Felix and the Red Rats

by James Norcliffe

  ‘It’s a mystery,’ Uncle Felix said.

  Martha was in Mum and Dad’s bedroom when I went in to retrieve my copy of Into Axillaris. She was sitting at Mum’s dressing table, staring at herself in the mirror.

  I grinned. ‘And you reckoned Gray was in love with Gray!’

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I think I might have my hair dyed.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Uh huh. I kind of thought a lovely red colour. You know, I hate rats, but when they are red, you know, they really look quite cute, don’t they?’

  ‘Even dead?’

  ‘Don’t be horrible! You know what I mean.’

  She moved her face around, inspecting various angles.

  ‘I met a friend of Uncle Felix’s earlier. She had amazing red hair.’

  ‘You’re getting quite thick with him, aren’t you? Meeting his friends now, are we?’

  ‘They’re really old friends; they went to school together.’

  ‘Wow, somebody else on the planet as old as Uncle Felix.’

  ‘He’s not that old. Anyway, she has this red, red hair.’

  ‘Probably out of a red, red bottle. All the same, I think I’ll do the same.’

  ‘I don’t think Mum’s ready for any more red things in the house right now.’

  ‘Funny, that,’ said Martha. ‘And there’s another funny thing …’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s funny just how many red things there do seem to be about right now.’

  I considered that. She did have a point. And suddenly, I had a strange thought: Uncle Felix had seen a connection between the red rats and Axillaris. All at once, I began to link the dots. Bella in real life and Bella in the book, I now knew, had red hair. Could all this red, as Martha remarked, be connected?

  And then, all at once, there was even more red to ponder.

  ‘Martha! David! Come quickly!’

  It was Dad’s voice. He sounded excited.

  We hurried down the passage and into the kitchen. We heard voices and I guessed we had a visitor.

  It was Mr Porterfield, our neighbour.

  Over his shoulder, like a fur stole, was slung a large cat and he was stroking it as if to keep it calm. Keeping it calm didn’t really seem to be much of a problem for the cat was purring contentedly.

  I suppose it was unusual to see Mr Porterfield in our living room with a cat.

  What was more unusual was that the cat was a bright tomato red.

  ‘What’s happened?’ demanded Martha.

  ‘I was just telling, John,’ said Mr Porterfield, turning to us. ‘This is what’s happened. Rusty’s gone all red!’

  ‘I can see that,’ said Martha. ‘How? When?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Mr Porterfield. ‘He’s been out most of the day. When I last saw him, I don’t know, sometime before lunch, he was the same old ginger he’s always been, but when he came in just before for his jelly meat, he was just as you see him now. Bright red. He seems happy enough but it is quite bizarre, isn’t it?’

  Dad scratched his ear, ‘Beats me.’

  Mum had one of her I-told-you-so expressions on her face. ‘First the rats,’ she said. ‘Now the cat. It’ll be one of us next!’

  ‘You think so, Nancy?’

  Mum nodded grimly. ‘I told them I wanted the rats taken to the vet.’

  ‘Well, I wondered,’ said Mr Porterfield, ‘whether it might have something to do with that weird red rat he caught the other day.’

  ‘Did he eat it?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Not likely,’ said Mr Porterfield. ‘I buried it deep in the compost. I wouldn’t have him eating anything like that.’

  Mum and Dad exchanged glances. I guessed what they were thinking: But there was a second rat he might have caught and eaten …

  ‘Anyway, when you said that Gray had a couple of rats that had turned red for a while, I thought I’d come over and show you in case you’d found out anything about it,’ said Mr Porterfield.

  ‘News is not good,’ said Martha cheerfully. ‘Gray’s rats have gone all red again.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Mr Porterfield. ‘So, even if Rusty gets ginger again, it may not last?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Dad. ‘But the signs aren’t good.’

  When Dad said the word signs, I thought of Uncle Felix’s word signals. Was this another signal? If so, was it a more urgent one? I glanced at Uncle Felix who hadn’t added anything to the discussion and saw that he was looking troubled. Seriously troubled.

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s much of a problem while he’s happy,’ said Mr Porterfield, ‘but Ngaire doesn’t like it. She says it makes him look like he’s made of nylon or something.’

  ‘You won’t be able to call him Rusty anymore, either,’ grinned Martha. ‘Perhaps you should call him Tomato Juice or Raspberry or something like that now.’

  Mr Porterfield wasn’t amused.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what colour he is,’ he said stiffly, ‘he’ll always be Rusty to me.’

  Magic squares

  Medulla left them, once again locking the door behind him.

  ‘It’s utterly impossible!’ stormed Bella, caring not a whit about possible microphones or eavesdroppers. She hurled her diary at the wall in frustration.

  Felix stared moodily at the floor, and once again Myrtle began to whimper softly.

  ‘I hate this place,’ she sobbed. ‘I wish we’d never …’

  Myrtle’s grizzling interrupted Felix’s dark brooding and he looked at her briefly. Suddenly he was reminded of something she had said just before Medulla had left them.

  ‘It’ll need magic,’ she had whispered.

  The word magic all at once reminded him, and he looked around for Bella’s diary. He saw it half-opened under the right-hand bunk near the far wall where it had lain since Bella had tossed it in anger.

  Felix hurried over and picked it up.

  ‘Bella,’ he whispered, with growing excitement, ‘when you mentioned the stuff you put into your diary, you mentioned magic-something … What was that again?’

  Bella glanced at him, intrigued by his sudden animation.

  ‘Magic squares,’ she said. ‘Give me the book, I’ll show you. It’s just a silly word game.’

  Felix handed her the diary and Bella leafed through it.

  ‘It’s just something to do when I’m bored,’ she said. ‘My grandmother showed me years ago.’

  Bella found what she was looking for and held the page out for Felix to see. ‘Here it is. Look,’ she said.

  Felix looked. Bella pointed to a word square:

  F A T

  A R E

  T E N

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Felix said.

  Bella grinned. ‘There’s not much to get. It’s silly, really. See, F A T goes across and down, and so do the other two words. It’s tricky, but it’s not really magic. Look, here’s another. See how it works.’

  M A D

  A G O

  D O G

  ‘It’s not too difficult when you get the hang of it. It gets much harder with four-letter words, and five-letter words are quite diabolical.’

  ‘I reckon,’ said Felix.

  ‘Look,’ said Bella. ‘This is my greatest achievement.’ She flicked through the pages and pointed out another magic square.

  ‘Hey,’ whispered Felix. ‘Not bad!’

  B E L L A

  E Q U I P

  L U N C H

  L I C H I

  A P H I D

  ‘What’s “lichi”?’ asked Felix.

  ‘It’s some kind of fruit. I had to search for a word in the dictionary. It takes ages. You can only get longer words to work with really unusual words sometimes. Some words don’t work at all.’ Bella grinned. ‘Actually, I’ve been trying for ages to make a magic square with Felix, but the X is such a problem. There has to be a word starting with X.’

  ‘Xmas?’ suggested Myrtle.

  ‘A five-letter word,’ smiled Bella.


  ‘Xerox,’ offered Felix.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Bella. ‘That has two Xes.’

  Suddenly, Felix froze. ‘Go back,’ he whispered.

  ‘Where?’ asked Bella.

  ‘To the second magic square you showed me.’

  Bella thumbed back through the pages.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Have you got a pencil or a pen?’ whispered Felix.

  ‘Yep,’ Bella fumbled in her jeans pocket and brought out a biro. ‘Here.’

  Felix was staring at the second magic square:

  M A D

  A G O

  D O G

  The last word was DOG. Bella had just said, Actually, I’ve been trying for ages to make a magic square with Felix …

  After looking about him at the walls apprehensively, Felix found a blank page in the diary and carefully wrote:

  Try to make a magic square with PIA.

  Bella read the message, and then her eyes widened and she nodded.

  ‘Of course,’ she whispered.

  Taking the pen from him, Bella carefully wrote PIA across the page, and then beginning with the letter P she added IA vertically. She thought for some seconds and then filled in the magic square:

  P I A

  I L L

  A L L

  ‘That one doesn’t work,’ muttered Felix. ‘There’s no creature there. Have another go.’

  Once again, Bella wrote PIA horizontally and vertically and then, after some thought began to fill in other letters.

  P I A

  I N N

  A N T

  They all looked at one another wonderingly.

  ‘Right,’ breathed Felix. ‘Remember the riddle? What three creatures are bound by Pia? One of the creatures must be …’

  ‘An ant,’ completed Bella.

  ‘Quick!’ ordered Felix, with growing excitement. ‘There must be another way of doing it.’

  After some thought, Bella completed another magic square:

  P I A

  I M P

  A P E

  ‘Bingo!’ whispered Felix.

  ‘Have we solved it?’ asked Myrtle in a hushed tone.

  ‘I think we have,’ whispered Bella, wonderingly. ‘But is an imp a creature?’

  ‘I don’t know what else it could be, if it’s not a creature,’ said Felix.

  ‘Yeah, but is it a real creature?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Felix. ‘Is a twerp a real creature?’

  They stared at each other. ‘It must be,’ whispered Bella. ‘The three creatures bound by Pia must be ant, imp and ape.’

  ‘So it is solved,’ whispered Myrtle. ‘And we’ve saved Moonface?’

  Bella looked at her, and then shook her head. ‘Not by a long way, yet,’ she said grimly. ‘In fact, if we have solved it, it could mean we are in serious danger, especially if the ever-smiling Count Cava suspects we have.’

  ‘So, what’ll we do?’ asked Myrtle.

  ‘The first thing we do is this,’ said Bella decisively. She carefully ripped the page with her workings on out of the diary and then systematically tore it into small shreds. Keeping some for herself, she gave a handful of the now cornflake-sized pieces of paper to Felix and Myrtle.

  ‘Breakfast,’ she said, with a tight little smile. Then she lifted her own handful of paper scraps to her mouth and began stolidly to chew.

  ‘Delicious,’ she murmured.

  Realising the point of what she was doing, Felix and Myrtle followed suit.

  ‘What now?’ asked Felix.

  ‘Well,’ said Bella, ‘if Medulla is right, we now must somehow get to Princess Pia, and as quickly as possible.’

  ‘No problem.’ said Felix. ‘Any idea how?’

  Bella shrugged. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘But I think that, if we are going to get to her, we are going to have to find out something first.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Myrtle.

  ‘Whether we can trust Medulla or not,’ said Bella.

  ‘But he brought your diary back,’ said Myrtle.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bella meaningfully.

  The startling coincidence that within ten or so minutes Medulla himself unlocked their door seemed, to Felix, evidence enough that, whether he were trustworthy or not, Medulla had probably been eavesdropping on their whispered conversations.

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Felix suspiciously. ‘I thought you’d said goodnight to us hours ago?’

  ‘It’s actually two o’clock in the morning,’ said Medulla.

  ‘It’s the middle of the night!’ exclaimed Bella.

  ‘This is the middle of an emergency,’ said Medulla grimly. ‘Have you anything to tell me?’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Myrtle.

  ‘You’ve been listening in on us, haven’t you?’ said Felix.

  Medulla didn’t deny it.

  ‘Please!’ Medulla implored. ‘I must know!’

  Bella seemed to make up her mind.

  ‘We just might have something,’ she said carefully.

  Medulla’s face relaxed a little and he seized her hand.

  ‘You must tell me what you have,’ he insisted. ‘Then I must fly to the princess.’

  ‘We might have something,’ said Bella, ‘for Princess Pia.’

  Faintly, but meaningfully, she had stressed the final two words.

  As her meaning sank in, Medulla stared at her. Bella met his stare challengingly.

  Clearly conflicting emotions were working on the young man. Finally, though, he broke the impasse. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You are quite right … and right to be so cautious — even though I swear to you that you are wrong. If you’d trusted me and were wrong, I could easily have run to the regent and betrayed you. But, of course, I could do that still. Believe me, the regent has all kinds of ways to extract information from those reluctant to give it.’

  ‘I do believe you,’ said Bella soberly.

  ‘But you have already hinted at too much.’

  ‘We have no choice,’ said Bella bleakly. ‘Still, if you don’t mind, we would prefer to say what we know to the princess directly.’

  ‘But why?’

  Bella stared at him. ‘If for no other reason,’ she said, ‘it’s because it’s the only way we can get out of the palace and just a little further away from Count Cava. Being this close to him is frankly terrifying.’

  ‘But,’ protested Medulla, ‘it will be so much more difficult and there will be so much more risk. There are three of you. Alone, I could get to the princess—’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Bella firmly. ‘Prove we can trust you. And you must trust us.’

  Medulla looked at her helplessly.

  ‘That’s pretty much it, Medulla. It’s our way,’ Bella said, ‘or the highway.’

  ‘You do have the answer to the riddle?’ asked Medulla.

  ‘We believe so,’ said Bella.

  ‘It does make sense,’ added Felix. ‘It must be the answer.’

  Medulla searched their faces and must have found sufficient certainty there, for he said, ‘Let it be,’ then, ‘I will accept you on trust.’ But he added quietly, ‘I hope in Fortuna’s name you are right, though, for if you are wrong and I have spirited you out of the palace then I have forfeited my life.’

  ‘If we are wrong, Moonface has lost his,’ said Bella. ‘It is — as you’ve said — our only chance.’

  ‘Right, it is decided!’ said Medulla.

  A change had come over him with the decision made. He was at once brisker, once again more in command. He regarded them speculatively for a moment or two and then said, ‘The corridors in the palace will be all but deserted at this time of the night and the lights out or dimmed. All the same, it would be best if you were in some sort of disguise against the possibility of a guard being abroad. Luckily you are of a size. I will lay my hands on some tunics, so that if we are seen you will be taken for a company of twerps.’

  Bella and Felix exchanged glances and couldn’
t help but smile.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ said Medulla. ‘A quick trip to the palace laundry, I think.’

  And then he was gone. This time either as a signal that they could trust him, or a measure of his haste, he did not lock the door.

  True to his word, he was back within a few minutes. In his arms were draped three of the characteristic yellow tunics the twerps wore.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘These came out of the dirty laundry baskets. There were none in the clean …’

  Felix sniffed fastidiously at the tunic he had been given, relieved that it smelled no worse than the grey stew Medulla had delivered for their dinner.

  After they’d shrugged the garments on, Medulla examined them critically.

  ‘You’ll do,’ he said, ‘especially with these …’

  He handed them each a yellow balaclava.

  ‘Pull them on.’

  They did so and stood before him. ‘Not bad,’ said Medulla, much relieved. ‘Especially in the dim light and if you’re following me with your heads down.’

  They looked at each other and it was difficult not to laugh. Felix and Bella’s tunics looked as though they’d shrunk in the wash and Myrtle’s hung so low and was so spacious that it appeared as though she were wearing her mother’s. The balaclavas, though, completed the deception. They did look like twerps, albeit clean-shaven twerps.

  Finally, Medulla handed them each a pair of dark glasses.

  ‘Right,’ said Medulla, swiftly ushering them out into the half-lit corridor. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Felix.

  ‘To the stables,’ said Medulla.

  ‘But,’ protested Bella, ‘I can’t ride a horse.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Medulla. ‘You’re not going to ride a horse. A horse couldn’t get to where we have to go.’

  It seemed to take forever as they wound their way through the labyrinthine corridors and stairways of the castle, although it was probably not all that long. What stretched the time into an eternity was the ever-present possibility that they might be met and challenged by a palace guard or by some twerp on an errand.