It wasn't only as a human that she hated rats. Every creature that she had ever been hated them, too. The birds hated them because they would raid any nest they could reach and whisk away any hatchling or fledgling that got out from under its parent's eye. Cats and dogs hated them because they were thieving and provocative, and because if they were hungry enough they would take even a young pup or kitten from its bed. Other scavengers hated them because they were greedy and aggressive and invariably got the better of an argument. Even the large and tolerant beasts like horses and cattle found rats distasteful, because they respected neither peace nor privacy, and they fouled whatever fodder they were unable to eat.

Kevin came back towards her. The other rats, sensing that she was not a threat, had begun to emerge from their hide-outs. She turned her head slowly from side to side. She was not afraid. An owl is a match for any rat. She watched them carefully, allowing her owl instinct to savour the idea of s.n.a.t.c.hing the plumpest of them and bringing it away with her to the nearest tree. But it was not to be. From the street came the soft click-click of a dog's claws on paving stones. The rats froze. As Tess watched, the dog appeared at the wire and stopped, looking straight at her. For a long moment, nothing moved. Then the dog, with a single, soft bark, announced its intention and ducked through a gap in the fence.

Looking back, Tess could never understand exactly why she made the decision she did at that moment. It would have been as easy, and probably much safer, to lift off into the air and fly away from the scene, but she didn't. The sudden danger resolved her deadlock, and an instant later she was running for her life behind Kevin's retreating tail and leaping for the safety of a dark hole in the side of an upturned couch. Together with several other rats, they wormed their way between the springs and stuffing into the safety of the deep interior. From there they could hear the dog sniffing and scratching at the torn fabric, but they were quite confident that he couldn't reach them. Sure enough, he soon became bored and gave up. The rats wasted no time. Before he was out of sight down the street, they were out in the open again.

Suddenly, Tess found her mind full of vivid and disturbing images. The owl in the dog's mouth with feathers flying. Herself as a rat being shaken in his teeth, and the horrifying sound and sensation of her spine snapping. She stood transfixed, trying to clear her mind, until Kevin caught hold of her by the whiskers and gave them a tweak. It was then that she remembered what he had said about the rat language, and she realised that he had put those images into her mind. He was angry. But before she could work out how to answer him, they were approached by another rat, and then another, and her mind was fully occupied by their expressions and the images they were pa.s.sing.

'Here among us, you two, huh? Days and nights, days and nights, us lot listening, looking, huh?'

Tess was surprised at how well she understood them.

'You two sleeping, huh? Days and nights, days and nights. Stuffing fat bacon, huh? Trying to make a family, huh?'

Tess was shocked, but Kevin was angry. He jumped on the rat who had suggested it and bit his ear until he squealed. 'Ear gone, nanananana! Sit down, calm, days and nights, you two, empty streets, empty skies.'

Kevin was giving images now. 'Long ca.n.a.l, long towpath. Us two, many streets.'

Tess was grateful that he didn't let them know that the delay was largely her fault. 'Many streets, many streets,' she thought, 'yep,' and she was surprised when the others nodded and twitched their whiskers.

'Yep, yep, many streets. Many streets behind, many streets ahead, move, run, little old lady sitting beside a fire, looking you two, listening you two, run, huh?'

And run they did, straight away. Across the wasteground and down a hole which led under the foundations of the neighbouring house and through a series of underground pa.s.sages lined with brick, earth and rubble.

Kevin went ahead with the rat whose ear he had bitten. The other stranger ran along beside Tess, watching her cautiously with what she interpreted as a rather stupid grin. From time to time the pa.s.sageway grew narrow and the lead rat and Kevin would fall into single file until they were through. But Tess's companion didn't seem to understand. If she gained speed to go ahead, he gained speed as well, and if she slowed down to drop behind, he also slowed, all the time looking at her with that same, stupid expression. They survived a couple of tight squeezes, but managed to become completely stuck at one particularly narrow spot.

'Oops,' said her guide in rat language. 'Narrow, narrow. Us two, oooh, very, very thin, huh? Squeeze.'

Tess scrabbled with her claws and they managed after a brief struggle to break free. They ran on, and made up some of the ground they had lost. It was quite dark down there beneath the houses, and Tess realised that she was acting by an unknown sense which wasn't sight. She was aware of the s.p.a.ces around her and the way the tunnels changed ahead and behind, even though she could actually see very little. After a while, they emerged into the open s.p.a.ce of a bas.e.m.e.nt, where light flooded through a grating from a lamp post on the street above. The rats stopped and looked around cautiously, before scuttling together across the empty s.p.a.ce, which seemed huge after the narrow tunnels. At the other side they formed a line again to slip through a hole in the corner of the floor. Kevin was ahead of Tess and as he disappeared she noticed that his right hind foot had only three toes. But before she had a chance to wonder about it, her companion was back alongside her.

'Long nose,' he said.

'Huh?'

'Long nose.'

They were approaching another tight gap, and this time Tess stopped and thought as clearly as she could of the two of them going through it quite sensibly and politely, one at a time. But to her annoyance, her guide stopped as well, and said again: 'Long nose.'

She made a sprint for the hole, but he was too quick for her and there was no doubt that they would have got stuck again if Tess hadn't stopped in time. He grabbed hold of her whiskers and pulled her round to face him. She could just see the outline of his face in the darkness.

'Long nose,' he said, and he caught hold of his own nose and pulled it. She noticed for the first time that he did have an unusually long nose.

'Long nose,' she said, and was pleased to find that sarcasm was a readily available quality in the rat language. 'Yep, yep. Sunny days, happy rats, long nose. Me through the hole, you through the hole behind me, huh?'

He wrinkled his nose. 'Yep, yep,' he said, and she darted through before he had time to change his mind.

Kevin and his friend were waiting, but ran on when they saw the other two coming.

'Long nose,' said Tess's companion yet again.

Tess was beginning to get really fed up. 'Long nose,' she said. 'Small brain.'

'Huh?'

Tess mimicked his grin. 'Long nose, happy you, happy me, huge sack of oats in a big barn with no cats.'

'Nanananana. Long nose. You, huh?'

'Short nose.'

'Nanana. Short-nosed rat in a hotel bas.e.m.e.nt, many many streets.'

At last Tess understood, and she felt slightly foolish. Long Nose was his symbol, his mark, his name in the visual language of rats.

'You, huh?' he said again.

Tess was at a loss. Her name was meaningless in this world. There was no way to translate it. And as far as she could tell, she was a completely ordinary rat with no outstanding features at all. Her mind searched for images, but none of them seemed suitable.

'Owl, huh?' she said at last.

'Nanana,' said Long Nose. 'Nanananana. Owl carrying off young rats, us rats sad, us rats angry.'

There was another narrow opening ahead, and this time Tess managed successfully to communicate the idea of single file. She ran ahead of Long Nose into the dark gap, and was surprised to find that it stayed dark and narrow. It was sludgy and slippery underfoot, and there was a strong smell of drains. She waited for the tunnel to broaden out, but it didn't, and it soon began to seem as though it never would. Tess began to feel claustrophobic. The only rea.s.surance was the sound of Kevin's pattering feet before her, and those of Long Nose behind. Gradually the smell grew stronger, and Tess realised that it was more than just drains. It was sewers. The stone pa.s.sage they were in was sloping downwards now, and Tess found herself beginning to slither on the slimy stuff beneath her feet.

'This is the most foolish thing I've ever done,' she thought to herself. 'What on earth am I doing here? How could I have allowed myself to be talked into this?'

She had no time to dwell on it, however, because the next moment Kevin flashed her an image of a rat wearing a parachute, and then they were falling through the air in the darkness.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THEY LANDED WITH A splash, a shock of cold water that made Tess gasp and splutter. But she found that, before she knew it, she was swimming, and quite strongly too. For someone who had never swum before, either as a girl or any other creature, it was pretty exciting and completely took her mind off the nature of the liquid they were travelling in. There was just enough light for her to see the shapes of the other rats ahead of her and she swam up close beside Kevin before Long Nose had a chance to move in and monopolise her again. Kevin looked across and acknowledged her with a brief nod. His eyes sparkled and she caught the image he gave her of an underground train speeding along beneath a huge city. Then he gave her a second one, of four rats going twice as fast through their own underground system. If she had known how, she would have laughed. Before long, the four of them came to a wider ca.n.a.l, and they swam with a gentle current until they came to a shoal of sludgy stones and trapped paper, which allowed them to climb out of the water and into another system of pipes and drains.

Tess was beginning to get tired. The drains seemed to go on for ever, always sloping gently upwards and always wet and slimy underfoot. It took all her strength and concentration to keep close to Kevin, who seemed to find the going no problem, and the whole business was made worse by the irritating presence of Long Nose, who trod on her tail at every possible opportunity.

She called in Rat to Kevin: 'Boy and girl, out in the open, deep breaths, sleeping.'

He called back: 'Boy and girl squashed in drainpipe. Spaghetti.'

By the time they emerged, quite suddenly, into the cold, clear air, Tess was so exhausted that she felt she couldn't travel another yard. She wanted badly to be human, at least for a while, but before she could repeat her request to Kevin they were off again. They had come out on to another piece of waste ground which lay between two huge warehouses. Tess followed the others out on to a wide street. There was no sign of people or dogs, but they stuck to the deepest shadows all the same, running in single file close up to the walls and sprinting across the open s.p.a.ces in between. At the end of the street lay the river. Ships were tied up beneath cranes, waiting for loading or unloading, but there was no activity now. All was still and silent.

The fresh air had given Tess a second wind and she was comfortable enough now as the little group followed the warehouse walls parallel to the river for several hundred yards. There were lights here, and they were much more exposed to possible danger than they had been in the drains, but Tess was happier nonetheless. The others, however, did not relax until they left the warehouses behind them and crossed through the wire fence which surrounded an area of huge coal heaps. Then they slowed their pace and picked their way among the loose slag at leisure.

'Dawn,' said Kevin, dropping back beside Tess.

'Happy us,' said Tess. 'Boy, girl, sitting on the coal, huh? Boy smoking cigarette, huh? Talking, huh?'

'Us four sleeping,' said Kevin. 'Curled together, warm.'

It was not an image that appealed to Tess, though it clearly did to him. She was still not entirely comfortable about being a rat and, besides that, it would be the first time that she had allowed herself to sleep as an animal. It was an idea that had always scared her a little, not only because she might sleep longer than she meant to and arrive home late, but because sleeping was a kind of forgetting and she was afraid that she might not remember who she was when she woke up.

Kevin nudged her with his shoulder and wrinkled his nose. Then he darted on ahead and, resigning herself, Tess followed.

The four rats slept throughout the day in a snug and well concealed hole beneath a portakabin at the entrance to the coal-yard. It was far from being a sound sleep, because the floor above their heads was walked on almost constantly, and the sounds of men's voices filtered through the wood. Lorries pa.s.sed in and out all day, their tyres crunching on the coal dust, alarmingly close. But Tess didn't mind. Rat dreams were strange and frightening and it was a relief to be woken from time to time and to be able to remember where she was and why. Sometimes Kevin woke with her and they would exchange a few images and touch noses for comfort before they went back to sleep. Sometimes the rat with the bitten ear woke too and moved in small, irritated circles, trying to get comfortable again. Long Nose, it seemed, didn't wake at all, but snored and sighed throughout all the coming and going in ignorant contentment.

The best sleep came in the three or four hours between the closing of the yard and the arrival of darkness. Those hours pa.s.sed like minutes but refreshed the four rats better than any before them. They spent a few minutes cleaning themselves when they woke, then emerged, bright-eyed and sleek, into the strange, orange gloom that covers cities at night. A few flakes of snow were falling, but there was little wind, and the rats were in no danger of getting cold as long as they kept moving. They were hungry, though, and Tess was about to discover that the hunger of a rat bore no relation to any hunger she had ever known. It began as a warm and rather pleasant sensation which made her feel energetic and strong, but within an hour it had grown larger and more demanding, and her feeling had changed to one of enormous courage and pride. She was sure that she would have stolen a bone from a dog at that moment, and longed for a chance to prove it.

'Eat, huh?' she blasted at Kevin.

He jumped at the force of her message but answered calmly: 'Bas.e.m.e.nt, dark, black bags, flash restaurant, a few streets.'

Tess held on to the image of the diners in their expensive clothes, taking their time over their food. Her parents brought her to that kind of place from time to time, but she was sure that Kevin would never have been in one, at least not while he was human. She decided that she would bring him out, when all this was over. She had her own account in the post office, and she would buy him some new clothes, if he would let her. It was a pleasant fantasy. She would be on familiar territory. He would be on edge, worse than usual, but she'd make him feel at ease and make sure he got the best the restaurant had to offer.

'Long Nose.'

Not again. Tess almost squeaked in annoyance. She was tempted to use the pent-up urgency of her hunger to jump on him and box his ears, but just in time she realised that he was probably hungry, too. By now they were back among the rat runs that honeycomb the foundations of the city, and Tess had allowed herself to fall back behind Kevin again and into the company of Long Nose.

'You, huh?' he said.

Tess was as stuck as before. To make time, she said: 'Him, huh?' and sent an image of the rat with the chewed ear.

'One black whisker.'

Tess hadn't noticed. 'Him, huh?' she said, indicating Kevin.

The image that came back was a disturbing one, an awful random mixture of rat features combined with the rat's version of what a boy is. Tess had no desire to have a name-image anything like that.

'You, huh?' said Long Nose again.

Tess said nothing.

'Huh? Huh?'

When she still made no reply, he gave her a command that no rat will ever refuse, because too often their lives depend upon it.

'Freeze!'

Tess froze. But Long Nose did not. He walked all around her from her nose to her tail, muttering to himself. 'Huh? Huh? Nananana. Nope. Huh?' He tugged at her tail and her whiskers, prodded her nose and looked into her ears. He lifted her feet and counted her teeth and made her sit up on her tail while he examined her belly, all the while saying: 'Huh? Nope. Nanana. Nope.' At last he went round behind her and started fiddling with her tail again.

'Tail two toes short, huh?' he said.

Tess didn't catch the image. 'Huh?' she said.

'Three toes, four toes, huh?'

'Huh?' She turned around to see what he was doing, just as he bit off the last inch and a half of her tail.

Tess squeaked and swung round ready to attack, but Long Nose looked amazed and offered his throat in defence.

'Hurt!' she said. 'Tail, yowch!'

'Seven toes,' said Long Nose, holding up the end of her tail and measuring it against his front paw. 'You, Tail Short Seven Toes.'

Tess examined the wound on her tail and was surprised to see that it was hardly bleeding at all. Nor was it anywhere near as sore as she had expected. She could live with it, she decided, and would almost have forgiven Long Nose had she not turned round to find him contentedly eating the end of her tail for his breakfast. She shot him an insult that even he could not fail to understand, and ran ahead to find Kevin.

The rats feasted on the rubbish in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the restaurant. There were other rats there, too, pleased to meet the newcomers and exchange the latest gossip. One of them, a handsome fellow who introduced himself to Tess as Stuck Six Days in a Gutter Pipe, showed her how to recognise rat poison and scatter bits of it around to make it look as if it had been eaten. Then he helped her to find the choicest bits of leftover food, such as fish spines, chicken hearts and slivers of soap. Tess accepted them as graciously as her rat nature permitted, but it seemed to her with her great hunger that anything she ate was as good as the next thing, and that was even better.

There was plenty for everyone and the place seemed to have a constant turnover of rodent customers who came and went in a leisurely fashion. Stuck Six Days in a Gutter Pipe wrinkled his nose suavely at Tess as he left, but the effect was slightly spoiled by the chicken leg in his mouth that he was taking home for the children.

When Tess had eaten all she could, she joined Kevin and One Black Whisker in a quiet corner where they were chatting with two unknown rats.

'Guides,' Kevin told her. 'Long Nose, One Black Whisker curled up asleep in the couch on the waste ground. Little old woman sitting beside a fire, many streets. Long Nose and One Black Whisker confused, lost.'

'Many street, huh?' said Tess. 'Boy, girl walking, riding on a bus. Owls, pigeons flying. Us rats going slowly. Us rats very tired. Us rats sleeping.'

'Boy, girl scratching their heads,' said Kevin. 'Looking at maps, shrugging their shoulders.'

'Us rats swimming in sewers, us rats in slimy black drainpipes.'

'Girl going into her house, huh?' Kevin's black eyes were cold and mistrustful and Tess knew her own must have looked the same. But he was right. There was no turning back now, and no way of knowing where to go without the guidance of the city rats. She showed Kevin her teeth for spite, but a few minutes later they were back on the rat highways with their new guides.

CHAPTER NINE.

FOR THREE MORE NIGHTS Tess and Kevin travelled through the rats' city underground, changing guides twice more along the way. They ate from rubbish bins knocked over by dogs, from shop store-rooms and from the shelves of poorly guarded kitchens. When they reached the outskirts of the city they began to travel above the ground, and they stopped many times along the way in urban gardens to feed on fresh vegetables and tasty sc.r.a.ps from compost heaps. Rats, it seemed, were never short of food.

On the fourth day, dawn found them in one of the most affluent areas of the country. Green fields and trees surrounded impressive houses, both old and new, owned by those people who could afford the luxury of having the best of both worlds. Tess was aware that her parents had checked out areas like this before they settled on the house beside the park. The air was so fresh and the country smells so sweet that she found herself regretting their choice. What was puzzling her, though, was that the sort of area they were in didn't fit at all with the picture the rats had given her of the little old lady who was waiting beside the fire.

'Little old lady, huh?' she said to their latest guide. Her name was Nose Broken by a Mousetrap, and it was easy to see why.

'Yep, yep, little old lady,' she said, and darted through a hedge into a field of lush gra.s.s.

It was not snowing now, but there had been several light snowfalls over the last few days, and because of the relentless cold, whatever snow had settled had remained. It stuck to the rats now as they dislodged it from the gra.s.s, and melted in dark patches on their glossy coats. They stayed close in to the hedge to avoid the eyes of dogs or hawks or pa.s.sersby, and soon they crossed into a second meadow, and then a third. A road ran parallel to their route, between the meadows and the widely s.p.a.ced houses on the opposite side, and the occasional car pa.s.sed along it, driving slowly because of the icy conditions. After a while, Tess realised by the change in sound that the hedge they were following was no longer beside the road but running away from it and out into the open country.

'Road, huh?' she said. 'Little old lady house, huh?'