When You Wish upon a Rat (2 page)

“What does that mean?” she asked, pointing at the Chinese letters. Her aunt spoke fluent Mandarin and taught it and Asian history to university students.

“It says
Attention: Precious goods
.” Her aunt smiled, pointing to each word. “And this bit here says
Be careful of these precious goods
.”

“
Careful?
” Ruth looked up at her aunt inquiringly. But Mary Ellen only laughed.

Ruth's hands trembled slightly as she tried to get the lid off. It seemed to be stuck, so she slid her thumbnail underneath. Heart in her mouth, she gingerly eased off both sides of the lid and … gave a sharp yelp of surprise and stepped back.

Inside the box was a big gray
rat
. It had sharp claws and thin, spiky hair all over its body, and it was …
wearing clothes!
Baggy trousers made of faded sailcloth covered its hind legs, and the red striped shirt and serge jacket had the tiniest buttons imaginable.

Ruth was fascinated. The worn leather boots on its back feet and the cuffs on the jacket made her smile. Was it
real
? She shuddered.
Of course it couldn't be
. But the long nose with
whiskers, the thin mouth, and sharp white teeth, only just visible, added up to something so lifelike that … it almost seemed it could be.

Ruth forgot about her aunt and stared in complete wonder at the strange creature lying in the box. The rat's slightly battered appearance pulled at her heartstrings in the oddest way. Was it a toy? Was it old or young? Sad or happy? The sly expression on the pointed face, the long black tail, sharp claws and patches of bristles, the little hole in the jacket and mud on the boots, even the grime around its neck and under the claws, made it look wise somehow, as if it had seen a lot. It was like a little gnome or a strange elf from a dream, ugly and yet weirdly beautiful too.

Ruth suddenly laughed out loud. It was the queerest, most exceptional thing she had ever seen.

“You like him?” her aunt asked.

Ruth nodded, hot, suddenly, with the truth of what she was about to admit. “I love him.”

“Oh, good!”

“Where … did you find him?” Ruth asked.

“He was a gift from a lady I used to know,” her aunt replied. “When your mum and I were growing up, she lived next door.”

“What was her name?”

“Everyone just called her Bee.”

“Bee?” said Ruth. “As in
bumblebee
?”

“Yes.” Mary Ellen smiled. “But I called her
Mrs. Bee
.”

“Was she friends with Mum and Faye too?” Ruth asked, tentatively putting a finger inside one of the rough little paws, half expecting it to close on her.

“Not so much. They were older. But Mrs. Bee and I became very close.”

“Is she still alive?”

“No. She died not long after giving him to me.”

“Did she tell you anything … else?”

“Only that I should be careful of him.”

“Careful of him?” Ruth repeated in a whisper. “But … he's not real, is he?”

Mary Ellen kissed the top of Ruth's head and went into the kitchen to begin preparing their lunch. “Maybe just a little bit,” she said.

Ruth put the rat back in the box as carefully as she could but didn't put the lid on. She figured that after being cooped up in a box for a long time, more than anything he would appreciate some space and air. She put the box on the side table and went to help her aunt with lunch. But for the next couple of hours, as they ate and talked, she couldn't stop thinking about the strange gift.

When Mary Ellen was in her bedroom making a long phone call, Ruth took him out again and held him up to the large window. She loved this view, particularly in winter. The sun
was going down over the park; the pink, streaky sky bled out over the surrounding gray clouds. There were joggers and cyclists and groups of fast walkers cutting their way along the paths under the leaf-bare trees. Feeling safe and cocooned in her aunt's warm apartment, Ruth shivered with pleasure when she remembered that she was going to stay the night as a special treat. She would put the rat on her bedside table so that when she woke up he would be the first thing she saw.

“Don't be afraid,” she whispered into the small hairy ear. “You've come to the right person.”

Mary Ellen came back into the room and laughed when she saw Ruth holding the rat up to the window.

“Will you promise me something, darling?” Mary Ellen said as they stood staring down at the wintry park. The seriousness of her tone alarmed Ruth a little, but she tried not to show it.

“Don't let him rule you.”

“Who?”

“The rat.”

“The
rat
?” Ruth laughed. She looked down. With his bright eyes he actually did look as though he were listening to the conversation. “Nobody rules me,” she said.

“Good,” Mary Ellen said matter-of-factly. “Just remember you are the boss and it will be fine.”

“Okay.” Ruth was puzzled. She nodded, but she didn't understand. In fact, she didn't have the faintest idea what Mary
Ellen was getting at, but somehow it didn't seem the right time to ask a whole lot of questions.

Her aunt squeezed her shoulders suddenly. “You'll have great fun with him.”

“Will I?”

“Oh yes.”

“Did you?”

“The best!” Mary Ellen laughed.

Ruth Craze woke early to the sound of blaring news radio and the smell of burned toast. As she lay in bed, she heard her father's deep voice asking the reigning king of all things cool—her fifteen-year-old brother, Marcus—if he'd fed the dog yet.

“I'm looking for my spikes!”

“Feed the dog!”

“He's way too fat.”

“Feed the dog, Marcus.”

“What about Miss Skinny-bum? She's the one who loves him.”

“Just do it,” Ruth's father boomed again. “We have to be gone by seven!”

“Sweet,” Marcus shot back cheerfully.

Ruth pulled the blanket over her head.
Sweet
had to be the most overused word in her brother's vocabulary. And it wasn't true that she liked the dog. Flipper had worn out his welcome
eons ago. He was slow and surly and he smelled bad, but someone had to be on his side. The rest of them were just waiting for him to die.

In the background she could hear the Crown Prince of Dirt, Mess, and Getting-His-Own-Way—otherwise known as Paul, her six-year-old brother—whining about how there was no honey left for his toast.

“Marcus took the last bit.”

“Have jam!” their mother shouted from another room.

“Don't like jam!”

“Then go hungry!”

Ruth wished time would stand still for just a bit. Lying snug under the covers, watching the light creeping in through the holes in the blinds, she could imagine a completely different kind of family—a cool, polite, interesting family where everybody minded their own business and no one shouted.

The following week she was going to turn twelve. Maybe she'd get something she actually wanted this year, instead of the usual last-minute-panic presents. Last year it had been a slightly damaged supermarket chocolate cake from the boys, a horrible pair of striped socks from her father, and a double pass to a weird movie with subtitles that Ruth knew for certain her mother had won in a raffle.
Thanks, Mum!
The film had turned out to be not so bad, but that wasn't the point. The point was that on her birthday she went to a
free
film that she had never heard of,
with her
mother
in some moldy little cinema that didn't even sell popcorn.

The next day her friends had been
embarrassed
for her rather than sympathetic.

“So that was
it
?” Lou could hardly look Ruth in the eye. “That was all you got for your birthday?”

“Well, I got a gift certificate to a clothing store,” Ruth had muttered defensively.

“Who from?”

“My aunt.”

“How much?”

“A grand.”

Lou's eyes became slits.
“A thousand dollars?”

Ruth could see that they were all impressed, but there was no way they were going to let her know it.

“When're you going to use it?”

“Soon.”

“From your
sick
aunt?” Bonnie had asked.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Bonnie grimaced. “That's a bit creepy.”

Bonnie's words made them all look a little uneasy until Katy remembered that she was due at her music lesson and the bell for the end of recess rang.

At least Ruth had managed to avoid admitting that her only birthday card, which the whole family had signed, had been
made by her little brother and that it was covered on all four sides with colorful drawings of dinosaurs with “Happy Birthday” bubbles coming from their bums.

Ruth closed her eyes. Even a mat to hide the worn carpet would do, or a curtain to cover the holes in the old blinds, or … Her small, stuffy room stuck upstairs over the kitchen and the laundry, with its high, narrow window and sloping ceiling, was not a proper bedroom for a (soon-to-be) teenage girl. So when was someone going to do something about it? Dad said that he'd paint it, and Mum said she'd make fresh curtains, but Ruth couldn't be bothered reminding them anymore. Even thinking about it made her remember how she'd loved sleeping in the big, beautiful, sparely furnished guest bedroom in her aunt's apartment. But that was gone forever, along with her aunt.

Everything here was worn and secondhand. She had to share an ancient computer with her older brother, which was such a pain. He was always playing violent games and chatting with his stupid friends. More than anything else, Ruth wanted one of those sleek little silver laptops of her own. With a laptop of her own she'd be able to make interesting friends all over the world and …
and things would be totally different.

There'd been no mention of her birthday over dinner the night before. All the talk had been centered on the boys, as usual. Marcus had won a scholarship to a music school for the
following year, and he'd also been invited to try out for the state cycling team. Not to be outdone, Paul had insisted on showing them all how he could now read
hard
books. There was lots of patting him on the back and joking about how he was going to become the next Einstein. Ruth could distinctly remember reading
The Hobbit
in the
third grade
—a much harder book than Dr. Seuss—but she didn't remember anyone suggesting
she
was going to end up inventing anything. The signs did not look at all promising for her birthday.

“Rise and shine!”

The bedroom door flew open and Ruth's mother crashed in like a tank preparing for battle. “We have to be gone by seven, remember!” Mrs. Craze flipped the blind up with one plump brown hand. “So get a wriggle on!”

Ruth could only blink furiously against the light blasting into her eyes and try to pretend she was somewhere else. In her ideal world no one would ever say
get a wriggle on,
much less yell it at someone who could well be still asleep.

Mrs. Craze's short, round body was encased in a figure-hugging purple tracksuit with a bright yellow turtleneck underneath, and she was wearing an old pair of Marcus's gym shoes with gold stripes down the sides. Ruth had to wonder sometimes if her mother ever looked in the mirror, because if she did right at that moment, even she would have to admit that she looked like an oversized Violet Crumble.

“Remember to bundle up,” Mrs. Craze ordered on her way out. “It's freezing outside.” She stopped at the door. “Oh, by the way, I'm afraid old Flip had a go at your red sweater last night.”

“What?”

“You left it on the veranda!”

“I did not.”

“Oh, come on, sourpuss.” Mrs. Craze sashayed out of the room, her thick gray hair bouncing around her shoulders like tufts of steel wool. “It's not a tragedy, you know!”