The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea

Author:Pat O'Shea [O'Shea, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780192732996
Publisher: Oxford University Press Children's Books
Published: 2012-02-16T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

BREDA Fairfoul was still sitting at her workbench; still pretending to be a Scientist.

What she was really doing was something very different. She was doing simple enchantments; partly to amuse herself and partly to pass the time. By now, she had decided that when it came to rats, she preferred the good old-fashioned kind, and in a blink, she was confronting several real-looking, greasy rats that stared back up at her, with yellow teeth bared and clever, watchful, distrusting eyes. The glasshouse had suddenly benefited not only from the smell of the rats themselves, but other scents that called up visions of dustbins and old, mouldy cellars and other places not to be mentioned.

The cat that had been so disgracefully used as a duster, started up in surprise. She growled, flickering her tail from side to side, and she glared passionately up at the workbench. Breda slanted a look at her and the cat slumped down and lay on the ground, where she went into a sort of trance that made all of her nature assert itself in the fixed stare of her eyes. Occasionally her jaws would open in a silent growl and she lashed her tail languidly at intervals.

Breda smiled at her rats and she gave them each a bit of tallow to eat. The tallow was nervously snatched out of her hands and swallowed in gulps. When it was all gone, she taught them how to chew tobacco and spit. After they got used to the way the tobacco burned the insides of their mouths, the rats began to enjoy it; but they still watched Breda with suspicion.

She discarded her cap, gown and the horn-rimmed glasses, and she made her scientific equipment disappear.

‘I’ve done with all that jiggery-pokery,’ she declared, and the rats looked remarkably relieved—although they still kept an eye on the suppressed cat.

Breda put on herself a green eyeshade and on the rats she put striped shirts with floppy bow ties, under wide-sleeved jackets with many pockets. A small, baize-covered table, with chairs on the same scale, appeared on the top of the workbench and all of the rats sat down. In front of her, Breda laid several decks of new, unopened playing-cards—she split one open, shuffled and dealt. She then gave lessons to the rats on how to play and cheat at poker.

As soon as they received them, the rats’ cards shrank in size and they were able to grip them well in their strange hands. Whenever Breda touched a card, it grew back to its normal state; and all through the lessons, the cards never failed to expand or go small as they passed between her new friends and herself. The rats were really enjoying themselves now and they spat tobacco juice at the cat from time to time.

Melodie Moonlight had been pacing aimlessly around the glasshouse.

She drifted over to have a look.

‘Little beauties—truly ratty,’ she said admiringly. ‘Let’s hope they don’t all get a nasty disease from some fleas jumping off

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