The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents Read Online Free Page B

can it? And why is everyone staring at you?”
    â€œI’m a handsome-looking cat,” said Maurice. Even so, it was a little surprising. People were nudging one another and pointing at him.
    â€œYou’d think they’d never seen a cat before,” he muttered, staring at the big building across the street. It was a big, square building, surrounded by people, and the sign said: RATHAUS .
    â€œOh, Rathaus’s just the local word for…like the town hall,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with rats, amusing though it may be.”
    â€œYou really know a lot of words, Maurice,” said the kid admiringly.
    â€œI amaze myself sometimes,” said Maurice.
    A line of people was standing in front of one huge open door. Other people, who had presumably done whatever it was the line was liningup to do, were emerging from another doorway in ones and twos. They were all carrying loaves of bread.
    â€œShall we line up too?” asked the kid.
    â€œI shouldn’t think so,” said Maurice carefully.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œSee those men on the door? They look like the Watch. They’ve got big truncheons. And everyone’s showing them a bit of paper as they go past. I don’t like the look of that,” said Maurice. “That looks like government to me.”
    â€œWe haven’t done anything wrong,” said the kid. “Not here, anyway.”
    â€œYou never know, with governments,” said Maurice. “Just stay here, kid. I’ll take a look.”
    People stared at Maurice when he stalked into the building, but it seemed that in a town beset by rats, a cat was quite popular and no one was inclined to turn him out. A man did try to pick him up, but lost interest when Maurice turned and clawed the back of his hand.
    The line wound into a big hall and passed in front of a long trestle table. There, each person showed the piece of paper to two women in front of a big tray of bread, and was given some bread. Then they moved on to a man with a vat of sausages, and got considerably less sausage.
    Watching over all this, and occasionally saying something to the food servers, was the mayor. Maurice recognized him instantly because he had a gold chain around his neck. He’d run across a lot of mayors since working with the rats. This one was different from the rest. He was smaller, looked far more worried, and had a bald spot that he’d tried to cover with three strands of hair. He was a lot thinner than other mayors Maurice had seen, too.
    So…food is scarce, Maurice thought. They’re having to ration it out. Looks like they’ll be needing a piper any day now. Lucky for us we arrived just in time….
    He walked out again, but this time a bit faster because he realized that someone was playing a pipe.
    It was, as he’d feared, the kid. He did it if you left him alone for any length of time. He’d put his cap on the ground in front of him, and had even accumulated a few coins. The line had bent round so that people could hear him, and one or two small children were dancing.
    Maurice was only an expert on cat singing, which consists of standing two inches in front of another cat and screaming at him until he gives in. Human music always sounded thin andwatery to him. But people tapped their feet when they heard the kid play. They smiled for a while.
    Maurice waited until the kid had finished the tune. While the line was clapping, he sidled up behind the kid, brushed up against him, and hissed, “Well done, fish-for-brains! We’re supposed to be inconspicuous ! Come on, let’s go. Oh, grab the money, too.”
    He led the way across the square until he stopped so suddenly that the kid almost walked into him.
    â€œWhoops, here comes some more government,” he said. “And we know what these are, don’t we.”
    The kid did. They were rat catchers, two of them. Even here they wore the long dusty coats and