The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents Read Free Page A

up a kind of rat civilization of your very own, which I think is very, you know, admirable , but for that you need…what did I tell you that you need?”
    â€œMoney, Maurice,” said Dangerous Beans, “but—”
    â€œMoney. That’s right, ’cos what can you get with money?” He looked around at the rats. “Begins with a B,” he prompted.
    â€œBoats, Maurice, but—”
    â€œAnd then there’s all the tools you’ll need, and food, of course—”
    â€œThere’s coconuts,” said the stupid-looking kid, who was polishing his flute.
    â€œOh, did someone speak?” said Maurice. “What do you know about it, kid?”
    â€œYou get coconuts,” said the kid. “On desert islands. A man selling them told me.”
    â€œHow?” said Maurice. He wasn’t too sure about coconuts.
    â€œI don’t know. You just get them.”
    â€œOh, I suppose they just grow on trees, do they?” said Maurice sarcastically. “Sheesh, I just don’t know what you lot would do without…anyone?” He glared at the group. “Begins with an M.”
    â€œYou, Maurice,” said Dangerous Beans. “But, you see, what we think is, really—”
    â€œYes?” said Maurice.
    â€œAhem,” said Peaches. Maurice groaned.
    â€œWhat Dangerous Beans means,” said the female rat, “is that all this stealing grains and cheese and gnawing holes in walls is, well”—she looked up into Maurice’s yellow eyes—“is not morally right .”
    â€œBut it’s what rats do!” said Maurice.
    â€œBut we feel we shouldn’t,” said Dangerous Beans. “We should be making our own way in the world!”
    â€œOh dear oh dear oh dear,” said Maurice, shaking his head. “Ho for the island, eh? The Kingdom of the Rats! Not that I’m laughing at your dream,” he added hastily. “Everyone needs their little dreams.” Maurice truly believed that, too. If you knew what it was that people really, really wanted, you very nearly controlled them.
    Sometimes he wondered what the stupid-looking kid really, really wanted. Nothing, as far as Maurice could tell, but to be allowed to play his music and be left alone. But…well, it was like that thing with the coconuts. Every so often the kid would come out with something that suggested he’d been listening all along. People like that are hard to steer.
    But cats are good at steering people. A miaow here, a purr there, a little gentle pressure with a claw…and Maurice had never had to think about it before. Cats didn’t have to think. They just had to know what they wanted. Humans had to do the thinking. That’s what they were for.
    Maurice thought about the good old days before his brain had started whizzing like a firework. He’d turn up at the door of the university kitchens and look sweet, and then the cooks would try to work out what he wanted. It was amazing! They’d say things like “Does oo want abowl of milk, den? Does oo want a biscuit? Does oo want dese nice scraps, den?” And all Maurice would have to do was wait patiently until they got to a sound he recognized, like “turkey legs” or “minced lamb.”
    But he was sure he’d never eaten anything magical. There was no such thing as enchanted chicken giblets, was there?
    It was the rats who’d eaten the magical stuff. The dump they called “home” and also called “lunch” was round the back of the university, and it was a university for wizards, after all. The old Maurice hadn’t paid much attention to people who weren’t holding bowls, but he was aware that the big men in pointy hats made strange things happen.
    And now he knew what happened to the stuff they used, too. It got tossed over the wall when they’d finished with it. All the old worn-out spell books and the stubs of