by Debi Gliori
Seizing the opportunity to unlock the secrets of his absent father’s vast computer, Titus moved the entire system out of Signor Strega-Borgia’s study and into his own bedroom.
With these two seemingly unconnected actions, Titus and Pandora unwittingly set off a chain reaction of events that would prove to be catastrophic. This is how it began.
Damp had done A Bad Thing. Damp knew it was A Bad Thing because Mrs. McLachlan’s mouth had shrunk to a flat tight line, and her eyes had grown cold and wee.
Minutes before, Damp had been gazing in adoration at the open disk drawer on Titus’s CD-ROM. Above the disk drawer sat Titus’s modem with its two buttons decorated with stick-on eyeballs. Titus had applied these from a sheet of cutout face parts, and thus it was hardly surprising that Damp put two and two together and arrived at pi r squared.
It’s a face, thought Damp delightedly, what a big mouth—all the better to eat breakfast with. She crawled closer to the CD-ROM.
Hello, face, she thought, waving some bacon rinds that she’d found on the floor. Want some breakfast? She clambered onto Titus’s desk, using its open drawers as steps, waving the bacon rinds like a flag. The open CD drawer gaped hungrily. Nice face, decided Damp, have some breakfast. With small baby fingers, Damp stuffed her bacon rinds, one by one, into Titus’s CD-ROM.
It was thus that Mrs. McLachlan found her. “Damp! NO! Stop right NOW!” she commanded.
Uh-oh, thought Damp. She paused in her bacon-stuffing efforts and, at a loss for what to do next, popped her thumb into her mouth and simultaneously risked a quick glance at her beloved nanny. What she saw was not cheering. Instead of radiating Highland warmth and pillowy comfort, Mrs. McLachlan’s whole being smacked of cold rain showers and grim mountain peaks.
Mrs. McLachlan bristled, pursed, and tsked. “Right, girly,” she said, plucking Damp off Titus’s desk, “you’re coming where I can keep an eye on you, but first, a diaper change.”
Sorry, face, thought Damp as she was hauled inelegantly bathroomward. Bye-bye, face.
The enticing reek of bacon rinds slowly congealing inside the CD-ROM turned it into an olfactory beacon, sending out a clear signal to those creatures that relied on their noses for survival. Several such creatures, thirteen to be exact, were idly chewing paper under Titus’s bed when the first finger-like waft of bacon arrived. Thirteen noses twitched. The fourteenth nose snored, attached to Multitudina, rat mother to multitudes, who was catching up on some well-earned sleep while her brood amused themselves with an irreplaceable stack of prewar National Geographic magazines. Thirteen noses found bacon to be a far more exciting prospect, foodwise, than paper and ink. Fifty-two pink paws stampeded for the enticements of the CD-ROM, squeaking and snapping at each other in their haste to be first at the feast.
Multitudina awoke to see the last of her children’s bald tails snaking to and fro, dangling twitchily from the open drawer of the CD-ROM.
“RATS!” she squeaked, lunging after her offspring and gaining the desktop as the last millimeter of tail vanished into the gray gape of the drawer. Despite a rigorous postnatal exercise program, Multitudina had not managed to regain her skinny pre-pregnancy figure, and found herself unable to squeeze through the gap and rescue her children. Wild squeakings from within informed her that her children were quite happy, thank you very much, and didn’t intend ever coming back out to eat paper with Mum. Having scoured the CD-ROM for bacon rinds and congealed fat, they’d found a way into another gray slot and were checking it out for more of the same. The thirteen squeakings grew fainter as Multitudina’s brood investigated Titus’s adjoining modem.
Multitudina squatted on the keyboard to have a think about what to do next, depressing several keys under her bottom as she considered the problem. Behind her, the screen sprang to life. A dialogue box appeared, saying SEND? Multitudina scratched an itch on her hindquarters, and unknown to her, depressed several keys simultaneously. MESSAGE SENT flashed briefly.
Abruptly the squeaking stopped. Multitudina stopped scratching and sniffed the air. The babies were gone. Here one minute and gone the next. What was a mother to do? She heaved a sigh of relief. Peace at last, she thought, and plenty more where they came from. She leapt off the desk, scuttled under the bed, and began chewing up the May 1935 edition in preparation for her next brood.
The Wager
“Titus, I’m in deep poo.” Pandora collapsed on her brother’s bed with a small wail.
Titus didn’t respond, unless a grunt counted as an expression of brotherly concern.
“Listen up, Titus, I need your help.”
“I’m busy,” came the reply.
Pandora unfolded herself from the bed and came to stand by her brother. Titus muttered and tapped on a keyboard, seemingly oblivious to the presence of his sister.
“I can’t tell where that stupid computer ends and you begin. Titus, if you don’t stop and listen to me, I’m going to see if it likes Coke as much as you do.”
Titus unglued his eyeballs from the screen and looked up. Pandora was unscrewing the cap from a vast bottle of brown fizz. He sighed.
“Ah! Eyeball contact,” gloated Pandora. “Is there intelligent life on Planet Titus? Yes, there appears to be a large amoeba thing with an open hole in the middle of its head, but we are experiencing some difficulty in establishing communication.”
Titus sighed again. “What is it?” he said.
“I’ve lost Multitudina.”
“Big deal,” said Titus, “plenty more rats where she came from.”
Pandora glared at her brother. “And all her babies, Titus—all thirteen of them.”
“They’ll turn up,” said Titus philosophically. “Floating in the soup, down the toilet, hot-wired to the back of the fridge …”
“Titus. I shut them in here. Before breakfast. And when I came back upstairs with their bacon rinds, they were gone.”
“What did you do with the bacon rinds?” asked Titus irrelevantly.
“Damp probably ate them. But that’s not the point, the point is—”
“The point is,” said Titus, “that this is my bedroom, and you introduced fourteen free-range rats, several bits of dead pig, and one incontinent baby into my space. Without my permission. That’s the point.”
“Your Highness. Accept my humble apologies. Entering your Royal Bedchamber without permission is a crime punishable by death, but, sire, I can account for said bits of bacon and smelly baby—one is inside the other, and both are in the nursery—but where are Multitudina and her tribe?”
“You’re toast, Pandora,” said Titus. “Mum’ll be back tonight and when she finds out …”
“Titus…,” groaned Pandora. “Please …”
“I don’t like rats, remember? Frankly, I’m delighted that your disgusting rodent’s done a runner.”
“She’s not disgusting.”
“She’s a foul-mouthed, yellow-fanged, smelly bit of vermin that’s probably into cannibalism.”
“She did not eat her babies, Titus. You’ve got to help me find them.”
“If you’re so brilliant, you find them.”
“Bet I can,” said Pandora.
“Bet you can’t.”
“How much?”
“A game of Monopoly?” said Titus with faint hope.
“NEVER,” yelled Pandora. “Frankly, I’d rather swim a lap across the moat than play with you.”
“Big words, big deal, Pandora. You’re all talk and no action. Inside you’re just a fluff-brained girl. You’d never dare.”
Livid with rage, Pandora forgot to engage her brain before opening her mouth. “I bet I CAN find them,” she shrieked. “AND I WOULD, TOO, DARE! AND I’M NOT JUST TALKING!”
“No,” agreed Titus, “you’re shouting. And your eyes have gone all funny.”
“I’m not SHOUTING,” Pandora insisted. “I’ll find the rat babies or I’ll swim the moat. Done. Satisfied?”
“You’re kidding,” gasped Titus. “You can hardly swim,
let alone fight off crocodiles.”
“You’re the one who needs water wings and an inner tube, Titus.” Her voice wobbled dangerously. “And when I say done, I mean it.”
Despite her bluster, reality was dawning. What on earth was she doing, agreeing to swim across the moat? Tock was starving. Ravenous. Hadn’t eaten a nanny for at least two weeks. “I mean it, Titus, but—”
“Ah! I knew there would be a but. No, you can’t wear a suit of armor to swim in. Tock hates tinned food and, no, you may not feed Tock an elephant before you begin.”
“You seem awfully confident that I won’t find Multitudina’s ratettes.”
“You could say that,” Titus said smugly. “But before you ask, I haven’t touched them, harmed them, or even seen the ghastly beasts since last night. Now … but what?”
“But … I need a week to find them.”
“Three days.”
“Five days, then. Come on, Titus, play fair.”
“In five days, that disgusting rat slob could produce another litter.”
“Give me five days to find the missing babies, and if I don’t, I’ll swim the moat,” said Pandora, crossing her fingers tightly.
“Deal,” said Titus.
Beasts in the Basement
Damp sat tethered to her high chair, watching Mrs. McLachlan prepare dinner. In a corner of the Schloss kitchen, Latch ironed the current edition of the Financial Times, and Marie Bain stuck out her tongue at her reflection in the mirror.
“Ees no goot,” she decided. “Meesuss McCacclong, I not feel well.”
“Never mind, dear,” said Mrs. McLachlan vaguely. “Just give me a hand with these chopped livers, and then you can have a wee lie-down.”
Marie Bain reluctantly dragged herself away from the mirror and came over to the table where Mrs. McLachlan stood stirring, wrist-deep in gore, adding cubes of bloody jelly to a vast cauldron full of wriggling pinkness. Marie Bain’s eyes widened as she beheld the contents of the cauldron.
Mrs. McLachlan smiled kindly as she scooped out a heaving spoonful and offered it to the glassy-eyed cook.
“Now, you’re the expert, dear,” she said ingratiatingly. “I don’t know if I’ve put enough salt in. Have a wee taste and tell me what you think?”
Marie Bain turned an unbecoming shade of green, and with a gargle like a drain coming finally unblocked, leaned over the cauldron and was copiously sick within.
Damp covered her eyes with her hands and gave a small moan. Latch rolled his eyes heavenward and pressed on, thankful that someone had at last passed comment on the merit of Mrs. McLachlan’s current culinary offering. Nasty foreign muck, why didn’t she stick to what she was good at, like fries? Still … at least he wouldn’t have to eat it. Not now.
Mrs. McLachlan tsked and stirred in Marie Bain’s contribution. “If you think so, dear,” she said, utterly unflappable. “Still, myself, I would have added a teeny bit more salt. Let’s see what the wee pets think, shall we?”
The nanny swept past Damp, kicked open the door to the dungeon, and disappeared downstairs, calling, “Wakey, wakey. Dinnertime. Here’s Nanny with some tasty numns for the wee pets.”
The dungeon was home to Knot the yeti, Sab the griffin, and Ffup the dragon, none of whom qualified even remotely for the collective title of “wee pets.” For starters, they were enormous.
Ffup, not fully grown, was the size of a stretch limousine and was expected in adulthood to attain the dimensions of an average bungalow. Knot was eight feet of hulking, matted hairiness and Sab resembled a leather lion with wings. For the previous six hundred years, they had functioned admirably, if a tad erratically, as forms of guard dogs, patrolling the acres around StregaSchloss and devouring intruders. More recently, with the advent of the postal service and the consequent daily visits by postmen and other unplanned deliveries, the Strega-Borgias had decided that it might be safer to keep the beasts under some form of control. Hence the ropes, chains, and leashes on the hall table, and the need for cages in the dungeon.
They gathered in the gloom, nostrils aquiver, united in their disdain for Mrs. McLachlan’s offering.
“What d’you call this slop?” roared Ffup, snorting twin bursts of fire through the bars of his cage. Sab flapped leathery wings in a menacing fashion and spat onto the dungeon floor.
Undaunted, Mrs. McLachlan unlocked the cage door and edged inside, dragging the brimming cauldron behind her. “I’ll have none of that adolescent nonsense, Ffup, and as for you, Sab, didn’t your mother teach you never to spit?”
A stunned silence greeted her query. Didn’t she understand that she was supposed to run away screaming for help, not deliver a lecture on correct behavior? Knot shuffled forward, his matted hair clotted with the festering remains of many dribbled dinners. He dipped a paw into the cauldron and was just about to have an exploratory lick when Mrs. McLachlan grabbed both his paws, turned them palm upward, and tsked mightily. “I thought so …,” she said grimly. “Upstairs with you, and wash those paws properly before dinner. What d’you think you are, a wild animal?”
Knot burst into tears and shuffled blindly upstairs.
“Me too,” yelled Ffup. “I haven’t washed my claws for at least six hundred years.” The dragon leapt after Knot, trailing little plosive puffs of smoke in his wake.
Sab folded his wings over his eyes and turned to stone.
“Not hungry, pet?” inquired Mrs. McLachlan solicitously, ladling her stew into three metal troughs. From upstairs, an earsplitting scream shattered the subterranean calm of the dungeon. Mrs. McLachlan sighed. One of Marie Bain’s many peccadilloes was her inability ever to come to terms with sharing a roof with the beasts. “Pull yourself together, dear,” shouted Mrs. McLachlan. “They’re more frightened of you than you are of them.…”
Arachnids in the Attic
Pandora lifted the lid of the freezer and bailed out several boxes of fish sticks, a tray of profiteroles, and three half-eaten tubs of ice cream.
Strega-Nonna lay at the bottom of the freezer, her small body wrapped in twelve layers of aluminum foil, her head framed in a ghostly halo of frosty white hair.
“Nonna,” whispered Pandora, “you haven’t seen Multitudina around, have you?”
“There’s not much of a view inside here,” came the faint reply, and “Shut the lid, child, you’re letting the heat in.”
Heck, thought Pandora, dropping the lid on her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother’s tomb. What now? Four and a half days left, and not a rat dropping to be found. Sighing heavily, and abandoning the fish sticks, profiteroles, and ice cream on the floor of the wine cellar, Pandora trekked up eight flights of stairs to the Schloss attic, a vast family museum of a loft space, full of dust and cobwebs, home to generations of spiders, woodworms, and roosting bats. It was stuffed to the eaves with ancestral memories of Borgias long gone: several hundred oil paintings of family members, trunkloads of love letters, death threats, and ancient shopping lists, a stableful of outgrown rocking horses, eight canary cages in varying stages of collapse, and, spanning the entire length of the attic, a teetering mountain range of magazines and books.
Pandora raised the heavy trapdoor and climbed in. Light filtered through ropes of spiderwebs, picking out what appeared to her to be an absolute rat Mecca. A million places to hide, a million things to chew, and a million ways to make sure your mistress has to do a synchronized swim with a ravenous reptile.
“Come on, Multitudina,” she croaked, trying to sound enticing through a throatful of dust.
Nothing stirred.
“This is no place to raise a family,” she tried, hoping to appeal to the rodent’s dismaying lack of maternal instincts. Several spiders paused in their spinning, debated whether to argue with this hairless biped, and decided against it. “PLEASE COME BACK,” Pandora yelled. “MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!”
She slumped onto a nearby trunk, sending a cloud of dust spiraling upward. From a window came the frantic buzz of a fly attemp
ting to unglue itself from a web. Hypnotized, Pandora watched the fly grow more agitated, its wingbeats becoming an invisible blur, the pitch of its buzzing rising to the insect equivalent of a shriek. The web sagged under the weight of a monstrous spider whose abdomen was the size of a tennis ball, suspended on legs that cried out for shaving cream and a good razor. The spider wore bright pink lipstick, expertly applied round its mouthparts—a subtlety not lost on its intended victim, the pitch of whose buzzing reached an agonizing high C.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, can’t you die with dignity?” snapped the spider, impatiently tweaking the web tighter.
The fly fell silent, save for the odd whimper.
“Tarantella!” cried Pandora.
“The very same,” replied the spider.
“Pet lamb,” said Pandora, with total disregard for species, “I haven’t seen you for ages.”
Tarantella grinned widely and popped a fly wing into her mouth. She crunched, swallowed, and extended a hairy leg to pat Pandora on the hand.
“So what brings you up here?” she asked, licking her lips with a small black tongue. Pandora found herself mesmerized by Tarantella’s tongue as it sought out every tiny uneaten flake of wing, transferring each minute morsel into her maw and devouring it.…
“I’ve lost Multitudina and the rat babies,” she said.
The spider shut her mouth with a snap. “Good riddance to bad rattish,” she muttered. “And before you even think it—NOT GUILTY.”
“Have you seen them, though?” persisted Pandora.
“Not up here. Not in my domain, thank you. I’d bite her if I caught sight of so much as a whisker.”
“I’ve made a bet with Titus that I’ll find them,” said Pandora miserably.
“A wager?” squeaked the spider, rubbing all eight of her legs together with glee. “What’s the prize?”
“Nothing much, just fourteen rats and the privilege of staying alive.…”
