The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Discworld Book 28) by Terry Pratchett

Author:Terry Pratchett [Pratchett, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

Nourishing had to run to keep up with Darktan. And Darktan was running because he had to run to keep up with Sardines. When it came to moving fast across a town, Sardines was champion of the world.

He danced on ahead. He just couldn’t help it. And he liked drainpipes, roofs, and gutters. You got no dogs up there, he said, and not many cats.

No cat could have followed Sardines. The people of Bad Blintz had strung clotheslines between the ancient houses, and he leaped onto them, clinging upside down and moving as fast as he would on a flat surface. He went straight up walls, plunged through thatch, tap-danced around smoking chimneys, slid down tiles. Pigeons erupted from their roosts as he sped past, the other rats trailing behind him.

Clouds rolled across the moon.

Sardines reached the edge of a roof and leaped, landing on a wall just below. He ran along the top and disappeared in the crack between two planks.

Darktan and Nourishing followed him into a kind of loft. Hay was piled in parts of it, but a larger part was simply open to the ground floor below, and supported by several heavy beams that ran right across the building. Bright light shone up from below, and there was the buzz of human voices and—Sardines shuddered—the barking of dogs.

“This is a big stable, boss,” he said. “The pit’s under the beam over there. Come on.”

They crept out on the ancient woodwork and peered over the edge.

Far below was a wooden circle, like half a giant barrel. Nourishing realized that they were right over the pit; if she fell now, she’d land in the middle of it. Men were crowded around it. Dogs were tied up around the walls, barking at one another and at the universe in general in the mad, I’m-going-to-do-this-forever way of all dogs. And off to one side was a stack of boxes and sacks.

The sacks were moving.

“Crtlk! How the krrp will we find Hamnpork in this lot?” Darktan said, his eyes gleaming in the light from below.

“Well, with old Hamnpork, boss, I reckon we’ll know when he turns up,” said Sardines.

“Could you drop into the pit on a string?”

“I’m game for anything, guv,” said Sardines loyally.

“Into a pit with a dog in it, sir?” said Nourishing. “And won’t the string cut you in half?”

“Ah, I’ve got something that helps there, boss,” said Sardines. He dropped his thick coil of string and put it aside. There was another coil under it, glistening and light brown. He pulled at a piece of it, and it snapped back with a faint twang.

“Bands of rubber,” he said. “I pinched them off a desk when I was looking for more string. I’ve used ’em before, boss. Very handy for a long drop, boss.”

Darktan looked back at the boards. There was an old candle lantern there, lying on its side, the glass smashed, the candle eaten long ago.

“Good,” he said. “Because I’m getting an idea. If you can drop down—”

There was a roar from below.

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