Felix and the Red Rats

by James Norcliffe

  Although he hadn’t thought of it, Felix all at once realised that Bella had a point. ‘Oldest trick in the book,’ he whispered. ‘That’s why they’ve put us all in together probably: so we’ll talk and they can listen in to what we say.’

  ‘Right,’ whispered Bella. ‘And of course provide us with a trusting “friend” to pour our hearts out to, a guy who gives the impression he could be on our side and not on the side of the regent.’

  Myrtle’s eyes widened. ‘You think so?’

  Bella shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. That’s the trouble. I’m just saying, we ought to treat Mr Medulla very carefully and be very wary of the things he tells us.’

  Felix looked at Bella with respect. He recalled how she alone was not taken in by the regent and had kept her distance; how she had warned him with a quick look to do the same. Events had proved her right then, so events could well prove her right again.

  ‘I mean, what do we know about this Medulla guy? Next to nothing. We do know he’s one of the regent’s secretaries, because he told us. You wouldn’t get to be a regent’s secretary I reckon without proving your loyalty, would you?’

  ‘Right,’ said Felix.

  ‘And another thing,’ added Bella. ‘You remember how Moonface dropped me in it, and I had to hand over the diary? Remember how the regent sort of told Medulla off for not reporting that he knew I had a diary?’

  Felix nodded.

  ‘Well, he didn’t exactly tear strips off him, did he?’ continued Bella. ‘I mean, if Medulla had really hidden stuff from the regent that would sort of be — what is it? — lese-majesty. He should have been dragged off to the dungeons.’

  Felix thought about it and agreed. ‘So?’ he whispered.

  ‘So, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was all a setup. That they were in cahoots all along.’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Felix.

  ‘Or maybe not,’ whispered Bella. ‘That’s the whole trouble: we can’t tell.’

  Felix rubbed his eyes. His mind was tumbling about. He gave Bella a tight little smile. ‘I don’t suppose it really matters if this place is bugged or not,’ he said. ‘They can listen in till the cows come home, but they’re not going to hear the answer to the riddle.’

  ‘True,’ said Bella, ‘but what also really matters is that we find out whether we can trust Medulla or not.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Myrtle.

  ‘Because,’ said Bella, ‘Medulla’s probably our only hope of getting out of this hideous mess.’

  Sometime later they heard the key in the lock once more and shortly after Medulla entered carrying a tray on which were three tin plates, spoons and a small tureen. He carefully placed the tray on one of the bunks and then ladled a thin, grey stew of some description into the plates.

  ‘Not my cooking,’ he said apologetically. ‘This is compliments of the palace kitchen. It may need some salt, but I wasn’t able to manage that.’

  The stew wasn’t warm enough to give off any aroma, but Felix, imagining what it might have smelt like hot, was glad of that. Bella, who preferred vegetarian food, found her stomach turning, and Myrtle just looked thoroughly alarmed.

  All the same, each was desperately hungry despite the fudge the regent had tempted them with. Felix gingerly tried a spoonful, and to his relief found it to be completely tasteless.

  ‘All right?’ asked Medulla anxiously.

  ‘I suppose so, if you’re starving,’ said Felix. ‘Luckily, I am. You’re right, though, it does need salt.’

  While the girls, too, rather listlessly pecked at the stew, Medulla said, ‘No ideas about the riddle yet?’

  Felix and Bella exchanged glances.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ asked Myrtle.

  Bella flashed her a warning look.

  Medulla seemed a little taken aback by the vehemence of Myrtle’s response. ‘I thought that would have been obvious,’ he said. ‘As has been explained, without the answer to the riddle Princess Pia must remain barred from the throne, and as long as Princess Pia is barred from the throne the regent holds power. I think you’re already getting an understanding of what that means for Axillaris.’

  Myrtle, a little abashed, nodded.

  Then, meaningfully, Medulla added softly, ‘I hope you also understand what that means for your friend, what did you call him? Moonface.’

  Bella looked at him carefully, ‘Are you saying that if Princess Pia were to regain her throne, then that would save Moonface?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Medulla. ‘And it would also ensure that you would be able to leave Axillaris and return to … to wherever you came from.’

  ‘Oh, great,’ said Bella bitterly. ‘No pressure, then!’

  ‘What’s she like?’ asked Felix suddenly. It had occurred to him, given the general unpleasantness they’d experienced everywhere in Axillaris, that while the regent was a snake and a rat, there was no guarantee that this Princess Pia would be any better. ‘You say she’d let Moonface off and let us go back home, but would she? She might be as bad as the rest of you.’

  Medulla shook his head in protest.

  ‘How can you think that?’ he said. ‘She is kind, she is gracious, and of course if you were able to solve the riddle for her, she would be so grateful she—’

  ‘I remember hearing the regent say something like that,’ said Bella pointedly.

  ‘You know her then?’ asked Felix.

  ‘Of course,’ said Medulla. ‘We were children together.’

  ‘So what do you think of her, then?’ insisted Felix. ‘I mean do you like her?’

  Medulla stared at him for some time, and then he lowered his voice and said softly, ‘Like her? I love her. And it is my fondest belief that she loves me in return.’

  ‘Well, I believe him,’ said Myrtle. ‘I trust him, too.’

  ‘He could just be a very good actor,’ said Felix.

  ‘Who knows?’ said Bella. ‘I still think we need to be on our guard.’

  Felix said, ‘Why? There’s no chance of our solving that bloody puzzle. What is there to be on our guard about?’

  ‘What did Moonface need to be on his guard about?’ asked Bella.

  ‘Whoops,’ said Felix.

  ‘These guys aren’t the local wolf-cub troop, you know,’ said Bella.

  ‘Correct,’ said Felix. ‘More like the local wolves. Point taken.’

  Earlier, Medulla had waited patiently until they had eaten as much of the stew as they could stomach, and then he had gathered up their dishes and left, bidding them goodnight. That suggested that it was evening or night time, but as the light had been left on in their cell, and there were no windows either, they really had no way of knowing what time of the day or night it was.

  It did seem late, though. Much had happened since they had raced down the zigzag path and entered the concrete shed. Feeling tired, they stretched out on the bunks; Felix on one, and Myrtle and Bella sharing the other. From time to time they made desultory conversation, but increasingly tiredness closed their eyes and they dozed.

  Unexpectedly, Medulla returned, hours later it seemed. He was a little breathless, as though he had been hurrying.

  ‘I have been granted a stroke of fortune,’ he whispered urgently, ‘but there has been an alarming development.’

  Bella shook her head to wake herself, rubbed her eyes, and muttered, ‘Okay, the old good-news-bad-news thing. What is it?’

  ‘First of all,’ whispered Medulla, ‘I have this.’

  He drew aside his tunic, and tucked into his belt was the red diary. Bella’s eyes widened. ‘How … ?’ she whispered.

  ‘The regent gave it to me to burn,’ said Medulla. He looked about him almost fearfully. ‘He would not be happy to find that I had returned it. In fact,’ he whispered, ‘it would cost me my life.’

  ‘Then why?’ asked Felix.

  ‘The answer must lie within,’ insisted Medulla. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. I can let you have it for a few hours, but I must th
en retrieve it and do as the regent says.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Bella, reaching for the book. ‘Was that the good news or the bad news?’

  ‘The alarming development,’ said Medulla, ‘is that your friend’s trial has been brought forward to tomorrow!’

  Bella looked at him in despair.

  ‘Oh, great,’ she whispered. ‘As I said: no pressure.’

  ‘How on earth,’ groaned Felix, ‘will we be able solve that crazy riddle before tomorrow?’

  ‘It’ll need magic,’ whispered Myrtle, her eyes wide with fear.

  The plot gets redder

  Dinner began quite well, but in the end turned into a disaster, for me and everybody else. Dad had suggested a barbecue and was out on the deck grilling sausages, rissoles and corncobs wrapped in foil. Uncle Felix was keeping him company and I was a sort of gofer between Dad and the kitchen. While Dad could grill a terrific sausage, he was at the same time horrendously disorganised.

  ‘Hey, David, run and fetch me a fork or something to prod the sausages with, will you?’

  ‘Oh, David, I’ve run out of olive oil …’

  ‘David, could you ask your mother for a bowl to put these rissoles in … Completely forgot …’

  So it went on.

  Dad always somehow managed to get his timing out of whack as well. Long before the meat was ready, Mum came out to join us with Martha in tow.

  ‘Are you going to be much longer, John?’ she asked. ‘The salad’s done and the potatoes are getting cold.’

  Dad glanced at his watch. ‘Not far away,’ he said. ‘Is Gray home? We may as well wait for him anyway.’

  ‘He’s not home,’ said Mum, ‘and we’re not waiting for him anyway. If he hasn’t the courtesy to get home in time, he can jolly well put up with a cold dinner.’

  ‘Oh, Nancy,’ said Dad, ‘it may not be his fault.’

  I knew he was trying to calm the waters. I knew Mum was still pretty hacked off with Gray for being so uncooperative about the red rats, about Gray not taking them to the vet and all.

  ‘Martha,’ said Dad, deftly turning the rissoles over one by one with a spatula, ‘how about texting Gray to see whether he’s coming home for dinner, and if so, when?’

  It turned out that Gray was coming home for tea and that he wasn’t far away.

  I don’t know whether it was because he was just desperately keen for a nicely barbecued lamb-and-mint sausage or whether it was because he was just typically bull-at-a-gate Gray, but when he did arrive home he burst through the kitchen door in such a mad rush that he collided with me and sent me sprawling.

  In the normal run of things that wouldn’t have been much of a problem, but it happened that at the time I was carefully carrying one of Mum’s better bowls filled with one of Mum’s more elaborate salads from the kitchen to the dinner table in the next room.

  As Gray careered into my back, the bowl flew from my hands up into the air and then crashed a few feet in front of me, the bowl smashing on impact and the salad — lettuce, tomato, red pepper, cucumber, avocado, herbs, cold sliced carrot and sweet potato — scattered in all directions to litter the carpet like the aftermath of a cyclone in a greengrocery.

  I didn’t really expect an apology. Gray was never especially good at those.

  Fat chance.

  Even as I was still stretched out on my stomach struggling to find my feet, Gray let rip at me.

  ‘You clumsy idiot!’ he shouted. ‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going! Now look what you’ve gone and done!’

  Luckily for me, Mum was in the kitchen and had seen the whole thing. I never really knew where Gray had got his hot temper from. I was about to find out.

  ‘Gray Robinson!’ Mum cried. The volume was up beyond warning level. ‘Why on earth are you shouting at your brother! You come bursting in here like a bull in a china shop, shove David to the floor and then have the sheer gall to call him all sort of names and blame him! And your clumsiness has broken a bowl and ruined a salad intended for our dinner! And not only that, but you’ve made not the slightest attempt to apologise to David, nor to me, nor to the family whose dinner you’ve ruined!’

  Gray stared at her, his jaw dropped.

  ‘Nor,’ continued Mum, in more measured tones, ‘have you made the slightest attempt to help your brother up off the floor, or to offer to clean up the shambles you’ve caused!’

  I scrambled hurriedly to my feet. Ordinarily this hurry would have been to escape a bop from Gray, but this time it was to get out of the wind-stream of my mother’s anger. I couldn’t remember her ever being so cross before.

  For some insane reason, Gray decided that attack was the best means of defence. I flinched when I realised what he was doing.

  ‘Oh, get off my back!’ he shouted, turning on my mother. ‘It’s always my fault isn’t it? It’s always me! Who had to give up his bloody bedroom, then, and share with that little wimp? Who? I wasn’t holding the bloody bowl so don’t blame me! And what about my rats? Who turned my bloody rats red? Eh? It wasn’t me, was it? And all you lot care about is some dumb salad!’

  ‘Gray!’

  Dad, attracted by the commotion, had come in from the deck. I don’t know how he was able to look fierce while wearing his silly pink Mr Good Lookin’ is Cookin’ barbecue apron, but he did.

  ‘Gray! That’s no way to speak to your mother! That’s no way to speak to anybody if it comes to that! Just calm yourself down, and do so quickly, or believe me you’ll be grounded for about fourteen years!’

  I know now that I should have let well alone, that between them Mum, Gray and Dad had generated more than enough anger and ill temper without my adding to it. But I’d really grown to like Uncle Felix and I felt that when Gray was shouting about somebody turning his rats red it was an obvious dog-whistle reference to Uncle Felix and that made me pretty wild in turn.

  ‘What do you mean,’ I shouted, ‘about people turning rats red? Nobody turned your rats red! And, anyway, turning rats red is a lot better than killing rats and lying about it!’

  Now everybody turned to me.

  Gray, looking furious.

  Mum, looking confused.

  And Dad, looking unsure.

  Perhaps I should add that Uncle Felix was giving me an imploring look and waving at me to stop, but I was so angry with Gray, I deliberately didn’t see him.

  ‘Well, pea-brain,’ demanded Gray menacingly, ‘just what do you mean by that?’

  I looked at Mum and Dad, and cried, ‘Ask him what he did — go on, ask him! He went to town yesterday and bought another pair of white rats and then he lied to us all about Simon and Garfunkel turning white again. Go on, ask him! Then he tossed the real Simon and Garfunkel over the fence and one of them was caught and killed by Rusty. That’s killing, isn’t it! Killing by poxy or whatever it’s called. Go on, ask him!’

  ‘It’s proxy,’ said Martha, ‘killing by proxy.’

  ‘You do know who’s the biggest little rat in this whole house, don’t you?’ snarled Gray. ‘It’s you, David Great Detective Robinson, that’s who—’

  ‘Gray,’ said Mum. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Aw, who cares,’ said Gray. ‘Not me for one. I’m out of here, anyway!’ And with a look of particular venom at me, and a more general glare of hatred at everybody else, he turned on his heel and strode out the back door again, almost as fast as he’d entered it.

  ‘Goodness,’ said Dad.

  ‘I don’t know what’s got into that boy,’ said Mum.

  ‘Probably a phase he’s going through,’ said Dad.

  ‘We’ll he’d better hurry through that phase lickety split,’ said Mum, ‘because in his current state this house isn’t going to be big enough for the two of us, so one of us will have to go — and it’s not going to be me!’

  ‘Easy, Nancy,’ said Dad. ‘There’s something bugging him, clearly. Who knows? He may be in love.’

  Martha snorted. ‘In love? The only person Gray’s in love with is Gray
!’

  ‘Well,’ said Dad, clapping his hands, ‘can’t be helped. How about a salad-less dinner, then? Everything else is ready and I don’t suppose there’s any point waiting for Gray.’

  It’s really weird how the atmosphere of a place can change so quickly. Just a few minutes before, everything was fun, sunshine and rissoles, but now it was all gloom and scattered salad. I knew some of it was my fault and, feeling bad about lighting Gray’s fuse, I said, ‘Sorry, Mum. I shouldn’t have done that. I kind of got him going.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, David,’ she said. ‘I saw the whole thing. He came bursting in here as if the house was on fire and crashed right into you. Nothing to do with you at all.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean that part; I meant the bit when I went on about him switching the rats.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Dad. ‘What was all that about?’

  At that point Uncle Felix came to my rescue. He coughed and said. ‘That was my doing, I’m afraid, John. David and I were talking …’

  Mum said, ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ continued Uncle Felix, ‘I looked at the whole episode with conjurer’s eyes, so to speak, and it seemed to me that the most likely explanation was that, as David rather impulsively pointed out, Gray somehow had exchanged the rats for white ones and liberated the red ones. To me, that also explained his attitude at the time. I hasten to add that I haven’t got a shred of evidence for this supposition and, if I’m wrong, then Gray would have some justification for feeling mightily aggrieved with me.’

  ‘Not that much justification,’ said Mum grimly.

  Dad was looking thoughtful. ‘So it may not be contagion after all — at least as far as the rat Rusty caught — if it was one of the original rats.’

  ‘Simon or Garfunkel,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but that still doesn’t explain why rats in Gray’s possession have an unfortunate tendency to turn red, does it?’ added Dad.

  I looked at Uncle Felix. I knew he had some theories about the rats and their changes of colour. I suspected he’d already discussed these with Dr Briggs. However, it seemed he wasn’t prepared to share these theories with the family yet.