For Your Paws Only (18 page)

“Flour,” he reported into his headset. “Someone dumped flour on them.”

“Gotta be the sharks!” cried Lip.

“Right,” B-Nut replied. “Acorns, we've got five minutes. I say it's time for a little payback, spy mice-style.”

“Rock on, dude!” cried Nutmeg.

“Hold your positions!” ordered Hotspur angrily,
but the rocker mice and their surveillance-pilot leader ignored him. Instead, they urged their pigeons forward toward Jordan and Tank.

“Target in range,” squawked Hank.

“Ready?” called B-Nut.

“Ready!” replied the Acorns.

“Aim!”

The pigeons circled low.

“Fire!”

The pigeons dropped their loads.

“EEEEEEWWWWWW!” cried the boys, as a shower of pigeon poo splattered down on them from the sky above.

Jordan swiped at his face frantically. “This is disgusting!” he hollered.

“MOMMY!” wailed Tank.

“Right tool for the right job,” said B-Nut in satisfaction. “Julius would be proud, boys. Let's go in for another pass!”

Hank and the other pigeons circled again and repeated the maneuver. In a short time, Jordan and Tank were nearly as covered in white as D. B. and Oz.

Still rocking and rolling to the beat of “Born to Shake My Tail,” the crowd slowly began to notice what was going on. A roar of laughter went up, and once again thousands of cameras winked and flashed. Then the TV cameras zoomed in. To Jordan and Tank's horror, their stricken, pigeon poo-covered faces suddenly appeared
on Times Square's giant TV screen and billboards, from there to be transmitted via satellite to television sets around the world.

“I do not believe I am seeing this,” said Amelia Bean to Lavinia Levinson.

“And you thought Halloween was bad!” crowed D. B. “Go Acorns!”

Oz was laughing so hard he fell helplessly to the ground. “What goes around, comes around,” he wheezed, clutching the sides of his flour-coated pilgrim-boy suit.

With the crowd distracted by the music and the shark sideshow, Hotspur, Bubble, and Squeak split up, each heading for one of the sturdy rope tethers that anchored the balloon ship to the float. Moving with clockwork precision, they pulled out their lapel knives and stood poised at the ready.

“NOW!” cried Hotspur, as Bunsen scampered up the fourth tether toward the ship's deck.

Bubble and Squeak exchanged a worried glance. “But you said five minutes!” Squeak protested.

“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.

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.