For Your Paws Only Read online

“Close enough,” Hotspur replied, and began to saw.

  Bubble resheathed his blade defiantly. So did Squeak. “Bunsen!” she called into her headset, trying to warn him. “Bunsen, watch—”

  Her transmission went dead. Squeak tapped her headset and looked over at Hotspur. He was fiddling with the master control on his transmitter. He’d silenced their frequency! The two British agents watched in horror as he began to saw at the rope again. High above them, Bunsen tumbled unwittingly onto the Mayflower’s deck, landing at D. B.’s feet.

  “Bunsen! Am I glad to see you!” she said in relief. “Dupont’s got Glory.”

  “I know,” said Bunsen. “Abandon ship!”

  “What?” said D. B.

  “Abandon ship!” Bunsen repeated. “Get everyone off! This ship’s due to sail.”

  D. B. glanced around wildly. “Sail?” she asked, bewildered. “Where?”

  “Just do it, Agent Bean,” barked Bunsen. “ABANDON SHIP! That’s an order.”

  D. B. ran toward Mary Lou Swenson, who was trying to help wipe pigeon poo off Jordan and Tank. As she tugged on the woman’s coat sleeve, Bunsen pulled a single match and a Ping-Pong ball from his backpack and started toward Glory. He halted in his tracks when he spotted Fumble. His pink eyes widened in surprise. The plump mouse spotted him at the same moment. Smirking, he reached out and tugged on Dupont’s tail.

  In a flash, Bunsen understood what Glory had been trying to warn them about in her last transmission. “MMM-MM,” she’d mumbled. Fumble, she’d been trying to say. Their colleague was a traitor! Bunsen stood rooted to the spot, his head spinning. It was inconceivable! No mouse would betray his own kind! What should he do?

  Calm, cool, clear thinking, Julius always counseled. Bunsen took a deep breath and willed himself to concentrate. He couldn’t let Fumble distract him. Glory’s life was at stake, and her rescue would require split-second timing. He lit the match.

  Across the deck, Dupont spun around. He cuffed Fumble, who cringed, then pointed at Bunsen.

  “Here, Dupont—catch!” the lab mouse cried, igniting the Ping-Pong ball and rolling it toward the rodent.

  A puff of smoke burst from the tiny bomb just as it reached Dupont, enveloping him in a cloud. Using the smoke for cover, Bunsen raced toward Glory. He’d almost reached her when Hotspur’s tether gave way. The deck gave a sudden lurch, and the Ping-Pong ball started rolling back toward Bunsen.

  “NO!” cried the lab mouse. It hadn’t been five minutes yet—Hotspur had double-crossed him!

  The deck tilted sharply, and D. B., Mary Lou Swenson, Jordan, and Tank slid toward the rail. They screamed. So did everyone on the float below. Bunsen whipped his harpoon pen out of his backpack and shot a line of floss into the fake sea chest, then hung on for dear life.

  The crowd in Times Square sensed something happening, and began to back away from the float. On its surface, the Mayflower Flour man ran around in a panic. “Get the ladder!” he cried.

  But it was too late for the ladder. Unable to bear the strain of the enormous balloon ship, a second tether snapped. The Mayflower tilted almost vertically, and D. B., Mary Lou Swenson, and the two pigeon poo-covered sixth graders slid under the rail and down the ship’s side, landing in a heap in the fake Plymouth Harbor. Dupont, who was clutching Glory, scrabbled wildly for a clawhold. So did the rest of the rats.

  The third tether gave way with a snap as loud as a gunshot, and the crowd screamed. The Mayflower bobbed in the air, now anchored to the float by only a single tether.

  “Oz!” cried D. B. “Do something! Bunsen and Glory are still aboard!”

  Oz swiped frantically at his glasses as his friend’s voice crackled through his headset. He peered up to see Bunsen, who had clipped the strand of dental floss through the carabiner on his utility belt, hauling himself paw over paw toward his true love.

  “Hang on!” Oz cried. “I’m coming!” He ran forward and flung himself bodily at the fourth tether. It groaned, straining mightily at its mooring.

  “Look out!” shrieked the Thanksgiving turkey. “It’s gonna give!”

  “Oz!” bellowed Lavinia Levinson, her well-trained voice carrying above the terrified screams of the crowd. “Get away from there!”

  Oz ignored her. “Bunsen! Glory!” he called again, clinging tightly to the rope.

  “Abandon ship!” screeched Dupont, finally releasing Glory to save himself. As a stream of rodents began heading for the fourth tether, she plummeted down across the tilted deck, straight into Bunsen’s paws. The crowd spotted the rats and screamed even louder.

  “OZ!” hollered his mother. “LET GO OF THAT ROPE!”

  Above him, Oz could see his two friends clinging desperately to each other. He flinched as Scurvy scampered down the tether and over his arm and back, but he didn’t let go. He was determined not to let go until Bunsen and Glory were safe.

  “Hurry!” he called.

  Rat claws scrabbled in Oz’s hair and along his body as the delegates of the Global Rodent Roundtable began to flee like rats from the proverbial sinking ship. Gnaw was next, then the Limburger twins. Oz watched helplessly as Brie shoved Gorgonzola out of her way and slid determinedly toward his head.

  On the deck above, Glory looked at Bunsen. “Sacrifices must be made,” she said calmly.

  Bunsen gazed back sorrowfully into her bright little eyes. “The noblest motive is the public good,” he replied.

  Glory leaned in toward the lab mouse’s headset and flipped its setting to Oz and D. B.’s frequency. “Let go of the rope, Oz!” she called, her voice barely audible above the pandemonium.

  “No!” cried Oz, flinching as another rat crawled down the length of his body. “I can’t do it!”

  “Now, Oz!” ordered Glory.

  “What about you?” he wailed.

  “Oz, this is a direct order,” shouted Glory, her small voice ringing with authority. “LET GO OF THE ROPE!”

  With a sob, Oz opened his hands and released the tether. He flopped backward onto the float. The tether gave another mighty groan and then—CRACK!—it split in two. The Mayflower snapped upright, sending Dupont and the other rats tumbling back onto the deck with Bunsen and Glory.

  A hush fell over Times Square. Thousands of parade-goers watched in silence as the Mayflower, suddenly released from all that held it earthbound, spun about between the tall buildings for a long moment as if unsure of what to do. And then a brisk wind blew down Broadway, filling its sails.

  Oz watched helplessly as the ship carrying his doomed friends sailed off into the bright blue November sky.

  CHAPTER 31

  DAY THREE • THURSDAY • 1015 HOURS

  “You got us into this!” Stilton Piccadilly screamed at Dupont, as the remaining members of the Global Rodent Roundtable swirled around the Mayflower’s deck in a panic, frantically seeking some means of escape. “You and your blasted books! ‘Reading rats will rule the world!’ you said. ‘Reading rats are the rats of the future!’ Rubbish! Forget books—this should have been about claws and jaws from the very start.”

  “Claws and jaws?” Roquefort Dupont glared at his rival. “I’ll show you claws and jaws, you pompous—”

  “You’re not fit to be Big Cheese!” snarled Piccadilly. “I hereby remove you from office!” He lunged at Dupont.

  “This is no time to be arguing!” Mozzarella Canal thrust himself between the two bull rats. “We need to find a way out of this mess!”

  Dupont eyed his rival coldly. “I’ll deal with you later,” he promised.

  “I’ll be waiting,” replied the British rat.

  Dupont stalked over to where Glory and Bunsen sat, tied together with dental floss. “Blame me, will he?” he muttered under his rancid breath. “That no good, conniving, treacherous piece of—”

  Glory couldn’t resist. “Rat scum?”

  Dupont slashed at her with his tail. “Shut your mousetrap!” he screeched. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s you! In fact, if I had any sense at all, I’d
give you the heave-ho right now! You too, paleface!” He grabbed the two mice by the scruffs of their necks and dangled them over the edge of the deck. Bunsen peered down, gulped, and quickly closed his eyes. It was a long, long way down to terra firma.

  Dupont jerked them back and flung them down on deck. “However,” he said with a note of regret, “I did promise Brie and the others that they could have their fun.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” Bunsen said cautiously, as Dupont waddled off. “What did he mean by ‘fun’?”

  Glory shook her head. “You don’t want to know.” The end, when it came, was not going to be pretty. No point telling Bunsen he was going to end up as a rat snack and slippers.

  Together, the two mice watched as their balloon ship sailed down Broadway, soared past Macy’s in Herald Square, and then headed straight for the Empire State Building.

  There was a flurry of activity on the other side of the deck. They looked over to see Dupont and the other rats cobbling together what looked like a long lasso out of bits of broken tether and dental floss.

  “What are they doing?” whispered Glory, as the mob of rodents heaved their creation overboard.

  “I think they’re going to try and anchor us to the Empire State Building,” Bunsen replied. “The tower mast was originally planned as a docking station for dirigibles.”

  “Dirigibles?”

  “Blimps. Zeppelins. You know, like the Hindenburg.”

  Glory nodded, then swayed against Bunsen as the Mayflower, caught in the currents of air that eddied around the famous New York landmark, bumped into its tip.

  “Now, chaps!” roared Stilton Piccadilly, peering over the edge of the deck. “Swing it around quickly!” The G.R.R. members raced to maneuver their makeshift lasso. “That’s it!” he cried.

  The rats gave a great shout of triumph, then hustled to tie down the line. “As soon as she’s stable, we’ll ditch this tub,” Dupont said.

  Glory nudged Bunsen. “Look!” she whispered. In the distance, a small flock of pigeons was approaching. They were still a few blocks away but they were gaining ground quickly. B-Nut and the Acorns were closing in on them. There was still hope for rescue!

  Glory wriggled her paws frantically behind her back in an effort to release her dental-floss bonds. “Come on, Bunsen,” she urged, “we have to be ready for them!”

  She swayed against the lab mouse again as a gust of wind caught the Mayflower’s sails. The balloon ship creaked and groaned, tugging mightily against the slender cord that anchored it to the skyscraper.

  “Grab that rope!” cried Stilton. “Don’t let go!”

  But even the strength of six dozen rats was no match for Mother Nature, and as the Mayflower was struck by another gusty blast, the lasso gave way. The rats screamed in frustration, and Bunsen and Glory fell silent as their only hope of rescue was quickly left behind.

  The balloon ship sailed on over the triangular Flatiron Building, Greenwich Village and Soho, and the sad place where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had once crowned New York’s skyline. It soared through the skyscraper canyons of lower Manhattan and on toward where the East River and the Hudson flowed into the harbor. In the distance, the Statue of Liberty lifted her torch in eternal salute.

  As they passed over the dock where the Staten Island Ferry was berthed, another gust of wind shot the Mayflower out into the harbor in the direction of the sea. Glory turned to Bunsen. “I want to thank you for trying to rescue me,” she said. “It was very brave of you. I’m just sorry it turned out this way.”

  Bunsen ducked his head modestly. “It was nothing.”

  “I should have known Hotspur would try and dump me like so much garbage,” said Glory in disgust. “Double-crossing slimeball.”

  “I thought you liked Hotspur!” Bunsen replied, looking up in surprise. “All those muscles! All that Shakespeare! He’s such a mouse of action, so bold, so dashing, so—”

  “Arrogant?” offered Glory. She shook her head. “No, Bunsen, there’s only one mouse for me.”

  “There is?” A tendril of hope sprang up in the lab mouse’s heart.

  “Mmm-hmm,” said Glory, smiling shyly at him.

  A tide of joy surged through Bunsen. “Really?” he cried. “You mean it?”

  Glory nodded.

  “I feel six inches tall!” Bunsen crowed. With a mighty wriggle, he burst through his dental floss bonds and leaped to his hind paws.

  Gorgonzola loomed into view. “Six inches of breakfast, sì!” he growled.

  With him was Muenster Alexanderplatz. The German rat licked his lips. Gorgonzola’s stomach growled. As the two hungry rats advanced, Glory and Bunsen shrank back, but there was nowhere to go. The two mice teetered on the deck’s edge, cornered.

  Dupont and Brie closed in behind the two mousivores. “Going someplace, short-tails?” sneered Dupont.

  Bunsen pulled Glory up beside him. “Do you trust me?” he whispered.

  “Huh?” said Glory, unable to tear her eyes off the rats, especially Brie. The Parisian she-rat was channeling Coco Chanel again, mentally sizing them up for some horrible rat garment.

  “Do you trust me?” the lab mouse repeated urgently.

  Glory looked at him. “With all my heart.”

  Bunsen reached up, plucked something from his backpack, and buckled it around his waist. Then he clasped Glory tightly to him and dove off the side of the balloon.

  “Hey!” screeched an astounded Dupont.

  “Zut alors—my slippers!” cried Brie.

  Gorgonzola and Muenster rushed forward, and as she and Bunsen dropped toward the sea like a pair of stones, Glory caught sight of their snouts jutting over the edge of the deck, snarling in frustrated hunger.

  “Bunsen! What are you doing!” screamed Glory, her eyes wide with terror.

  “Don’t look down!” Bunsen reached a paw over his shoulder and pressed something on the gizmo he’d strapped to himself. There was a loud hisssssss—and suddenly their flight was arrested. The two mice hung suspended in midair for a moment, long enough for Bunsen to pass a strap around Glory and fasten her securely to his utility belt. Then he pressed another button and they shot straight back up toward the Mayflower.

  “EEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!” cried Glory as they skyrocketed past the ship. “What the heck is this thing?”

  “My latest invention,” Bunsen told her. “An experimental jet pack. I haven’t worked all the bugs out yet.”

  Glory craned her neck to peer over the lab mouse’s shoulder. Bunsen was wearing what looked like a kazoo. Twin nozzles from trial-size cans of hair spray (foraged from a beauty salon Dumpster) stuck out of the bottom like dual tailpipes. “Bunsen,” she said, “you never cease to amaze me.”

  Her colleague grinned. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he replied. “I mean, besides what you said earlier. You know, about me being the only mouse for you and all.”

  Bunsen maneuvered the kazoo-rocket over the ship until the two of them were just a few feet above the rats. Glory waggled her paw at Dupont. The Sewer Lord stared up at the two of them, livid with rage.

  “You haven’t seen the last of me!” he cried, thrashing his tail. “I’ll make mousemeat of you yet!”

  “Mousemeat?” Bunsen replied. “Look around you, Dupont! In a few hours, when that balloon starts to deflate, you’ll be nothing but shark meat.”

  The delegates of the Global Rodent Roundtable stirred uneasily.

  “Even if it doesn’t, it’s a long, cold ride to wherever you’re going,” added Glory.

  “A long ride! What are we going to eat?” one of the rats wailed.

  Gorgonzola pointed to Fumble. “Antipasto,” he growled. Six dozen pairs of red rat eyes swiveled toward the stout gray mouse. Fumble quailed.

  “What was that about Minister of Mouse Affairs?” cried Glory. “Minister of In-Flight Meals is more like it!”

  And with that, Bunsen aimed them toward shore. The two
mice flew off, leaving the ship full of hungry rats—and one turntail of a mouse—far behind.

  They flew onward in companionable silence, the only sound the gentle hiss from the kazoo’s hair spray-powered engine. Soon, the Mayflower was a distant speck on the horizon. As the skyline of Manhattan grew closer, Glory felt herself finally relax.

  All of a sudden the kazoo started to splutter.

  “Uh-oh,” said Bunsen.

  Glory stiffened in alarm. “What?”

  “Um, we might be out of fuel. I’ve only tested this short-distance.”

  As the kazoo-rocket sputtered, coughed, and finally died, Glory looked down at the water below them. “Good thing I can swim,” she said bravely.

  “One more trick in my bag,” said Bunsen, tugging on his backpack yet again. A small parachute (made from a foraged dinner napkin) blossomed above them, slowing their rapid descent. “At least it will be a soft landing.”

  “I’m sorry I got you into this!” said Glory. “Me and my stupid pride!”

  “I can think of worse things than spending my last moments with the mouse that I, uh—the mouse that I, uh—” Bunsen hesitated. He drew a deep breath. What was he waiting for? It was now or never. “The mouse that I love,” he finished firmly.

  “Oh Bunsen, I love you too!” cried Glory, her bright little eyes brimming with tears. “I’m just so sorry that it has to end this way!”

  A large shadow swept over them, and the two mice looked up to see a seagull hovering a few feet above their parachute. A familiar face poked over the edge of its wings.

  “Care for a lift?” said Squeak.

  At her side was Bubble. He saluted briskly. “Would hardly be proper to leave you hanging like this,” he added, as the seagull swooped beneath Glory and Bunsen and caught them on its broad back.

  “Thanks,” said Glory.

  “We owe you one, remember?” said Squeak. “You saved our tails at Grand Central Station. Bubble and I thought it only fair to return the favor.”

  “How did you talk him into it?” asked Bunsen, waving his paw at the seagull. Unlike pigeons, seagulls were notoriously unpredictable. Previous attempts to train them for spy-mice missions had not been successful.