For Your Paws Only (3 page)

“You
are
a float, Fatboy,” whispered Tank.

“Sherman, that's enough,” said Mrs. Busby severely.

Amelia Bean looked directly into the camera. “And now,” she said dramatically, “the lucky finalists will choose the names of their two lucky assistants. Who will
it be? Who will accompany them to tomorrow's Bake-Off in New York?”

Hands flew up all over the room. “Me!” “Oooh, pick me!” “I want to go!” cried Oz and D. B.'s classmates, waving wildly at them.

The man in the pilgrim suit swept his tall black hat from his head with a flourish. Mrs. Busby dumped in a pile of slips of paper containing her homeroom students' names. Oz scanned the room. Tyler Chin, he thought. He'd be okay. And maybe Katie O'Keefe. Not friends, exactly; D. B. was his only real friend at school. But not sharks, either. Tyler and Katie were safe. They'd be good assistants.

A hush fell over the classroom. Oz and D. B. each plunged a hand into the pilgrim hat. They each plucked a slip of paper from the pile and held it aloft.

Oz prodded at his glasses with his other hand. He was breathing hard. The old familiar knot of panic had formed in the pit of his stomach.
Please, oh please,
he pleaded silently.

Mrs. Busby took the slips of paper from them. She looked at them. She sighed a deep sigh.

“Well?” asked the man in the pilgrim suit. The entire classroom stared at her expectantly. As the cameras continued to roll, Amelia Bean held out the microphone to catch her every word.

Mrs. Busby forced a smile. “Assisting Delilah Bean and Oz Levinson at this year's Mayflower Flour
Bake-Off, junior division, and accompanying them to New York City will be none other than . . . Jordan Scott and Sherman Wilson.”

Oz closed his eyes. Life as he knew it was over.

Jordan flashed him a malicious grin. “You're mine, Fatboy,” he said. “It's payback time.”

DAY ONE • TUESDAY • 0830 HOURS

The door to the conference
room at Central Command burst open. Dozens of small heads swiveled around as Glory rushed in. Bunsen was right behind her, his helmet askew.

“You're late,” a stout gray mouse announced smugly.

Glory ignored him. Fumble was always trying to get her into trouble.

“We've got news,” she panted, unable to keep a tremor of fear from her voice. “Bad news.”

The conference room buzzed with curiosity at this. Every employee of the Spy Mice Agency was required to attend the Tuesday morning staff meeting, and they had dutifully wedged themselves into a space that normally seated about a dozen. Field agents, foragers, computer gymnasts, surveillance pilots, and lab mice—all were there, some standing, some leaning against the walls, some perched on spools, bottle corks, upended
matchboxes, and other bits of foraged furniture. Her colleagues looked at Glory expectantly.

“Well,” said Julius Folger, distinguished elder states-mouse and director of the Spy Mice Agency, “what is it?”

“Dupont can read.”

The conference room went dead silent. Not a whisker moved. Every ear strained in Glory's direction; every bright little eye stared at her in disbelief. Julius blinked.

“What?” he said.

“Dupont can
read,
” Glory repeated, more urgently this time.

“Read? You mean as in a book?” Her boss was clearly as stunned as his staff.

“Yes, Julius! A book!” Glory reached over and grabbed Bunsen. “We both saw him just now at the Library of Congress. So did Hank and Ollie. Bunsen even took pictures—isn't that right, Bunsen?”

The lab mouse nodded vigorously and held up his key-chain camera.

The Spy Mice Agency director regarded them for what felt to Glory like an eternity. “How the dickens did this happen?” he whispered, as if in a daze. Suddenly, he snapped to attention. “This is a Code Red situation,” he said crisply. “For Your Paws Only.”

The gathered mice began whispering in excitement. Top secret!

“Everyone without Paws Only clearance will leave the room immediately and await further orders,” Julius
continued, pausing to let the conference room clear out. A trio of junior lab mice stood up and trooped out reluctantly. Fresh from their training with Kelvin Fahrenheit, Bunsen's uncle, at his laboratory in Baltimore, they were clearly disappointed to miss out on the classified portion of the meeting.

A whiff of something delicious—pumpkin chocolate-chip bread, perhaps?—wafted in as they opened the door to leave. Central Command was located under the floor directly beneath the International Spy Museum's Spy City Café, and good smells often drifted down through the ventilation shaft. Glory's stomach rumbled. She hadn't eaten breakfast yet.

She watched as two apprentice foragers, a cluster of surveillance-pilot trainees, and half a dozen computer-gymnast interns all trailed out after the lab mice.

“You too, Fumble,” said Julius as the last mouse disappeared through the door.

Fumble, who had clearly been hoping that his boss would overlook him, reddened. He stood up and made his way sulkily through the crowded room. Glory waved cheerfully as he passed her, and Fumble glowered. He shut the door behind him with a resentful bang.

“If you'll take a seat, I'll begin,” said Julius. He waved Glory and Bunsen toward a pincushion sofa, and the two of them managed to squeeze in next to Glory's brothers B-Nut and Chip.

“I don't know which news is worse,” said Julius.
“Glory's, or this.” He held up a sheaf of paper scraps. “The night-shift computer gymnasts just brought in these e-mails. London, Paris, Rome, Berlin—the news is the same from all corners of the globe. Rat kingpins in nearly every major city have been spotted stowing away on flights bound for New York.”

A hush fell over the room as the mice digested this information. Glory and Bunsen exchanged a glance.

“Julius, there's something else you should know,” said Glory.

“Yes?”

“Dupont might be heading to New York, too.”

Julius frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“We heard him read two words,” Glory explained. “ ‘Grand' and ‘central.' ”

“As in the famous train station in New York?”

Bunsen nodded soberly. “I think he was reading a guidebook for Manhattan,” he added. “I'm not a hundred percent positive, but it's probably here on film.” The lab mouse held up his camera again.

“Is that so,” said Julius softly. “We'll need to get that developed right away.” He tapped his paw thoughtfully against the stack of e-mails. “Something big is definitely up,” he continued. “Something very big. This is a veritable rogues' gallery of rodents! Stilton Piccadilly from London! Brie de Sorbonne from Paris! Muenster Alexanderplatz from Berlin!”

“Not Muenster the Monster!” exclaimed one of the
mice, as tails around the room began quivering in terror.

“I'm afraid so,” said Julius, nodding soberly. “And it only gets worse—Gorgonzola himself was spotted creeping into the baggage hold of a plane in Rome last night.”

The conference room fell silent once again. Gorgonzola was a legend, as ruthless as Roquefort Dupont. Perhaps even more so, given the horrible rumors about his favorite food.

Julius stared morosely at the stack of papers in his paw. “There's not a name on this list I'd look forward to tangling with. This is a crisis of enormous proportions. And now with Dupont able to read?” He shook his head. “Word of this must not get out. If the press gets even a whiff of this—especially the
Tattletail
—it could create mass panic.”

Every head in the room nodded in sober agreement, imagining the uproar this news would cause throughout the tidy network of guilds that formed the backbone of their society.

“Above all, we musn't panic,” Julius continued. “What we need most are level heads. Calm, cool, clear thinking—that always wins the day. There is one bright spot,” he added, holding up one of the e-mails. “Sir Edmund Hazelnut-Cadbury reports that MICE-Six managed to smuggle two of their top agents onto the same flight that Piccadilly was seen boarding in London. They're hidden in a shipment of teapots and will rendezvous in New York with an elite team of our field agents.”

The elder mouse scanned the room. His gaze came to rest on Glory. “I'm putting Morning Glory Goldenleaf in charge of that team.”

Glory's elegant little ears pricked up in surprise. “Me?”

Julius nodded. “I'm counting on your recent experience with rats—namely Roquefort Dupont—to provide just the edge we need here.”

“I'd like to take B-Nut and Bunsen with me,” said Glory. “Hank, too, if you can spare him.”

“Very well,” Julius replied. “And I'm recalling my nephew Hotspur from overseas to join you.”

Glory and B-Nut exchanged a glance. Snotspur? She and her brother had gone to spy school with Julius's nephew. Like his uncle, Hotspur Folger was a member of the Library Guild. And not just any library, but Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library, home to one of the city's oldest and most distinguished families. Hotspur had graduated at the top of their class and gone on to earn his Silver Skateboard in record time. A good field agent, yes—but he was not exactly a team player. In fact, he was by all accounts a major pain in the tail. “The mouse who puts the ‘do' in ‘derring-do,' ” he loved to call himself. Ambitious and arrogant, Hotspur craved the spotlight and the high life, fast skateboards and the fast track to the top. And rumor had it that he was not afraid to step on paws to get there. Glory didn't relish the thought of having to work with him, but Julius,
unfortunately, seemed to have a blind spot where his nephew's faults were concerned.

“You'll need a cover story, of course,” added Julius. “And it will have to be a good one. Again, word of this mission must not leak out. It's strictly For Your Paws Only. We don't want to panic the guilds in New York or Washington. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

“I've got the perfect cover,” offered B-Nut. “If you'll give us permission to bring the Steel Acorns along as part of the team, that is.”

Julius frowned at the mention of B-Nut's rock band. “They're untested,” he cautioned. “Greenest field agents we've got—well, besides Mr. Burner, of course.”

Chagrined by this blunt assessment, Bunsen drooped slightly.

Julius paced back and forth, considering. He shook his head regretfully. “I don't know about the Acorns,” he said. “They're wet behind the ears. And they don't have Paws Only clearance.”

“I'd trust them with my life,” said B-Nut.

“Me too,” Glory agreed.

“Hmmm,” said Julius. “Well, it's a bit unorthodox, but I think I see where you're heading with this, B-Nut. Might prove just the right tool for the right job. Let's get a move on, then,” he continued briskly. “Computer gymnasts, find an empty keyboard upstairs and send out a worldwide alert. I want to keep our fellow intelligence agencies fully informed of every development.”

Worried murmurs arose from the computer gymnasts as, round-eyed, they looked at each other. Find a keyboard? In broad daylight? With the museum staff arriving even now? This was truly unprecedented. If Julius was going to risk allowing them to be spotted by humans, he must be in deadly earnest about the magnitude of this crisis.

As they filed out of the conference room, Julius continued barking orders.

“We need intel, and we need it fast,” he said. “Lab mice, get that film of Bunsen's developed on the double. I want it analyzed yesterday. Surveillance pilots, I want you aloft in ten minutes. Not a tail moves in this city but you track it.”

B-Nut and the other pilots saluted smartly and followed the computer gymnasts out of the room. Julius turned to Bunsen. “Mr. Burner, you have my permission to take any equipment with you to New York that you may need. Deep Freeze is at your disposal. Chip, you and the rest of the foragers assist him.”

The two mice nodded and hurried from the room. Glory started to follow, but Julius placed a paw on her shoulder. He waited until they were alone, then said, “Given this turn of events, I think it's time we called in our special agents.”

“Special agents?” Glory looked puzzled.

Julius nodded gravely. “Contact the children,” he ordered. “We're going to need their help.”

DAY ONE • TUESDAY • 0850 HOURS

Roquefort Dupont,
Lord of the Sewers and supreme leader of Washington, D.C.'s rat underworld, squeezed his hapless aide's throat in an iron-clawed grip. “Gnaw, sometimes you just plain disappoint me,” he snarled, thrusting his face so close that their whiskers nearly intertwined.

Gnaw's close-set eyes bulged in terror. His lone ear (the other lost long ago to Dupont's razor-sharp teeth) quivered frantically as he struggled to free himself from his boss's grip. He didn't know which was worse, having his air supply slowly cut off, or being so close to Dupont's mouth. Fueled by a steady supply of garbage, his boss had the most rotten, rancid, repugnant breath of any rat in Washington. And Gnaw was getting a full blast of it.

“Sorry,” he managed to croak, his eyes watering.

Dupont let go. Gnaw fell to the floor with a thud.

“Your turn,” said Dupont, whipping around to where Scurvy, his other aide-de-camp, cowered beneath the desk in the Library of Congress's Reading Room. The skinny rat's droopy whiskers shook in terror as Dupont used his long, hairless tail to smack the book that lay open between them.

Scurvy peered at the page. His brow puckered apprehensively. “Um, that's an
N
, right? And—wait, don't tell me! An
E
, and that's a
W
. Let's see . . . that spells, um . . . ”