Midnight's Choice

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Book: Midnight's Choice Read Free
Author: Kate Thompson
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cage. Eventually she picked up a book and went downstairs, hoping that he would settle down in her absence. If he was still the same way tomorrow she could bring him to the vet.
    Her parents were glad to see her coming down, and her father made room for her on the sofa beside him.
    â€˜Everything all right?’ he said.
    â€˜Just Algernon. He’s a bit restless. It’s not like him.’
    â€˜I expect he needs a pal,’ said her mother. ‘What about getting another one?’
    â€˜As long as it’s not female,’ said her father. ‘There’s enough rats in the world as it is without breeding more of them.’
    Tess laughed, reassured. The TV programme was humorous, the room was warm, and she had no premonition at all of the dramatic changes that were about to come into her life.
    When the evening film was over, Tess brought an apple upstairs to share with Algernon as a bed-time treat. The rat however, had other things on his mind. The room was cold when Tess came into it, and the first thing she did was to go across and close the window. There was no sign of the phoenix beyond it, and she turned her attention to Algernon. He was upside down, hanging by his paws to the wire roof and gnawing on the metal clasp which kept the roof hatch secure. The water bowl had been knocked over again, and almost the entire contents of the cage had been hurled through the bars, littering up the room in a wide circle around the cage. Tess groaned and fought down a desire to punish the white rat. He was already disturbed enough, and scaring him further would not accomplish anything. Far better to try and find out what the problem was.
    â€˜Apple, huh?’ she said.
    In reply, Algernon dropped from the top of the cage, twisting in mid-air so that he landed on his feet, then proceeded to perform the most extraordinary feat of rodent gymnastics, leaping up the sides of the cage, across the roof and down to the floor again in a dizzying sequence of somersaults.
    â€˜White rat go, white rat go, white rat go,’ he repeated as he swung wildly around.
    Tess began to realise that the situation was much more serious than she had thought. It was clear now that the problem wasn’t just going to disappear and there was no sense in trying to ignore it. Where did Algernon want to go, and why? She turned his repetitive visual statement into a question and, in reply, Algernon sent a most extraordinary image into her mind.
    It was a little like the visual name the city rats had given to Kevin, a gruesome mixture of rat and a rat’s conception of a boy. But this new image was vaguer, and tied up with other images as well; wolves perhaps, and bats, all in darkness. Strangest thing of all, and the most disturbing thing to Tess’s human mind, was that this being was calling. It was calling for all the rats in the city to come towards it, and the reason for Algernon’s behaviour was suddenly crystal clear. For Tess could tell without any doubt that if she had been a rat at that moment, she would have had no resistance whatsoever to that call.

CHAPTER THREE
    T ESS SAT ON THE windowsill and stared out into the darkness, longing for the phoenix to come. Behind her, Algernon was still raiding against the sides of his cage, his anxiety growing into a kind of dementia as he found that all his efforts were useless. Tess kept her mind firmly closed to his pathetic babbling. The weird communication that she had tuned into with her rat mind disturbed her a great deal and she knew that she was turning her back on the problem. But the lure of the phoenix was too strong.
    Her parents’ door eventually closed, and in a surprisingly short time she heard her father’s regular snores coming through the wall. There was still no sign of the golden creature, but as she looked out into the darkness, Tess realised that this didn’t matter. She could still re-live the experience on her own. The wonder of being a

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