The Black Paw Read online

  Glory heard the click of Dupont's claws as he retreated, then silence. The seconds ticked by. Finally, she lifted her head and slowly, quietly inched towards the closest airhole. She peered out into the dim chamber.

  ‘No sign of them,’ she whispered into her microphone. ‘I think they're gone.’

  ‘Be absolutely certain before you open that lid,’ ordered Oz, feeling more like James Bond by the moment.

  ‘Roger,’ Glory replied, and crouched motionless for another excruciatingly long minute. Then, moving with painstaking care, she quietly unscrewed the lid to the can, pushed it aside a tiny crack and peeped out. The lair was indeed empty; the only sign of rats was a lingering, unmistakable odour. Glory wrinkled her nose in distaste. It smelled like dirty gym socks and mouldy cheese.

  She set the can lid carefully aside and climbed out on to the pizza box lid. ‘Agent in place,’ she whispered. ‘I'm going to get my father.’

  Her earpiece crackled slightly, and then she heard Bunsen's voice. ‘Do be careful, Glory!’

  ‘Don't worry, Bunsen. I'll be back in two shakes of a rat's tail. But just for the record, if anything happens to me, find B-Nut. He'll know what to do.’

  With that, Glory crept cautiously off towards the dark corner where she had seen the cage containing her father. She skirted a banana peel, skipped over a crust of peanut butter sandwich and held her nose as she passed an open tuna can whose contents were covered with a thick layer of green fuzz.

  Not wanting to startle her father, she tiptoed up to the cage. It was crudely fashioned from coat hangers and duct tape, and in the far corner sat Dumbarton Goldenleaf, his head slumped on his chest. His paws were manacled together behind his back and his fur was dull and matted. He looked awful. Glory gazed at the stump of his once-proud tail and a little sob escaped her.

  ‘Pop!’ she called softly. ‘Pop, wake up! It's me, Glory!’

  There was no response. Was she too late? Fighting a rising panic, Glory called again to him, louder this time. ‘Pop! It's me, Glory!’

  Dumbarton Goldenleaf's head tilted to the side, and one eye opened a crack. ‘Glory?’ he said groggily. ‘My Glory?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Glory in relief. ‘It's me, Pop! I've come to take you home.’

  With an effort, the general roused himself and swayed to his feet. ‘Dupont's not gone far,’ he warned. ‘Careful.’

  Glory nodded. ‘Hold on, Pop, I'll have you out in a whisker.’ She began to gnaw quietly at the duct tape that held the cage door shut. When she was through, she pulled open the door and hopped inside. ‘Let's get these handcuffs off you,’ she said, gently but swiftly untwisting the wire that held her father's paws pinned to the rungs of the cage. ‘There.’ Glory hugged her father, who hugged her back feebly. He was so frail!

  ‘My brave Glory,’ he whispered.

  She looked up at him. Her smile faltered. ‘Your ears!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What about my ears?’ asked her father.

  ‘You still have them! Dupont told me he'd nailed them to, to – you know.’

  ‘His trophy wall?’ Dumbarton Goldenleaf nodded grimly. ‘Oh, he was planning to, make no mistake. Almost did on several occasions. But Dupont enjoys stringing his victims along nearly as much as he does striking the final blow. Terror is the name of his game, Glory, fear and terror. There's only one weapon for dealing with those cowardly tactics, and that's courage. Don't you forget it.’

  ‘Let's get you out of here,’ said Glory, tugging on her father's paw.

  Her father shook his head. ‘Dupont is up to something,’ he said. ‘I overheard him plotting. He and Scurvy headed down to the sewer just now for some kind of a rally. We need to find out their plans.’

  As Dumbarton Goldenleaf stumbled through the cage door, Glory put her paw around his waist to keep him from toppling over. Her father was weak and could barely walk. ‘The only thing we have to do is get you out of here,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Glory, we must. Lives could depend on it.’

  She sighed. Goldenleafs and their sense of duty. It would be the end of them all one day. She, of all mice, however, understood. ‘Right, Pop. Let's go.’

  Leaning on his daughter for support, Dumbarton Goldenleaf limped down the dark corridor that led off from the south side of Dupont's lair. It sloped steadily downward as it neared the sewer, the walls turning from dank to downright slimy. The smell was, if possible, even worse than Dupont's rubbish-strewn lair. A fetid odour wafted in from the distance to join the old-gym-socks-and-mouldy-cheese scent of rat, and it was all Glory could do not to gag. What she wouldn't give to be back in her own home right now, the only smell that of the special apple pancakes her mother always made for Saturday night supper!

  ‘I can hear them,’ she whispered. Her father nodded. Sure enough, in the distance a slow chanting could be heard, as a throng of rat voices joined in hailing Roquefort Dupont.

  Glory and her father slowed their pace as they neared the entrance to the sewer. Dumbarton Goldenleaf finally stopped. He leaned back against the wall, exhausted. ‘You'll have to take it from here,’ he whispered. ‘I can't go another step.’

  Glory's father patted her weakly on the shoulder, and she crept forward to the entrance. Flattening herself into the shadows, she poked her head around the corner and peered into the gloom.

  Thousands of red rat eyes gleamed back at her from the darkness. Row after row of them, as far into the distance as Glory could see. Rats clung to the wet walls; rats crouched in the shadows; rats floated in the shallows at the edge of the vast sewer. An immense army of rats, and all of their blazing red eyes fixed on her. Or so it seemed to Glory, whose bright little eyes widened in alarm for a split second – until she realized that they were not staring at her, but rather at their leader. For there on a ledge to her left, almost close enough to reach out and touch with her paw, stood Roquefort Dupont.

  ‘Rats! Are you ready?’ Dupont cried.

  ‘Yes!’ squeaked a thousand rat voices in reply, nearly deafening Glory. She clapped her paws over her ears.

  ‘Have we had enough?’

  ‘Yes!’ came the thunderous reply.

  ‘Are we ready to show those small-paws once and for all who owns this city?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Dupont was whipping the ranks into a frenzy. Julius was right, thought Glory in despair. The rats were up to something.

  ‘In less than twenty-four hours, we move out,’ screeched Dupont, his raspy voice echoing weirdly off the sewer walls. ‘In less than twenty-four hours, we launch Operation P.E.S.T. Control!’

  The assembled rats gave a mighty cheer. ‘Put an End to Short-Tails!’ they began to chant.

  ‘Everyone who is anyone in this city will be at the Spy Museum tomorrow night,’ continued Dupont. ‘The movers and shakers of human and mouse society alike – senators and Council members, Supreme Court judges and the short-tails' own Judicial Guild, stars of stage and screen, the high-muckety-mucks of the Mouse Guard and every spy in the Spy Mice Agency's ranks!’

  The rats cheered again.

  ‘Your orders are clear,’ continued Dupont. ‘Swarm and surround!’

  ‘Swarm and surround!’ screamed his army in reply.

  ‘The minute the humans spot us, they'll call in all the Exterminators in the city.’

  ‘Yes!’ cried the rats in excitement, and started to chant, ‘Exterminate! Exterminate! Put an End to Short-Tails!’

  ‘That's right!’ shrieked Dupont. ‘When the trucks arrive, that's our signal to disappear. The mice will be trapped inside. They won't stand a chance. And with their leaders taken out, all that lovely technology and all those lovely weapons will be ours! And with them, the entire city!’

  ‘YES!’ screamed the rats again. ‘EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!’

  Their chanting rose to a deafening pitch. Glory withdrew back around the corner. Her head was throbbing.

  ‘Pop, did you hear that?’ she gasped. ‘Did you hear what they're planning to do?’


  Her father nodded weakly. ‘We must warn Julius and mobilize the Mouse Guard.’

  Glory put a paw around his waist and the two of them hobbled back up the tunnel towards Dupont's lair. Behind them, rat voices were drawing closer. The rally was over.

  ‘Hurry, Pop!’ urged Glory. But her father’s strength was drained by his months in captivity, and Glory had to practically carry him the last few steps to the can.

  ‘Oz!’ she said. ‘Are you there, Oz?’

  ‘Affirmative,' came the reply.

  ‘On my signal.’ Glory pushed her father inside, then crawled in after him just as Dupont entered the lair. Scurvy was right on his tail.

  ‘That went well,’ boasted Dupont. ‘I give a good speech, if I say so myself.’

  ‘Yes, Boss,’ his aide hurriedly agreed.

  Glory quietly picked up the can lid and, moving with infinite care so as not to attract attention, began to screw it in place.

  ‘Now maybe I can finally get something to eat,’ Dupont grumbled. Glory heard the sound of litter being kicked aside. ‘By the Black Paw, there's not so much as a single French fry around here. Louie! Lulu! Where are those worthless rats?’

  Dupont drew closer on his hunt for food, and Glory froze. She motioned to her father to be silent. He nodded.

  ‘Guess I might as well have something to quench my thirst while I'm waiting,’ Dupont announced, and lumbered over towards the can. It rolled back and forth as the enormous rodent nudged it with his snout. ‘Empty!’ he said in disgust.

  Glory peered through one of the airholes as Dupont started to move away. All of a sudden he paused, lifted his nose into the air and sniffed. ‘What is that smell?’ he demanded.

  Scurvy lifted his nose into the air and sniffed as well. ‘I don't smell anything, Boss,’ he said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Scurvy nodded vigorously, which set his droopy whiskers flapping. ‘Positive.’

  Dupont's beady red eyes fixed on the can. They narrowed in suspicion, and Glory drew back quickly away from the airhole. ‘Scurvy, check the prisoner!’ commanded Dupont.

  Scurvy scuttled off into the shadows as the Sewer Lord padded slowly towards Glory and her father. The two of them crouched inside their hiding place, scarcely daring to breathe. Glory's father squeezed her paw. ‘Courage,’ he whispered. Glory nodded, but her heart was pounding wildly.

  Scurvy scuttled back into the lair. ‘The prisoner's gone!’ he cried.

  ‘But not so very far, it would seem,’ said Dupont. With a malevolent smile, he leaned towards the can and pressed his ugly snout up against an airhole. He inhaled deeply. Inside, Glory clutched her father's paw.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Roquefort Dupont. ‘What have we here? While the rat's away, how the mice do play. Thought you could escape the Black Paw, General Goldenleaf? Think again.’

  ‘NOW!’ Glory shouted.

  Oz jerked his head up in alarm as her cry blasted through his headphones.

  ‘Reel her in!’ he cried to DB. ‘Hurry! Something's wrong!’

  DB started reeling frantically. Oz could feel Bunsen's paws digging into his skin through the fabric of his shirt. ‘Is she all right?’ the lab mouse asked anxiously.

  ‘Shhh, I'm trying to find out,’ said Oz, pressing the headphones to his ears and closing his eyes in concentration. At first, he couldn't hear anything above the clattering of the can as it ricocheted back and forth along the tunnel, tugged upward by the fishing line. Then, in the background, he began to make out Dupont's voice.

  ‘After them, you idiot!’ he heard the rat shout in a rage. ‘Faster, they're getting away!’

  ‘Dupont and Scurvy are chasing them,’ he reported tersely.

  ‘Oh, do pull faster, DB!’ Bunsen urged.

  DB's hand was practically a blur, her face set in lines of fierce determination as she worked to reel the can containing their friend and her father to safety.

  ‘Hold on, Glory!’ Oz shouted into the microphone. He gasped as another sharp cry from his tiny friend blasted through his headphones. All of a sudden, the fishing rod snapped up towards the ceiling and DB toppled backwards off the bench. ‘Ouch!’ she cried, landing hard on the concrete floor.

  Oz rushed to help her up. ‘What happened?’

  DB shook her head. ‘I don't know. One minute I could feel the weight of the can, and the next minute – nothing.’

  ‘Glory? Glory!’ Oz shouted into the microphone. There was no response.

  ‘Is she there?’ cried Bunsen. ‘Check the line and see. Maybe DB is mistaken. She must be mistaken!’

  Oz took the fishing rod from DB and reeled in the last few feet of line. There was no can attached to the end of it.

  He stared down at it, then at Bunsen and DB. The three of them looked at each other in horror.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked DB.

  Roquefort Dupont held up the piece of severed fishing line. His ugly rat mouth curved into a malicious grin.

  ‘Nice going, Scurvy,’ he said. ‘You may not be a bucket of brains, but you're fast and you have sharp teeth. Sometimes that's all a rat needs to get the job done.’

  ‘Gee, thanks, Boss,’ said Scurvy, stunned by the compliment.

  Dupont turned to Glory and her father, who stood before him, their paws manacled together.

  ‘Two for the price of one!’ exulted the rat leader. ‘This is better than I could have hoped for.’ He cocked his large grey head, regarding them with relish. ‘Doesn't this make a pretty picture!’ he crowed. ‘Like father, like daughter. You Goldenleafs thought you'd given me the slip, didn't you?’

  Neither mouse said a word. Dupont swaggered closer.

  ‘I said, you thought you'd given me the slip!’ He thrust his snout first into Glory's face, and then into her father's. ‘Me, Roquefort Dupont, ruler of thousands! Me, Roquefort Dupont, Lord of the Sewers and supreme leader of the rat realm! Me, Roquefort Dupont, descendant of kings!’ He strutted across the gloomy chamber, gloating.

  ‘You've descended all right,’ Glory said scornfully. She surveyed the smelly, rubbish-strewn hole that served as Dupont's headquarters with disdain. ‘It doesn't get much lower than this.’

  ‘Insolence!’ screamed Dupont, launching himself towards her. ‘I'll have your ears for that!’

  Behind him, Scurvy quailed, but Glory held her ground. Dupont stopped just inches from where she stood.

  ‘Look down your nose at me, will you?’ Dupont snarled, his face so close to hers that Glory could smell the anchovy on his breath. ‘It's high time someone showed you just how insignificant you are.’

  Glory's temper surged. She leaned towards Dupont until her elegant little nose was pressed right up against his hideous snout. ‘I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, your Royal Thugness,’ she said. ‘But you need a breath mint.’

  Scurvy's eyes popped at this. No one talked to the boss like that and lived to tell the tale!

  Dupont drew back. His tail thrashed. His red eyes narrowed. He reached out with one paw and hooked a single sharp claw beneath Glory's chin. She held his gaze unflinchingly.

  ‘I loathe everything about mice,’ he said softly. ‘The way you look, the way you smell, the way you think you're so superior, what with your books and your libraries and your ridiculous guilds. You'd almost think you were trying to be human!’ Dupont's voice grew louder as he warmed to his theme. ‘You mice give rodents a bad name. You don't deserve to have tails! And maybe that's a good thing, because I'm only too happy to relieve you of them.’ A menacing smile crept across the large rat's face. ‘As I always say, the only good mouse is a dead mouse. You and your kind have exploited us rats for centuries, shoving us away in the darkest corners and keeping us from our rightful place above ground. We should be the ones in charge, not you! Well, all that is about to change. The reign of mice is over in this city as of tomorrow night! That's right, tomorrow night! All thanks to me, Roquefort Dupont!’

  There was a hint of madness in
the rat's eyes, which gleamed red as twin flames in the gloom. He smirked at Glory. ‘Tomorrow night, you mice are history,’ he continued. ‘But for you and your father, it ends right here and now.’ Dupont placed his hairy snout next to Glory's elegant little ear. ‘Did you happen to notice my collection?’ he whispered. ‘All it needs is that charming little tail of yours to make it complete. Oh, and your ears as well, of course. Mousemeat, Glory Goldenleaf. You are going to be mousemeat.’

  Glory's bright little eyes flicked ever so briefly over the grey rat's shoulder to the wall of horrors beyond. Her heart was thumping wildly. Fear and terror were Dupont's tactics, her father had said. And what was her weapon against them? Courage. Mustering every ounce of determination in her little body, she held her ground.

  ‘Think you're brave, do you?’ Dupont sneered. ‘They all think they're brave, until they get a taste of my bite.’ He snapped his razor-sharp teeth together and laughed. ‘It's infinitely worse than my bark, I assure you.’

  ‘You're a monster,’ said Glory in a low voice.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Dupont, looking pleased. He cocked a large grey ear in her direction with a dramatic flourish. ‘A monster, you say?’ He puffed out his chest slightly and preened. ‘Why, thank you, Miss Goldenleaf, I take that as quite a compliment.’

  Dupont began to pace again. ‘In fact, now that you mention it, I find I'm suddenly struck with a monstrously good idea!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh, yes, a most fiendishly wonderful idea!’ He cast a shrewd glance at Glory and her father. ‘The two of you have caused me a great deal of trouble, and as a consequence I think you deserve a great deal more pain in return. And so, before I add your, ah, extremities to my collection, I think perhaps I'll wrap you both up and deliver you back to the Spy Museum instead. A most timely present, just in time for the EXTERMINATOR!’

  Dupont's voice rose to a triumphant shriek, and Limburger Lulu and Limburger Louie began skipping around the chamber, chanting, ‘Exterminate! Exterminate! Put an End to Short-Tails!’

  ‘Shut up, you fools!’ snapped Dupont.