For Your Paws Only Read online

  As usual, food was foremost on Dupont’s mind. He and the other rats had gleefully raided the museum café’s trash cans, then dragged their smelly booty up to the fourth floor. From this vantage point, they could keep an eye on the giant balloons being inflated outside while gloating over the dead bones of their dubious ancestors inside.

  I’m going to be dead bones if I don’t find a way to get out of here, thought Glory. She gazed around at the gigantic skeletons. This place was giving her the creeps.

  She closed her eyes. Her small body ached from the rough treatment she’d received, and her heart had never been heavier. I’m going to die, she thought miserably, and another tear trickled down her cheek. What was worse, so were Bunsen and her brother and maybe even Oz and D. B., too. The children would have received their pigeon post telling them of the plan by now. Tomorrow, her colleagues would all be walking into Dupont’s trap instead of the other way around. They’d be mousemeat, just as Dupont had promised. Gorgonzilla and Muenster the Monster would feast on their flesh, and Brie de Sorbonne would have a whole new wardrobe to take home to Paris.

  My first Silver Skateboard mission is a total bust, thought Glory wretchedly. I’m a failure. Bunsen was right; it was her pride that was to blame. It had gotten her—had gotten them all—into this horrible fix. Her stupid Goldenleaf pride.

  Glory slumped under the bench, exhausted, demoralized, and more scared than she’d ever been in her whole young mouse life. The parade was going to be a disaster, they were all going to die, the rats would take over the world, and there was nothing she or anybody else could do to stop it.

  She watched listlessly as across the room the mob of rats fell upon their revolting feast with gusto. Moldy orange rinds and petrified sandwich crusts, half-eaten cookies and half-empty cartons of sour milk—everything a rat needed for a party. Glory turned away in revulsion.

  “Eat up, my friends!” cried Dupont, licking the last few drops of leftover fruit smoothie from a styrofoam cup. “We move out at dawn.”

  CHAPTER 27

  DAY THREE • THURSDAY • 0830 HOURS

  “How come whenever I’m with you, I always end up in some dumb costume?” grumbled D. B. “This is worse than the apron and the donkey suit combined.”

  Oz was wrestling with the silver buckle on the belt of his pilgrim-boy suit, which was at least one size too small. He glanced over at D. B. She was wearing a long black pilgrim-girl dress, complete with white apron and white hat. He sighed. “You’re right. We look ridiculous.”

  The Mayflower Flour man strode into the gilded lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, where the winners of the Bake-Off had gathered to await the arrival of their limousine. Lavinia Levinson and Amelia Bean were seated on one of the fancy sofas, discussing cheese twists with Mary Lou Swenson of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Jordan, dressed as a bag of Mayflower Flour, and Tank, who had been stuffed into an enormous pumpkin costume, were posing sullenly for yet another picture.

  “Doesn’t Sherman look adorable!” squealed Mrs. Wilson to Mrs. Scott. “And your Jordan, too.”

  The Mayflower Flour man clapped his hands. “Winners! We need you winners in the limo now! On the double! The parade is starting soon!”

  A blast of cold air struck Oz as the group was herded out of the lobby. It was perfect Thanksgiving weather, clear as a bell but bitter cold. At least the pilgrim-boy suit was wool, Oz thought, shivering. He climbed gratefully into the warmth of the limousine, which whisked them up Park Avenue and across Central Park toward West Seventy-seventh Street.

  The limousine came to a halt, and the chauffeur leaped from the car and opened the rear door smartly. The adults got out first, and then it was Oz’s turn. As he heaved himself awkwardly across the low-slung leather seat, Jordan poked him in the back.

  “Could you swim a little faster, Shamu?”

  The chauffeur reached in and hauled Oz out bodily.

  “Thanks,” Oz mumbled, red-faced. For about the millionth time in his life, Oz wished that he were James Bond. Riding in a limousine was no big deal to Agent 007. When the superspy wasn’t driving fast sports cars, he rode in limousines all the time. But then, James Bond didn’t need help getting out of a limousine. James Bond wasn’t built like a baby whale.

  “There’s the float!” cried Amelia Bean.

  The surface of the Mayflower Flour float was a small replica of Plymouth Harbor, complete with painted sea and a Styrofoam Plymouth Rock to represent where America’s first settlers had stepped ashore. Tethered to the float by four sturdy ropes was a gigantic full-rigged balloon ship with MAYFLOWER painted on its side.

  “Wow!” said D. B., and even Jordan and Tank looked dazzled.

  “Isn’t this exciting, kids?” said Lavinia Levinson.

  Mayflower Flour had persuaded Oz’s mother to provide some entertainment during the parade, and she started humming the medley of seasonal music she’d chosen to warm up the crowd. Amelia Bean, of course, was busy filming everything with her camcorder.

  Oz and D. B. exchanged a glance. Their mothers were far more excited than they were. But then again, their mothers didn’t have to ride on the balloon ship with a pair of sharks.

  A Mayflower Flour employee dressed as Squanto propped a ladder alongside the ship. Oz, D. B., Jordan, Tank, and Mary Lou Swenson of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, climbed aboard. Down below, “ashore” on the float’s surface, the four mothers waved.

  “Smile for the camera, Shermie!” coaxed Mrs. Wilson. “My little pumpkin!”

  “You are so dead, Fatboy,” promised Tank through teeth gritted in a smile.

  Oz ignored him. He was determined not to react. Reacting only got the sharks all worked up. James Bond never reacted. James Bond was always as cool as a cucumber. I am as cool as a cucumber, Oz told himself sternly, but he couldn’t help eyeing Tank and Jordan with suspicion. The sixth graders were whispering to themselves, clearly up to something.

  “Duck!” shouted Tank, as a pigeon swooped low overhead. He and Jordan dove for cover. Oz looked up just in time to catch the small scroll of paper that dropped from the sky.

  “What was that?” cried Jordan.

  Oz shrugged, pocketing the note. “I didn’t see anything,” he said. He jerked his chin at D. B., and the two of them moved a safe distance away. Oz unrolled the note and squinted at it. He’d forgotten to tuck the magnifying glass in the pocket of his pilgrim-boy suit.

  “H and A,” he whispered, giving D. B. the code key.

  She twirled the rings on the cipher disk until they were in the proper place. “Fire away,” she told him, and together they decoded the message. “ ‘FOR YOUR PAWS ONLY. LOST COMMUNICATION WITH GLORY, LATE LAST NIGHT. MISSION STILL HAS GREEN LIGHT. SEE YOU IN TIMES SQUARE!’ ”

  Jordan’s head popped up over Oz’s shoulder. “Whatcha got there?” he demanded.

  “Um, nothing,” said Oz, prodding at his glasses. He clamped down on the note, but Jordan grabbed his hand and Tank pried open his fingers one by one until he finally managed to rip it from his grasp.

  The sharks stared at the tiny slip of paper. “Look, Tank, it’s a teeny-tiny message! In code.”

  “Aw, isn’t that cute,” Tank replied. “Dogbones and Fatboy are playing spy.” He looked Oz up and down, his gaze settling on the too-tight belt around the middle of his too-tight pilgrim-boy suit. He smirked. “Except you don’t look much like Double-O-Seven to me.”

  “More like Blubber-O-Seven!” said Jordan, and the two boys hooted.

  Oz reddened again. A gust of icy wind blew across the park and set the ship rocking to and fro on its moorings. He started to feel seasick. It was shaping up to be another long morning.

  CHAPTER 28

  DAY THREE • THURSDAY • 0845 HOURS

  On the underside of the Mayflower Flour float, Glory shivered as the same blast of cold wind hit her, too.

  “I’m freezing,” whined Limburger Lulu.

  The rats huddled closer together, and Glory shrank back, wrinkling her nose in disgust. The smell was
almost overpowering.

  At first light, her captors had taken her from the dinosaur exhibit and crept down to the subway stop beneath the museum. From there, they’d proceeded to the corner of West Seventy-seventh Street and Columbus Avenue, emerging onto the street through a sewer grating directly beneath the Mayflower Flour float. Not a soul had seen them stow away; not a soul would be able to warn the mice of the impending disaster.

  “So when do the festivities commence?” growled Stilton Piccadilly.

  “ ‘When do the festivities commence?’ ” mimicked Dupont in a fake British accent. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you speak English? Just spit it out. This is New York, pal—there are no ‘festivities’ here. Just a Big Apple-sized party! A shindig! A bash!”

  Glory felt the British rodent tense up beside her. The rats were hungry—they’d postponed breakfast until after the parade—and a hungry rat was a mean rat.

  “Things should be starting any minute now,” Mozzarella Canal said soothingly, stepping between the two rivals. “Been coming to this parade since I was a ratling. You’re in for a real treat, boys, I promise you. Breakfast may be late, but just wait until you see what the street vendors leave behind!”

  Distracted by the mention of food, his nephew’s eyes shone greedily. “Hot dogs. Pretzels. Honey-roasted nuts,” Mozzarella elaborated, and Dupont groaned at the thought of the feast that awaited. “Italian sausage and hot chestnuts and knishes, too.” A slimy trickle of drool appeared at the corner of Dupont’s mouth.

  Revolted, Glory averted her eyes. She hunched miserably in the chill November air. She was cold, she was surrounded by rats—including at least two mousivores—and everything had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Even now, all of her colleagues would be moving into place. They had no idea that Dupont and his fellow long-tailed gluttons were one step ahead of them. By the time the mice came aboard in Times Square, it would be too late. She’d be mousemeat, and the G.R.R. would be poised to take over the world. With Fumble’s help.

  Glory glared at her traitorous colleague. Her paws itched to reach over and slap his smug face. Except they were still tied behind her. Dupont had gagged her again too. Fumble! Minister of Mouse Affairs, indeed. Minister of Backstabbers was more like it.

  Glory had stayed awake all night worrying about what would happen with a mole like Fumble in place. He’d feed information to the rats about secret missions and secret agents, and the Spy Mice Agency network would crumble within weeks. Days, maybe. After that, the rest of her familiar world would quickly follow. Even with the protection of the Mouse Guard, the guilds didn’t have enough resources to hold out for long against literate rats. Or against treachery of the very highest order.

  The float gave a lurch as the truck attached to the front roared to life and started to move.

  “This is it!” Dupont cried, his harsh voice barely audible above the roar of the engine. “In a few minutes, we’ll give the mice a taste of rat power the likes of which they’ve never seen before! In a few minutes, the world will know the name of Roquefort Dupont—and all the rest of you,” he added hastily, waving a paw at the other delegates.

  “MOUSE-FREE FROM SEA TO SEA! MOUSE-FREE FOR YOU AND ME!” chanted Limburger Lulu and Limburger Louie.

  Dupont looked over at Glory. He drew a sharp claw across his throat and grinned, revealing his sharp yellow fangs. “Times Square, here we come!”

  Glory’s tail trembled. Times Square. Where time would run out for her—permanently. There’d be no B-Nut and Bunsen to rescue her this time around. Dear, sweet, loyal Bunsen! The thought of her friend was almost too much for Glory, and she sniffled remorsefully. Bunsen didn’t deserve a fate like this. Especially not a fate that her pride had caused.

  Get ahold of yourself, Agent Goldenleaf, she told herself. Suck it up. Fear, her father had told her a long time ago, was a rat’s best weapon. And her own weapon—the only one left to her at this point—was courage. She was going to need every ounce she could muster. What was it that Julius had said? Calm, cool, clear thinking. Yes. She would need that, too. With any luck, Dupont might just make a mistake. And if he did, she wanted to be ready for it.

  Glory heard distant drums grow closer as a marching band approached, signaling the start of the parade. Above them on the float there was a sudden flurry of activity—human voices calling out and human feet thudding to and fro as the balloon’s tethers were checked and everyone took their places.

  Glory’s ears pricked up as she recognized Oz’s voice. He was so close! If only she could get his attention! She glanced around frantically. But she was still surrounded by rats, she was still gagged, and her paws were still tied behind her. She’d have to bide her time.

  The float gave another lurch as the truck continued forward and turned onto Central Park West. The humans thronging the sidewalks cheered as the giant balloon ship set sail.

  “Get ready, gang,” cried Dupont jubilantly. “This party is about to begin!”

  CHAPTER 29

  DAY THREE • THURSDAY • 0930 HOURS

  High up on the deck of the Mayflower Flour balloon ship, Oz smiled and waved.

  He’d never seen so many people in his entire life. Not even the Fourth of July on the Washington Mall was this crowded. People lined the sidewalks; people leaned out of windows in office buildings and apartment buildings and hotels; people crowded onto steps and into storefronts, shinnied up traffic lights and lampposts and flagpoles, and clambered onto construction scaffolding—anything to get a better view of the parade. Everyone was bundled up against the chilly November air, but it was sunny out, and people were smiling and laughing, clearly excited to see the parade finally get underway.

  From his vantage point, Oz could see for blocks and blocks. There were clowns—hundreds of clowns!—and cheerleaders, choirs and marching bands. Majorettes in spangled costumes twirled their batons, brass bands blasted their music, and costumed creatures cavorted on stilts and unicycles. There were kilted pipers, policemen on horseback, and even a forest of tap-dancing trees. Toddlers on their fathers’ shoulders gaped at the floats—a castle, a fake trolley car, an even bigger fake riverboat. And then there were the balloons! The highlight of the procession, they were spread out as far as the eye could see, some of them six stories tall. As the parade glided down Manhattan’s normally traffic-packed streets, the Mayflower was slotted in between a big smiling sponge balloon and an enormous green frog balloon.

  “Ladies and gentlepilgrims!” the Mayflower Flour man cried into a microphone as the giant float rounded Columbus Circle and turned down Broadway. The crowd roared with excitement, momentarily drowning him out.

  “I present to you this year’s winners of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Mayflower Flour Bake-Off! For her cheese twists, Mary Lou Swenson of Oshkosh, Wisconsin! And in the junior division, for their pumpkin chocolate-chip bread, Delilah Bean and Ozymandias Levinson of Washington, D.C.!”

  The crowd roared its approval once again and thousands of cameras winked and flashed. Great, thought Oz. He was more than a little sensitive about the fact that his parents had named him after a poem by the English poet Shelley. Now the whole world knows my real name.

  A cluster of Mayflower Flour employees dressed as pilgrims and Native Americans scurried to the edges of the float and began tossing cheese twists and slices of pumpkin chocolate-chip bread to the onlookers. As the people scrambled for the treats, the Mayflower Flour man lifted his microphone once again.

  “And now, for your listening pleasure, it’s my great honor to introduce that delectable diva herself, the one, the only Lavinia Levinson!”

  Perched atop Plymouth Rock, Oz’s mother raised her arms dramatically, as if to embrace the city itself. The crowd went wild. Nodding to her accompanist—dressed as the Thanksgiving turkey—at the keyboard, she swung into her first set of tunes. Amelia Bean scrambled forward to record the moment on film.

  D. B. leaned over to Oz. “Your mom’s good,” she said, shouting to be heard above the
music.

  “I know,” Oz shouted back proudly.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Oz saw Jordan whisper something to Tank. He nudged D. B. “Check it out,” he said, nodding toward the boys. “The sharks are up to something.”

  Jordan and Tank grinned and gave them a big thumbs-up. D. B.’s eyes narrowed. “No kidding,” she replied. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

  The float sailed down Broadway. In the distance, Oz could make out the huge neon billboards that were the icons of Times Square, where he knew Bunsen and B-Nut and the other spy mice would join them. Once his colleagues were aboard, they’d all take their positions for pouncing on the rats, who, thanks to the misinformation Glory had planted in her bold move last night, were expecting to ambush them in front of Macy’s in Herald Square.

  Oz hummed along to the music, waving to the crowd and enjoying the spectacle. Despite the presence of the sharks, he was feeling happy this morning. He wasn’t a loser after all. In fact, he had a blue ribbon to prove it. And in a short while, he’d have another successful mission for the Spy Mice Agency under his belt.

  Oz was so busy enjoying himself that neither he nor D. B.—nor any other human, for that matter—noticed as a long snout emerged from behind the fake bushes lining the fake Plymouth shore. The snout snuffled at the contents of a large basket sitting in front of the fake Plymouth Rock. A cheese twist suddenly flipped up out of the basket and disappeared into the fake bushes as the snout snapped it out of sight.

  The first set of tunes came to a close, and the Mayflower Flour man once again stepped up to the mike. “Let’s hear it for Lavinia Levinson!” he cried. The crowd applauded and cheered. He held up a bag of Mayflower Flour. “And remember, folks, your ship always comes in when you bake with Mayflower Flour!”

  Across the deck on the balloon ship, Jordan and Tank both held up bags of Mayflower Flour too. The crowd cheered again, and Lavinia Levinson bowed graciously and swung into another festive medley.