Midnight's Choice Read Free

responsibility with her.
    The night was cold and windy, but Tess opened the window anyway and peered out. The darkness above the park was muddied by the street-lights, whose orange radiance leaked upwards like escaping heat. But beyond it, Tess could just make out a few faint stars appearing and disappearing as heavy clouds moved across the sky. As she watched, it seemed to her that one of them was a little brighter than the others, and golden in colour. She fixed her eyes on it, unsure whether it was drawing closer or whether her imagination was playing tricks. The star seemed to blink and turn. Was it moving? Did it have a tail which streamed out behind it, even a short way?
    Tess’s concentration was abruptly broken by a loud scratching noise from Algernon’s cage. She turned and saw him trying to burrow into the corner where his wheel had been, throwing sawdust all over the cage and out through the bars.
    â€˜Poor old Algernon,’ said Tess and then, in Rat, ‘Wheel, huh?’
    Algernon made no reply, but turned his attention to another corner of the cage and continued to scrabble away desperately. It was uncharacteristic behaviour, and it worried Tess. She picked up the wheel and began again to unravel the wound-up paper from around the axle. She had done most of the work that morning, and it didn’t take long to free it and clear the last few shreds which were draped between the bars.
    â€˜Here you go, Algie. Is this what you want?’ Tess opened the hatch in the top of the cage and reached in with the wheel in her hand. Before she could react, before she could even blink, Algernon had run up the bars of the cage, out through the hatch, and down Tess’s legs to the floor. Tess stared at him in amazement. She had never seen him behave like that before. Something must have happened to him. His timidity was gone, and instead of bumbling round short-sightedly he was scuttling into the corners of the room and scratching at the carpet with his claws.
    Quickly, Tess refitted the wheel and checked that it was spinning freely. Then she tidied up the floor of the cage, picked the stray shavings out of the food-bowl, and replaced the dirty water with fresh from the tap.
    By this time Algernon was at the door, poking his paws into the narrow gap beneath it and gnawing at the wood with his teeth. When Tess reached down to pick him up, he jumped in fright, as though he had been taken by surprise. He had never done that before, either. He wriggled and squirmed as she pushed him through the small door of the cage, and threw himself against it when she closed it. Tess hoped it was the loss of the wheel that had upset him, and that once he found it back in its place he would settle himself down. His behaviour disturbed her more than she liked to admit, and she wondered if she should take him to the vet.
    â€˜White rat in pain, huh?’ she said to him. ‘White rat afraid of sore head? Sore belly?’
    Algernon paused in his restless scurrying and looked at her. ‘White rat go,’ he said, his thought images dim and poorly formed. ‘White rat go under city.’
    His pictures of the rats’ underground system were whimsy, like a young child’s drawing of a fairy-tale land. But it was the first time he had used that image, or even given any intimation that he knew such a place existed.
    â€˜Brown rats in tunnels,’ said Tess. ‘Brown rats tough, fierce, biting white rat.’
    â€˜White rat go,’ said Algernon stubbornly, his restlessness returning. ‘White rat go, white rat go, white rat go.’ He began to chew with his yellow teeth at the bars of the cage.
    Tess sighed. ‘Teeth worn down,’ she said to him. ‘Sunflower seeds won’t open, white rat hungry.’
    Algernon took no notice whatsoever. Tess returned to the window, but it was impossible for her to relax with the sound of Algernon chewing and scratching and rushing around his