Don't Feed the Rat!

by Annie Appleton

  A two-legged approached from further down the hill. It was Vole Guy. By the time he spotted Older Female it was already too late for him to escape. She stopped him with an outstretched hand.

  ‘Listen, I know you’ve got permission to study the voles on this hill, but your greenie ways of gardening attract far too many rats.’ She showed him the contents of the bucket. ‘Rats hide in the long grass and weeds and pounce on any bird food as soon as it appears.’

  ‘No they don’t,’ Vole Guy said. ‘Rats eat mostly snails and worms. You don’t know what you are talking about.’ He looked down at the dog. ‘If I were you, I would stick to walking him and stop bothering the rest of us.’

  Older Female stepped up closer to him until she was almost nose to nose. Her face had turned a nice shade of red. Between clenched teeth she said, ‘I know what goes on between you and some of the female occupants of the allotments. You should stop talking if you don’t want that to come out.’

  Now Vole Guy’s face turned red and without a word he pushed past Older Female and walked further up the hill.

  ‘Ouch,’ Pete said.

  Older Female triumphantly marched on, down the path.

  We continued to follow her, and Vinnie and Eddy joined us. Eddy’s fluffy red tail bounced as he hopped along with us.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Vinnie said.

  ‘We’re keeping an eye on Older Female, to see how much bird food she steals from us,’ Pete said.

  Right at that moment Cecil and his posse jumped from the bushes. They yelled and cheered at Older Female. Startled, she dropped the bucket. It fell over and the contents spilled out across the path. It was quickly grabbed by the posse, who were undeterred by the barking dog and screaming two-legged.

  Pete started running down the hill.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I yelled after him.

  ‘I want to grab some of the loot,’ he yelled over his shoulder.

  Vinnie rolled his eyes. ‘This will end in disaster.’

  We ran after Pete.

  Older Female was now over her initial fright and egged on the dog to stop the posse from grabbing more bird food. Cecil now gave the command to retreat and in a flash they had all vanished under the bramble bushes. The dog followed, but yelped as he got scratched badly. Older Female pulled him back out on its lead. She stamped her feet in frustration as she saw that all the bird food was gone. She picked up her bucket and dog and stalked off down the hill with large strides.

  We arrived at the scene of the incident, where Pete was scouring the path and grass. ‘Please let there be something left,’ he said.

  I watched Older Female disappear. I had a bad feeling about this. ‘What if she’s going to retaliate,’ I said.

  Vinnie shrugged. ‘Why should she? All the two-leggeds on this hill are a bit crazy. She’s no worse than the others.’

  I hoped he was right. As long as Cecil kept from aggravating her, things should be fine.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The rumbling in Jacob’s stomach indicated that it was time to go home and get something to eat. He glanced at his watch. Half past five. He had no idea it was that late. Spike would probably be grumpy by now.

  Well, at least he had managed to set his computer to run a new set of calculations. The red light on top quietly blinked at him to indicate it worked. Jacob locked the door of his shed and started the walk down the hill. Here and there people were still beavering away on their allotments. Hoeing, digging holes or simply enjoying the quiet of the late afternoon.

  As he neared the bottom he spotted a young woman. Her long blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail and she was wearing blue jeans and a frilly girly blouse. It was Marlee Fairclough. She was talking to his archenemy, Priscilla.

  Jacob ducked on to someone’s allotment to avoid Priscilla seeing him. Peering with one eye through the bramble hedge he watched as Priscilla was still talking to Marlee. The girl looked at her shoes and pretended not to listen to the older woman. Jacob wished he could hear what was being said.

  After a few more minutes Priscilla walked away and disappeared around the corner. Marlee hunkered down behind some green compost bins, as if wanting to stay out of sight. What was she doing on the allotments all by herself? Waiting for a girlfriend to meet up? Planning a secret rendezvous with a boyfriend? Her behaviour was suspicious to say the least.

  Jacob started moving again and now noticed that Marlee was keeping a sharp eye on the entrance of one particular allotment. Whose allotment was it?

  Marlee, startled, gave Jacob a quick glance as he walked by. He pretended not to see her and hoped she wouldn’t feel the need to talk to him. After all, what she did in her spare time was her business.

  As he passed the allotment of Marlee’s interest, a woman stepped out through the gate. He suddenly knew very well whose allotment it was. Oh dear Lord, not Georgie Wilcrick...

  Georgie was small in stature, but with a curvy figure and a flirty smiley face. Jacob noticed her flower print wellingtons and blue overalls tied around the waist, all smudged with mud after spending all day at her allotment. But why did she have to unbutton her blouse so much? Of all the women he least wanted to bump into, she was at the top of his list.

  Georgie immediately spotted Jacob. She beamed him a flirty smile and sashayed towards him.

  ‘How are you doing this evening?’ Georgie said in her deep voice. ‘Have you been playing the professor again on that allotment of yours?’

  A cold fear took hold of Jacob. His palms became clammy. Why was Georgie the only woman who elicited this sort of reaction in him? He didn’t feel this way when he talked to Peggy. No, but Peggy was lovely and calm, with nice hair and little round ears.

  He begged his little voice to stop and realised he needed to say something to Georgie.

  ‘Nice blouse,’ he said, then realised he was staring at her boobs. His cheeks burned. Georgie chuckled and playfully touched his arm.

  ‘I heard Godric has been giving you a hard time.’ Jacob managed a nod.

  Georgie now placed a hand on his arm and bent towards him in a conspiratorial way. Her cleavage became even deeper with the act and Jacob looked away, closing his eyes.

  ‘When I become the society chairman,’ Georgie said, ‘I will let everyone do what they want.’ She winked. ‘Godric won’t have any power left.’

  Jacob gave her a nervous smile. ‘That’s great.’ From the corner of his eyes he saw Marlee’s blonde head looking in their direction from above the compost bin.

  He shook loose his arm and walked on. Georgie chuckled at his retreating back. Only after ten paces did he start breathing easier again. Was no man safe from that outrageous flirt? Going through the world trying to ensnare every man that came into sight. He’d better get away from her as fast as he could, before she caught up with him and touched his arm again. Such a shame that his fear of Georgie was keeping him from studying that interesting group of grey squirrels behind her shed.

  Emily had finished her shift at Posh Nosh Delicatessen and wandered up to allotments again. Her mood was somewhat spoiled by Aunt Peggy pestering her about putting the stock on the shelves in the proper way.

  ‘Always check the sell-by date, Emily. The new stock goes to the back and the old to the front.’ So what. At least she hadn’t mentioned the blue nail polish Emily had put on.

  She kicked a pebble. It shot across the road and nearly hit a passing cyclist in the shins. The man looked daggers at her and she glared back. He quickly cycled on.

  Emily smiled. People were scared of her. That felt good. She took one of her pet rats out of her pocket. She’d hidden them in her hoodie today and it had hung on the coat rack in the back of the shop while she was working. Aunt Peggy never noticed.

  Emily entered the allotments and nearly bumped into Jacob, who seemed to be in a great hurry. Behind him she noticed Georgie walking back to her allotment.

  ‘Got spooked by Georgie?’ she said. Jacob stopped in his tracks. His eyes flitted arou
nd as if looking for a way to escape. That was not going to happen. Emily grabbed him by the sleeve of his lab coat.

  ‘Have you ever wondered why Marlee keeps such a close eye on Georgie?’ she said. Jacob looked over his shoulder at the compost bins in the distance. ‘Don’t you think it’s suspicious?’

  He shook loose his arm. ‘I never noticed,’ he said. ‘Now please leave me alone. I have things to do.’

  Emily watched him go and wondered if he had really never noticed, or chose not to remember if he had. Was it his deliberate ploy to pretend he was just a silly man, doing silly experiments? She should find out.

  It was dusk by the time Jacob made his way back up to his allotment again. Tonight was the last time for a while that the space station would make an appearance in the skies above York.

  He’d wanted to take the other path up the hill, as he didn’t want to run the risk of bumping into Georgie again, but he was running out of time. Spike had kept him busy a bit longer than expected, as he had left a half-eaten mouse on the kitchen floor. There was guts and blood. Jacob shivered at the thought. Typical cat behaviour.

  But the space station waited for no one and he still had to set up his telescope. He had no choice but to take the shorter route and walk straight past Georgie’s allotment again.

  Light shone through the little windows of her shed. The door had a little heart cut out of it and there were flowery curtains on the windows. Why have curtains on the windows of your allotment shed? That didn’t make sense. In any case, it was likely that Georgie was inside, so Jacob picked up his pace.

  There was a soft creak as the gate opened. Jacob froze. A man stepped out. He wore a dark grey tailored suit and expensive cologne. His eyes were shifty. He looked very much like the man who had been drinking coffee with Marlee in the pub. Perhaps he was her father.

  The man looked Jacob up and down. He wrinkled his nose at the slightly stained lab coat and creased shirt. Then he turned his nose up in the air and buttoned up his jacket. He brushed past Jacob and moved off towards Milbury Road. Jacob watched him go. Strange. What was he doing here in his expensive clothes? Then he shrugged his shoulders. He had other things to do tonight than worry about unpleasant men. He’d better get out of here before Georgie appeared as well.

  Back on his allotment he set up his telescope once more. He was not alone on the hill. Voices drifted towards him from an allotment on the other side of the path. It belonged to a nice young woman named Liz Newland. Like Wilbur, she was growing vegetables using organic ways. She seemed to have some friends over. But was that Emily’s voice he heard? He listened for a minute. Yes, it was. The two women were having an animated conversation, at times bursting out in laughter.

  He’d never heard Emily talk like that. It seemed she had found a friend. Jacob smiled to himself. Having a friend would do her good. Perhaps she would stop pestering him.

  He put his eye to his telescope and slowly arced it towards the heavens. Before he could focus it on the stars, Jacob first noticed some of his fellow tenants, still out and about on their allotments in the dusk down at the bottom of the hill. The Jeffersons walked along the path towards Milbury Road, as usual craning their necks to snoop and see what happened on other allotments. Such nosy people. He would never do such things. Well... he noticed things, but didn’t snoop.

  He moved his telescope a tad to the right. Georgie Wilcrick came out of her shed and locked the door behind her. He shivered. He’d literally seen enough of her today.

  Then the telescope glided across some figures at the bottom of the hill. In the gloom of dusk Jacob could just make out Detective Chief Inspector Graham McDermott of the local York police department. Why was that horrible man back in Milbury? He probably came back to make his life a misery again. It wasn’t Jacob’s fault that the building a family of mice had resided in for years was turned into a bank. How was he supposed to know he wasn’t allowed inside any more just because there was now a vault? The mice were still there. He should have been able to keep studying them. Humiliating Jacob in front of all the bank clerks and customers; he couldn’t stand the man.

  McDermott was talking to someone near Godric’s allotment. Was it Godric? Perhaps McDermott was giving him a talking to because of his no-bird-food nonsense? Jacob squinted. No, not Godric. It looked like that man they saw in the pub the other night. The loan shark’s henchman, Hal Simms. Why was McDermott talking to him, and on the allotments of all places?

  The alarm on Jacob’s watch beeped. Only one minute until the beginning of the space station fly-by. Jacob pointed his telescope at the north-west corner of the sky and waited. It was clear and stars started to show.

  A bright dot of light appeared as out of nowhere in the night sky, and silently moved across. Jacob tracked the dot with his telescope as it moved. The space station’s large solar panels were nicely visible. Jacob followed it until it disappeared out of sight in the south-east.

  Happy with this sighting, Jacob packed away his telescope and walked down the hill again. The two women on the allotment next door were still talking. He hoped McDermott had left the allotments. He wasn’t ready to face that man again.

  * * *

  Paddy

  I loved the quiet of the evening to hang about in front of my digs. No two-leggeds about to make it difficult for us. Vinnie was thinking along the same lines. ‘You’re lucky with the two-leggeds of your allotment,’ he said. ‘Yours are quiet and disappear at night. Others have parties and eat dinner on their allotments.’

  I nodded. ‘I do think I’m lucky. At least my two-leggeds don’t have a tidy allotment. There’s more than enough snails and slugs around for me to eat.’

  Vinnie pointed at the gooseberry bush. ‘You’re not feeling hungry without the fat ball?’

  I grinned. ‘They’re more Pete’s thing.’

  ‘I can’t really believe you and Pete are cousins,’ Vinnie said. ‘You don’t look like each other and have totally different characters.’

  ‘Actually, Pete’s my second cousin. But we do both have Great-grandpa Reggie’s nose.’

  Someone was calling out our names. It was Pete.

  ‘Guys, guys,’ he said, a little winded from running up to them. ‘You’ll never guess where Eddy took me this afternoon.’

  ‘All the way down to the bottom of the hill?’ Vinnie said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Some two-legged’s back garden?’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘The school grounds?’ Vinnie said.

  ‘Warmer. You know that row of oak trees between the allotments and the school?’

  We nodded.

  ‘Eddy showed me a large hoard of acorns between the roots of one of the trees.’ Pete jumped up and down in excitement. ‘Apparently the grey squirrels built up that hoard. Isn’t that great?’

  ‘Grey squirrels?’ Vinnie shivered. ‘Flea-ridden fuzz balls with far too much tail.’

  ‘Why would you get excited about acorns?’ I said. ‘You don’t even like the taste of them.’

  Pete moved in closer to us. ‘Don’t you understand? If Older Female keeps taking away our bird food, there will be an upcoming food shortage before long. And what will I eat then? I might starve to death!’

  Vinnie gave me an exasperated look. ‘She won’t take away the snails and the worms, so there will always be enough for us to eat.’

  Pete sulked. ‘But it is difficult to find snails and worms. Digging into a hoard of acorns is much easier.’

  ‘You’ve become lazy, Pete,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘No I haven’t! Walking into the territory of the Greys is not without risk. You can’t call that lazy.’

  I looked at Pete. His whiskers quivered and he stared defiantly at Vinnie.

  ‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘Have you thought about how the Greys might get angry if you steal their food? It’s a stupid thing to do, walking into their territory. It might unleash another territorial war. And just when they have been quiet for a while.’
r />   Pete now stared at me. His whiskers drooped a bit. ‘Eddy will help me find the easiest hoards.’

  Vinnie gave another shiver. ‘Have you realised that Eddy is a squirrel as well? Granted he’s a red one, but he’s still a squirrel.’

  ‘Eddy hates the Greys,’ Pete said. ‘He told me that years ago the Greys ran his family off the hill.’

  Vinnie looked doubtful.

  A sudden jeering and shouting made us look up. Cecil and his posse rushed past us jeering insults. ‘Old baldy, you have warts on your tail,’ and, ‘Hey, fatty is here!’

  I tried to ignore them, but then I spotted Albie and Max, my nephews, in the posse. Although the smallest in the group, they were jeering just as loudly as the rest. I felt as if I was kicked in the stomach. How could they do that? I was their favourite uncle. How could they make fun of me? They couldn’t be serious. My whiskers drooped and I heaved a heavy sigh.

  Cecil and the posse rushed by again. Vinnie noticed my face. ‘It’s the peer pressure, Paddy,’ he said. ‘I’m certain they would never purposely make fun of you.’

  The posse turned around for another pass. I realised Vinnie was right. My body tensed. Suddenly I was hyper aware of Cecil’s sneering face. I wanted to punch it and bite his tiny little ears so that all of the posse knew he was just a sad rat who’d never had enough friends when he was little.

  I jumped in front of Cecil as he ran past. He nearly bumped into me. ‘What are you going to do, old fuzz ball?’

  I pushed past him without a word and confronted my nephews. They squirmed and nervously pawed their whiskers.

  ‘Sorry...’ Albie said and looked down at the ground. I gave him a quick bite on the hind leg. He started moving. Max now realised I was serious and followed us. I led them both from the posse, ignoring their giggles. I couldn’t let my nephews hang around with such ill-behaved bratty rats.

  ‘Please don’t tell Mum,’ Max said. He looked up at me with big eyes. I didn’t answer, but herded them all the way to their mother’s digs, which was across the garden wall in some two-legged’s back garden.