Felix and the Red Rats (3 page)

‘What do you think he meant?’ I asked.

‘Meant?’

‘When he said the red rats were a signal, not a symptom?’

Mum smiled. ‘Goodness knows,’ she said. ‘I gave up trying to understand Uncle Felix years ago. It’s too late to start trying again now.’

‘He’s a bit of a red rat, himself, old Felix, if you ask me,’ said Dad.

I grinned. I had a sudden picture of a big red rat with a floppy moustache and a floppy bow tie.

There was only one way to discover what he meant, and that was to ask him myself. So I went out the back to see if I could find him. We have quite a big section on a hillside. Mum has a terraced garden, and below it there’s a small level lawn which ends in a scraggly hedge. Uncle
Felix was sitting on the garden bench to one side of the lawn. His legs were stretched out before him and he had a short-brimmed hat tipped over the front of his head. The hat half-covered his face so that as I approached I couldn’t work out whether or not his eyes were closed. Not wanting to disturb him in case he was asleep, I made as little noise as possible, sitting down carefully so as not to rock the seat.

He must have been awake after all, for no sooner had I sat down than he turned to me, tilting his hat above his eyes with a long finger.

‘David? Come to join me?’

I nodded.

‘This is a pleasant garden. I like gardens.’

‘Me, too.’

We sat in companionable silence for a while as I tried to work out a way to ask him what he’d meant when he’d said the red rats were a signal not a symptom.

Finally, I managed to say, ‘You know Gray’s rats?’

Uncle Felix looked at me cautiously. ‘Not personally, no.’

I grinned. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Go on …’

‘You seemed pretty sure that they don’t have anything contagious.’

‘I’m quite certain they don’t.’

I thought he was hedging. He’d said exactly what
I’d
said in different words.

I persisted: ‘You said the red colour wasn’t a symptom of anything.’

‘Did I?’

‘You said it was a
signal
.’

‘Did I?’

‘You know you did.’

Uncle Felix didn’t reply and I couldn’t work out why. I remembered Dad’s saying Uncle Felix was a bit of a red rat himself. He was a little strange, sure, but if you live in a fantasy world and write fantasy books you have to be, I suppose. Axillaris was certainly a weird place. Red rats would be almost normal there. But a signal, what could that be all about? Red was the colour often used as a signal. Stop. Danger. That sort of thing.

I don’t quite know why, but just then something prompted me to have a stab in the dark.

‘Uncle Felix,’ I said, ‘when you said it was a signal, was it something to do with Axillaris?’

Uncle Felix looked startled. He glanced at me with sudden interest.

Then he said soberly, ‘What a strange thing to ask.’

‘Is it, then?’

There was quite a long pause. ‘More than that, dear boy,’ he said quietly. ‘I suspect it has everything to do with Axillaris.’

I stared at him with astonishment.

Uncle Felix, though, was now looking away over the garden. Then he turned again and noticed my expression. He gave me a sort of
whoops
look, then coughed, rose, and murmured, ‘I’d better be off, I suppose. Things to prepare, you know …’

And, just like that, he returned to the house, leaving me alone on the bench.

Later that evening, after I’d settled into my makeshift bed on the floor of my bedroom, I reached for
Into Axillaris
. Not far away, on my bedside table, the two red rats, Simon and Garfunkel, scrabbled here and there on the newspaper in the bottom of their cage. There was no sign of Gray. He’d gone out earlier with his mates. I imagined I’d be well asleep before he came back home. I hoped so anyway.

A symptom? Or a signal?

I wondered, as I searched for my place in the book, whether the reason why Gray’s rats were red might just be found somewhere in the story.

‘Who’s there?’ the reedy little voice repeated.

Bella gripped Felix’s arm.

‘Say something,’ she whispered.

‘Why me?’

‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ muttered Bella.

For all that, she stayed silent herself. They both did. They strained to listen for any noise in a darkness which seemed to amplify sound as powerfully as it blotted out the light.

And then, without warning, there
was
light. There was the scrape of a match, a wick was lit, and a lantern held aloft. A yellow light swung back and forth surrounded by prancing shadows, and there before
them stood a small figure, apparently male, and looking not unlike a very skinny garden gnome. He lifted the light even higher in order to illuminate Bella and Felix and seemed oddly disappointed by what he could see.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Humans.’

‘Oh …’ said Bella.

‘Oh, my …’ whispered Felix.

‘Why are
you
here?’ demanded the little figure. ‘We’re not fond of humans, you know. More trouble than they’re worth. Well?’

‘We were just running away,’ explained Bella.

‘From the Heberson gang,’ added Felix.

‘The Heberson gang?’

‘Just some kids,’ said Bella.

‘They’d pinched Bella’s diary, and we’d pinched it back,’ said Felix. ‘Show him, Bella.’

Obediently Bella held up her diary.

To her surprise, and then dismay, the creature snatched the diary from her, sniffed at it, and then flung it away in disgust.

‘Ugh!’ he exclaimed. ‘Secrets!’

‘Hey, you can’t do that! That’s mine!’ cried Bella.

She made a move to retrieve the diary, but Felix held her arm. ‘Don’t annoy him,’ he whispered, ‘he’s grumpy enough already. We’ll get it later.’

‘Gang, you say?’ said the little figure. ‘Did you say gang? Does that mean there’ll be a whole troop of you here in a minute?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Bella, still a little stung.

‘I’m pretty sure they don’t know where we are,’ said Felix.

‘They’ll have no idea we’ve hidden in this shed,’ explained Bella, mindful of the creature’s growing irritation.

‘Shed?’ he said scornfully. ‘Shed? This isn’t a shed!’

‘It isn’t?’ said Felix. ‘It sort of looks like one on the outside. Water works? Something like that?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ snapped the figure. ‘Typical human. Arrogance and ignorance! Don’t you know this is a Way Station adjacent to one of Axillaris’s finest cable-car terminals!’

‘No,’ whispered Bella, cowed and confused.

‘We had no idea,’ said Felix. ‘And we’re sorry for intruding. Really, really sorry. So, if it’s okay with you, we’ll leave straight away.’

‘Actually,’ said Bella, ‘we were trying to find our way out when we bumped into you, so if you could just help us find the door we came in we’ll—’

‘Door you came in?’ echoed the creature. ‘How do I know which door you came in? There are probably dozens!’

‘There are?’ said Bella weakly.

‘Dozens of dozens, probably,’ said the creature. ‘But it’s all academic, because there’s only one way out.’

‘One way out?’ asked Felix.

‘Yes. Anyone with half a brain except a human
would know that,’ said the creature. ‘It’s the cable-car. And, you being a human, I can guarantee you don’t have a ticket, do you?’

Myrtle Heberson stood outside the small concrete shed, pondering.

Not long before, the gang had realised that Bella and Felix had somehow given them the slip.

‘They must have left the road further back,’ Dusty Heberson concluded. ‘They’re not down below or we would’ve seen or heard them.’

‘What’ll we do?’ asked Willy Laws. ‘Give it away?’

He was puffing and tired and rather hoped Dusty would forget the whole pursuit, but Dusty’s pride was stung and he was determined to teach the burglars a lesson.

‘We’ll split up and fan out,’ he said. ‘They can’t be far away. We were pretty close behind them.’

‘What should
I
do?’ asked Myrtle.

‘There’s a shortcut through the pines back there,’ said Dusty, pointing uphill. ‘They could’ve shot through there. You’d better check that out.’

‘Right!’

Now, halfway down the track, Myrtle wondered whether the kids might have slipped into the little building to hide until the hunt died down.

She made her way to the door and when she spotted the padlock Bella had dropped on the ground Myrtle
pondered. She pushed at the door, noting suspiciously that it was neither locked nor bolted. The door gave a little, and Myrtle grinned.

She was not especially brave and she was aware of her size, so did not feel bold enough to burst into the shed by herself. Instead, she eased the door shut once more and then pushed the bolt home.

‘That’s got you,’ she muttered.

Slipping the padlock into her pocket, she scampered back up the zigzag path to the roadside.

‘Dusty!’ she shouted. ‘Moonface!’

‘Isn’t a weigh station a place where trucks get weighed?’ asked Felix.

‘Don’t be silly!’ snapped the creature. He swung the lantern towards them to inspect them more closely. Clearly he did not like what he was looking at. ‘What I’d really like to know is why you’re here at all,’ he muttered to himself.

‘We told you that,’ said Bella. ‘We just—’

Suddenly the little creature’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Have you come to assist the rebellion?’ he demanded. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘Rebellion?’ asked Bella. ‘What rebellion? All we were doing was running away from—’

‘Bull and cock!’ snapped the creature. ‘I don’t buy that story for one second!’

‘It’s true,’ said Felix, ‘whether you buy it or not.’

‘The regent must be informed,’ muttered the creature. ‘This could mean trouble if the rebellion has found some way to recruit outsiders. Big trouble …’ Then once again he addressed Bella and Felix. ‘Come with me!’ he ordered abruptly. ‘You will accompany me to the palace.’

‘Where?’ asked Bella.

‘We can’t go anywhere,’ protested Felix. ‘We have to go home! You have to show us how to get out of here!’

‘Easy,’ snapped the little creature. He marched towards the far wall and pushed a button.

To Felix and Bella’s astonishment, the walls slid aside as smoothly as the glass doors of a department store in a mall. To their greater astonishment, the doors opened, not to the pine forest they had fled through only minutes before, but to bright sunlight shining on a narrow cobbled street that led directly to a large sandstone building fronted by double doors under a sign reading
Cable-car Station
in Gothic script.

Halfway up the path, Myrtle Heberson met Moonface Morgan hurtling down towards her. Unable to avoid a collision, they crashed into each other and tumbled into the pine needles to one side.

Fighting to get her breath back, Myrtle gasped, ‘Where’s Dusty? Where’s Willy?’

‘Miles away,’ said Moonface, picking himself up. ‘Why? What’s up?’

Myrtle would have preferred to have revealed her cleverness to her brother Dusty, rather than to the underling, but she had no option now.

‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got Bella and that Felix kid bailed up in a shed down the track,’ she said proudly. ‘I’ve locked them in! They’re stuck there like rats in a trap.’

If Myrtle had been expecting praise and amazement, she was to be disappointed. Instead, Moonface looked a little sceptical. ‘Oh, yeah?’ he said. ‘You sure of that? How do you know?’

‘There’s this shed down the track a bit,’ explained Myrtle.

‘Yeah?’

‘So it was unlocked.’

‘Yeah?’

‘So I locked it!’

‘So?’

‘So, that’s it!’

‘That’s
it
?’

Myrtle slowly nodded. All at once what she’d done didn’t seem quite so brilliant after all. She guessed what Moonface was going to ask next even as he asked it.

‘And Bella and Felix are in this shed?’

‘I reckon so,’ said Myrtle miserably.

‘You didn’t actually check?’

‘They have to be there!’ said Myrtle.

‘Why?’

‘Because the door was unlocked.’

Moonface stared at her. ‘I reckon it’s lucky for you that Dusty and Willy are miles away. How many bloody unlocked doors do you think there are in this neighbourhood? Just because the door was unlocked doesn’t mean anything, birdbrain!’

‘If you don’t believe me, then come and see for yourself!’

Moonface stared at Myrtle with irritation. He didn’t like the little nuisance much, although she was fun to tease from time to time. The rest of the gang had to put up with her because she was Dusty’s sister, but she was useless really. All the same, she’d dragged him halfway down the path already, and there was an outside chance she might be on to something. Added to this, if Myrtle did prove to be in the right Dusty would have it in for him if he hadn’t checked it out.

‘How far?’ he asked.

‘Not far,’ said Myrtle. ‘Just a few zigzags down the track.’

‘Okay,’ said Moonface, feigning reluctance, ‘but this better not be a wild goose chase.’

Myrtle gave him a grateful grin, although not a very confident one, and set off down the track with Moonface behind her.

‘There it is, Moony.’ Myrtle pointed.

There at the end of a vee in the track and shaded by pine trees was the shed.

Moonface supposed the kids could have hidden in there, although it wouldn’t have been a particularly smart thing to do. He had no idea what the shed was, but it was council land so it was possibly a utility building of some sort. It looked pretty secure with its concrete walls and solid door. He could see that Myrtle had pushed the bolt home, so if Bella and Felix were inside they would be trapped all right. Grudgingly, Moonface admitted to himself that he would probably have done the same as Myrtle.

‘What do you reckon?’ asked Myrtle.

Moonface shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he whispered. He put his ear to the door and listened. Silence. Not even the hum of machinery. He turned to Myrtle. ‘I can’t hear anything, but we ought to check. And if they
are
in there, forget Felix. All Dusty wants is the girl’s diary, okay?’

‘Right!’ whispered Myrtle.

‘Okay? Ready,’ said Moonface and he quietly eased the bolt back from its hole.

‘But where’s the forest?’ asked Bella, blinking in the sunlight.

‘The pine trees?’ added Felix.

‘Follow me,’ said their captor.

Bella and Felix exchanged worried glances. ‘I don’t understand this,’ whispered Felix. ‘Are we dreaming?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Bella wonderingly

They looked about them. Beyond the cobbled pathway leading to the Cable-car Station there were scrubby slopes plunging downhill. Below the slopes, only mist or cloud could be seen. It appeared as though they had stepped out on to the top of a very high hill or mountain.

‘What’ll we do?’

Before Bella could reply, the little figure had turned and beckoned crossly at them. ‘You were told to follow me!’ he ordered.

Bella did not move. ‘I don’t care
what we were told
!’ she said angrily. ‘You’ve no right to order us to do
anything
! And if I were you, I’d try to behave a little more pleasantly!’

Felix looked at her with admiration. Bella had voiced what he’d been thinking but had not quite been brave enough to say. He looked at the little figure who had been ordering them about. In the daylight, it seemed ridiculous that they had even considered doing as he’d said like obedient little spaniels. For a start he was very small, even smaller than Myrtle Heberson. And he was slight. Felix could have pushed him aside with his little finger.

He wasn’t a kid, though; he had a straggly beard, and his long hair, which fell down over the collar of his brown leather shirt, was noticeably greying. With his yellow tunic and leggings he would have looked almost medieval were it not for his large sunglasses. These,
coupled with the brown and yellow of his clothing gave him the appearance of a rather bad-tempered wasp.

Like a wasp, too, he had a sting. His particular sting was the long-bladed dagger which he now withdrew slowly and deliberately from his tunic and waved in the air. The blade glittered in the sunshine.

‘This little fellow gives me the right, don’t you think?’ he said.

Bella, startled by the venomous-looking weapon, swallowed, and whispered, ‘Perhaps it does …’

Satisfied by her reaction, the creature grinned unpleasantly. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now, once again: follow me!’

Carefully, Moonface Morgan pulled at the door. When it was fully opened, he peered in rather than entering. There looked to be a pile of machinery of some sort, perhaps an ancient pump, taking up much of the room, but of their quarry there was no sign.

‘What’d I tell you?’ he demanded, turning back to Myrtle. ‘A wild goose chase.’

‘You reckon?’ said Myrtle.

‘I do,’ said Moonface.

‘Well,’ said Myrtle a little smugly, ‘in that case, what do you
reckon
that is?’

Moonface stared. Myrtle was pointing into the gloomy interior. On the floor by the far wall, there looked to be a book.