Emmy and the Rats in the Belfry Read Free

yet?”
    Emmy stared up at the intercom, high on the wall. To answer, she had to flick a switch on the speaker panel. But the size she was right now, the button might as well be on the ceiling.
    â€œHurry!” she whispered to Sissy.
    Sissy nodded. “Here, pull off the backing. Now we slap it on your arm—no, roll up your pajama sleeve, it has to touch your skin. That’s right. And—see?”
    The rodents tumbled off the bed as, all at once, Emmy expanded. Like a dried-up sponge exposed to water, she lengthened and thickened and popped back to her full size in three seconds flat.
    Emmy shut her eyes and leaned back on her pillow, feeling dizzy.
    â€œPacks a wallop, doesn’t it?” Raston helped Sissy buckle on her satchel again. “But that was the last one, and the professor wants you to help make the next batch. He’s still experimenting.”
    Emmy opened her eyes. “You put an experimental patch on me?”
    The rodents exchanged glances.
    â€œSorry, Emmy—”
    â€œ We’re used to being experimented on—”
    â€œAre you all right, dear?” Mrs. Bunjee’s chipmunk fur tickled Emmy’s ear. “The professor will wait if you’re feeling ill.”
    â€œI don’t think the patches grow people as gently as my kiss does,” said Cecilia, patting Emmy’s forehead.
    â€œThat’s not your fault,” said Raston quickly.
    â€œHush!” Mrs. Bunjee lifted a paw. “Listen!”
    A thin, droning sound came from the playroom. Emmy relaxed. “It’s just the train. Chippy must have talked Buck into going for a ride—”
    â€œNot that,” said Mrs. Bunjee, cocking her head.
    In the silence, voices could be heard murmuring in the hall.
    â€œGet under the blankets!” Mrs. Bunjee ordered. “Hide!”
    Someone knocked, and the doorknob turned. “Sweetheart? Time to get up … oh, Emmy .”
    Emmy sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes for effect, and looked at her mother’s disappointed face. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
    â€œJust look at your room!” Her father’s voice, normally so kind, was stern as he flicked on the light. “You promised us you’d clean it last night!”
    â€œBut I did …” Emmy’s voice faltered as she looked properly around her for the first time that morning.
    Clothes were everywhere: strewn on the floor, tossed over chairs, and pulled off hangers. Books were tumbled about, pages bent. And papers from last year’s school projects had been pulled out of folders and crumpled in corners.
    Emmy whirled to face her parents. She had cleaned her room, she really had ! But they’d never believe her, not with the way it looked now.
    Or had she only dreamed that she had picked everything up?
    But no. Even when she let her room get messy, it was never as bad as this. “I did clean it,” she said. “I don’t know what happened, but it was clean when I went to bed last night.”
    Her mother turned away. In the silence, the metallic hum from the playroom seemed to grow louder.
    The lines in her father’s face grew even more forbidding. “Turn off your electric train. You left it running all night long.”
    Emmy looked at him hopelessly. She could hardly say that two chipmunks were to blame.
    At least with the train, she knew why it was running. But she had no idea how her room had gotten in such a mess.
    â€œMeeoow?” A golden furry head poked in the door, and the housekeeper’s cat slipped around Mr. Addison’s legs.
    â€œNo, Muffy!” Emmy leaped out of bed, snagged the cat by the hind legs, and imprisoned it in her arms. She wasn’t about to let the cat loose in a room full of her rodent friends.
    She stumbled to her playroom and flicked the train switch. Chippy and Buck were already out of sight.
    â€œAnd what smells so strongly of mint?” Her mother’s footsteps