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'But there's only a plague because we make them think there is,' said the voice of Peaches. 'Well, my dear, another thing all those little governments spend their money on is rat-catchers, see? I don't know why I bother with the lot of you, I really don't.'
'Yes, but we-' They realized that the coach had stopped. Outside, in the rain, there was the jingle of harness. Then the coach rocked a little, and there was the sound of running feet. A voice from out of the darkness said, 'Are there any wizards in there?' The occupants looked at one another in puzzlement. 'No?' said the kid, the kind of 'no' that means 'why are you asking?'
'How about any witches?' said the voice. 'No, no witches,' said the kid. 'Right. Are there any heavily-armed trolls employed by the mail-coach company in there?'
'I doubt it,' said Maurice. There was a moment's pause, filled with the sound of the rain. 'OK, how about werewolves?' said the voice eventually. 'What do they look like?' asked the kid. 'Ah, well, they look perfectly normal right up to the point where they grow all, like, hair and teeth and giant paws and leap through the window at you,' said the voice. The speaker sounded as though he was working through a list. 'We've all got hair and teeth,' said the kid. 'So you are werewolves, then?'
'No.'
'Fine, fine.' There was another pause filled with rain. 'OK, vampires,' said the voice. 'It's a wet night, you wouldn't want to be flying in weather like this. Any vampires in there?'
'No!' said the kid. 'We're all perfectly harmless!'
'Oh boy,' muttered Maurice, and crawled under the seat. 'That's a relief,' said the voice. 'You can't be too careful these days. There's a lot of funny people about.' A crossbow was pushed through the window, and the voice said, 'Your money and your life. It's a two-for-one deal, see?'
'The money's in the case on the roof,' said Maurice's voice, from floor level. The highwayman looked around the dark interior of the coach. 'Who said that?' he asked. 'Er, me,' said the boy. 'I didn't see your lips move, kid!'
'The money is on the roof. In the case. But if I was you I wouldn't-'
'Hah, I just 'spect you wouldn't,' said the highwayman. His masked face disappeared from the window. The boy picked up the pipe that was lying on the seat beside him. It was the type still known as a penny whistle, although no-one could remember when they'd ever cost only a penny. 'Play “Robbery with Violence”, kid,' said Maurice, quietly. 'Couldn't we just give him money?' said the voice of Peaches. It was a little voice. 'Money is for people to give us,' said Maurice, sternly. Above them, they heard the scrape of the case on the roof of the coach as the highwayman dragged it down. The boy obediently picked up the flute and played a few notes. Now there were a number of sounds. There was a creak, a thud, a sort of scuffling noise and then a very short scream. When there was silence, Maurice climbed back onto the seat and poked his head out of the coach, into the dark and rainy night. 'Good man,' he said. 'Sensible. The more you struggle, the harder they bite. Prob'ly not broken skin yet? Good. Come forward a bit so I can see you. But carefully, eh? We don't want anyone to panic, do we?' The highwayman reappeared in the light of the coach lamps. He was walking very slowly and carefully, his legs spread wide apart. And he was quietly whimpering. 'Ah, there you are,' said Maurice, cheerfully. 'Went straight up your trouser legs, did they? Typical rat trick. Just
nod, 'cos we don't want to set 'em off. No tellin' where it might end.' The highwayman nodded very slowly. Then his eyes narrowed. 'You're a cat?' he mumbled. Then his eyes crossed and he gasped. 'Did I say talk?' said Maurice. 'I don't think I said talk, did I? Did the coachman run away or did you kill him?' The man's face went blank. 'Ah, quick learner, I like that in a highwayman,' said Maurice. 'You can answer that question.'
'Ran away,' said the highwayman hoarsely. Maurice stuck his head back inside the coach. 'Whadja think?' he said. 'Coach, four horses, probably some valuables in the mail-bags… could be, oh, a thousand dollars or more. The kid could drive it. Worth a try?'
'That's stealing, Maurice,' said Peaches. She was sitting on the seat beside the kid. She was a rat. 'Not stealing as such,' said Maurice. 'More… findin'. The driver's run away, so it's like… salvage. Hey, that's right, we could turn it in for the reward. That's much better. Legal, too. Shall we?'
'People would ask too many questions,' said Peaches. 'If we just leave it, someone yawlp will steal it,' wailed Maurice. 'Some thief will take it away! Much better if we take it, eh? We're not thieves.'
'We will leave it, Maurice,' said Peaches. 'In that case, let's steal the highwayman's horse,' said Maurice, as if the night wouldn't be properly finished unless they stole something. 'Stealing from a thief isn't stealing, 'cos it cancels out.'
'We can't stay here all night,' said the kid to Peaches. 'He's got a point.'
'That's right!' said the highwayman urgently. 'You can't stay here all night!'
'That's right,' said a chorus of voices from his trousers, 'we can't stay here all night!' Maurice sighed, and stuck his head out of the window again. 'O-K,' he said. 'This is what we're going to do. You're going to stand very still looking straight in front of you, and you won't try any tricks because if you do I've only got to say the word-'
'Don't say the word!' said the highwayman even more urgently. 'Right,' said Maurice, 'and we'll take your horse as a punishment and you can have the coach because that'd be stealing and only thieves are allowed to steal. Fair enough?'
'Anything you say!' said the highwayman, then he thought about this and added hurriedly, 'But please don't say anything!' He kept staring straight ahead. He saw the boy and the cat get out of the coach. He heard various sounds behind him as they took his horse. And he thought about his sword. All right, he was going to get a whole mail coach out of this deal, but there was such a thing as professional pride. 'All right,' said the voice of the cat after a while. 'We're all going to leave now, and you've got to promise not to move until we're gone. Promise?'
'You have my word as a thief,' said the highwayman, slowly lowering a hand to his sword. 'Right. We certainly trust you,' said the voice of the cat. The man felt his trousers lighten as the rats poured out and scampered away, and he heard the jingle of harness. He waited a moment, then spun around, drew his sword and ran forward. Slightly forward, in any case. He wouldn't have hit the ground so hard if someone hadn't tied his bootlaces together. They said he was amazing. The Amazing Maurice, they said. He'd never meant to be amazing. It had just happened. He'd realized something was odd that day, just after lunch, when he'd looked into a reflection in a puddle and thought that's me. He'd never been aware of himself before. Of course, it was hard to remember how he'd thought before he became amazing. It seemed to him that his mind had been just a kind of soup. And then there had been the rats, who lived under the rubbish heap in one corner of his territory. He'd realized there was something educated about the rats when he jumped on one and it'd said, 'Can we talk about this?', and part of his amazing new brain had told him you couldn't eat someone who could talk. At least, not until you'd heard what they'd got to say. The rat had been Peaches. She wasn't like other rats. Nor were Dangerous Beans, Donut Enter, Darktan, Hamnpork, Big Savings, Toxie and all the rest of them. But, then, Maurice wasn't like other cats any more. Other cats were, suddenly, stupid. Maurice started to hang around with the rats, instead. They were someone to talk to. He got on fine so long as he remembered not to eat anyone they knew. The rats spent a lot of time worrying about why they were suddenly so clever. Maurice considered that this was a waste of time. Stuff happened. But the rats went on and on about whether it was something on the rubbish heap that they'd eaten, and even Maurice could see that wouldn't explain how he'd got changed, because he'd never eaten rubbish. And he certainly wouldn't eat any rubbish off that heap, seeing as where it came from… He considered that the rats were, quite frankly, dumb. Clever, OK, but dumb. Maurice had lived on the streets for
four years and barely had any ears left and scars all over his nose, and he was smart. He swaggered so much when he walked that if he didn't slow down he flipped himself over. When he fluffed out his tail people had to step around it. He reckoned you had to be smart to live for four years on these streets, especially with all the dog gangs and freelance furriers. One wrong move and you were lunch and a pair of gloves. Yes, you had to be smart. You also had to be rich. This took some explaining to the rats, but Maurice had roamed the city and learned how things worked and money, he said, was the key to everything. And then one day he'd seen the stupid-looking kid playing the flute with his cap in front of him for pennies, he'd had an idea. An amazing idea. It just turned up, bang, all at once. Rats, flute, stupid-looking kid… And he'd said, 'Hey, stupid-looking kid! How would you like to make your fortu-nah, kid, I'm down here…' Dawn was breaking when the highwayman's horse came out of the forests, over a pass, and was reined to a halt in a convenient wood. The river valley stretched out below, with a town hunched up against the cliffs. Maurice clambered out of the saddle-bag, and stretched. The stupid-looking kid helped the rats out of the other bag. They'd spent the journey hunched up on the money, although they were too polite to say that this was because no-one wanted to sleep in the same bag as a cat. 'What's the name of the town, kid?' Maurice said, sitting on a rock and looking down at the town. Behind them, the rats were counting the money again, stacking it in piles beside its leather bag. They did this every day. Even though he had no pockets, there was something about Maurice that made everyone want to check their change as often as possible. '
's called Bad Blintz,' said the kid, referring to the guide-book. 'Ahem… should we be going there, if it's bad?' said Peaches, looking up from the counting. 'Hah, it's not called Bad because it's bad,' said Maurice. 'That's foreign language for bath, see?'
'So it's really called Bath Blintz?' said Donut Enter. 'Nah, nah, they call it Bath because…' The Amazing Maurice hesitated, but only for a moment, 'because they got a bath, see? Very backward place, this. Not many baths around. But they've got one, and they're very proud of it, so they want everyone to know. You prob'ly have to buy tickets even to have a look at it.'
'Is that true, Maurice?' said Dangerous Beans. He asked the question quite politely, but it was clear that what he was really saying was 'I don't think that is true, Maurice.' Ah, yes… Dangerous Beans. Dangerous Beans was difficult to deal with. Really, he shouldn't be. Back in the old days, Maurice thought, he wouldn't even have eaten a rat so small and pale and generally ill-looking. He stared down at the little albino rat, with his snow-white fur and pinky eyes. Dangerous Beans did not stare back, because he was too short-sighted. Of course, being nearly blind was not too much of a drawback to a species that spent most of its time in the darkness and had a sense of smell that was, as far as Maurice could understand it, almost as good as sight and sound and speech all put together. For example, the rat always turned to face Maurice and looked directly at him when he spoke. It was uncanny. Maurice had known a blind cat that walked into doors a lot, but Dangerous Beans never did that. Dangerous Beans wasn't the head rat. That was Hamnpork's job. Hamnpork was big and fierce and a bit scabby, and he didn't much like having a new-fangled brain and he certainly didn't like talking to a cat. He'd been quite old when the rats had Changed, as they called it, and he said he was too old to change. He left talking-to-Maurice to Dangerous Beans, who'd been born just after the Change. And that little rat was clever. Incredibly clever. Too clever. Maurice needed all his tricks when he was dealing with Dangerous Beans. 'It's amazing, the stuff I know,' said Maurice, blinking slowly at him. 'Anyway, it's a nice-looking town. Looks rich to me. Now, what we'll do is-'
'Ahem…' Maurice hated that sound. If there was a sound worse than Dangerous Beans asking one of his odd little questions, it was Peaches clearing her throat. It meant she was going to say something, very quietly, which was going to upset him. 'Yes?' he said sharply. 'Do we really need to keep on doing this?' she said. 'Well, of course, no,' said Maurice. 'I don't have to be here at all. I'm a cat, right? A cat with my talents? Hah! I could've got myself a really cushy job with a conjurer. Or a ventrilosqwist, maybe. There's no end to the things I could be doing, right, 'cos people like cats. But, owing to being incredibly, you know, stupid and kind-hearted, I decided to help a bunch of rodents who are, and let's be frank here, not exactly number one favourites with humans. Now some of you,' and here he cast a yellow eye towards Dangerous Beans, 'have some idea of going to some island somewhere and starting up a kind of rat civilization of your very own, which I think is very, you know, admirable, but for that you need… what did I tell you that you need?'
'Money, Maurice,' said Dangerous Beans, 'but-'
'Money. That's right, 'cos what can you get with money?' He looked around at the rats. 'Begins with a B,' he prompted. 'Boats, Maurice, but-'
'And then there's all the tools you'll need, and food, of course-'
