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-------by Russ Chenoweth ------- ------- Chapter 1 ------- ------- John stood near the water's edge and watched the snow fall steadily among the blades of meadow grass. The half inch already on the ground had swallowed up the sound of traffic on the highway and dulled the distant crump of breakers pounding Meeting Beach. Without the snow, it would have been immensely dark, the kind of night that comes in winter when the moon is down and cottage lamps are shrunk to sparks. ------- He was about to start for home, when against all likelihood, a patch of blackness moved along the surface of the tidal creek. He watched a boat take shape and pass below the hummock where he stood, its exhaust burbling quietly in the snowy dark. It showed no light, but he could see a man and boy on board, their faces featureless. ------- Fifty feet beyond his perch, the engine stopped, and the cruiser drifted in to nudge the dilapidated dock. A lantern glimmered as the man tied up. Doors slammed, another engine started, and a car moved quietly away. The night was once more silent, except for the whisper of the snow. ------- John was suddenly aware of cold snowflakes lighting on his snout. He’d stayed later than he planned at Henry's, to enjoy his stories of the time a dozen trawlers left the harbor to bring back mounds of shellfish. He shook off the snow and set out towards home. ------- He moved quickly at first. The snow had barely penetrated the heavy thicket that rimmed the bay to the north of Stone Harbor. On higher ground, a dusting had sifted into the grass tunnels that crisscrossed the fields. A fox might hunt on a night like this. The dogs would be inside. ------- By the time he reached the highway, the wind had risen to a gale. The grass was clogged with snow, and he floundered through the drifts. ------- It was easier to move among the gnarled old trees of Maple Swamp, but he had to stop halfway across the big field that led up Fortress Hill. The wind that shrieked above the beaten grass was filled with frozen spray, torn from the surf that thundered beyond the dunes. Sight and sound were meaningless a hundred yards from home. ------- If he kept the wind on his left, he should come to the road. It would have to be soon. The cold drove through his fur. He could go to ground beneath the snow and save his strength until the wind died, but didn't sound appealing. ------- Something crashed through the grass ahead of him, just visible in the torrent of wind and snow. It was gone, then charged past again and nearly ran him down. ------- He sank his teeth into the bushy tail of French's hound before the dog could vanish in the night. Buster whirled to face him. Speech was impossible even if the dog could speak. John raised his paw and pointed towards the road. ------- Buster understood. After a long look at John, he turned and began to force his way through the snow. He stopped once to glance back and then went on. ------- John sensed the hard surface at the same moment Buster did. The dog hesitated, prodded by his instincts, then continued on towards his master’s house. -------John struggled up the road into the wind and over the crest of the hill. He knew the field, but its scents were gone, and one clump of grass was like another. He had to find the stone that hid the entrance to the burrow. ------- He forced himself onward and caught a whiff of a familiar smell. His brother was awake and smoking his pipe while studying a thick medical text. John found the entrance to the hole and plunged into its warmth. After brushing the snow from his coat, he continued down the winding tunnel to the den. -------Peter was slumped in the big easy chair before the embers of a fire. -------"Blustery out," John said. ------- "Ah...hmm," but Peter had nothing more to say and watched his brother cross the room and disappear into the tunnel with a cheerful wave. ------- Peter glanced at the clock and listened to the dull roar of the storm above. He closed his book, knocked the pipe ash into the fire, and went to bed. ------- John followed the passageway up the hill to the senior Waterrats' burrow. A light was burning in the kitchen, and his mug and the can of cocoa were on the table. He put a pan of milk on the stove and padded down the hallway to his parents' room. ------- "John?" ------- "I'm home,” he said. ------- "That's good, dear. We were worried. Have your cocoa. Good night." ------- "Good night, Mother." ------- He went back to the kitchen and fixed the hot chocolate. He drank it slowly, contemplating the pots and the frieze of tumbling mice hand-painted on the kitchen tiles. -------His sister would call the dog a canis ex machina. He'd like to tell James about it, he wasn't usually so adventurous, but it hadn't been smart to stay so late at Henry's. ------- He finished his chocolate and took a last look around the kitchen. Then he carried the candle down the chilly hallway to his room. ------- ------- ------- In a cottage a mile across the snowy fields, a heavyset man smoked his pipe and watched a teen-aged boy poke the embers of a fire. ------- “Let’s not mention the boat lights to your mother, Steven. She’d worry. I’ll get them fixed." ------- “Sure,” Steven said. "It was spooky coming up the creek in the dark. I felt like someone was spying on us.” -------"Marsh monsters." ------- "The animals, Dad. You can’t see them, but they’re there." -------"Why would they care about us?” ------- "Snooper does." ------- "Dogs are smart." ------- "Billy Wasserman's squirrel used to meet his school bus." ------- "A sobering thought." ------- Dr. Lee stood and emptied his pipe into the fireplace. "Don’t stay up too late." ------- "I won't." Steven swallowed the last of his cocoa, and tipped the mug until a half-melted marshmallow slid into his mouth. He looked into the fire. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 2 ------- ------- "Clam fritters for lunch." ------- "Great," John said. Clam fritters with bacon, and pecan pie for dessert. ------- "And write to Lyle. He remembered your birthday, and he must feel bad about having to leave Marshfield Manor." ------- "I will." ------- "Be careful." ------- He waved and started up the winding tunnel towards the day. Two months had passed since the blizzard. Winter was forgotten. ------- The sunlit entrance to the burrow was shielded by a ledge of rock and veiled in grass. The rock sat partway up the gentle hill that overlooked the marsh and the ocean beach beyond. A ragged line of breakers shimmered in the light. The sky was pure and blue and populated by idling gulls. John scanned the fields, sniffed the breeze, and listened to the distant baying of French's hound. ------- It wasn’t the usual hour for a rat to leave the safety of the tunnels. Night was their time. John liked the soft feel of darkness and the rich smells carried in the moist air. He’d thoroughly explored the darkened fields and brush, the berry thickets and stands of cedar and scrub oak surrounding Maple Swamp, but this expedition required light. -------By day, the fragrance of sun-warmed honeysuckle and wild roses mingled with the scents of earth and sea. The colors of the field and the jumbled sound of insects dazzled sight and hearing. ------- He’d already been on several bug-hunts, as James called them. He was sure no one would be out so early on a May morning, but to John's surprise an elderly couple left the tangle of the berry patch and began to climb the hill. There were more humans on the trails now, mostly slow and harmless creatures who never looked into the shadows. -------These old creatures seemed alert. The man’s eyes searched the field. He wore a coat and tie and used a walking stick. The woman gestured. John waited for them to pass. ------- "...Dichter...," the woman said, "und Goethe auch...." The rest was lost, as the low voices merged with the wind and the rising hum of traffic. John had read that Goethe was the German Shakespeare, a scientist, and a man who valued nature. ------- In the wake of the old couple, he came to the edge of the parking lot. Had there really been a fort on Fortress Hill? The name was so familiar he’d never asked. It had to be the settlers'. The Indians would have had more sense. The rats' own burrows stood open, many exits affording a graceful retreat. ------- There was a wall around Marshfield Manor. He'd often heard about the fine old Colonial mansion in which Ben and Elizabeth had made a comfortable burrow. The house stood on several acres of field and marsh in the heart of Bayport. “A wicked shame to see it go,” his mother said. ------- After surveying the nearly empty sky, John ran across the grass and leaped onto the wooden bench that faced the sea. His senses strained to grasp the field, where a million blossoms drank the sun. He knew their names, the tasty, the deadly, and the mildly soporific. ------- Gulls and grass, the wildflowers, and the distant sea all moved with the breeze. No smoke rose from cottage chimneys. No boats plied the creek. The scene was as it might have looked to Captain Gosnold when his ships passed by in 1602. ------- John jumped down from the bench and hurried across the grass to the uncut field. ------- Insect life was everywhere. Bees moved from flower to flower in search of sweetness, and beetles hustled by. A mantis hung unmoving. John paused a moment at the cone-shaped pit of a doodlebug. ------- He had a goal in mind and finally settled on his stomach where he could watch a nest of black ants. ------- A silent frenzy. Did ants feel pleasure in their work? Rats went about the business of survival with enthusiasm and left themselves time for books and music. ------- Did ants feel anything? Clearly they could communicate. He’d brought a cookie in his pack. He set it on the ground two feet from the entrance. ------- A worker lumbered past and stopped beside the crumb. She stared for longer than seemed necessary, then started off with frantic energy, arrived at the entrance to the nest, and disappeared inside. Did she report to the Queen? Could any fellow worker hear the news? ------- The word was spread. Ants followed an erratic path to the bait and set to work removing small chunks and staggering back along a common route. ------- He’d forgotten to note the path of the original discoverer, so he moved the cookie. Within minutes, the pattern repeated - the discovery, the hesitation, the frantic journey home. -------He could plan a real experiment, plot his observations on a graph..., but it was amateurish nonsense. He needed to study with a scientist, an entomologist. ------- While he concentrated on the ants, he’d briefly lost his usual awareness of the world around him. He glanced up suddenly and looked directly into a human face. In the instant before his instincts sent him hurtling into the brush, he sensed a mind as strong as his own. There’d been no hostility, and no stone came crashing after him, but the boy had seen into his eyes. ------- He raced for home. ------- ------- Chapter 3 ------- ------- James read the labels on the jars that lined the shelves of Soule’s Apothecary: Digitalis, Epinephrine, Amoxicillin. Names like Greek warriors for little more than roots and herbs. ------- It was late morning on the last Sunday in May. James would have the store to himself until Soule unlocked the door at noon. He continued exploring, sniffing the exotic scents and puzzling over strange objects. ------- This wasn't James's first excursion into their world. He’d been in Strawberry's Hardware and the giant Food Fantasy. Once he watched a motion picture through a hole in the rear wall of the Rialto. He had a perverse interest in humans. ------- James passed along the candy aisle and selected a small Snickers bar. He settled into a toy sailboat and imagined drifting on Long Pond. ------- From deep in his daydream, he heard the cat door open and close. ------- James stuffed the remains of the candy into his chest-pack and hurried to the fancy soaps. They’d mask his scent, but he’d left a trail throughout the store. ------- He saw a tail tip pass down the aisle, tawny with a white tuft at the end. Grizzer, the battle-scarred wharf cat from Stone Harbor. A full-grown Norway rat was a fair match for an ordinary tabby, but Grizzer was nearly twice his size and a killer. ------- James sped towards the trap door. As he rounded the candy aisle, he came muzzle to muzzle with the big cat. ------- "In a hurry, rat?" ------- "What's it to you, fat gut?" James said. "Are you on Soules' payroll?" ------- "No, son, just a bunny hunt. Saw you go in and got tired of waiting. You're a tasty looking chap." ------- "Good luck, pal. Melvil says you can’t catch a mole." ------- "The library cat!" Grizzer hissed. "That old furball's not a cat, son. He's a toothless house pest. I believe you're trying to divert me, young fellow. Old Soule will be opening the door shortly, and if he cares to show his appreciation... This can be quick." ------- "Thanks, Grizzer. YAAAH!" ------- James sprang towards the cat. Grizzer was caught off guard as a half-eaten chocolate bar whacked him on the snout. ------- James dug in his paws the instant he was through the cat door. Grizzer burst out a second later, his momentum carrying him a dozen feet before he stopped in a shower of loose stones. He spun around as James vanished back inside the store. ------- Grizzer hit the door head on and collapsed like a beanbag. James had slid the bar in place. The cat shook his head and gave a scream of rage, but he was too old to waste more energy. He slunk off towards the woods. ------- James’s heartbeat slowed. He caught his breath. Brains and luck! He owed himself a reward. -------With four small cigars tucked into his chest-pack, he made his way out through the window-well and quickly padded along a storm drain to the woods. ------- Twenty minutes later, James paused at the edge of the bicycle path where it arrowed straight along the roadbed of the old railway. He watched the approaching rider lean forward over his handlebars, pedaling like fury. It was distaste, not caution, which kept him hidden beneath the scrub oak. ------- He picked up a stone. The whirr of bike tires on the asphalt rose in pitch then sank as the cyclist flashed by. The boy was his own age, slim and blond. James would have fewer years but more experience. Rats grew quickly or the tale was short, the saying went. He dropped the stone and crossed the path. ------- ------- ------- ------- -------Chapter 4 ------- ------- The salt marsh began at the foot of Fortress Hill. John looked for arrowheads where the last high tide had scored the bluff. He’d once found some bird points here, but there were none today. After carefully inspecting the sky, he swam the shallow channel to the first sandbar. ------- He stood a moment in this strange place, poised between the earth and the sea, before he began to wander among the rivulets and moon-snail trails. It was warm for May, the marsh as rich and savory as in high summer. He came near to dreaming as the water brushed his belly. ------- Beyond a broad pool, riffled by the breeze and glittering, the grass shone silver in the light. For long the only sound was the slurp of tide among the swaying stalks. Then he heard a crackling. Creeping through the maze of grass, John peered out at an old raccoon digging clams. ------- "Afternoon, Sir," he said. "I’m surprised to see you here." ------- "Might say the same for thee, John. Come to see what the tide’s brought in?" ------- "I guess so, sir.” ------- Old Murray continued digging. "Sara says you've got the curiosity." ------- John didn’t know how to answer. ------- "Care for a clam?" ------- "Thank you," he said politely. ------- Murray chuckled. "No need. I’m here for the sun myself. Sun and seawater heal old bones. Who’ll mend the marsh, eh?" ------- "Yes, sir. I’d like to learn about the marsh." ------- ”A fair bit to learn.” -------The raccoon cracked and ate another clam. "Show you Long Pond someday." He turned his head and squinted at John. "Think you know her, do ye?" ------- John nodded sheepishly. -------"See the world through a pond's eye, boy." He bent to wash his paws. ------- The clank of oarlocks silenced them. A shadow moved, and the prow of a rowboat glided above the grass. ------- John caught his breath. The boy was leaning forward across the bow as if to drink in every blade and ripple. John lowered his eyes until the boat was past. ------- The man was heavy and graying. He guided the boat through the channel without glancing over his shoulder. ------- "Seen the old fellow on the pond,” Murray said. “Reckon he comes for the quiet.” ------- Murray was silent a moment. "They're just creatures like us, you know.” ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 5 ------- ------- Steven jumped from his bicycle and let it wobble on its own across the front lawn of their summer cottage and settle in the weeds. It was an indestructible old Schwinn that had lost its fenders. Its current coat of dark green paint made it easy to conceal in the underbrush. -------His mother and father and his younger sister were eating lunch. ------- "Sorry I'm late." Steven sat himself at the far end of the picnic table. ------- "Did you wash your hands?" his mother asked. ------- "They're not dirty. I saw a rat watching an ant hill." ------- "A rat! Oh, Steven. They spread disease ------- "It was probably a wood rat, Helen," his father said. "I'm sure it wasn't carrying the plague." Steven’s father taught history at the University, which left him free to write during the summer. ------- "It was a Norway rat,” Steven said, “a big one," but they hadn't seemed to hear him. ------- He poured himself a cup of coffee and assembled a thick bologna sandwich by wadding the slices into a mound. Conscious of his mother's eye, he began to eat, staring into the pitch pine woods that ringed the cottage. ------- The forest had always seemed a familiar place, a backdrop to their lives. It had been a disturbing to be seen by the rat, like catching someone's eye on the subway, a strange wild eye with none of the humility of their family dog. ------- Steven and his father planned to go rowing in the marsh that afternoon, but he had to read to his sister first. Her favorites, the adventures of the Famous Five, were easy books. He could enjoy the adventures of George and Timmy in the English countryside or let his thoughts wander, his own voice a distant undertone. -------Steven had no trouble staying busy on the Cape. He had his chores and books. He’d begun to collect and label the beautiful wild grasses that grew nearby. The grass menagerie, as his father called it, had grown into a summer project. ------- "The rat was watching ants?" His sister had been thinking about it. ------- "Like it was studying them." ------- "Weird." ------- He opened Jenny's book and read two chapters. He read a third when she asked him to, but afterwards he had no memory of it. ------- ------- ------- "You did the clam fritters?" ------- “Don’t you like them?” John tried not to sound annoyed. Rats made an art of cooking, but Sara had little interest in the kitchen. -------She was several years older than John, although she still lived in the sprawling Waterrat burrow. Since their Uncle Luc had left the management of the Spartina Press to her, Sara and her friend Tom had run it, publishing Rattish editions of human works and titles by local authors, including her own Cape Diary. Tom also read law, human and rattish, and helped out at the family cabinet-making shop. Their lives could hardly have been busier or more settled. When her mother said she wished Sara would settle down, what she meant was marriage and children. ------- “Sure I do. They’re good,” Sara said. ------- "Mom showed me how." ------- "They’re excellent," Peter said through a mouthful. He and Karen had their burrow farther down the hill, but today Karen was sketching at Salt Pond, and Peter was working with his father in the laboratory. ------- John hoped he’d be asked to join them. He was busy with his studies, and he liked his part-time job at the Press, but it was the lab that fascinated him. ------- "Cooking’s like a chemistry experiment,” he said. “You follow the directions, and it comes out right." ------- "I'd have said more like a painting,” his mother suggested. “The right ingredients, some imagination..." ------- "No recipes in research,” his father said. “No dab of this or dollop of that. It's mostly mathematics. Good fritters, John." ------- "Thanks," John said. Next time he’d just ask about helping in the lab. ------- It was only in the past year that John had much to say at the table. Rats were talkers, but it seemed to him that most of their thinking was pretty predictable. Peter and Sara, though, had their own opinions on everything from mushroom marinades to human civilization. ------- "Where did we get the bacon, Nan?" His father rarely spoke at breakfast. ------- "From old Barlow." ------- "Barlow's son," Peter explained, "from the loading platform at Jesperson's." ------- "Your granddad wouldn't like that," Father observed, a piece of crisp bacon on his fork. ------- “Yeah, but bacon’s one thing they got right.” ------- "I hope our future doesn't depend on humans getting thing’s right," Sara said. "Andrew and Marci live well in the middle of the dirty city, and Ben and Elizabeth have a nice place there on the river." ------- "Didn't Mother tell you?" Peter said. "Karen got a letter. Ben says they mean to demolish Marshfield Manor and put up an office building." He shook his head. ------- "Coffee, Ed?" Unpleasant topics at meals caused indigestion. The study of human civilizations was considered by many rats to be a luxury, or even dangerous, but it was taken seriously by Peter and Sara and their friend Tom. ------- "Pie please.” ------- "There's cream, if John will whip it." ------- "Sure.” Pecan pie with whipped cream was his favorite dessert. He'd have to put off his afternoon plans a while. ------- He felt like reading, anyway. He was a third of the way through Moby Dick and was fascinated by life aboard a whaling ship. He liked Melville’s language, a seagoing talk that was bantering and biblical. Rattish was clear and elegant, but not a rich brew of meanings like English. ------- He finished his dessert and listened to a tedious discussion of local real estate developments and then excused himself to go to his room and read. ------- ------- ------- Chapter 6 ------- ------- -------John raised the subject of an overnight camping trip the next morning at breakfast. ------- “As long as you don't let James talk you into doing something foolish." ------- "James isn't as reckless as he used to be." ------- "Is that supposed to be reassuring?" ------- "I mean he really isn't reckless at all. He just has lots of ideas." -------“I’m sure he does.” Nan Waterrat considered ideas to be the root of reckless actions. "Why don't you ask James and Chester for dinner tonight, and then you can start off with full stomachs at least?” ------- “Great,” John said. -------He liked bringing his friends to their burrow. They’d all had a good time together last year at the picnic near Coast Guard, although James had upset his parents when he decoyed the Bedlingham over the bluff. The dog had walked away befuddled but unharmed after the long slide in loose sand. Father had spoken to James about it, but he seemed more amused than angry. James had pointed out that the terrier had seen him. Father said James needn’t have been on the boardwalk, and James said he just wanted to see the moonlight on the surf. James was always respectful and polite, but he usually had the last word. ------- ------- After checking with his friends about supper and their trip, John spent much of the day in his room. Vacation week was over. He had homework, and it was harder this year. School was mostly homework. The only formal activities were his weekly meetings with Dr. Jostus and with his study group. ------- There were eight of them in the group. James was the brightest. He questioned everything and forced them to deal with factors they might have overlooked. ------- This year, the group project was an environmental study of the middle cape, with the final product a computer model. It was interesting and difficult, and the results were becoming ominous. Julie was a good leader, forceful in a way John doubted he could ever be. ------- He worked at his desk, surrounded by arrowheads and scrapers, sharks' teeth, wave-polished stones, and bits of sun-bleached driftwood. Books filled his shelves. His small collection of Spartina Editions included the first copy of Sara's book. He kept the classical music station on low. ------- At noon, he wandered down to the kitchen, where he found a note from his mother. Sara would be at the press, and his father was unlikely to come out of the laboratory until supper. -------He found a bowl of leftover baked beans behind the apple sauce and warmed them on the stove, along with a piece of the smoked bluefish. With a slice of his mother's freshly baked seed-bread and a small pot of coffee, it made a good lunch. ------- He read while he ate, the big volume propped open with the pepper mill. ------- ------- "Dr. Doodlebug?" ------- "Hi, James. I was looking at maps." ------- "Let me see." ------- "It’s just Bayport." ------- "Oh," James said. "You planning a trip?" ------- "Maybe." But John had no plans to go to anywhere. "Not really. I'd like to see my cousins sometime." ------- "Hope and Larissa?" There might have been the faintest note of derision in James's voice. ------- "And Lyle. I'd like to study in Bayport." ------- "Could you do that?" ------- "I don't know. I went to school there for a month when I was with Peter and Sara, but that was in a classroom. I want to study with an entomologist. The big library is incredible, James. There are miles of stacks and millions of books. The city noises and the smells..., it's unbelievable." ------- "Ugh," James said. ------- "Where are we going to camp?" John asked. ------- "I don't care," James said. ------- "How about Long Pond. We could swim tonight and then head over to Stone Harbor in the morning." ------- "Sounds good. Chester will go for the harbor." ------- "There should be a scallop boat in," John agreed. James had less interest in food than most rats. Chester had a more than average appetite. "We could have a picnic on the rocks." ------- "And walk on the flats at low tide." ------- "Maybe." John wasn't as sure about that. He'd been out once with Peter, but it could be dangerous. Chester wouldn't like it. A lot depended on the weather and the wind. An overcast sky would hide them from the shore, and an offshore breeze would carry their scent out to the bay. ------- "What did you bring?" James had dropped a bulging bag in the corner of John's room. ------- "A book," James said, "and some sausages." He sounded embarrassed. "My mom sent them." ------- "That’s great," John said. "We can have them for breakfast." Every family had its own recipe for sausage, some inedible except by those who had grown up accustomed to them. James’ mother’s were good. James’s father had been killed two years before. Although the family had refused offers of help, life had to be hard for them at times. ------- James suggested a game of chess, but John felt four hours of homework had been humbling enough. He'd beaten Sara twice in the past month. Peter always won, but at least he didn't feel obliged to tell him why. To be fair, though, he’d learned a lot from James. ------- They spent an hour looking through John's magazines. ------- "Look at this!” James said, “Old Bayport, a portrait in early photographs." They paged through the article, admiring the brick buildings and the carved wood and fanciful iron work. ------- "What’s Bayport like now?" James asked. ------- "Like any other city, a lot of tall glass boxes, but there are some historic parts. My aunt and uncle live in a nice old eighteenth-century townhouse." ------- "Hullo." Chester's sturdy form appeared at the door of John's room. ------- "Hi." John smiled. He knew Chester was wary of James. James could be intimidating. Chester left his heavy pack inside the doorway and sat in John's reading chair. ------- "Food?" James asked, nodding at the pack. ------- "Yeah, and other stuff," Chester replied evasively. ------- "Great," James said, and Chester visibly relaxed. ------- "Where are we going?" ------- "We thought maybe Long Pond tonight and Stone Harbor tomorrow afternoon," John said. ------- "Sure!" As James had predicted, Chester was pleased. The harbor meant a grab bag of fish and shellfish. "Your mom said to tell you dinner’s ready in half an hour." ------- "Good," John said. The talk of food had made him hungry. ------- "We could catch some perch," he said, and the others agreed that this would be a good idea. John put away the magazines and straightened his desk. ------- "Race you to the pool," he said suddenly, and he was out the door. They streaked through the tunnels, John in front and James at his heels. Chester fell behind and was gasping for breath when he reached the steamy doorway to the pool chamber. He flopped into the warm water, making a wave that washed over the rim of the pool. ------- "We could build a raft," James suggested, "at the pond," he continued. ------- "To fish from," John agreed. ------- "If we don't float too far out," Chester added. ------- "We'd float to shore eventually," James observed. They let the subject drop and played a noisy game of water tag until a firm voice from the doorway stopped their shouts. ------- "Dinner!" It was Sara. "I followed the river that came in under my door. Hello Chester, James." ------- "Hi Sara," Chester said. "Sorry about the water." ------- They dried and fluffed their fur and raced to the dining room, where they stood awkwardly in the doorway. Looking like damp puffballs, Sara thought. Father, Mother, and Sara were seated at the long dining table. It was rarely used, now that Peter had moved out and Grandmother and Grandfather were staying at South Pollock. ------- His mother had used the best silver and china, John saw. Chester beamed at the sight of such magnificence devoted to food, and even James seemed pleased. ------- "Glad to have you join us, boys," Father said. "How's your mother getting on, James?" ------- "Fine, Sir," James replied. "She's teaching math at the Elm Tree School." ------- "Good," Father said. "We need all the mathematicians we can get." He didn't elaborate. ------- The boys sat, and Father bowed his head for a moment. John thanked a generous providence for his highly satisfactory life and wondered what his father thought about on these occasions. He’d asked Peter once, and Peter suggested it was every rat for himself in such matters. ------- Father raised his head. Mother removed the cover from the big rat-made crock of obscure origin, around which a troop of hungry mice chased one another's tails. A billow of pungent steam rolled out across the table. ------- "Mmmm." Chester's almost involuntary comment spoke for everyone. "Bouillabaisse," he murmured with reverence. ------- "We haven't had it for a spell," Mother said. "It's such a business to collect the ingredients. I thought you boys might like some." ------- Bowls were ladled full of scallops and fish, clacking clams and mussels, and a tangy tomato broth. There was more eating than talking then, and what talk there was dealt mainly with food, such as the amazing growth of mushrooms at the edge of Maple Swamp. A patch of wild rice that had sprung up near Brewster's Cove, and spring was arriving everywhere in a satisfactory fashion. -------Sara watched her brother and his friends. They were awkward and amusing but coming along. Sara was full of ideas and enthusiasms these days, although still uncertain about her future. She was busy with the press and her writing and was not quite engaged to Tom. John and his friends still lived half in the adventurous world of childhood, which she hadn't entirely forgotten. ------- "Where are you camping?" she asked. ------- "Long Pond," John told her. ------- She had memories of the pond, of adventures with her friend Sally and a midnight fishing expedition with Peter. ------- "It's trout season," Father commented. This was a reminder, in case John and his friends had forgotten, that early morning fly casters would be tramping through the brush, both the quiet ones and the rowdy sort. Fortunately, most humans ignored any land that wasn't paved or cultivated. The small creatures that didn't poke their heads above the weeds could burrow to safety almost anywhere. ------- "We'll watch out for the fishermen," John said, with the magnanimity a full stomach permits. His parents liked to have even the most unarguable truths acknowledged. "On the map it looks as if there’s a creek flowing into the lake near the south end." ------- "It drains all the way from Campground Grove,” Peter affirmed. “It should be full after the rain.” ------- “Pie boys?” Mother asked. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 7 ------- ------- They left for the camping trip, well stuffed and not feeling as adventurous as they might, and crossed the dark fields in silence. Within the safety of the brambles, they could talk quietly. The moon was down, but starlight outlined every leaf and twig. Peter said rats were at the peak of their senses when they stumbled into self-consciousness. ------- "Smell the locust blossoms," Chester whispered. ------- The tang of sea and cedars mingled with oil and asphalt as they approached the highway. They listened at the entrance to Rat Run, a handy culvert beneath the road. Long Pond lay to the south, through woods that followed the bike path. There were cyclists and hikers by day. ------- They dropped their packs where Campground Creek welled into the pond and swam in water that felt softer and wetter than the bay. It had a rich smell of fish and plants. John and Chester rode on the gentle current while James investigated a pile of driftwood. ------- "Enough for a raft," he called. -------John and Chester helped make the platform, tying the limbs together with twine from James’s pack. With boards for paddles, the raft could be maneuvered easily on the quiet surface of the pond. ------- They paddled out a few yards, then drifted on the dark water, smooth as volcanic glass and filling up with stars. The Milky Way formed a ribbon of light across the distances. ------- "James!" The urgency of Chester's voice cut short their stargazing. "The raft’s moving by itself!" ------- They saw the ripples spread into a broad wake. ------- "What is it?" Chester asked, but he knew. ------- "Oh dear..." There was no point in saying it. "What can we do?" Chester wailed. ------- No one answered him. They were all fine swimmers but was none a match for a big snapping turtle. It would tip them off the raft and catch them before they were halfway to shore. ------- "The bag," James said. If he was afraid, he didn't show it. ------- "The bag?" John asked numbly. ------- "The tackle bag. Give it to me." James took the bag and dumped out the reels and lures. -------Suddenly, the raft was floating free. ------- "Hang on!" James cried. With a heavy thud, the platform tilted. The rats held tightly to the twine. A few feet away, the snapper's big head rose dripping. It surveyed the situation impassively. ------- "Jump in," James said. “Splash around.” ------- "What?" John asked in disbelief. ------- "Do it!" ------- John jumped but surfaced immediately and grabbed the raft, ready to climb back on. ------- "Yaaahhh," he hollered, thrashing about. -------The snapper eyed him with suspicion. He had few enemies, but he hadn't grown old by acting hastily. His head drew nearer, and John prepared to pull himself out of the water. -------A dark shape scrambled onto the snapper's back, and before the turtle could react, James had slipped the tackle bag over its head and drawn it tight. ------- "Swim for it," he hollered. ------- "Let's go, Chester," John cried. James caught up as they swam towards shore. In a minute they lay gasping on the sand. ------- "Nice going," John said. ------- "The raft was my dumb idea," James said. "Sorry about the fishing tackle." ------- "Do you think he can get the bag off?" Chester asked. ------- John saw James smile. Leave it to Chester to worry about the turtle. -------"Sure," James said. "I didn't tie it." ------- They collected their packs and went up the creek for a quarter of a mile to where it widened into a pool. Here they sat and ate crackers and cheese. They swam and floated and talked about their escape until the terror seeped away. ------- ------- John was the first to wake when the slight change in light and stirring of vegetation came at dawn. He always woke early, even deep in the burrow. ------- He crept to the rocks at the water's edge and watched the sun touch the reeds and light the mist. Tiny whorls appeared at random on the pool like raindrops rising from below. ------- "That was splendid," Chester said an hour later. The rats were stuffed with eggs and sausage and buttered toast and were enjoying a third cup of coffee as they stretched out on a sun-warmed stone. ------- Distant voices interrupted their quiet talk. They crept through heavy underbrush to where they could watch men fly-casting, too burdened with equipment to be a danger to anything but the trout. ------- "What if we dammed up the stream?" James suggested. -------"Sure," John agreed. It would be fun. Even Chester was enthusiastic. ------- When the pool began to widen behind their rough stone barrier, the rats left and made their way through the woods towards Stone Harbor. ------- They stopped for a rest at the old Wills Road Cemetery, the Dead Graveyard, Sara called it, for the burials had ended a hundred years before, Frenchs, Bankers, Howes, and Hoxies, their given names, Patience, Hope, and Charity, reflecting a harder time. ------- The three friends sheltered behind a monument that was decorated with a carved whaling ship. They shared an apple and a small box of raisins and contemplated the gravestones. Rats buried their dead with no markers and far less ceremony. ------- Beyond the rough-mown field, a row of trees was bursting with new leaves, the trunk and branches just visible beneath the pale green haze. They crept away when a family came on bicycles to inspect the stones. ------- -------Near the entrance to the harbor, the brush reached to a low bluff that overlooked the beach. Here, in the shelter of a boulder draped with poison ivy, they ate cold sausage, bread, and cheese and dozed through the afternoon. ------- There was enough water by three o'clock for the dories to put out from Clapham Beach. The little sailboats ran north with the wind for half an hour, then tacked back down the shore while the rats watched enviously. ------- Late in the day, the charter boats returned. The passengers took their catch, and the crews scrubbed the decks and went home to supper. Finally, the harbor lay quiet and deserted beneath the softly buzzing lamps. ------- The rats kept outside the pools of yellow light. Their goal was the old Marsdon, a scallop trawler which had returned during the afternoon. The take had been unloaded and trucked to local restaurants, but the fishermen always left enough whole and broken scallops for a feast. The rats lugged the shells back to the boulder, where they grilled the scallops skewered on twigs. With mushrooms from a patch inside the woods, a garnish of lemon wedges from John's pack, and the last of the bread and cider, it made a fine supper. ------- Later still, they packed their belongings and cleaned the picnic site. Only a fox would know who had spent the day in the shelter of the rock. ------- It was Chester who first noticed the disturbing odor. -------"I smell it," John said. "Gasoline!" ------- They crept along the pilings that lined the wharf. The reek grew worse as they approached the center of the dock, where the larger boats were moored. ------- "There," Chester said. The fumes rising from below were overpowering. "It’s a bad leak." ------- "We'd better go before something sets it off,” John said nervously. ------- "We can't just leave," Chester called after them. "We have to warn someone." ------- "Why?" James asked. They stopped and waited for Chester to come away. ------- "I don't know," Chester said. “I don't want to see the boats burn." ------- "Better if they did," James said. ------- "I know," Chester said. ------- "What can we do?" John asked. "Throw a rock through the window of the Half Shell?" ------- "As good as anything," James agreed. "You want to do it, Chester?" ------- "If I have to," Chester answered. ------- James chuckled. "No, I will." ------- They could see shadows moving behind the lighted window of the tiny restaurant. -------"James picked up a stone. The big window would take a lot of breaking. The smell of gasoline grew stronger. ------- Suddenly, headlights swept around the curve on Bridges Road. The rats watched an old truck turn into the parking lot and stop with a wheeze at the far end of the wharf. ------- "Thank goodness," Chester said. ------- A man and a boy got out and went down a ladder to the deck of a sloop. Its lights went on. ------- "Don't they smell it?” Chester asked in exasperation. ------- "The wind is wrong," James said. An onshore breeze had begun to sweep in from the bay, blowing the fumes towards land. ------- "Try to break the window," John said to James. He hurried through the choking fumes to the far end of the dock and leaped onto the timber curb, above where the sloop was berthed. The boy came out of the cabin. ------- "Here," John called, although he doubted that his small voice could be heard over the creak of ropes. For whatever reason, the boy raised his head and started as he saw the rat in the glare of the sodium lamps. John motioned with his snout and danced in the direction of the spill. He almost raised a paw to point. What he did was worse. He looked into the boy's eyes. There was incredulity, then recognition and a smile, and the boy began to climb the ladder. John pranced a dozen feet in front of him. The fumes grew stronger. ------- The boy smelled the gasoline now and went to the edge of the wharf. It was time to go. John hurried toward the road but stopped and glanced back to see the boy looking at him before he turned and ran to the boat. ------- ------- ------- Chapter 7 ------- ------- John was up at dawn, after a night of uneasy sleep. Confused memories of the previous day had reappeared as fragmentary. He sat in the kitchen the night before and drank a cup of cocoa with his mother and sister and told them that they had had a good time. Then he’d gone to bed. ------- It had been a good camping trip, but by this morning it had begun to fade into the past, except for James's bravery and quick thinking and the events at Stone Harbor. He took a cup of coffee to the porch and found his father and sister already there. ------- "Morning," Sara said cheerfully. "You're up early after your adventures." ------- "I slept okay," John said. What adventures had he mentioned the night before? He yawned involuntarily. Sara smiled and turned back to her book. ------- "There was some commotion at Stone Harbor," his father said. ------- "Yes sir," John answered. "There was a gasoline spill, but no fire." Father sipped his coffee and stared out over the marsh. ------- "We tried to warn them," John continued, with resignation. "It seemed like the right thing to do." ------- "Ah," his father said. ------- "But some people came in a truck." ------- "James," his father said. ------- "No, sir," John said. "It was Chester's idea, and mine. James just helped." ------- "Well, I'm glad you're all right.” The irresistible smell of eggs and bacon was drifting from the entrance to the burrow. ------- John told them about the camping trip, about damming the creek, and stopping at the cemetery, and especially about the scallop feast. The matter of the wharf had been settled, he hoped, and it didn't seem necessary to mention the turtle. The giant head would haunt his dreams. ------- James and Chester had been good companions. James was calmer, he claimed, and Chester seemed to be more confident since he had been helping his father in the family business. This last was said innocently. He hoped it wouldn't be interpreted as another plea to work in the lab. He finally excused himself and took a cup of coffee to his room. He worked on math, while the coffee was hot and his mind was most alert. Mathematics was interesting, but it took all his concentration to turn one of Dr. Jostus's strange exercises into a workable equation. Dr. Jostus had a theory that rats of John's age were intrigued by the bizarre. ------- He read for an hour, and feeling restless he loped down the long tunnel to the lower entrance and crept through the grass to the edge of the bluff. From here he watched a tanker cross the horizon. It appeared to be no more than an ugly toy, but he knew it was a big ship, the kind that stretched for several football fields. Eventually it faded to a darkish line, a hyphen printed on the surface of the sea, and disappeared. ------- A small boat passed just off shore, rolling and pitching in the swell, and then the sea was altogether empty, where Thoreau had seen the vast mackerel fleet. The great schools of fish were gone, but the ocean was still there, calm or stormy, its surface lit with fire at dawn or washed pale in yellow moonlight. The watery sky was blue or gray or streaked with clouds. Beauty lay too lightly on the fragile elements of air and water, sand and stone. ------- ------- His father and sister were at the kitchen table, drawn by the aroma of mushrooms. They had picked themselves, his mother said, and spontaneously combusted into a pot of soup. There was a great deal of conversation about relatives and neighbors, the usual mealtime talk. John was silent, content to listen. Sara talked, and sounded like his mother and father, although she was only a few years older than he and even now, playing tunnel ball or throwing pebbles from the bluff, she often seemed like one of his school friends ------- "Can I ask you something?" John said suddenly, during a lull in a discussion of the relative merits of mattress stuffing. As John had asked questions without preamble since birth, the question was startling in itself. ------- "Yes, dear," his mother answered. ------- "I might like to study in Bayport." He stopped, but as no one spoke, he went on. "I could study biology with a scholar, and chemistry and math, and use the big library, and I could learn about the city." ------- His father an mother looked at one another. ------- "Well, dear, I suppose so," his mother said. "You're old enough. Is everything all right, John?" ------- "Everything's fine, Mother," John assured her. "I’d just like to do that." ------- "I think it sounds like an excellent idea," his father said, and John felt relief and a sudden anxiety. They’d let him go, but was it what he really wanted? ------- "I'll write to Andrew and see what can be arranged," his father continued. "I think he'll be pleased. He has the notion that we're moldering away out here in the dunes. You can pursue all you interests in circumstances that are more convenient," he added with a slight smile. ------- "Yes sir," John agreed, not sure of what his father meant. ------- ------- "I’m going to study in Bayport this summer,” John said. “Uncle Andrew says I can stay with them." ------- "You won't mind living in the city?" James asked. ------- “Why should I?” John said. -------James didn’t answer. They were in Puckett’s picnic grove, warming in the sun a dozen feet above the ground in the arms of the bronze statue of Awashte. The kindly Wampanoag had come to a sad end in London, but her oversized statue still looked out over the ocean. The basket of corn she offered the starving Pilgrims was a favorite perch. ------- "When are you going?" James asked. ------- "In two weeks, on the North Cape ferry." ------- "Sound's great." James seemed to mean it. ------- "I wish you could come," John said without thinking. James said nothing for a moment. ------- “I saw a three-masted schooner once,” he said, pointing to a small sailboat well out in the ocean. ------- "There’s one in Bayport,” John said. "Why would I mind living in the city, James?” ------- James was silent for a moment. "Too many humans,” he finally answered. "They killed my father." ------- John was horrified, but the moment of awkwardness was ended suddenly by a sound coming from below them. A young man had coasted silently across the grass and leaned his bicycle against the statue. He was in his twenties and dressed in flannel trousers and a blazer, fancy clothes for Puckett's Grove. He glanced around the picnic area and stared out to sea. ------- Eventually he removed a violin from its case and began to play. ------- "Mozart," James said. A second cyclist entered the parking lot. Then a van carrying the other players arrived, and two large German shepherds leaped out. ------- "What are they doing here?" James said uneasily. -------Chairs and music stands were set up. The dogs prowled the grove. They smelled the rats, but there were too many other animal trails. ------- The rest of the party arrived in a cavalcade of cars. Soon a hundred people were milling about the grove. Tables were set up near Awashte's pedestal and covered with bright cloths. Casseroles and platters of food were set out. ------- "A church picnic?" John wondered. -------His question was answered when a gigantic, three-tiered wedding cake was brought to the table. The cake was topped with toy mice dressed as bride and groom. -------The wedding itself took little time. The orchestra played a Bach prelude, and the minister read the ceremony in a clear voice. The orchestra played again, and the crowd converged on the food. ------- "Why mice?" James asked. ------- "No idea," John said. ------- They watched the crowd eating and drinking. The guests sat in groups on the soft grass. Some danced in bare feet. ------- When the children had eaten, they began a game of kickball, as the rats did in the grass tunnels of their field. ------- So many of them, and so alike, John thought. Their pale, round faces, close set eyes, and rudimentary noses offered few landmarks. One older man attracted his attention. He had seen him not long before, he realized, in a faded blue shirt, rowing a scarred old boat through the marsh. ------- The boy was there as well, wearing a grass-stained tee shirt that read, "Green Street School, Bayport.” His grandfather called him Steven. He looked battered and disheveled from playing ball. Two bigger boys had followed him to the picnic table, pushing and teasing but being careful not to attract the attention of the adults. Steven wasn’t going to ask for help. ------- John picked up an acorn that had fallen into Awashte’s basket and threw it at one of the boys. It smacked him in the head. He looked around angrily. John threw another, taking care not to be seen. Everntually the boys left Steven in peace. Steven glanced up at the statue, before returning to the game. ------- John threw an acorn at one of the dogs. ------- “Don’t,” James said. “Dogs are too dumb to reject the impossible.” ------- As the afternoon wore on, the singing of the violins rose and fell on the breeze, and the distant voices of children mingled with the cries of gulls. John grew drowsy. ------- Suddenly, a sound caught his attention. Someone was climbing Awashte's broad back. He jostled James, and they heard a small voice say, "...do it." ------- John stretched cautiously beneath the bronze arm that held the basket. He saw the climber, a girl with dark skin and curly hair. ------- "She'll make it," he said to James. “We'd better jump." ------- The tables were covered by bowls and platters. Knives and forks lay every which way. It was like a tiger trap. John glanced at James and saw him smile. He followed James’s gaze to the unbroken expanse of the three-tiered wedding cake. ------- "They won't be pleased," he said. ------- "You have a better idea?" James asked. ------- John shook his head. ------- "On three then. One, two..." ------- John launched himself after James, and they landed on either side of the nattily dressed mice. The cake was soft, and John was afraid for a moment they’d be trapped and suffocated in its sweetness, but it burst apart, and they were free and running across the field. ------- They didn't stop until they could no longer hear the shouts of the wedding guests and the wild barking of the dogs. ------- "I'm afraid we spoiled their party," James said. James had jumped first and collected most of the icing. Some had fallen off, but his ears were still caked and drooping. -------John smiled. “I think we made it a memorable occasion.” ------- James nodded and brushed away the icing. ------- "I'd like to go to Bayport with you," he said. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 8 ------- ------- ------- It was arranged. James would stay with John at Andrew and Marci’s Bayport apartment. Tutors had been found, and they could attend cultural events and visit historic sites. ------- They’d go first to Peter’s in-laws, Ben and Elizabeth, who lived near the docks at Marshfield Manor and make the long journey beneath the city with them. ------- John looked around his room. He was bringing only a book and food. At the last moment, he slipped his pocket knife into the pack. ------- He said a hurried and embarrassed goodbye to his parents, and he and James went up the tunnel and into the darkness. ------- It was a fine night for traveling. They made good time across to the bay and by dawn were miles up the coast and well into the deep shadows of the Shorelands forest. They stopped and ate before they curled up on the pine needles. ------- John woke cold and damp. A mist had blown in from the bay and soaked his fur. Water dripped from the trees. He waked James, and they built a fire to dry their coats, and gradually the sun broke through the clouds. They took their time over a breakfast of sausage and eggs, as the sun rose above the trees and light spread among the old pines. ------- They would reach the edge of the woods by lunch, nap through the afternoon, and be ready to cross the flats at low tide. The next morning they’d be safe beneath the wharf at North Cape Harbor. ------- James was full of curiosity despite his often sardonic manner. He hoped for something new from their stay in Bayport, he said. They talked about travel and boats and the fun of having their own sloop and finding pirate treasure. ------- After lunch, John fell asleep. James translated Greek for an hour and slept until late afternoon. ------- John had soaked white beans in a pot of water. He added an onion, a carrot, and the remains of the bacon, mushrooms from the woods, and wild thyme from a nearby field. They built a smokeless fire of driftwood and let the pot simmer on the coals. -------Wood smoke, onions, and herbs mingled agreeably with the sharp tang of salt hay and kelp. Beyond the beach grass, sand flats ran out to the distant line of blue. They would have two hours to cross them if they left at dusk. ------- "It really feels like we're going somewhere now," James said. ------- "An adventure,” John agreed. “I’m glad you came." -------The soup was ready. ------- ------- John buried the old pot and the frying pan at the edge of the woods. Mist and cloud rolled in, and they were able to get an early start towards the lights of North Cape, several miles across the tidal flats. There was nothing overhead but the sky. John felt as if his paws barely touched the sand and that he could run forever, straight across the water to the mainland. ------- They were driven ashore by the returning tide half a mile short of town and slunk along the seawall until they could slip beneath the wharves and make their way to the long central pier where the ferry docked. Its berth would be empty, for the ship tied up each night in Bayport. They would board next afternoon. That was the most dangerous part, but they’d been given careful directions. They curled up on a beam beneath the pier to wait. ------- ------- They were wakened before dawn by a rumble on the roadway above them. A fishing boat had docked during the night, and a truck had arrived to take off the catch. The smell of fresh fish made them hungry. They had instructions concerning breakfast as well. ------- John had been taken to North Cape to visit relatives and had seen the curve of Commercial Street from the cupola of the barn beneath which his cousins had their burrow. The town might have been made for rats, with its maze of paths and hollows that stretched from the waterfront far back beneath the wooden buildings. ------- Peter had suggested they make a morning visit to the rear of the Pilgrim Inn. His directions were clear and accurate. Crates and boxes were piled behind the building, waiting for the cooks. James extracted a long sausage from a loosely packed carton, and John took a fresh roll from another. They were about to carry the food back beneath the wharf when a truck pulled into the alleyway. ------- "The roof," James snapped, slinging the sausage over his shoulder and scrambling up the steep wall of the lean-to which jutted from the rear of the old building. John followed with the bulky roll. ------- A fanciful wooden sailing ship served as a sign above the inn. They hid inside it and ate breakfast while they watched the activities below them. ------- Several more fishing boats had docked, and cranes hoisted barrels of fish onto the waiting vans. Fishermen and truckers moved about the wharf, weighing and loading boxes of fish. Shop doors opened. Men and women swept the sidewalks and the street in front of their stores. Trucks made deliveries. ------- "Good sausage,” James said. “Cape End isn't like East Bay, is it? The houses are jumbled together. It's an burrow above-ground." ------- “It’s neat,” John agreed. “I’d like to be able to wear a bandana like that fellow on the bicycle, but I keep remembering my Grandfather's stories about rats who stick their necks out." ------- They watched the day unfold. It was Saturday, boat day, and tourists would be expected. The first passenger ferry arrived, and several hundred visitors got off, mostly families. They milled about. Cars crept down the narrow street, and bicyclists wound an erratic path through the muffled chaos. ------- Noon came. They read and slept in the safety of their gingerbread ship. ------- “Cat!” John’s urgent whisper waked James from a dream of oars in ancient seas. The stink grew stronger as the cat climbed towards them up the steep shed roof. ------- “My turn,” James said. He stood waiting in plain sight on the far side of the wooden ship. -------The cat began to creep forward, panther-like, until it was near the little ship. Suddenly it screeched with pain and, losing its footing, rolled off the roof into the street below. A large black dog rushed at it, and the cat shot yowling up a side street. John spat out a clump of hairs from the cat’s tail. He felt quite pleased with himself. ------- ------- Later that afternoon, they slipped beneath the wharf again to board the ferry. They had no trouble climbing the hawser and creeping beneath the benches to a shelf below the forward winch. The mooring lines were cast off, and the vibrations increased as the ship backed away from the pier. They’d stowed away on an alien civilization that would take them where it would. ------- As the ship headed up the bay, the wind ruffled John’s fur, and the salt spray made him squint. James braced himself against the plunge and roll of the ship like a small conquistador. ------- Shortly after sunset, a great hump-backed whale arched its seventy foot length through the gray seas and flipped its tail before it disappeared into the depths. Only the astonished rats would see it. ------- Two hours later, the spires of Bayport's towers pierced the darkness. More lights appeared as the ferry rounded the barrier islands and turned into the harbor. Soon the whole metropolis was spread out in a great half-moon of light that climbed the low hills at the city's back. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 9 ------- ------- The engines slowed to a steady grumble as they began to move among the freighters and container ships. The long shape of a tanker loomed beside them, dotted with white lights and dwarfing the ferry. The buildings of the city filled the sky by the time they docked. ------- The rats waited in the darkness of the foredeck until the passengers had made their noisy exit and the crew had shut down the ship and gone ashore. ------- "Which way?" James asked. ------- John pointed into the crumpled shadows beyond the parking lot. They padded along the cobbled street. The waterfront renewal had not reached this part of the docks. The buildings were like an album of faded photographs. Smells of varnish, tar, and rope lingered from the past as well. Sail boats and trawlers were tied up along the wharf. ------- The restaurant appeared as a splotch of light in the distance. Ben's shop occupied a loft above the dining room and could be reached easily at night by the fire escape. The clatter of pots and pans and intriguing odors drifted from an open window as they climbed past. ------- "Food!" James said. ------- They found the entrance to the shop just below the eaves. The carved sign above the small door read, "Ben's Books." ------- John was about to raise the shiny knocker, when the door opened, and a large rat stood before them. ------- "John and James! Good to see you, boys." With a clap on the shoulder from Ben, and a hug from Elizabeth, they were led into a well-lighted room that overflowed with books. The transition from the soot-covered roof was startling. Several rats sat in comfortable chairs, reading and drinking coffee. One looked up and nodded. ------- "Come in the back," Elizabeth said. "I’m heating fish stew, and there’s bread scavenged from the restaurant. We thought you might be hungry. With a bit of pie, that should do till morning, when we can give you a proper breakfast." ------- "Thank you,” John said, “we’re starved. How did you know when we’d be here?" ------- "We hear the horn when the ferry docks,” Ben explained. “We thought of meeting you at the wharf but decided to let you discover the city on your own. The sooner you get used to it the better." ------- Ben was right, John supposed. The half dozen blocks had seemed to take forever. They might never again be as intimidated by the dark streets. ------- "So you've come to study? There are fine libraries in Bayport. Good teachers too. "Barzel's a great man, a bookman. I do a bit of business with him." ------- John and James ate the stew and answered Ben and Elizabeth's questions about the Cape and about Karen and Peter. They missed their daughter, but the Cape was the right place for a painter, and Peter was a gem. John agreed that his brother was a rat in a million. He asked Ben about the shop and life in the city. ------- It was the first rat-owned bookstore in the city and patterned on one in Amsterdam which provided customers with coffee, beer, and conversation as well as books. Ben sold few books in fact, but many were read in the shop. ------- It was only when the talk turned to Marshfield Manor that their cheerfulness failed. The matter wasn’t entirely settled, but there was little hope of saving the old house. Three acres of marsh and field along the river near the heart of the city were too great a temptation. ------- The latest plan, as published in the papers, had the manor reduced to a few bricks and tiles on display in the lobby of an office building that would rise fifty stories above the muddy river bank. ------- "Many of them are unhappy about it," Ben said. "One biologist says the marsh is healthy in the midst of waste and pollution and should be preserved. Some want to save the Manor. It’s a lovely place, to my mind the finest late colonial building in the city, but they say it has no historical value." ------- "There's nothing that we..., that you can do?" James asked. ------- "Rats?" Ben answered in surprise. "We don’t intrude in their affairs." ------- James said nothing more, but John knew that wasn’t the end of it. ------- Ben wished his customers good night and closed the shop. The boys followed Ben and Elizabeth through a maze of tunnels and culverts that led along the waterfront and though an area of abandoned factories and warehouses. Soon the breeze brought the smell of wild flowers and the rich, warm odors of a fresh-water marsh. The house was a dark shape within a small grove of oaks and maples, its entrance lighted by a single bulb. ------- A chink in the mortar at the back of the old brick building led to a passage which wound steeply up through the thick walls and opened into a huge hallway, its polished wooden floor dark with age. Hand printed wallpaper and colorful tapestries glowed in the light of Ben’s candle. He led them into the parlor. -------"It dates from colonial days,” Ben said, “but most of the furnishings are modern reproductions." ------- "It’s beautiful," John said. "What's the table made of?" ------- "You have an eye for wood. Black walnut's rare. The wood in that chest is elm. This house is a museum of woods and ornament. We’ve tried to copy the big house in our burrow.” ------- "We've found another place," Elizabeth said. "Not as grand as this, but it has a nice view of the harbor. Come, boys, we’ll show you our cozy den. You'll want a bath and bed, and we'll talk again in the morning." ------- ------- "Ben and Elizabeth are nice," James said. He and John were looking through a small window at the reflection of a stream of car lights on the river. ------- "The best," John agreed. "It's too bad about the house. It makes me angry." ------- "You!" James sounded amused. "It makes me want to do something.” ------- "Yeah, but Ben and Elizabeth aren't stupid,” John said. “They’d know if there was something to be done." ------- "Maybe, but they're used to being here. They don't expect to have any effect on the city." ------- "What could we do?" ------- "We could try to find out more about their plans." ------- “And then?" John asked, but he didn't expect an answer. -------They curled up in comfortable beds and fell asleep listening to the familiar sounds of the marsh, with the city an incessant underlying hum. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 10 ------- ------- The voice of the city had become a roar by the time John woke. Traffic was heavy on the road along the far side of river, and the sound rolled across the water like surf. The marsh sparkled under the morning sun, but it had a beleaguered look, bordered by abandoned warehouses the oily and neglected river. Just below their window, a young woman was weeding a kitchen garden. ------- "Who’s that singing Schubert to the cabbages?" James was at his elbow. ------- "I don’t know,” John said. “Nice garden. I think it’s the kind they had in Colonial days.” ------- ------- "Up early!" Ben greeted them from the stove. "Eggs or pancakes? Both, if you want them." ------- "Pancakes please," John said. "It’s not early for me. I always watch the sun rise." ------- "You may want to sleep later here. The best things happen after dark in the city, the concerts and theater." ------- "You go to concerts?" James asked. ------- "Seats in all the best halls,” Ben said. “It's why we endure the city, James, that and the markets. There's hot syrup on the stove." ------- "About the Manor, sir," James said, "what exactly are they going to do?" ------- "I know just what's in the paper. The house is old and in the Historical District, but it’s undistinguished in any way. They’re bound to put an office building here." ------- "When do they decide officially?" ------- "Oh, it’s been decided, lad. You're thinking of a town meeting. There'll be thousands of people involved in this business. The Historical Landmarks Commission has to agree, of course, but they will. I’d give my life to save the marsh, James, if it would do no good. You don't give up easily." ------- Ben looked at James with sudden interest. "Come down to it, I expect Andrew could find out when the Commission meets. There aren't many places a city rat can’t go. Ask him. You've my support." He piled James’s plate with sausages and eggs. ------- Later, Elizabeth took them into the marsh. The gardener was still at work. ------- "Who’s she?" John asked. ------- "That's Ann, the caretaker's daughter. She pretends she doesn't see us. The garden’s lovely, isn’t it? We often have it to ourselves.” -------A blacksnake glided across their path. The traffic sounds had diminished to a distant hiss. If he ignored the warehouses, and the skyscrapers half a mile to the south, John could imagine they were back on the Cape. The Manor’s red brick walls glowed. A fine old mansion surrounded by oaks and maples and flower gardens and in the middle of the crowded city! ------- The river was cleaner than it looked. They splashed in its shallows and lay in the sun, shielded by reeds and grass. Ben was off on business. After lunch, he and Elizabeth would take them to Andrew's apartment near the park. ------- "We needn't wait until dark," Elizabeth explained. "We rarely walk the streets, for the drains and tunnels run nearly everywhere we want to go. The boat rides along the underground river are quite exciting. We’ll show you the pits and dangers as well. Feral cats can be a bother." ------- Ben returned at noon, bringing fresh swordfish to grill over a fire near the river. ------- ------- After lunch, they entered a passageway that led from the basement of the Manor towards the center of the city. Although they could have managed in the dark, they carried lanterns to speed the trip through the tunnels and cable channels, and the unused wooden water pipes that had been laid down a hundred years before. A distant dull roar rose to a crescendo, and the sound washed over them as they passed through a transit tunnel. Once, they saw feet crossing a grate high above their heads. -------Andrew and Marci lived between the floors of a town house that faced the park. Ben led them along the broad ledge between the second and third floors of the brick building. The view was magnificent. On a summer afternoon the park and public gardens were dotted with visitors. -------Marci met them at the inconspicuous door and hugged them both. Andrew greeted them warmly and suggested they clean the grime of the city from their fur before supper. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 11 ------- ------- Elizabeth and Marci were busy in the kitchen when John and James returned to the parlor. They ate crackers and cheese and inspected the contents of the glass-covered book cases. Marci hadn't mentioned their daughters. ------- "John!" Hope and Larissa burst into the room. Hope dropped her school bag and gave John a hug. ------- "This is James," John said. -------The girls were identical twins, one reason for Larissa's baseball cap. They were best friends as well but unalike in many ways. Hope played the piano with precision, while Larissa played her violin with passion. Hope studied mathematics and science at the Cavendish School. Larissa read ancient and modern languages under the tutelage of Amanda Tupper. -------"Wash up, girls." Marci stood in the doorway wearing an apron. "Come, boys." ------- The dining room was lined with sideboards and the table set with an array of bowls and platters, strange cutlery, and many plates. There was no shortage of food, and it was as good as John remembered it. ------- "Great chowder, Marci," John said. ------- "Good," James agreed. He was usually sparing with praise. ------- Marci was pleased. "I’ll give you the recipe to take home." ------- James mumbled his thanks, and John saw Larissa grin. ------- The evening went well. James said little but appeared at ease, and John forgot his own shyness. The girls seemed less challenging than he remembered them from two years before. ------- After dessert and the best coffee John had ever tasted, the girls played several pieces for piano and violin while Marci accompanied them on the cello. The evening ended early. The girls had exams, and John had an interview with Dr. Barzel. James would see Miss Melemead about his studies. ------- ------- "I liked them all,” James said. “I think I like the city too.” ------- The boys talked about the family and their journey. James identified the music for John as Brahms and Franck. They watched the street from their small window. Neither mentioned the girls. ------- ------- The following days were hectic. Professor Barzel took seriously his commitment to tutor Dr. Waterrat's son. John sagged under the weight of his book bag and wondered when he’d have time to see the city. The girls were busy with exams, and James met with Miss Melemead and began to spend evenings at the big library, sometimes returning after midnight. ------- -------"Do you want to take a break and go to the art museum?" Hope asked one morning in the second week. ------- "Sure," John said. He’d wandered into the breakfast room in search of coffee and found the girls planning the first full day of their vacation. James appeared a few minutes later and approved the plan. ------- "We'll go after breakfast," Hope said enthusiastically. "The museum is ours until noon on Sundays." ------- "Be careful," Marci cautioned. ------- -------They loped for over an hour through tunnels and along the banks of dark waterways before reaching the riverside park where the museum dominated a rocky hill. Here they surfaced a quarter of a mile from the museum to admire the magnificent building in the morning sun. ------- The sculptured figures of gods and animals that filled the triangular tympani below the red tiled roof were painted in the ancient fashion. It was a reminder, Larissa said, that a classical civilization wouldn’t see itself as dead. ------- Inside the museum, they stood in the silence of a chamber that must have overwhelmed even its builders. A massive flight of stairs led to a balcony from which carved animals and goddesses looked down at them. There would be many animals represented in the paintings and sculptures, horses, lions, sacred cats, hounds, and fabled beasts like dragons, griffins, and the unicorn. There would be few if any rats. ------- They went through the Impressionists and the small collection of art nouveau, a style that was said to have originated in turn-of-the-century Munich but which reflected the work of a group of European rodents. It was startling what the human artists had done with rattish themes. ------- The Cape rats had seen little fine art except in illustrations. The paintings and sculptures were overpowering and literally of another dimension. James was more his talkative self than he’d been for days. ------- The morning went by quickly. James was a bit outrageous, Larissa funny, and Hope and John defended human aspirations and did their best to make sense of this giant warehouse of experience. -------They’d brought sandwiches and ate in a Japanese tea house which could have been made for them. At noon, the doors would open to thousands of visitors who would stand before the paintings and sculptures and ask the same questions. ------- "Dog," Larissa called softly. ------- They had smelled the dog, but the scent was stale, and they assumed there was none on duty. -------They were passing through a display of armor, an astounding array of shields and blades, and they leaped onto the display cases. A moment later a big Doberman came bounding into the room, quivering like a steel blade. Their momentary salvation lay in the many intersecting tracks they’d left, but the dog would nose them out. Twenty minutes to twelve. If the Doberman just kept them pinned down until the museum was opened, they’d be in serious trouble. ------- John looked around wildly. One of them would have to lure the dog away in an attempt to save the others. A faint movement caught his eye. To his horror, he saw James straining to dislodge a heavy broadsword. Just as the Doberman passed in front of him, its nose brushing the floor like a broom, James gave a heave, and the long blade hit the stones with a tremendous clang. The dog yipped and shot from the room without looking back. ------- "The air vent," Larissa called. "James, that was grand." ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 12 ------- ------- "I don't see the point of it, James. We can't change the outcome. You’d be taking a big risk just to learn something we’ll find out all too soon. The manor will be a great loss, but we’ll survive." ------- "The last wild field in Bayport, Andrew? The last bit of marsh and their own cultural heritage? It's a surrender to concrete and steel, and it's not even democratic. The citizens weren't asked." ------- Hope and Larissa were listening wide-eyed. They often disagreed with their parents, but they usually kept their thoughts to themselves. James and Andrew were polite, but this was a serious argument. James had asked for Andrew's help in observing a meeting of the Historical Monuments Commission, and Andrew was against the idea. ------- "I agree with James," John said. He did, although he spoke now mostly from a sense of obligation. "Marshfield Manor is needed, Andrew. We should try to save it." -------"I don't disagree,” Andrew said. “I just don't think you can do it. But I'll find out about the meeting. I suppose you'll want to go too?" ------- "Yes, sir," John replied. ------- "I hope I won't have to explain all this to your father and mother." ------- "We won't go, if you don't want us to, Andrew," James said. ------- Andrew seemed surprised. "It's all right, my boy. Perhaps you're right. We’ve become timid. The city is so unforgiving, as is the country of course," he added. ------- "More pie, boys?" Marci disapproved. Hope suppressed a grin. ------- "Please," John said. "It's good." ------- "Hope baked it," Marci said. "Your mother said you liked pecan pie." ------- "Uh huh," John replied. "It’s awfully good," he repeated lamely. Hope was staring at the wall. ------- ------- Andrew kept his word and convinced Marci to let Hope and Larissa accompany the boys. Ipswich Hall had burned in the seventeen hundreds and been gutted and rebuilt twice since. -------Hope and Larissa guided the boys to the meeting room, but it was John who found their final vantage point after concluding that there must be a crawl space above the modern ceiling. They were able to look down through a lighting fixture directly onto a ponderous oak table around which sat a dozen gray-haired citizens. ------- There was no doubt about where most of the commissioners stood on the matter of Marshfield Manor. John had read Thoreau and Edwin Muir, and was encouraged at hearing the same sentiments expressed with passion by living humans. He became aware that his tail was lashing its approval when Hope placed a restraining paw on it. ------- The problem was that the law protected only historical monuments and not effectively at that. The Manor had served no more important purpose over its two centuries than housing generations of prominent families. No war heroes or traitors, no murderers, demagogues, or eccentric millionaires had lived there. It stood as a memorial to good lives. ------- The group would make its decision in a month, but there was little doubt the demolition would go forward. The rats left while the Commission was disconsolately sipping cups of bouillon. ------- ------- "Something interesting must have happened at Marshfield in two centuries, Ben. They aren't looking, so we'll have to find it for them." ------- "It's worth a try, James." ------- They’d gone to the book store. Larissa was an enthusiastic convert to James’s crusade. John remained a dutiful supporter, and Hope had become a fellow conspirator. They were sitting on the broad veranda, looking at the scattered lights in the bay. Muffled voices rose from below, as diners entered the restaurant. They could hear the faint hum of traffic on the distant highway, and an occasional toot indicated a stirring of life in the dark harbor. ------- "We have to organize," Hope said. Larissa smiled. ------- "John and I will go to the library. You and James had better explore the house again." -------Larissa appeared satisfied with this arrangement. James said nothing. ------- "It’s a lot to hope for in a month," Ben commented. ”Don’t get your hopes too high.” -------"Better than not trying," James said. ------- "Aye," Ben agreed. ------- Elizabeth looked as if she were going to say something but gazed out over the harbor. ------- "What about deeds and stuff?" John asked. "We could start with a record of all the owners and look for their papers." ------- "The Hall of Records," Hope said, "That's an awful place, but Dr. Whitefoot will know what to do." ------- ------- They’d be busy. John had twice the work he would have had at home. He liked old Barzel and wanted to do his best for him. He wasn't worried about his paper on insect communications. Hope could help him with the math. She became quite enthusiastic when she talked about integrals and equations. ------- James was working on his study of the concept of wilderness in human literature. Dr. Melemed was pleased. Her regular students were diligent, but they rarely had well-formed interests of their own. ------- "Coffee?" Ben filled a cup for John from the old samovar. He often brought coffee or a plate of doughnuts or sausages to his customers, or showed them a book he thought might interest them. He would talk for hours with some shabby rat and seemed to be truly satisfied with his life. It was understandable that he wasn't eager to take on the city, even in defense of Marshfield Manor. ------- A freighter was ready to sail. The tug had maneuvered into position. They heard the distant clanking of the anchor chain. John felt a momentary wish to be on the ship, but he'd just have to jump into the dirty water and swim to shore. ------- "Tarzan?" Larissa was saying doubtfully. ------- "When I was a boy,” Ben said, “in Dutch of course. Kipling, too, honor and pride in the animals. There are always a few humans who know they’re part of nature." ------- "I don’t believe it," Larissa protested. ------- "I think most creatures are happiest when they are caught up in something,” Ben continued. “You youngsters might have spent the summer enjoying the city. Instead you've taken it on." ------- There was a spell of silence while the old samovar wheezed approval of rats talking on a summer night. ------- ------- Matters progressed over the next week. John felt increasing satisfaction with his work. Old Barzel helped him begin to see the difference between delight in learning for its own sake and a dedication to uncovering some fragment of the great mystery. ------- It was good to have several responsibilities. It made him work more efficiently at each, and sometimes one task bore on the other. ------- When they met again at Ben's, there was much to talk about, although Hope and John had found no evidence that someone like Sam Adams had once stood in the parlor and discussed rebellion over a glass of sherry. ------- James and Larissa were only slightly more successful. The house contained little of interest other than the meticulous construction of the walls and floors, which fitted like the timbers of a ship and left few crannies to explore. The last inhabitants had moved out early in the present century, and the Historical Commission had been in charge of the property for a dozen years. Restoration had proceeded slowly, but the main rooms were largely furnished, half as they had been when the guns sounded in Lexington, and half as when, a hundred years later, the city began to explode into its present form. It made a peculiar mixture of neo-classical simplicity and Victorian uneasiness which pleased the eye but offered a confusing message. ------- The cracks in the floor held a few small treasures, coins, pen quills, and scraps of paper which proved to be grocery lists and receipts. It was illuminating but not the stuff of national pride. ------- At the end of the week, and at the girls’ suggestion, they went to the ballet. John was enthralled by the music and the beauty of the dance. That the humans could achieve such grace astonished him. They could practice discipline as well as sloth, and sometimes they leaped where rats would plod. ------- "I loved it," he said at the intermission. Hope was pleased. -------He looked down from their seats, concealed behind the decorative frieze that ran along the first floor balcony. The audience was dressed in business suits and dresses. Only the small girls wore the velvets and satins that echoed the grandeur of the concert hall. ------- These were the establishment, the men and women who had the power and the wealth to save Marshfield if they chose. He could shout to them, but none would hear him. ------- “It's not as if the manor were valueless,” John said. “They just can't see it.” He surveyed the babbling crowd. “What if we could ask them for help?" -------"The humans?” James said. “That’s crazy, John." ------- "I know one who might be willing to try," John continued, "someone who’d know what to do." ------- "You’re serious?" James asked. They were looking at him with concern. ------- He told them about the boy and the old man, the historian who rowed the marsh without looking over his shoulder and who had gained the respect of the old raccoon. ------- ------- "Don't tell Andrew what you're up to," was Ben's only comment. They’d gone to the book shop after the ballet, to drink hot chocolate and talk about the evening. It wasn't clear whether Ben disapproved or not. ------- As they walked back to the apartment through the dark streets, Hope touched John on the shoulder. "I’ll come with you," she said quietly. ------- "Thanks," John answered. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 13 ------- ------- The Green Street School was on the far side of the Common. John and Hope crossed the wet grass before dawn, circling a group of homeless men who stood around a barrel of burning trash. They waited in the hedge that separated the school grounds from a wooded area. ------- The students, each with a heavy backpack, were gathering before class. They talked and laughed. ------- "Aren't they young to smoke?" Hope asked. They watched plumes drifting above a group of girls. ------- "They shouldn’t smoke at all. Father says they don't metabolize it. ------- "There he is!" John said, excitedly. -------Steven appeared at the edge of the crowd, wearing a faded T-shirt that had once displayed an artist's vision of the salt marsh. The boy spoke with friends, then sat on a rock and took a notebook from his pack. The spring term was nearly over. Any day could be the last the boy would be easily approachable. -------John folded the message into a paper airplane. He used to be able to make a paper plane land anywhere he wanted. He'd have only one chance today. ------- The rats crept through the hedge until they were as near the boy as they could come. John tested the faint breeze, judged the distance, and let the message fly. It landed at Steven's feet, but he ignored it. -------Eventually his curiosity got the better of him. He glanced around and, puzzled by the absence of an obvious launching site, picked up the paper plane. ------- His shoulders stiffened as he read the message. This wasn’t nonsense from his friends. It was madness from another world. John had wasted no time stating their need, an historical hook with which to save Marshfield Manor. He had asked the boy to get his father's help and do it quickly. The note was signed, "ant’s' nest, gas spill, wedding cake, r-t,” meaningless to anyone else. He’d asked Steven to meet him near a pond that lay just within the borders of the park. ------- When the boy finished reading the note, he looked around again. John shook a lower branch of the privet hedge, and they crept away. ------- "Do you think he'll come?" Hope asked. ------- "Don’t you want him to?" ------- "Boys are high on Father's list of creatures to avoid." ------- "Mine too," John agreed, "but I don’t think they’re are all the same." ------- "I haven't made a study of boys," Hope said. "You really want to meet him, don’t you? It's not just the Manor." ------- "I feel like I already have." ------- "You know what they say. If the humans ever find out... Aren't you risking a lot to satisfy your curiosity?" ------- "What do you think it would take really to convince them rats are intelligent?" They’d never believe it.” ------- "I hope you’re right." ------- ------- They spent the morning near the pond, talking and playing chess. Hope won three games to John’s one, but each had been a contest, and she was a good winner, an underrated skill among rats. ------- Stephen appeared a little before noon. He looked around to be sure that he was alone and sat on a bench that overlooked the pond. John and James often had conversations in English, but John had never spoken to a human. He pitched his voice as low as he could. ------- "Steven." ------- Steven turned and looked towards the laurel bushes. ------- "Near the ground." John poked his muzzle through the leaves. ------- "A rat," the boy said, catching his breath. ------- "That’s right,” John said. “Will you help us?” -------"Save the house?" ------- "And the marsh. It’s as much for you as us." ------- "Are all rats like you?" ------- "No," John replied. "Are all boys are like you?" ------- Steven smiled. "You think my father can help?" ------- "He’s an historian," John said. "What the Historical Monuments Commission needs is a provable connection with some significant event or person, something to justify an historical status. It will have to be fairly spectacular. The plans for development are well underway. Can you ask him?" ------- "Sure. I know he'd want to save a place like that. Can I tell him about you?" John didn't reply, and the boy answered himself, "I guess not." ------- "You wouldn’t be believed," John agreed, “and we don't want them to know." ------- "We?" ------- "A few of us. Most rats would be horrified by my talking with you. Thank you, Steven. It's important, for all of us. Have you been to Marshfield Manor?" ------- "I've never heard of it. I'll get my father to take me. He may know about it." ------- "Hurry then. There are only two weeks before the Commission decides." ------- "I'll try." ------- "Good luck." ------- "Will I see you again?" ------- "I don’t know. You can leave a note in the bush, but be careful what you say." ------- Steven nodded. ------- "My friend and I are sorry about the wedding. I hope we didn’t ruin it for the bride and groom?" ------- Steven laughed and quickly looked around. "They called it a blessing. They thought you were squirrels. No offense." ------- "That’s okay," John said. "I'm going now. I'll check the bush. Remember, two weeks." ------- They left the boy staring at the laurel. ------- "That went okay, I thought," John said. ------- "Considering," Hope agreed. "You were great." ------- "Thanks," John said. ------- "The boy seemed sensible. Do you think his father can help?" ------- "If anyone can. Old Murray liked him. He's the raccoon I told you about." ------- "Ben says raccoons are magic." -------"Murray tells good stories, and Peter says stories are sometimes as true as anything else." ------- ------- Another week went by. They were almost too tired for the concert on Friday night, but they went because it was in one of the smaller halls which offered excellent seats. John enjoyed the Beethoven quintet and a Mozart trio and several pieces for guitar and cello by a modern composer. Later they visited Ben’s shop. ------- They showed Ben the note John had found in the bush that morning. Steven persuaded his father to take him to Marshfield, and Dr. Lee had found it remarkable that a marsh and a lovely old brick house could sit like a mislaid jewel at the heart of the city. ------- There was even a glimmer of genuine hope, a connection with Europe at the time of the Revolution that was still unclear. It was more than John and Hope had been able to find, although with Dr. Whitefoot's help they’d collected a good deal of information on the owners, Captain John Goodin and his descendents through the middle of the nineteenth century. They were a close-knit, patrician family and were little known beyond their circle of wealthy merchants and shippers. ------- Emboldened by Steven's message, John considered making phone calls to various authorities but thought better of it. How seriously could even the most generous human scholar or librarian take a stranger who sounded like a cartoon character? ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 14 ------- ------- "We've never gone to the zoo," Larissa said. "Animals in cages make me sad." ------- "It's supposed to be a good one," John said. "They try to provide natural habitats and encourage endangered species to...reproduce." -------Larissa snickered. "Who endangered them, but I'll go, if you really want to." ------- "We'll all go," Hope said. "I'd like to see it. It's a long trip though." ------- They decided to start late in the afternoon and camp near the reservoir. They’d be back by mid-afternoon on the following day. Marci offered to pack a basket of food. ------- The zoo was located in a wooded area well to the north of the city, near a fenced-off watershed surrounding a small reservoir. The girls picnicked here as often as their citified parents would take them. Their mother always brought the ingredients for some extraordinary dish, which would be doubly tasty cooked and eaten in the open air. ------- They traveled by the underground river that Larissa called Erebrus. Their lanterns showed rock and brick, broken concrete, and rusted metal. For miles, the stream wound through a natural cavern hung with dripping stalactites. Few humans knew of it, although they periodically lost automobiles and houses into its currents. ------- The water was clean and swift and carried their boat nearly to the borders of the park. From here, the girls marched boldly through the protected woods to the shore of the reservoir and their favorite spot, a gray-green, lichen-covered boulder which leaned out over a pool and provided a fine diving platform. They stowed their packs and swam and dived in the clear water and seemed to float as if suspended above the sunlit bottom. ------- "Nice place," James said. John thought he was surprisingly full of small talk these days and often said the more-or-less right thing. ------- "I love it," Larissa agreed. "I'd like to live here, but Mother wouldn't dream of it. They consider this the wilderness." ------- "It is pretty wild," John said. "Most of the Cape forests have grown up from abandoned farmland. These big pines look like virgin timber, more like the columns of a ruined temple than trees. I can see why humans worshipped them." ------- They built a fire and roasted sausages and peppers and potatoes and made coffee in a collapsible pot. The forest darkened around them. ------- "Spooky," James said with satisfaction. ------- "The wood woozles come out soon," Larissa agreed, "stump spirits, and things like that." ------- There would be creatures that ate rats, John thought. Even bobcats. Larissa had brought a package of scent chips which they spread around their camp site. They should be safe from everything but snakes. ------- After supper, they let the fire die down. Hope and Larissa sang in high clear voices, and they fell asleep around the embers, exhausted from a week of effort. ------- ------- John woke first and built a fire for coffee. It was cold. The others slept, their fur fluffed against the chill. He listened to the brisk, nonsensical chatter of the birds and watched the fish nip at mosquitoes. His study project was coming along well, and although the Manor was as much threatened as ever, he was hopeful. There was a satisfaction about things-in-progress. This place was good, and the day was promising. ------- Hope poured herself a cup of coffee and joined him on the rock. "Whatever happens about the house, I'm glad we tried." ------- "Me too," John said. ------- The sun worked its way through the great trunks behind them and found the rock, which seemed to shiver with faint pleasure at the warmth and to relax its hard surface, ------- The others woke, and they cooked and ate bacon and toast and started for the zoo. The gates opened at eleven, so they would have it to themselves for several hours, with only a few keepers to avoid. -------They could smell it long before they came to the high fence that enclosed the grounds. Not a bad smell, the cages and yards were clean, and the animals were well cared for, but the scent of the big cats and the elephants mingled with those of a hundred other species to produce an aroma like no other on earth. It was as if they were approaching a tropical shore and smelled its richness while well out to sea. ------- The flowering trees were in bloom, and beds of colorful perennials had reached an early peak. It was a lovely late-spring morning, but the animals seemed to be nearly comatose. There was almost no communication among them, so far as John could tell. The seals barked in the distance. A loud roar from the direction of the cattery gave them a brief chill, but it seemed more emotive than meaningful. They received no more than a glance from the larger animals. A giraffe watched them for a while with indifference. A gibbon began to raise its paw but thought better of it. Perhaps it was simply too painful to see animals walking freely. ------- Only rats and mice, raccoons, and house cats had made the leap to symbolic speech, but all animals communicated. It was uncanny to walk though the silence, as through a forest of old trees that seemed to watch and judge them. ------- "It's horrid," Hope said. ------- "Not what I expected," John said. "I thought.... I guess I should have known." ------- "Most of them have lived all their lives in a cage." The voice seemed to come from behind a bush and had sent them scattering. John stopped after a few panicky steps. He’d recognized the gravelly tones of a raccoon. ------- "Good morning, Grandfather," John said, with what he hoped was the proper courtesy. "I'm John Waterrat, and these are my friends, Hope, Larissa, and James. I hope we haven't offended you." ------- "On the contrary, young fellow. Yours are the first intelligent remarks I've heard all spring. It's usually, ‘Isn’t he a funny old animal. Raccoons are intelligent, you know. They wash their food!’ That sort of thing, as if there were a creature who’d chose to eat dirt. My name is Strabo. What brings you children to the zoo?" ------- "Ignorance, Grandfather," John said. "We, I anyway, wanted to talk with...the others." ------- "And not be lectured by an old raccoon. I’m afraid there’s little for them to talk about, but you needn't apologize to me. Do I smell food?" ------- "Would you like a bologna sandwich, sir?" Hope said. ------- "Bologna!" The old animal laughed heartily. "That sums it up. Thank you anyway, my dear." ------- "Can you walk, Grandfather?" James asked, to John's consternation. ------- "Walk? Of course I can walk," the old raccoon replied huffily. "Where do you propose I’d go?" But he seemed more puzzled than annoyed by the impertinent question. ------- "I didn't mean to offend you," James continued. "I just wondered if you’d be able to come with us, if we could open your cage." ------- "Open my cage! Oh my." The animal was clearly torn between incredulity and a strong wish to believe in this unlikely suggestion. ------- "We could try, Grandfather," James said. ------- John felt sick. They’d raise the poor old animal's hopes and dash them. The bars were steel, and there would be a lock on the door inside the Small Animal House. ------- "The keeper's door is inside?" John asked. ------- "Yes, lad, and there's a heavy padlock." The raccoon had thought it through, and was looking less hopeful. ------- "We'll try," James said. ------- "James, why did you say that?" John said softly. They were circling the long, low building, looking for an entrance. “What if we can’t?” ------- "I know," James replied. "I said it without thinking. That's a fine old fellow. We can't let him stay here. I know we can do it, John, even if we have to get tools and come back another day." ------- "I'm glad you think so." John looked at his friend with exasperation. "There might be tools in the building," he conceded. ------- They found a way into the cellar, few buildings are rat-proof, and discovered a well-equipped laboratory and a kitchen and store rooms full of foodstuffs. ------- "Euuu." Larissa wrinkled her nose as they passed a bin of what appeared to be dried worms. "I wonder what eats those?" ------- "Something very hungry," Hope suggested. ------- The lock on Strabo's door was the standard variety. It was intended to shut out unauthorized humans and was of the same heavy sort to be found on the cages of more valuable and dangerous animals. It would be as easy to rescue the tigers. ------- Could you pick the lock?" Strabo asked. "I've heard of such a thing." They were gathered at the inner door to his cage. Inside the building the concentrated musky scents of a hundred forest creatures was almost overpowering. ------- "Maybe," Larissa said, glancing around nervously. ------- "It's the eyes," Hope whispered. Every move was followed from the nearby cages by a dozen pairs of eyes, some hungry, others curious or desperate for contact of any sort. These were animals more nearly their own size and kind. There was even an exotic rat of some sort, a handsome fellow with a long coat and sharp white teeth, but it failed to respond to their attempts at communication. It would do no good to open its cage, or those of the other animals. These creatures would be lost beyond the mean confines of their cell, searching for shelter and food among the shrubs and flowering dogwoods of the Bayport zoo. ------- They returned to the basement laboratory, where they found some stiff wire, and Hope and Larissa began to try to open Strabo's lock. John and James searched in drawers and cabinets but found little except cooking utensils and apparatus for testing and measuring foodstuffs. Together, they forced the door on one of the few locked cabinets and contemplated an array of chemicals. ------- "It would take too long for acid to eat away the lock, I suppose?" James asked. ------- "I think so," John agreed. ------- "Could we make an explosive from this stuff?" ------- John read the labels on the large orange-colored jars and bottles. "Maybe," he answered, "but if we didn't kill Strabo, we'd bring the keepers." ------- The girls worked on the lock for twenty minutes, without result. A half hour had passed since they had first spoken to Strabo. They had only another hour, less if the keepers came around before the zoo opened. ------- "Don't be discouraged, children." Strabo had recovered his calm. "You've given it a good try and me a spell of cheer. You'd best be gone before the keepers come. I'm sorry to say, I don't think they'd have a warm cage for you, splendid little creatures that you are." ------- "We haven't given up, Strabo," James said. "We'll come back with tools." ------- James was right. They’d have to come back, but with what, John wondered? No file or hacksaw that they could carry would make much headway against three-eights inch of hardened steel. He’d seen a small cutting torch in a hobby magazine, but he doubted it would do this job. It gave him an idea, however. ------- "James, I've thought of something, but if it fails we’ll be worse off. With the chemicals in the basement and some powdered aluminum, we could make a thermite bomb. It might melt the hasp, but there’d be a lot of smoke." ------- "Let's try it," James said. ------- The aluminum was obtained easily by working a small laboratory file on a piece of tubing. John experimented with mixtures until he had burned a hole through a counter top and filled the cellar with fumes. Fortunately, Hope had had the foresight to disconnect the smoke alarm. He found the correct proportions, made a cone of electrical tape around the hasp, and filled it with the mixture. They asked Strabo to go into his yard. ------- James touched a match to the twist of paper that served as a fuze, and they turned their eyes away from the blinding light. The animals in the surrounding cages stirred uneasily. In a moment, there would be smoke and pandemonium in the animal house and no possibility of a second attempt. ------- It wasn't needed. The heavy lock fell to the floor as the chorus of whines and barks began. The cage door swung open, and Strabo hobbled into the corridor. ------- "I don't think I can run." ------- "You won’t have to, Grandfather," John said. "We'll have time to get out of the building. ------- Alarms were ringing, the smoke detector in the main hall had been out of reach. The commotion among the animals would have brought the keepers anyway; a howler monkey at the far end of the building was sending whoops across the zoo grounds. Strabo squeezed through a vent and followed the rats into the bushes that conveniently ringed the building. ------- "There's a culvert that will take us to the woods, Grandfather." ------- "Woods! Oh lovely." John saw the pleasure on the old animal's face. Once again, they had James's boldness to thank. ------- ------- "I have no words, my dears." Strabo looked around with reverence. He touched the rough bark of a big pine. How long had the raccoon been in a cage, John wondered? ------- "Where did you live before, Grandfather?" Hope asked. ------- "By the river, miss. 'Twill all be gone by now, I fear. I know some of what's happened in late years from talk at the bench by my cage. I think I owe my sanity to their conversation. And goodness knows I've been fed enough vitamins to live forever." ------- "Do you know Marshfield Manor, Strabo?" Hope asked. ------- "Marshfield? Aye, we lived not far from where they built the warehouses. It's not still standing?" ------- "It is, Grandfather, although maybe not for long." Hope told the raccoon about the threat to the manor and their unsuccessful efforts to save it. ------- "A splendid place as I recall. That nature fellow, the writer, he used to stay there in the manor. Long ago of course. Thoreau, I mean." ------- "Did he?" James asked. ------- "Thoreau went a lot of places," John said. “I doubt it would be enough in itself, but if we knew what he was doing there it might be interesting." ------- "Why writing," the raccoon said, "in a room that overlooked the river, but it's just a tale. My grandfather was a great storyteller. You need documented facts." ------- "That's it, Strabo," James agreed, "but what you've told us may help. We'll tell Steven." ------- John smiled. James's speaking of Steven as a colleague was the sort of change he'd begun to notice in them all. ------- They shared the remainder of their food with Strabo and had a swim in the reservoir. The raccoon floated in the clean water, his black eyes studying the tree tops that encompassed the small wilderness. ------- He wanted to see Marshfield, so they brought him there and left him at the river's edge. He was content and would later see about a place to live. He thanked them again, with a depth of feeling that made John feel both pleased and saddened. Nothing could bring back the raccoon’s lost years. ------- As they turned to go, John glanced at the house, and wondered from which window Thoreau had looked out over the marsh. Not the kitchen surely, and the little bedrooms around the chimney were servants' quarters, although perhaps they were big enough for Henry. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 15 ------- ------- "My father spends all his time now working on it," Steven said quietly. John had come alone and waited for him. -------"Good. Forgive me for repeating it, but you mustn't tell anyone." ------- "I'll tell my dad some kid at school said he'd heard Thoreau might have been at Marshfield. He’ll know how to check. You know about Thoreau?" ------- "I've read only Walden and Cape Cod," John said. ------- "You read Walden! Do all rats speak English?" ------- "Quite a few. We ordinarily speak Rattish, of course. You wouldn't be able to distinguish the words. My friend James knows classical Greek." ------- "Oh," Steven said. "I have to get back to class now. I don't suppose you can send letters?" ------- "Give me your address. And your phone number, too, although I don't expect to use it. You can write me, John in care of Andrew Roden, Box 34677, Bayport Central Post Office. Make the envelope as small as legally possible. The box is checked regularly, but it's difficult." ------- "I'll bet," Steven said. He gave John the information and left looking pensive. ------- ------- More days of effort brought discouragement. John had explained the situation to Dr. Barzel and been given time off from his studies, although it was clear that Barzel held little hope for the Manor. He’d seen too many decades of human progress. ------- Dr. Whitefoot helped John and Hope dig through the Thoreau manuscripts in the Rare Book Room of the Central Library. They’d found letters from Captain Goodin, including one that mentioned his library. ------- "It’s a shame we’ll never know what was in that collection,” Dr. Whitefoot observed wistfully. “We are what we read.” ------- John mailed photocopies of the letters to Steven. ------- Better news came from Steven. Albertus, the mail rat, had left it at the door before dawn, and Marci propped it in the hall outside the boys' room. John opened the bulky envelope and cut out the stamp, a handsome clipper ship. -------Steven's father had found documentary evidence of visits to the manor by prominent Colonial and European thinkers and writers, verifying a long European connection. It was something to offer the Commission, and he felt that there was more information buried in archives. The manor had been a meeting place of thinkers. -------Unfortunately, there was no corroborative evidence at the house itself. The sort of spectacular find that the humans preferred was lacking. Nor was there a description or an inventory of the house on which to base a reconstruction of its contents. The present furnishings were meaningless. The house stood as a shell, rich only in past possibilities. The art and the craftsmanship, the ideas and men which must have filled its rooms with life had to be guessed. It wouldn’t be enough. ------- "Let's have a last look," James said. "Larissa and I have been over the building a dozen times, but I'd feel better if you and Hope tried too." ------- "Tomorrow?" Hope suggested. "The manor will be closed all day, and the weather should be nice. We could have a picnic by the river." ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 16 ------- ------- They arrived at the manor just after dawn and shared a Thermos of coffee in front of the living room fireplace. James had already investigated this handsome construction for secret panels and loose bricks. He got a coating of soot for his efforts, and the admiration of Larissa, who was contemptuous of fastidious rats. ------- They took on the manor a last time, from its root cellar to its dingy attic, prying at loose moldings, poking into crannies with bent wires, and thumping walls. ------- It seemed incredible that such a fine old place might be destroyed to make way for their glass boxes, but Ben and Elizabeth had found the prospect real enough to move to their new quarters. -------"To escape the wrecking ball," Ben said. ------- They found several more coins, including a gold Louis d'or. The visiting scholars were surprisingly careless with their loose change. Hope extracted a yellowed scrap of paper from beneath a molding. The word "Mohawk" was scribbled on it. ------- They made one rather peculiar discovery. Larissa came across it in the dust and grease on top of a kitchen cabinet. In her determination to be thorough, she’d squeezed through a mouse-sized opening in a cornice. She hadn’t expected to find anything and was saying so when suddenly she grew silent. There was a rattling noise. -------"Look out," she called, and an object clattered to the floor. ------- It was a short piece of wrought iron, with a wooden handle and squared sides. -------"What is it?" James asked. ------- "It's a...a dibble!" Hope was pleased with herself. ------- "Dibble?" ------- "A tool for planting. You poke a hole in the ground and put in a seed. A funny place to find it." ------- They left the dibble in a kitchen cabinet. ------- ------- The picnic was pleasant, if not a celebration. Marci had fixed a basket of bread, cheese, and fruit, and the day was unseasonably clear and cool. ------- "We gave it a try," John said. ------- “It makes me sad," Larissa said, as she munched on a seed cake. ------- John let his mind run through the house from floor to floor, revisiting every space. He tried to draw a mental map, but something didn’t fit. The curving central staircase was a kingly affair, in a stairwell as wide as a good-sized room. Yet only the chimney lay behind it. -------When John studied the rear wall of the manor, a lovely expanse of red brick laid in graceful patterns, he noticed a faint discoloration at the center of the second floor, in the area through which the chimney rose to burst through the roof still nearly six feet square. As he stared at the edges of this patch, the smudge resolved itself into the ghost of a window. ------- "James, what's behind the wall between the second floor windows," he asked. ------- "Chimney." James said through a mouthful. He couldn't see what John was driving at. ------- "Don’t you see what looks like window? It's a big space. It could hold a room." ------- "I see it," Hope said. "I wouldn’t have. It's hard even to keep it in sight. But a window there makes no sense." She looked up at the massive chimney box that rose ten feet above the edge of the roof and spouted a dozen pots. ------- Measurements supported John's observation. The bedroom closets were shallow, adding another two feet to the mysterious space. A narrow room was quite possible between the chimney and the back wall, a storage chamber of some sort. ------- Finding the entrance was another matter. The manor was solidly built of timber and masonry, its moldings and cornices crafted and sealed as tight as a ship. Hope said it was likely to have been built by shipwrights, the most skilled carpenters of their day. ------- "We could cut through the back of a closet,” John suggested, “but it would be a lot of work." ------- While the others prodded at the walls. John stood on the broad landing. "The entrance would have to be well- hidden.” ------- "The attic or the basement," Hope suggested. But another exhaustive search of both proved fruitless. ------- "The kitchen, then," John said. ------- "We've been over it a dozen times," Larissa pointed out. ------- "If there’s a room, it's above the kitchen," John said. "Aristotle says choose the probable-impossible solution, over the possible-improbable." ------- "That settles it," James said. ------- They prodded every inch of the kitchen walls and the interior of each of its many closets and cabinets. It was a complex room, even empty of its furniture and equipment. Running water from a cistern in the attic had been introduced in the nineteenth century. There were drains and trash chutes, all of which were intriguing but unhelpful. ------- "I can imagine the room full of cooks and maids,” Hope said, “pots bubbling on the stove and a roast cooking over coals. It makes me hungry." ------- "Uh huh," John agreed. The stone floor was chipped and discolored where the iron legs of the two heavy kitchen stoves had dug into it. The flue holes were crudely sealed against the cold. ------- "It should be easy to get to as well as hidden," Larissa said, "unless it’s just a storeroom, a treasure room." ------- "Now you're talking," James said. "A pirate's townhouse." ------- "An educated pirate, with close ties to the European intellectuals." ------- "I guess not. And you're right; it should be something you could just walk into, a closet, the fireplace? But we've looked." -------John had listened to this exchange. -------"Whoever built the secret room,” he said, “if there is one, was able to plan the house from the foundation up, and he knew how people looked at things. You see what you expect to." ------- The kitchen closets and pantries were as trim and shipshape as those in the main rooms. It had been an age of doing ordinary things well. The stoves were gone, but the fireplace was intact, a grand affair with an area at one side where the fire would have burned on a bed of sand, day and night for fifty years, and a broad stone hearth where meat could be roasted over coals on wrought-iron contrivances. John looked into the blotched depths of the great brick structure which was stepped upward toward the flue, like an inverted stairs, and suddenly he knew what bothered him. ------- The fireplace would have been walled up when the stoves were installed. It had been done in almost every Colonial house on the Cape, for the large opening would have drawn heat from the house. The romance of the open hearth was a modern fantasy. ------- From across the room, and without the array of implements that would once have equipped it, it looked like a broad doorway leading to a flight of upside-down stairs. When John stared at them, the rows of bricks began to move in and out as in a surrealist drawing. While the others watched, he stepped hesitantly toward the rear wall and appeared to climb the wall. -------James followed and found himself on an ordinary brick stairs that sank into the firebrick. It was a masterful illusion, a trompe-l'oeil like ones they’d seen at the museum. His eyes found it difficult to accept, even as he felt the bricks beneath his paws. -------The others came after them. The stairs emerged on the second floor before a heavy wooden door with massive iron hinges. There was a square keyhole beneath the lever. ------- "A large, square key," James said. ------- "Brilliant," Larissa agreed. They stared at the peculiar keyhole. ------- "The dibble," Hope said softly. ------- ------- John pushed the door open and stepped onto polished wooden boards that were lightly coated with dust. Their candles illuminated a rectangular room in which there was no trace of the massive brick and stone chimney that should have filled it." ------- "Lord," James said. "What did they do with it?" ------- "The flues must run through the walls,” John said. “The whole business in the attic is just a shell, probably no more than a double row of bricks." He looked around. -------"Oh, wow." -------A braided rug covered the floor. The walls of the room were lined with glassed bookcases, and the odors of mold and oiled leather hung in the air. In the center of the room, half a dozen captain's chairs stood around a trestle table on which sat two oil lamps and a bowl of peanut shells. ------- A faint line of light appeared in what should have been a solid wall of brick. When John opened a pair of wooden shutters, rose-tinted daylight flooded into the room, through a window fashioned of small glass panes, painted to match the brick of Marshfield Manor. ------- A kneehole desk and chair were arranged in front of the window. A steel pen and inkstand stood beside a pile of manuscript. Four familiar prints of the battle of Lexington hung above the low window frame. ------- "The books...," Hope said in a small voice. ------- "Franklin," John said, looking on the nearest shelf. "Paine, Goethe, Diderot's Encyclopedie, Voltaire." ------- "Kant," Hope continued, "Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, Spinoza, Coleridge...." ------- "There's a shelf of illuminated manuscripts," Larissa said, opening a glass door, "bestiaries and natural history." ------- "And incunabula," James continued, "fifteenth century printed books, from Aldus Manutius in Venice, Caxton and Estienne, and a copy of the Bay Psalm book." He reached into the case and carefully removed the volume. "Printed by Stephen Daye in 1640. It's the first book ever printed in New England. If the historical value of all this isn't enough, the books themselves should be as valuable as the land. The manor could save itself." ------- "What is the historical value of this room?" Hope asked. ------- "I don't know," John replied. He picked up one of the loose sheets from the writing desk and began to read, “’Dear Mr. President, In answer to your letter,....’ This is from Thoreau to President Lincoln, dated April 15th, 1862! ‘In answer to your letter of April 2nd, I am pleased that you have decided on the course of action which we have long urged. It may help to shorten the war, and it will begin to right centuries of wrong....’ That's all. The writing is wobbly and almost illegible at the end. Thoreau died on May 6th. What action does he mean?" ------- James shook his head. "The room must have been in use for over a hundred years by then." ------- "Maybe the answer’s in here," Hope said. She’d taken a large, unmarked volume from the shelf and laid it on the table. She was slowly turning the handwritten pages. "It's the log of the ‘Liberty’. Sounds like a ship, but I think it's this room. The first entry is in 1773. -------“‘Present at the organizational meeting of the officers of the Liberty: Captain John Goodin, Master Samuel Adams, Master John Hancock, and midshipmen Mr. William Dawes and Mr. Paul Revere. We drank a toast to freedom and a successful voyage. It was agreed to invite Governor Hutchinson to the next meeting to discuss the Tea Act.’" ------- "I thought the governor was a Tory." ------- "He came," Hope said. "It sounds more like a family quarrel than a rebellion. The Governor is afraid that if the colonists refuse to accept the East India Company's tea, they’ll lose even more of their freedoms." Hope skimmed the next few pages. "But Adams says if they give in, they’d be admitting the right of the Crown to tax them, and it could open to way for British monopolies on other goods. Captain Goodin agreed, but Governor Hutchinson suggested the Captain was mostly concerned about his own ship full of Dutch tea. Hutchinson seems to have left at that point, and the others began planning...a tea party! That's history anyone could recognize!" ------- Hope flipped through pages filled with small, neat handwriting. "I wonder... Yes, there was a meeting on April 17th, 1975, two days before the battle at Lexington, and it was the last one for some time. Goodin, Hancock, Adams, Dawes, and Paul Revere were there, and some others. They seem to have known about General Gage's plans to March on Concord. Their informant..." ------- "Whose informant?" Larissa had been reading over her shoulder. ------- "It’s not clear. It almost sounds as if they've warned the British. Why would they do that?" ------- "Maybe they were afraid the colonists would prefer tea to liberty. What were these ‘Conciliary Propositions’”? ------- "Something they didn't want the colonists to know about apparently,” Hope said. “A British gesture of appeasement meant to undercut the separatists?" ------- "They provoked the battle!" John was horrified. ------- "It wouldn't be the first time," James said. “What's that?" ------- Hope held a folded piece of paper that had been tucked into the log book. She unfolded the sheet and read through it. -------"Listen to this. ------- -------Dear Mother and Father, I was packed to leave for home after a good visit with our cousins, when word came of the Redcoats' march on Concord to seize the military stores at Barrett's farm. Edward, William, and Uncle Caleb took muskets and joined their company of Minutemen. Although I respect your loyalty to the crown and have been of two minds myself, I felt I must go with them. We were sent with Captain Davis's men to the North Bridge, where our company was first in the order of march. We advanced on the bridge but were told not to fire. I was praying that a fight could be avoided, when my old musket fired of its own accord. The ball sailed into the clouds, but the damage was done. Ninety men lost their lives, and there will be more fighting. I must stay and see this business through. God grant that it be for the best. Your loving son, Thomas. Please tell no one what I have written. ------- "Good heavens," John said, and they looked at one another in amazement. "It was all an accident." ------- James shook his head. "It’s how most wars begin." ------- "No guns, no wars?" Larissa said doubtfully. ------- "They'd whack each other with pots and pans, but they couldn’t do as much damage. It’s sad, though. That was a war that should have been avoided. What comes next?" ------- They looked over Hope's shoulder as she paged through the log. ------- "Lafayette and Von Steuben. They fought alongside Washington. Lafayette seems to have visited the Goodins after the war." She flipped more pages. "A lot of talk about the French Revolution and Napoleon. Names I don't know. European as well as American history seems to have happened in this room. Here's Lafayette again in 1824." ------- "He was an important man," James said. John looked at him in surprise. "The Marquis de Lafayette was a general in the Continental army,” James continued, “and a member of the French National Assembly during the Revolution. He was against the extreme policies of the Jacobins and later of Napoleon, and he survived to become a member of the Chamber of Deputies from the time of Napoleon's defeat until his own death in 1834. He was a liberal and believed in social equality, representative government, religious tolerance, and freedom of the press." James stopped, and looked sheepish. ------- "In other words, what this room is about," Larissa said. ------- "October 1830, William Lloyd Garrison," Hope continued, "and Goodin again, but it must be his grandson by now. They planned Garrison's anti-slavery paper, The Liberator, in this room." ------- "We have to go soon," John said. "We’ve got to find a way to tell the Commissioners." ------- "I know." Hope flipped to the last entry in the log. "Garrison again, and Frederick Douglas, Goodin, and Thoreau, and Goodin's son, Jonathan, in absentia. He was an officer with McClellan's army in Maryland. They want to convince Lincoln that slavery, secession, and the war can be linked in the public's mind and blamed on the South if Lincoln will declare the Union must be restored without slavery. Garrison thinks that's against the abolitionists' principles, and Thoreau is against the war altogether. Goodin's gotten them to compromise, and...." ------- "And Lincoln freed the slaves," Larissa said. ------- Hope turned the last page. "That's all, except for one word, 'Antietam'. A funny way to end." ------- "Why did it end, though? Was it Thoreau's death?" ------- "Not Thoreau's death," James said, "Jonathan Goodin's. Antietam was the turning point in the war. Stopping Lee's offensive was enough of a victory to justify Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, but both sides lost terribly. I don't think there was anyone to inherit the Captaincy." ------- They were all silent a moment. ------- "This room...." Hope shook her head. "It gives me shivers to think of the conversations that went on here. It was the intellectual center of a century, a place of new beginnings. What a shame it had to end." She looked at the empty chairs and closed book cases. "You're right, we have to tell Steven's father while there's time." ------- "I'll phone him," John said. "I have the number." "Telephone the old man?" James said. ------- "It's time we got past the taboo against dealing with humans,” John answered. “It's not as dangerous as what's happening all around us, and there's nothing we can do without them." ------- No one spoke for a moment. James stared out the window at the marsh and the river. Larissa seemed to be studying the book in her paws. ------- "It’ll be hard,” Hope said softly, “but it has to be done." ------- "I agree," James said, turning from the window. Larissa nodded. ------- Hope returned the log book to the shelf. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 17 ------- ------- The rats closed the door to the library, left the dibble in the lock, and raced to Ben's Books. There were telephones in many city burrows, but they were rarely used except in emergencies. A long call would ordinarily have been made from a temporary tap, but Ben agreed that time was important. The final meeting of the Commission was scheduled for the following evening. ------- A woman answered the phone. ------- "Steven, please," John said, in as low a voice as he could manage. ------- "He's not at home. May I take a message?" Steven's mother sounded puzzled. John knew he’d sound like a small child. ------- "May I speak with his father, please?" There was a long silence, and then John heard the woman's voice at a distance. ------- "...a little girl...asked for you." ------- "Hello." Dr. Lee spoke like a man forewarned. ------- "Dr. Lee, I have some information for you and Steven concerning Marshfield Manor." ------- "Are you the school friend Steven mentioned?" ------- "I'm a student, yes sir," John answered. "My name is... John. You’ll have to excuse my voice. It's a physiological peculiarity." ------- "Not at all." The man was flustered. ------- "Go back to the manor and walk towards the rear of the kitchen fireplace. You’ll climb a stairs to a hidden room on the second floor. What you find there will be more than enough to save the manor. The Thoreau and European connections are verified, and a good deal more. It's amazing. But the Commission meets tomorrow. Take a camera, the instant kind with a flash, and arrange for members of the Commission to visit the room. I'm sure Peake and his daughter will be glad to open the house. And think about security. You'll want to make some provision once the existence of the room is made public. You'll understand. Do you know Dr. Wallace, the historian?" -------There was a mumbled reply. This was all too much for the man, but there was no other way. -------"It might be good to invite him as well. Will you do it, sir? There isn't much time." ------- "Goodness." The man sounded like he’d been running up a flight of stairs. "You seem to know what you're talking about. All right. I'll take your word for now. How can I get in touch with you?" ------- "I'll call you, Dr. Lee. Ask Steven. He'll tell you that you can trust me." ------- "Yes. All right." Caution struggled with curiosity. Would the man do as he’d promised? Rats kept their word. It was more a matter of self-preservation than virtue. Humans seemed always to struggle in a morass of truth and falsehood. ------- John felt a momentary weariness. Dr. Lee would try, but he’d be dismissed as a crackpot. They had too little respect for scholars. ------- He was suddenly aware of the others watching him, as he stood with one paw still on the phone. ------- "It may be all right, Ben. He'll try. Let's go back to the manor." ------- ------- They hadn't long to wait. Dr. Lee and Steven drove into the small parking lot less than an hour later. Six pairs of eyes watched from the tall grass as the boy and his father walked up the path to the front entrance. ------- Steven glanced in their direction as if he could feel John's presence. He looked excited. His father's expression was more difficult to read behind the heavy beard, but there was determination in his walk. Peake met them at the door. ------- Ann arrived while they were still in the house. They all emerged together three-quarters of an hour later, talking and gesturing excitedly. The fuse was lighted. ------- "I hope," Ben said, "that this calls for a celebration." ------- -------"The Commission may be convinced, but the investors and developers aren't likely to give up," John said. He was munching on a sausage. A glass of root beer stood at his elbow. -------"The law...," Hope began. ------- "They like saying laws are made to be broken. Can you imagine the reactions? ‘You can't stop progress, thousands of jobs, the city's economy.’ Maybe they'll move the house, or build the building around it, or keep just the room." ------- "Aye," Ben acknowledged, "but there’s a chance now. Once the people learn about that room, they’ll want the manor preserved, and the marsh. They have the power, though they rarely use it. At any rate, it's out of our hands, and you children have truly done it." ------- "I'm going back to the house after supper," John said. "The Commission has to come tonight." ------- "I'll go with you," Hope said. John had expected James to want to come, but he said he had to work on his paper. ------- ------- It was a pleasant evening. A sea breeze had blown away the smog, and it was unusually clear for a summer night in the city. They waited in the dark. -------The stars were inordinately bright. John could recognize a few constellations, but Hope knew them all and their human and rattish legends. She knew the names of the major stars and their galaxies and magnitude and distance from the solar system. It was the mathematician's hobby, she admitted, but she found the relationships among stars and atomic particles were as beautiful in their way as the colors and patterns of the marsh. ------- John was truly hopeful now. He felt pride in their accomplishment and had begun to feel some confidence in the ability of the rats to make a difference in the world. The old house glowed in the starlight, and looked very permanent. ------- The members of the Commission arrived shortly after nine in half a dozen automobiles. In they went, and out they came again an hour later, looking suitably impressed. The few remarks the rats could make out from their cover at the edge of the field were encouraging. John felt himself relax. When the citizens learned of the house, they would support the Commission. They'd truly won. ------- They watched as the cars drove away. ------- "I guess we can go," John said. ------- "Yes," Hope agreed. "We did it. You did it." ------- "We," John said. They looked at each other, and John was trying to think of something to say, when a lone car approached the Manor. The automobile stopped near the entrance to the house, and a dark figure got out. John recognized him as one of the Commission members, a big man who had not seemed as demonstrative as the others. He opened the trunk of his car and took out a can which he carried into the blackness of the doorway. A moment later, they heard the tinkle of broken glass. ------- "Gasoline," John said with sudden comprehension, "He's going to burn down the manor." He started for the doorway. ------- "John," Hope was at his side, "what are you doing?" ------- "We have to stop him," John said. ------- "We’ll go for help." ------- "Too late. We have to stop him now." ------- "How?" ------- John didn't answer. He didn't know. Sane rats didn't attack humans. It would be a strange way to begin their cooperation. But he had to do something. They raced through the open front door into the hallway. The man was in the living room, hurling chairs into a pile in the center of the floor. A fire here would destroy the house more quickly than one started in the hidden room. John looked for the can and saw it near the entrance. He flipped the wire handle so it lay towards the wall and crouched in the darkness. ------- When the man had piled up enough furniture, he came for the gasoline. John felt surprisingly calm. When you knew what you had to do.... A hand reached for the can, and John buried his teeth in the man's wrist. He bit down with all his strength and tore across the cartilage. There was a scream, and he felt a rush of blood. He let go an instant before he could be dashed against the wall. The man ran from the room leaving a trail of blood. ------- The car started and roared from the parking lot. Apparently the man wasn't going to faint from shock. John was trembling. ------- "The can," Hope said. She sounded as shaky as he. Together, they slid the gas can to the front entrance and tumbled it down the steps. Hope unscrewed the cap and let the gasoline spill onto the path. ------- "There's a fire alarm inside." ------- John was able to climb to the back of a chair and pull the lever. A bell, high on the building, began to ring. ------- The alarm was linked to a fire station as well, for the first truck arrived within minutes. The firemen surveyed the scene, hosed down the spilled gasoline, and talked with their headquarters by radio. The police arrived a few minutes later, then the caretaker and his daughter and several members of the Commission. The parking lot was soon overflowing with trucks and cars. The police set up barriers around the porch, and still more cars arrived, this time from the press. Dr. Lee and Steven had to leave their car on the street. ------- "I don't think we're needed, John," Hope said softly. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Chapter 18 ------- ------- "We'll miss you both," Elizabeth said. "It's been lovely having you this summer. I hope you feel you got as much out of your visit as we did." ------- "I do," John replied. "Dr. Barzel asked me to come back next summer. He wrote to Father, and Father wants me to help him in the lab. And Miss Melemead thinks James should work his essay into a book." ------- They were on the balcony at Ben's Books, where they had met for a farewell dinner before John and James boarded the ferry to the Cape. Hope and Larissa were subdued. Rat farewells were as difficult as any, although the girls planned to visit the Cape during their spring vacation. ------- "We'll come visit," Ben said, "if your folks will have us. We're not likely to get Karen away from Peter and the Cape." ------- "And we'll all come to the Manor,” John said enthusiastically. “the Marshfield National Historical Monument." ------- "Manor will do," Ben said, laughing. "We're not ready for a monument." ------- They talked on about the summer and the concerts and outings, and the party that Andrew and Marci had given them. Finally, Ben and Elizabeth went in to finish preparations for dinner. ------- "Another thing, while I have the chance," John said, in a low voice. "When you come in the Spring, Steven will be there, and he wants us to meet a friend of his." ------- "It's really started," Hope said. ------- No one spoke for a moment. Behind them, the translucent, greenish spires of the city rose above the darkness of the harbor, made darker by the scattering of small white lights where ships lay at anchor, and the greater darkness of the ocean beyond, a wilderness which flowed into the blackness of the sky and the utter mystery of the universe. ------- ------- The End ------- ------- |