Emmy and the Rats in the Belfry (21 page)

“Maybe you tie your Christmas packages a bit loose, sir.” The tall policeman was elaborately polite. “Now, Miss Squipp, if you're ready, we'll accompany you and the young miss to the Children's Home. And we'll be wanting to talk with her there.”

“Can they come with me?” Ana asked, holding out her hands to the aunts.

“Er …” said the officer.

“I really,
really
want them to come,” said Ana. “Please, Squippy?”

Squippy leaned over to the officer and whispered behind her hand. “The poor child was so traumatized, she bonded with the first mother figures she met after her ordeal.”

“But there's not enough room in the squad car,” said the policeman.

“My nephew will drive us to the Children's Home; won't you, Jimmy?” Aunt Melly looked over at Emmy's father.

“You'll want to drive carefully, sir,” said the tall officer.

“A little more carefully than you tie knots,” said the second.

“And we'd better take the little girl in our car,” said the first. “Just to make sure she actually gets there.”

Emmy's father, very red in the face, walked toward his car. “I
know
I tied him!” he insisted to his wife. “I trussed that man like a Thanksgiving turkey!”

Emmy watched as her father's shoulders slumped. She knew how terrible he felt. It was awful to have people think you had done something wrong when you hadn't.

Joe shifted uncomfortably. “I wish we could tell them what really happened.”

“I know. But the police would never believe it, anyway.” Emmy peered under the station bench. “Are you rodents coming with us, or what?”

Ratmom climbed into Emmy's waiting hands. She had stopped crying at long last, but she was still a little damp. “Come on, Rasty!”

Raston, sweaty and harassed, looked up wearily. “I can't,” he said. “As soon as I stop bouncing, she—”

“
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
” screamed baby Sissy. “Orsie orsie orsie orsie—”

“I don't know what to do!” cried Raston. “I haven't even passed the Rodent City Babysitting Course yet! I'm too
young
to be this dependable!”

“Poor Ratty,” said Joe. “I know how you feel.” He reached down and scooped up the baby rat. Sissy, startled into silence, gazed up at his face.

“This is the way the horsey goes, walk, walk, walk,” Joe began, bouncing his finger up and down.

Baby Sissy hiccuped, gripped his finger with her forepaws, and looked up adoringly. “Mo!”

 

“Come on, everyone,” called Kathy Addison from the lot. “There's plenty of room in the van. We'll drop you off, Joe.”

“Did you get some new pets, Emmy?” Jim Addison frowned as he held the door open. “Don't you have a cage for them?”

“Um … the cage broke,” said Emmy. She thought with satisfaction of
how
it had broken. Her shoulder was still sore where it had pressed up and into the wire mesh of the cage, but she didn't mind at all. She had saved her aunts, and she had saved her friends. And Cheswick Vole and Jane Barmy were locked up for good.

Mr. Addison got behind the wheel and started the engine. “Emmy, if you're going to have pets, you've got to be more responsible for them.”

Meaningful looks were exchanged behind his back.

“James Addison,” said Aunt Melly in her clear, firm teacher's voice, “your daughter is the most responsible child I have ever known. Far more than you were at her age, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Gussie, laughing, “you were a rascal, Jimmy.”

Emmy's father chuckled, and the back of his neck turned pink. “I don't remember it that way. But I guess there's no way to prove what I was
really
like when I was ten.”

Emmy and Joe glanced at each other and tried not to laugh.

“You'd be surprised,” said Emmy.

Special thanks go, in Schenectady, to Bill Buell, historian; David Kennison, warden of St. George's Episcopal Church; and most of all, historian Laurie Wilson, who opened up her home and her heart, lent me her canoe, fed me scones, and filled me to the brim with useful information.

And in Minnesota, to Roy Heinrich of Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church in Plymouth and Jerry Mayers of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Freeport, for generously giving me belfry tours.

Lastly, thanks as always to my husband and first reader, Bill, who told me everything I ever wanted to know about gel-based polymers; my editor, Reka Simonsen, who keeps asking for revisions until it's
right;
and my agent, Stephen Barbara, whose support is rocklike in its constancy. I owe them all more than I can say.