the other side they moved haltingly through the gutters. There were quite a few humans out and about, some walking dogs, some standing outside bars and restaurants smoking cigarettes, some sitting on stoops listening to music. On one block an open fire hydrant was flooding the gutter, so the trio had to mount the curb onto the sidewalk. As they hugged the base of an old apartment building, they got spritzed by dripping air-conditioners. The next building was a new high-rise, and Phoenix got a start when he spotted three rats on the other side of the tinted glass. Then it hit him that it was a reflection of them, and he was so chagrined he stopped in his tracks. He’d actually thought he was a rat.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucy and Beckett asked in unison.

  Phoenix couldn’t think what to say without insulting them, so he pretended he’d stubbed a paw in a sidewalk crack.

  When they at last reached the substation, the whole area looked deserted, and they went straight to the corner of the building. Lucy gave Phoenix a hug. Beckett patted his shoulder and said, “Try not to get yourself fried.”

  It was another sultry, windless night, and the climb was easier than the first time, Phoenix’s paws remembering the best niches. In short order he’d shinnied the support wire on the flagpole and was slithering through the pipe into the upper chamber. It was even hotter than last time, but luckily there were no humans around. He looked around anxiously for the level. Phew. It was right where he’d hidden it behind the conductors. He pushed it over to the two big coils, which seemed to be humming louder than before. If he stood between them on tiptoe and lifted the level over his head, he would just be able to set it down so it made contact with both coils. But if he did that, he realized, he might end up like Tyrone, and even though he’d just mistaken himself for a rat, he no longer felt like ending everything.

  As he studied the problem, he wished Lucy and Beckett were there to help. Thinking of Beckett’s parting advice, he fetched a sponge from the closet and placed it carefully on the edge of one of the coils. Nothing happened. He pressed the level over his head and carefully set one end of it on the sponge. He set the other end on the opposite coil. Nothing. He took a few deep breaths, then reached up and pulled the sponge away. The level fell and hit him on the head—ouch!—and clattered to the floor.

  On the next try he followed the same steps, but before pulling away the sponge, he protected the lump forming on his skull with his other paw. This time the level landed on the not-quite-healed wound on his tail. Howling, he threw down the sponge and marched back to the pipe.

  It was a little cooler out on the balcony. As the pain in his tail subsided, he glanced up and saw the moon poised between two glittering skyscrapers to the east. It looked just like one of Mrs. P.’s chunks of cheddar cheese. He thought about how Mrs. P. and Lucy had brought him back from the dead. And how Lucy and her brother were waiting expectantly down on the sidewalk.

  He went back in through the pipe to give it one more try. He followed the same procedure, but when he pulled the sponge away this time, he snatched it like a magician snapping off a tablecloth without moving the silverware. The level dropped onto the coil with a resounding pop. Then came a sizzling sound, and everything went dark. For a moment Phoenix thought he’d actually done it—shorted the grid! But then the lights flickered back on.

  Yet when he looked, the level was lying there touching both coils, which were no longer humming. He couldn’t think what else he could do, so he went back out through the pipe onto the balcony. The moon was still poised between the two skyscrapers to the east. But it looked different somehow—brighter. He blinked, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. No, the moon had definitely brightened.

  Then it hit him why. The moon looked brighter because the skyscrapers framing it had gone dark. Not just them. Every building in sight was dark. Phoenix hopped atop the balustrade and made his way around the balcony. Everywhere he looked—east, west, north, and south—the whole city was as dark as his singed fur.

  15

  GRUYÈRE & PROVOLONE

  “BECK?” LUCY CALLED OUT.

  “Right here,” Beckett said.

  Rats have superior night vision, and Lucy quickly made out her brother leaning against the curbstone. They’d moved into the gutter when a human had come clattering down the sidewalk on a skateboard.

  “Can you believe it?” Lucy said in hushed wonder.

  Frankly, Beckett couldn’t. He would have given very long odds against a solitary squirrel plunging a great metropolis into blackness. But well-informed as Beckett was, there was no way he could have known that the city’s power grid had already been strained to the breaking point, what with the long heat wave and millions of air-conditioners running at full blast. The sudden loss of this critical substation had been the last straw.

  Even the streetlamps were out. As Beckett’s eyes adjusted to the feeble moonlight, he made out parked cars across the street, and the faint glitter of windows in the buildings beyond the cars. Then a taxi turned onto the block, and for a moment the headlights hit his sister’s jubilant face.

  In the distance people were shouting. Car horns were honking. It was almost as if the humans were celebrating the darkness too. But by the time another passing car’s headlights lit things up, Lucy’s face had turned anxious.

  “Do you think Phoenix is okay?” she said.

  “Let’s hope,” breathed Beckett.

  They climbed back onto the sidewalk and looked up. Thanks to an emergency generator, lights had flickered back on inside the substation. But the outdoor floodlights weren’t connected to it, so the facade was as dark as everything else in the neighborhood. Neither of them could make out the squirrel climbing tail-first down the corner of the building. But just as Phoenix was reaching the sidewalk, a garbage truck swung around the corner, catching him in its beams.

  The two rats rushed over.

  “You did it!” Lucy cried, giving him a massive hug.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it,” Beckett said with something like awe in his voice.

  Lucy insisted on hearing all the details then and there. Phoenix left out the part about the level hitting him on the head and tail but did his best to reproduce the popping and sizzling sounds.

  He was telling them about sliding down the support wire in the dark when a pair of Con Ed vans came tearing around the corner and squealed to a stop. The three rodents cowered back against the building as humans jumped out and pounded up the substation’s front steps. When the doors slammed behind them, Lucy said they had
to go tell the others.

  “They’re not going to believe it!” she cried.

  * * *

  But the other wharf rats didn’t need to be told. Most had remained out in front of the pier, too antsy to go to bed, and witnessed the plug being pulled on the city lights. Young rats danced in celebration. Older ones looked around hopefully at their beloved home. Junior’s mother, Helen, who’d been toying with the idea of abandoning her beautiful crate and following her mate and son down to Battery Park, decided to stay put. Two of the elders raced back into the pier to wake Mrs. P. with the amazing news.

  Mrs. P. accompanied them back outside to see for herself. “I have to admit, when I first saw that sorry-looking creature,” she said, “I’d never have guessed he could pull off something like this.”

  “With the lights out, you can see the stars!” chirped one of several young rats who’d climbed onto the backhoe’s shovel.

  “You’re right,” said Mrs. P. She pointed. “That constellation over there is called the Great Rat.”

  “Maybe we should rename it the Great Squirrel!” cried another shovel-percher.

  “Not a bad idea,” Mrs. P. mused. “Though we mustn’t forget that Lucy and Beckett played their parts.”

  The same young rats who’d grumbled when she brought Lucy and Beckett up onto the cleat now chanted their names along with the squirrel’s. But when the three failed to reappear, the chanting turned to worrying. What if they’d sacrificed their lives at the substation? And another thing: the humans needed to be reminded who had shorted the grid. If Beckett didn’t come back, they wouldn’t be able to write any more messages, and the whole enterprise would be in vain.

  * * *

  In fact, Lucy and Beckett and Phoenix were just on the other side of the West Side Highway. But with no electricity the traffic signals weren’t working, so the flow of cars never quite stopped. They had to wait so long that Phoenix’s exhilaration from his adventure turned to exhaustion, and he actually dozed off on his paws. When a traffic cop finally arrived and halted the traffic, Lucy had to shake Phoenix awake so they could scurry across.