Goldwhiskers

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  Glory reached into her backpack and pulled out a trio of small headbands (cloth-covered elastic hair bands dropped by girls who visited the Spy Museum). Glued to the middle of each was a tiny light bulb foraged from a discarded penlight. Glory gave one to each of her British friends, then strapped her own to her forehead. ‘Bunsen sent these along,’ she said. ‘Another new invention. He got the idea from some human TV show about cave explorers. Thought they might come in handy.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go exploring,’ said Bubble happily. He switched on his headlamp, and a tiny beam shot out into the darkness. Squeak and Glory switched theirs on as well, and the three mice rappelled down into the dusty gloom.

  ‘Nothing much back here,’ said Squeak, her voice echoing in the empty crawl space.

  The trio of slender beams criss-crossed this way and that as the mice looked around.

  ‘Wait!’ called Squeak in excitement. ‘Look over there! More paw prints!’

  Flash! Flash! Flash! Bubble and Squeak blinked as Glory photographed the twin trails of prints. ‘The two of them were definitely dragging something,’ she reported. ‘There’s that same mark again.’

  Bubble leaned down closer to the floor, squinting at a flurry of paw prints. ‘What happened here?’ he asked. ‘Looks like a scuffle of some kind.’

  ‘An ambush, do you think?’ asked Squeak.

  Once again, the slender beams from the mice’s headlamps criss-crossed back and forth in the gloom. But aside from the trail of paw prints and the scuffle marks in the dust, there was nothing else to be seen.

  ‘Whatever happened, they must have escaped through there,’ said Bubble. He pointed to the duct at the far end of the crawl space.

  ‘We’d better report back to HQ,’ said Squeak. ‘And we’ll need to talk to that mouseling again – what was his name?’

  ‘Smudge,’ said Glory.

  ‘Right. He’ll be at Nibbleswick by now.’

  ‘One of us should rendezvous with Oz and DB. They still need to be debriefed,’ said Bubble.

  Glory’s camera clicked rapidly as she took a few final photographs. ‘It’s so frustrating,’ she said to her British friends as the three of them started to clamber back up the line of dental floss. ‘I feel like we’re so close to an answer.’ She shook her head.

  As she did so, the beam from her headlamp brushed the far edge of the crawl space, just beneath the ventilation duct. Out of the corner of her eye, Glory caught a glint of something. She paused, squinting in the gloom.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ she said, and slid back down to the floor. She scurried over to investigate.

  Glory stooped down and plucked something off the floor. She held it up to the light. It was a whisker. A gold whisker.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DAY TWO – TUESDAY 1145 HOURS

  ‘What do you mean there’s been a change of plan?’ demanded Roquefort Dupont, his beady eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  ‘Exactly what I said,’ replied Goldwhiskers. He stroked the Koh-i-Noor lovingly. ‘I’m going to keep it. I’ve waited all my life to own this diamond.’

  ‘You double-crossing, conniving, GREEDY SACK OF RAT GUTS!’ Dupont advanced towards the red leather chair, his tail whipping back and forth menacingly.

  Goldwhiskers fanned the air in front of his snout with an enormous paw. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have halitosis?’ he said in disgust.

  ‘Quit trying to change the subject,’ snarled Dupont, then hesitated. ‘Hali-what-sis?’

  ‘Bad breath. It’s rather off-putting. Dodge!’ Goldwhiskers looked around for his assistant. ‘Breath mint!’

  Dodge retrieved a mini-tin from the box on the table, prised it open, plucked out a round white mint and passed it to her employer.

  Roquefort Dupont’s red eyes blazed in anger. ‘Why, you no good, uppity –’ He lunged towards Goldwhiskers. The big rat waited calmly until the last second, then leaned forward and popped the breath mint into the American rat’s ugly, snarling snout.

  ‘Agghh!’ cried Dupont, toppling backwards. He lay on the plush carpet, eyes watering. He coughed and gagged. ‘That tastes terrible!’

  ‘Curiously strong, isn’t it?’ agreed Goldwhiskers. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll live. And your breath will smell much better too. Now, you were saying?’

  ‘What – do – you – mean – you’re – going – to – keep – the – Koh-i-Noor?’ Dupont managed to choke out, still flat on his back on the carpet.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind about ransoming it,’ Goldwhiskers replied coolly.

  ‘I wouldn’t be too thrilled to have that in my possession,’ said a mild voice.

  The rats glanced over to where Fumble was seated on the floor.

  ‘What business is it of yours?’ demanded Goldwhiskers, clasping the Koh-i-Noor to him protectively.

  ‘It’s supposed to be cursed,’ said Fumble, plucking idly at his frayed lead.

  ‘Rubbish,’ snapped Goldwhiskers. ‘Everyone knows that’s just an old rats’ tale.’

  Fumble shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

  Goldwhiskers glared at Dupont. ‘Shut that ridiculous pet of yours up,’ he ordered, eyeing Fumble with distaste.

  ‘He’s not my pet; he’s my slave,’ said Dupont, still coughing.

  ‘Whatever.’

  Stilton Piccadilly swaggered up to the red leather chair. ‘Dupont’s right, Double G,’ he growled. ‘You double-crossed us!’

  ‘Did I?’ said Goldwhiskers. ‘I don’t recall promising that I’d ransom the diamond. And I certainly didn’t sign a contract. I would remember that. As my lawyer says, one should always get things in writing.’ He leaned forward in his chair. ‘What I did promise you was revenge. The humans are now in the custody of Scotland Yard, aren’t they? Shamed, humiliated, soon to be carted off to prison? Isn’t that enough?’

  Dupont staggered upright on to his paws. He gave a mighty swallow, shuddered as the breath mint went down, then shouldered his way over beside Piccadilly.

  ‘What about cold, hard cash?’ he demanded. ‘You promised us that too.’

  Goldwhiskers pointed at the Sovereign’s Ring. ‘There’s more money right there in that ring than you could possibly dream of,’ he replied. ‘Enough for castles, villas, Caribbean islands – all of it and more. And if that’s not enough for you, if it’s more revenge you’re after – claws and jaws and all that nonsense – there are a great many other things money can buy.’

  ‘Like what?’ sneered Dupont.

  ‘Like wreaking a little havoc among the short-tails as well as the humans,’ replied Goldwhiskers. ‘Money could buy you exterminators, for starters.’

  Piccadilly and Dupont exchanged a glance.

  ‘Lots and lots of exterminators,’ said Goldwhiskers encouragingly. ‘What do you say, boys? Would you like to spread a little Christmas cheer, rat-style?’

  Dupont’s red eyes narrowed again as he considered the possibility.

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ said Stilton Piccadilly, growing excited. ‘Can you imagine the GRR’s reaction, Dupont? We’d be voted into power for life.’

  ‘We?’ growled Dupont. ‘There is no “we”. I’m the Big Cheese, remember?’

  Piccadilly glared at him. ‘You promised me second-in-command!’

  ‘Did you get it in writing?’ Dupont taunted. ‘Like your friend here says, I don’t remember signing a contract.’

  ‘Why, you double-crossing –’

  ‘Chaps, chaps,’ said Goldwhiskers in a soothing tone, ‘don’t let’s get distracted. You can sort out the politics later. Is it exterminators you want? You get death and destruction; I get to keep the Koh-i-Noor?’

  Reluctantly, the two rats turned away from each other and shrugged.

  ‘It’s a deal!’ cried Goldwhiskers. ‘Dodge! Credit card!’

  His efficient assistant rummaged through the box on top of the table and pulled out the rectangle of plastic – gold, naturally. She slapped it into her employer’s waiting paw.
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br />   ‘Now, then,’ murmured Goldwhiskers, turning to his laptop once again. ‘We’ll want Rodent Rooter, of course. They’re the biggest outfit in London. Plus, I like their jingle. “Call Rodent Rooter…”’ He hummed the tune from the extermination agency’s commercial as he typed. ‘Looks like we’re too late for anything this evening. They need eight hours’ notice for bookings and cancellations. We’ll have to settle for Christmas morning instead. Perfect! How jolly.’ He looked up. ‘Shall we schedule simultaneous attacks? They tend to be the most terrifying.’

  Piccadilly and Dupont nodded.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Goldwhiskers briskly. ‘How do a thousand trucks sound?’

  His two rat companions nodded again, even more vigorously this time.

  ‘One thousand trucks – one thousand exterminators. Done,’ said Goldwhiskers, adding, ‘I’ll have to offer a bonus, of course, since it’s Christmas. Triple overtime holiday pay should do it.’

  As Goldwhiskers finalized the arrangements on his computer, the head of London’s rat forces began to pace back and forth with excitement.

  ‘Think of it, Dupont!’ Piccadilly gloated. ‘From Mayfair to Marylebone, Southwark to Soho – we’ll strike at every corner of the city! Kensington! Chelsea! Marble Arch and Notting Hill!’

  ‘On Christmas Day, every mouse’s favourite holiday!’ added Dupont, his eyes glowing like hot coals as he pictured the devastation.

  ‘Tomorrow, London – after that, the world!’ Piccadilly cried, and the two rats slapped each other a high paw.

  ‘That’s more like it, chaps,’ said Goldwhiskers. ‘Nothing like a little holiday spirit.’ He smiled. ‘I think we’ll call it Operation SMASH: Stop Mice and Stop Humans. The mice get exterminated – you’re happy. The humans get blamed for the robbery – I’m happy. I get to keep the Koh-i-Noor – I’m happy again. Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I can see it’s going to be a happy Christmas all round this year.’

  ‘For the rats, anyway,’ said Dupont, and he bared his fangs in an evil grin.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DAY TWO – TUESDAY 1530 HOURS

  The lab at MICE-6 was bustling with activity. Along one counter (a rectangular building block covered with tinfoil) a pair of white lab mice analysed the golden whisker. One of them peered at it through a magnifying glass (foraged from the lens of a broken microscope) and offered comments to the other, who dutifully recorded them in a tiny notebook. Glory’s photographs were pinned to a scrap of corkboard above the counter. A cluster of field agents examined them, frowning and scribbling notes.

  The door to the lab swung open, and Sir Edmund Hazelnut-Cadbury strode in. Glory was right behind him, along with Bubble and Squeak and Miss Honeyberry. ‘Well?’ the director of MICE-6 demanded.

  The lab mouse who was examining the whisker looked up. He still clutched the magnifying glass in his paw, and he blinked at Sir Edmund through it, his pink eye disconcertingly huge. ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ he announced.

  ‘No doubt about what?’ barked Sir Edmund.

  The lab mouse cleared his throat. ‘The classification,’ he squeaked. ‘It’s a rat whisker.’

  A collective gasp went up from the other mice.

  ‘You’re sure?’ said Sir Edmund.

  The lab mouse nodded. His huge pink eye nodded with him. ‘One hundred per cent. It’s a perfect match with these others we’ve collected in the past. Except, of course, for its colour. I’ve never seen a gold whisker before. But the hue appears to have been painted on. Nail polish, most likely.’

  ‘How odd,’ said Sir Edmund. He turned to the field agents standing by the corkboard. ‘And how about you lot – have you come to any conclusions?’

  The mice consulted their notes. ‘Definitely a mouseling,’ said one.

  ‘Wasn’t working alone,’ said another. ‘Some of the marks stumped us for a moment, but now that we know the whisker was a rat’s, that explains it.’

  ‘Explains what?’ said Sir Edmund irritably.

  The field agent pointed to one of Glory’s photos. ‘These marks here,’ he said. ‘The ones that look like long swishes. We originally thought they were just where the bag with the jewels in it was dragged through the dust, but that’s not it at all. They’re tail marks. Rat tail marks.’

  ‘So we have a boogeyrat, not a boogeymouse,’ said Glory softly.

  Sir Edmund clapped his paws together. ‘Miss Honeyberry, get me yesterday’s surveillance footage from the Tower of London,’ he ordered. ‘Our fly-spy cams must have caught something.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Miss Honeyberry.

  Glory cringed. She knew all about fly-spy cams; one of her own recent disasters had been caught on film and had temporarily cost her her job. But Sir Edmund was right. MICE-6’s surveillance pilots were world-renowned for their diligence. If there were rats on the prowl, the cameras should have caught them.

  ‘And I want to speak to Julius on the double,’ said Sir Edmund.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Miss Honeyberry again, and scurried from the lab.

  Glory glanced at the clock. Her colleagues at the Spy Mice Agency would be well into their workday back in Washington. Miss Honeyberry returned, wheeling in a toy circus-train car. Glory frowned.

  The lab mouse who had been examining the whisker scampered over. ‘My latest invention,’ he said proudly, opening the train-car door. He reached in and pulled out a sliding drawer. On it was propped a small video-camera screen with a tiny lens clipped to it that pointed straight towards them. A wire connected the screen to a foraged mobile phone keypad, and an antenna stuck out from the back of it. ‘I call it the Video Scrambler. It’s hot-wired to the building’s satellite connection. Everything’s encrypted, so we can’t be overheard.’

  ‘Clever touch, putting it on wheels, Z,’ said Sir Edmund.

  The lab mouse looked pleased. ‘I thought you’d like that. This way you can make calls from your office or the conference room – or even from here in the lab.’

  ‘Glory,’ said Bubble, ‘I don’t think you and Z have been introduced yet.’

  ‘Your name is just Z?’ said Glory to the lab mouse, surprised.

  He bowed. ‘Short for Zirconium. My parentsnamed my brothers and sisters and me after the periodic table of elements, starting with Actinium. “We’ve got it covered from A to Z,” they like to tell everyone.’

  Squeak leaned over to Glory. ‘Remind you of anyone?’ she whispered.

  Glory smiled. Lab mice were a distinctive breed, no matter what their country of origin. Z was definitely Bunsen’s opposite number – what spies called their counterparts in other country’s agencies. ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand, though,’ she said to Z. ‘How will Washington be able to take our call?’

  ‘I emailed the unit’s specifications to the Spy Mice Agency several weeks ago,’ the pale white mouse replied. ‘It’s been a joint Anglo-American project from the start. Very hush-hush, of course. This is our first chance to roll it out.’

  He turned to the keypad and tapped in the phone number for the Spy Mice Agency, then pressed the button for speaker mode. The sound of the phone ringing thousands of miles away in Washington filled the lab. Then the screen flickered, and Julius’s face appeared.

  ‘Morning, Glory!’ he boomed.

  Glory rolled her eyes. That was Fumble’s old line. She thought she’d heard the last of it, but apparently not. She spotted Bunsen standing behind her boss and waved. He waved back shyly.

  Sir Edmund harrumphed and stepped in front of her. ‘We have a situation here, Julius,’ he reported. He held up the gold whisker and explained the circumstances surrounding its recovery.

  ‘So you think this gold-whiskered rat is kidnapping street urchins?’ said Julius. ‘And is likely the one responsible for the theft?’

  Sir Edmund nodded.

  Julius stroked the end of his tail thoughtfully. ‘But why would he make it look like Oz and DB took the Crown Jewels?’

  The door to the laboratory flew
open and Miss Honeyberry scurried in. She was clutching a sheaf of photos. ‘We found something,’ she said breathlessly, handing them to her boss. ‘Aerial shots of the Tower from yesterday. Look.’

  She plucked one of the photos from the stack and passed it to Sir Edmund. Glory, Bubble and Squeak crowded round to get a closer look.

  ‘It was taken yesterday afternoon, just before closing,’ said Miss Honeyberry. ‘Pilot thought it was just the sun reflecting in a puddle.’ She tapped the photo with her paw. ‘There, down at the base of Traitors’ Gate.’

  Four furry little heads drew together as the spy mice examined the photo. ‘Can you ask them to enlarge this?’ asked Sir Edmund.

  Miss Honeyberry passed him another photo. ‘I already did.’ The four heads drew together again.

  ‘It’s them,’ said Squeak. ‘I’d stake my skateboard on it.’

  ‘As would I,’ agreed Bubble.

  ‘I’d know that ugly snout anywhere,’ said Glory grimly. She looked up at the camera. ‘Julius, it’s Dupont. He’s in London. With Stilton Piccadilly. They’re here in this picture with the rat with the golden whiskers. The three of them are working together.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘That explains it, then,’ said Julius. ‘Revenge, rat-style.’

  Sir Edmund nodded soberly. ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘We have to find them!’ cried Glory. ‘We have to get the Crown Jewels back, or Oz and DB will go to jail!’

  ‘They haven’t been anywhere near Piccadilly’s lair,’ said Bubble. ‘We’ve had it under surveillance twenty-four seven since he disappeared last month.’

  ‘True,’ said Sir Edmund.

  ‘I have an idea,’ said Bunsen, ducking out of view.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ said Sir Edmund as the lab mouse disappeared offscreen.

  ‘I believe he means to check with AMI,’ Julius replied.

  ‘Amy?’ Glory said, trying not to sound jealous. ‘Who’s she?’