The Christmas Rat Read Online Free Page A

down, I made it back to the elevator, the flashlight marking my way. The beam was still working. But the flashlight case had stopped glowing. Not that I cared. I was just glad I didn’t see the rat, not one sign of him, as I inched back to the elevator. Once I got to our apartment, I made sure I locked myself in. Tight.
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    Sitting on our living room couch, I thought over what had happened. I mean, I was pretty upset. I kept wondering what the rat was doing in the building. Was he just getting out of the cold? Was there such a thing as a homeless rat? Was he alone? Or would there be more of them? Did he have family? Was he intending to stay? Was he as bad as Anje the exterminator had said?
    Then I got to thinking about how brave the rat had been. After all, I was probably huge-looking. Maybe he thought I was coming at him. Which in a way I was. I tried to imagine how I might have looked, like some giant, I suppose. Was he scared? I wondered. Did he know I was? And, I asked myself, what did being freaked by a rat say about me, an eleven-year-old kid? Was I normal?
    I mean, I had all these questions but no answers.
    Still, I kept coming back to the main question: What was I supposed to do about him?
    That’s when I fished Anje’s red business card from my pocket and called his cell phone number. A recorded message told me to leave my phone number and a simple message. I did. My message was, “Eden trap.”
    I don’t think it took five minutes before a call came in.
    â€œGabrail here!”
    â€œAnje?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œIt’s me, Eric, the boy from the Eden Apartments. Five-B. You know, the one who saw the rat. I went to the basement like you said. I found him.”
    â€œGood job!” he cried. “You kill him?”
    â€œI . . . chased him but he got away,” I said apologetically.
    â€œHey, don’t worry about it. They’re scary.”
    That made me feel better.
    â€œLook,” Anje went on, “I’m still around your building. Meet me in the basement.” He hung up.
    I don’t know where Anje had been but he was waiting for me when I got down there. He was holding one of his steel boxes and this humongous black flashlight. Which was a good thing because the lights were still off and I forgot to bring the flashlight he gave me. As I stepped out of the elevator, he offered a crisp salute. “You did good, kid!” he snapped.
    I smiled stupidly. I really didn’t think I had been good but I was glad he thought so.
    â€œShow me where you saw him,” he said.
    It took a while to find the place where I had cornered the rat. But being with Anje made the whole scene less scary.
    When we got there I pointed to the dead end area. “There,” I said. You could see where the rat had been at work in the dirt—except the hole was bigger than I had remembered.
    â€œNot bad,” Anje said. “You had him cold. Good strategy, bad tactics. I mean, you got him where you wanted him, up against a dead end, but you didn’t have the right firepower.”
    â€œFirepower?”
    â€œIf you had an M-16 assault rifle, hey, no problem. Blast him to nothing. Wouldn’t be a hair left. Not a smear. He’d be in rat hell right now. Burning.”
    I glanced up at Anje. He was so huge, with that long blond hair and mustache. I was glad he was there, but at the same time he was making me suddenly feel uncomfortable.
    â€œFailing firepower, there’s always my crossbow,” he went on. He removed it from his box.
    Fascinated, I watched as he positioned a brass bolt with an iron tip—it was like a small arrow without feathers—into a slot along the top of the weapon.
    I automatically stepped away.
    He cocked the thing by pulling the bow back. It made a distinct click . Then he aimed the weapon at the concrete wall and pulled the trigger. The bow made a high-pitched twanging sound.
    Thwack.
    â€œSee,”