For Your Paws Only Read online

  “Don’t let appearances fool you,” Dupont growled in reply. “This is no ordinary mouse.” His voice had a cold edge, and Glory felt a chill run down her spine. The other Global Rodent Roundtable delegates crowded forward and sniffed her curiously. Their breath was as nasty as Dupont’s, and Glory recoiled.

  “Fearless Morning Glory Goldenleaf,” sneered Stilton Piccadilly. “Not so fearless now, are you?”

  Gorgonzola, his low-slung belly skimming the wet surface of the sewer floor, crept closer. He eyed Glory, licking his lips. She shrank back in terror, heart pounding. Were the rumors true, then? Was Gorgonzola a mousivore? Before she could find out, Dupont thrust Glory up over his head in triumph. “Behold the power of the written word!” he cried, his voice echoing along the dank walls of the sewer. “I came, I read, I conquered! Now let the proceedings begin!”

  Limburger Lulu and Limburger Louie crept forward. Taking their places on either side of Roquefort Dupont, they began to sing. Their high ratling voices hadn’t achieved the harshness of full rodent adulthood, and while they were nowhere near the caliber of Lavinia Levinson, they weren’t entirely unpleasant. Glory listened, curiosity momentarily overriding her fear.

  “Who will it be?” they sang, as the mob of rats formed a circle, tails linked in a hairless chain. “Who is the rat we will choose for Big Cheese?”

  They’re electing a leader, Glory thought with a start. They’re going to crown a rat king!

  Brie stepped forward. “Members of ze G.R.R.!”

  “GRR!” answered the mob.

  “Ze time has come to let your voices be heard! Ze time has come to make your choice! Roquefort Dupont or Stilton Piccadilly, who will we elect as Big Cheese?”

  “Some choice,” muttered Glory. “Rat scum or rat poison.”

  Brie whirled around. “Gag her again,” she snarled, and Scurvy rushed to obey.

  Roquefort Dupont and Stilton Piccadilly stepped to the center of the ring. “Eez there anything more you boys would like to say before ze vote?” asked Brie.

  “My record speaks for itself,” boasted Piccadilly. From their places in the surrounding circle, Gorgonzola and Muenster nodded in agreement.

  Dupont cleared his throat. “Your choice is clear—tradition versus innovation. Old school versus new school. A rat of the past or a rat of the future. Me! Roquefort Dupont!” He thumped his chest with a filthy paw, then paused. “I have a confession to make. I’ve been holding out on you.”

  “This is an outrage!” cried Stilton. “I protest! He’s trying to steal the election!”

  “Steal the election? Nonsense,” said Dupont with a dismissive wave of his paw. He glanced around slyly. “Doesn’t anybody want to see my secret weapon?”

  “Now you’re talking!” cried Mozzarella Canal. “Weapons are more like it!” He turned to the big Greek rat beside him. “See, Misery, all that talk about books was just a bluff. I knew my nephew wouldn’t let us down. Claws and jaws always win in the end.”

  Dupont’s smile broadened. He turned and beckoned toward a side-tunnel. “Come on out,” he said.

  A small figure stepped from the shadows. Glory squinted in the gloom, trying to make out who it was. Another ratling?

  “The first thing you need to do,” said the small figure quietly, so quietly that his words couldn’t be picked up by the audio feed, “is get rid of those.” He raised his paw and pointed toward the video sunglasses suspended from the sewer vent overhead.

  Glory gasped. It was Fumble.

  CHAPTER 24

  DAY TWO • WEDNESDAY • 2300 HOURS

  Backstage in the practice room at BANANAS! the eavesdropping mice stared at the cell phone screen in consternation.

  “Something’s wrong!” cried Bunsen. “Look! Something’s wrong with Glory!”

  Her paws twisted cruelly behind her back, her gag silencing her once again, Glory bounced up and down in frustration, struggling to free herself from Dupont’s firm grip.

  “MMM-MM!” she squeaked frantically. “MMM-MM!”

  “She’s trying to tell us something,” said B-Nut, staring at his sister.

  “I told her this would never work!” cried Bunsen in despair. “I—I mean we—never should have let her go!”

  Onscreen, the rats suddenly tilted their heads back and stared directly at the mice. The remote camera tracked their movement, and the cell phone screen reflected a mass of red, glowing eyes. Seventy-seven pairs of eyes, to be exact.

  “Uh-oh,” said B-Nut. “That’s not good.”

  “They spotted the sunglasses,” observed Bubble. “That must be what Glory is trying to tell us.”

  The mice watched in worried fascination as Brie de Sorbonne slunk toward the sewer wall and began to scale its slick brick surface. Her face loomed across the screen for a split second, her fangs appeared, and then a jumble of images flashed across the screen as she bit through the dental floss holding the sunglasses in place and they tumbled downward to the sewer floor.

  The spy mice heard a splash of approaching claws as the rats ran toward the windfall.

  “MMM-MM! MMM-MM!” came Glory’s mumbled message again, louder and more frantic than before.

  “Oh, I do wish we knew what she was trying to tell us!” cried Bunsen, wringing his paws in despair.

  A trio of long, ugly snouts popped onto the screen. The audio feed relayed a cacophony of snorts and sniffs as the rats inspected the sunglasses.

  “Dupont’s bluffing,” they heard Stilton Piccadilly sneer. “These are just ordinary human sunglasses.”

  “No,” growled a deep voice.

  “Gorgonzilla!” said Squeak with a shudder.

  “Is not right. Is strange,” the elderly Italian rat continued. “Is camera, sì?”

  Suddenly, Dupont’s face loomed into view. He smiled, his sharp yellow fangs magnified by the video camera. The mice drew back in alarm.

  “That is one scary dude,” said Lip.

  “You mice think you’re clever, don’t you?” Dupont said, addressing them directly. “Well, let me tell you something—your day is over. Finito. Ende. Ciao! It’s time for a whole new world order! It’s time we rats took our rightful place as rulers! It’s time for this planet to go MOUSE-FREE!”

  In the background, above Glory’s urgent mumbling, the mice could hear the other rats as they took up the chant. “Dupont! Dupont! Dupont!”

  Dupont bared his fangs again. “Yes!” he cried in triumph as the mass of rodents behind him raised their paws to vote, sweeping him into office. “Yes! I am Roquefort Dupont! I am your leader! I am the BIG CHEESE!”

  He opened his jaws wide. There was a loud snap as he severed the sunglasses in two. The cell phone screen blinked once and then went dead.

  CHAPTER 25

  DAY TWO • WEDNESDAY • 2300 HOURS

  “Smile for the camera!” called Amelia Bean.

  “I do not believe she hasn’t put that thing down by now,” whispered D. B. to Oz through gritted teeth. “My cheeks hurt from smiling.”

  They were sitting in a horse-drawn carriage in front of Central Park, about to take a ride to celebrate their Bake-Off victory. As D. B.’s mother climbed in and sat down beside Lavinia Levinson, the driver urged his horse forward. Oz pulled the heavy blanket up to his chin. It was cold. Late, too—nearly midnight. He yawned. It had been a long day. The steady clip-clop of the horse’s hooves was soothing. So was the steady drone of the two grown-ups’ voices. Oz’s eyelids started to droop.

  “Ouch!” he cried, sitting bolt upright. D. B. had elbowed him in the ribs. Her elbow was bony, and it hurt. “What’d you do that for?”

  D. B. jerked her chin skyward. A pigeon was circling overhead. It was Vinnie. “Incoming,” she warned.

  Oz waited until his mother and Amelia Bean turned their heads to admire the moonlight on a nearby pond, then gave Vinnie a thumbs-up. The pigeon swooped down and dropped a scroll of paper into his lap. Oz whisked it under the blanket.

  “Do you have a flashlight
?” he whispered to D. B., as their mothers resumed their conversation.

  “Does Roquefort Dupont have a tail?” she whispered back, holding up a small penlight.

  Oz slid the cipher disk from his pocket. He lifted a corner of the blanket, unrolled the pigeon post and shone the light on the tiny page. Squinting, he began mentally decoding its message.

  “What does it say?” D. B. asked.

  “ ‘FOR YOUR PAWS ONLY,’ ” Oz replied.

  “I know that part already. The rest of it, I mean.”

  “ ‘MISSION LAUNCHED. PROCEEDING ACCORDING TO PLAN. FULL STEAM AHEAD FOR TOMORROW.’ ”

  Oz and D. B. exchanged a glance. If everything was proceeding according to plan, that meant Glory was in Dupont’s clutches.

  “Good luck, Glory,” Oz whispered to himself. His tiny friend was going to need it.

  CHAPTER 26

  DAY TWO • WEDNESDAY • 2330 HOURS

  “Now, that is a rat,” said Roquefort Dupont, gazing up in admiration at the towering skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

  Outside, a full moon shone in the sky over Manhattan. It glinted through the high windows of the Museum of Natural History’s fourth floor, bathing the bones in an eerie light. Dupont waved a paw expansively at the exhibit, as if it were his own personal possession. “Look at that tail!” he crowed. “Look at those sharp teeth! Definitely a rat.”

  The delegates of the G.R.R. nodded.

  “Sì,” said Gorgonzola.

  “Ja,” agreed Muenster.

  “Oui, absolument,” purred Brie.

  Even Stilton Piccadilly looked impressed.

  Clearly relishing his new role as Big Cheese, Dupont swaggered about in front of the group, his eyes glowing red in the moonlight. “You see what I’m telling you? This is our history! We are the descendents of giants, my friends—giants! Once we roamed the earth proudly, like old Rex here. With me leading the G.R.R.—”

  “GRR!” growled the assembled rats automatically.

  “ . . . this will be our destiny once again. We rats will crush those small-paws like the vermin they are! Cats and dogs will tremble at our name! Even humans will call us master! Rats will be SUPREME! Rats will RULE THE WORLD!”

  From where she had been unceremoniously dumped under a bench, Glory gave a tiny snort. Descendant of giants, my paw, she thought in disgust. The only thing T. Rex-size about Roquefort Dupont was his ego. More likely he’d sprung from some prehistoric cockroach.

  She shifted uncomfortably on the hard marble floor and glared at the stout gray mouse who was guarding her. “How could you do it, Fumble?” she asked. “How could you be such a turntail?”

  She still couldn’t believe that a mouse—any mouse, even a little weasel like Fumble—would sell out to the rats. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It was completely unprecedented in mouse history.

  Fumble yawned. He placed a plump paw under his chin, as if thinking the question over. “Let’s see. Riches, power, fame, and—dare I say it—glory?” he replied calmly.

  “You traitor!” spat Glory.

  “Traitor to what?” countered Fumble, his voice rising in anger. “A bunch of self-important field agents bossed around by a pathetic old has-been? Julius is so blind he can’t even recognize talent when it’s right under his whiskers. Well, I’ll tell you right now, I won’t be overlooked any more! I’ve had it with ‘Silver Skateboard’ this and ‘secret mission’ that. I’m fed up with stupid ‘For Your Paws Only’! No more being shoved aside, taken for granted, passed over!”

  “So that’s what this is all about?” sputtered Glory in disbelief. “The fact that Julius didn’t promote you to field agent?” Her bright little eyes widened as another thought occurred to her. “It was you who taught Dupont to read, wasn’t it?”

  “So what if I did?” Fumble retorted. “I’m not ashamed of it.”

  “But don’t you see what you’ve done? How could you betray us all like that?”

  “How?” sneered Fumble. “Easily, that’s how. Why? Because I’m smart. Because I can tell which way the wind is blowing. Because there’s a new day coming, and I intend to be part of it.”

  “A new day!” Glory leaned toward her colleague. Make that former colleague, she corrected herself. “Fumble, this is Dupont, remember? He’ll chew you up and spit you out like a moldy french fry.” Except of course that a little mold never bothered Dupont, she thought. Dupont never spat anything out.

  “He’s going to make me Minister of Mouse Affairs,” said Fumble smugly. “When the Global Rodent Roundtable takes over, you and all the others will come crawling to me. Just you wait and see.”

  “That’s right,” Dupont interjected, waddling closer. Behind him the mob of rodents closed in. “Once I’m in control, you mice—those we don’t exterminate—will be our servants. Slaves to the master race. But I’ll keep a pawful of smart ones on hand to help us learn everything we need to learn. Smart ones like Fumble here.”

  He clapped Fumble on the shoulder. Fumble smirked. Glory stared at the two of them and shuddered. She recognized the look in Fumble’s eyes now—it was greed. The same madness that infected Roquefort Dupont. Fumble had clearly gone round the bend. No mouse in his right mind would ever betray his own kind.

  Gorgonzola lurched toward her. He lifted his snout and gave a hearty sniff. “Smells like antipasto, sì?” he said, flicking a glance at Dupont. “To celebrate your election victory, of course.” He turned back to Glory and leaned closer, so close that his whiskers tickled her face. “In Rome, we like little mouses like you,” he whispered. “A little garlic, a little olive oil, and presto!” He kissed his paw in the age-old gesture of his native country. “Dinner is served.”

  Glory recoiled in horror. So the rumors about Gorgonzola were true—he was a mousivore! Her heart thudding like a jackhammer, she squirmed as far back underneath the bench as she could get from the paunchy rat and his evil appetite.

  Muenster, the big black rat from Berlin, reached into the shadows and plucked her out again. He smiled, and the scar along his snout puckered. “Ja, we like mice in Berlin, too.” He rubbed his dark belly and licked his lips. “Maus mit sauerkraut, mmmm.”

  Glory couldn’t help it. She began to shake uncontrollably.

  “I hate to disappoint you,” said Dupont, “but I have other plans for this mouse, remember?”

  Brie slinked her way over to her cousin and rested her sleek snout on his shoulder.

  “But surely zis one cannot be so important?” she pouted. “What eez one less mouse in zis world tonight?” The she-rat reached out a paw and stroked Glory’s elegant brown fur. “Such lovely things zis would make. Eet seems a shame to let zis fine pelt go to waste.” Brie snuggled a little closer to Dupont and scratched him behind one large flea-bitten ear. “Give ze boys here a treat, and let me have ze rest, oui, Roquefort?”

  Gorgonzola and Muenster looked at their new Big Cheese hopefully. Glory trembled in the German rat’s tight grasp. Roquefort Dupont’s wall of trophies and the Black Paw seemed positively tame compared to these lunatics! She didn’t know which was worse, the flesh-eating mousivore twins or Cruella DeBrie.

  Dupont eyed the three of them, considering. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “She stays alive until tomorrow when we reach Times Square. After I’ve finished with her, you can have what’s left.”

  Muenster tossed Glory back under the bench, and he and Gorgonzola moved away, grumbling. Brie shrugged and slunk off, casting one more calculating look back at Glory as she went. Dupont followed her.

  Glory sagged against the cold stone of the floor. Dupont might have just given her a few hours reprieve, but he had also issued her death sentence. Tomorrow in Times Square! A tear trickled down her furry cheek. Her supposedly foolproof plan had backfired completely. And it’s all Fumble’s fault, she thought bitterly. The traitor. Back at Grand Central, once the video sunglasses had been dispensed with, it hadn’t taken Fumble two seconds to reach inside her collar and pluck out the n
ote.

  “Right where your e-mail to Julius said it would be,” he’d said smugly.

  The gag had only partly muffled Glory’s gasp. Fumble had intercepted their communications with Central Command! That meant Fumble knew what they were planning. And if Fumble knew, Dupont knew. In that very moment she had known that she was doomed—that they were all doomed. Her friends would be walking into a trap tomorrow, and she had no way of warning them.

  Worse, when this was all over, Fumble would waltz right back to the Spy Mice Agency with no one the wiser. A spy spying on the spies. A mole of the very worst sort. Not only their mission, but the whole agency—no, the entire mouse world—was in peril.

  As the other rats watched, Dupont had unfolded the note. “For Your Peas Only,” he’d read aloud slowly.

  “Uh, that’s ‘paws,’ Roquefort, buddy. ‘For Your Paws Only,’ ” Fumble had corrected.

  “I can see that, you idiot!” Dupont had snarled back, cuffing him. Dupont didn’t like being corrected. He’d added huffily, “That’s what I said, anyway. ‘For Your Paws Only.’ That means top secret,” he’d informed his fellow rats, swelling with importance.

  He’d stumbled through the rest of the note, which outlined Glory’s fictitious rendezvous in Herald Square in front of Macy’s, but Fumble had dismissed it with a flip of his paw. “It’s a trap,” he’d explained. “They’re setting you up.”

  “Setting us up, are they? We’ll see about that.” Dupont’s eyes had narrowed. “I think we’ll just have to turn the tables. Make this a parade no one will ever forget. Kids and mice together—twice the revenge for half the effort. My kind of odds.”

  And now, here they all were at the Museum of Natural History, waiting for morning. It hadn’t taken Dupont long at all to come up with a counterplan. First order of business: Move the Global Rodent Roundtable uptown.

  “Might as well stay warm while we wait,” Dupont had said, herding them all onto the underside of a B train. “No point sitting on a balloon in the cold and dark when you can be inside with a full stomach.”