Sewer Mayhem Page 17

  ‘Why is she here?’ Emily said. ‘She didn’t know Nate, did she?’

  Jacob shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘This is odd. If she really is stalking the Bandonis, this is a strange place to do it.’ Emily shivered. ‘I don’t trust her.’

  Jacob looked at her and smiled. ‘She’s allowed to teach children, so she can’t be that bad.’

  ‘Perhaps, but there’s something not right about her. I can feel it in my gut.’

  ‘Now you sound like a grumpy old policeman.’

  Emily glared at Jacob. ‘You think that because I’m young I can’t have a bad feeling about something?’ She crossed her arms and looked at the crowd some more. Stupid old professor. He didn’t know her at all.

  Her eyes fell on Sam again, who was now taking a handful of soil and throwing it into the grave. Then the Bandonis walked off, revealing Spencer Peacock, who had been standing behind them.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Emily grabbed Jacob by the arm. ‘I had totally forgotten about it, but the other day Sam actually started telling me something about Spencer.’

  Jacob stared at her, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘It was Spencer she was talking about, but then she got interrupted and we never went back to the subject.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Umm… on Wednesday afternoon, when Liz and I took her for a walk. Colleen joined us and freaked us all out.’ Emily stared at Spencer, who was now walking away from the grave, wiping his hand on a handkerchief. ‘Could it have had something to do with the fight between Spencer and Kenneth yesterday?’

  ‘We need to talk to Sam,’ Jacob said and started walking fast to catch up with the Bandonis.

  ‘Wait.’ Emily and Jacob watched as Patrizia turned round and had a quick word with Colleen. Whatever Patrizia had said to her, the blood drained from Colleen’s face. Then she walked off without looking back.

  As Patrizia joined the Bandonis again, Sam spotted Emily and Jacob and came walking up to them.

  ‘Can I have a word with you?’ she said, her eyes still moist.

  ‘Of course,’ Jacob said. He indicated with his hand. ‘Let’s go this way.’

  The three of them turned into a path that led deeper into the cemetery. Emily wondered what Sam wanted to tell them.

  After turning a corner, the other mourners disappeared from view. Sam stopped to face them.

  ‘I have not been totally honest,’ she said, wringing a hanky in her hands. ‘I should have told you before.’

  She looked at the ground and Emily and Jacob waited in silence for her to continue.

  ‘About two years ago, I saw…’ Sam sighed. ‘I saw Spencer and Nate together. They were kissing.’

  ‘Kissing?’ Jacob said.

  Sam nodded. ‘But then Nate pushed Spencer away.’

  ‘Where was this, Sam?’ Emily said, touching her friend’s arm.

  ‘I happened to walk past Field’s Watches & Clocks and glanced in. They were in the back and didn’t see me. I quickly walked on.’

  Jacob cleared his throat. ‘Do you mean to say that Spencer is into younger men? But he’s married?’

  ‘Holy cow, Jacob,’ Emily rolled her eyes. ‘You sound like a fossil when you say things like that.’ Jacob glared at her, but she didn’t care and continued. ‘The fact that Spencer is married might very well be a front for him actually being gay. Perhaps he wants to keep it a secret, or maybe he’s even in denial about it himself.’

  Jacob now rolled his eyes at Emily. ‘I know all that. But I’ve known Spencer all my life and never even thought he might be gay.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘He always was a bit camp, but not every camp man is gay.’

  ‘You should know.’

  ‘I’m not camp.’

  ‘Well… sometimes…’

  Jacob glared at Emily again, then turned to Sam. ‘Do you think Nate was gay himself?’

  Sam stared at Jacob.

  ‘Was what you saw before or after Nate harassing you during the street party,’ Jacob continued.

  ‘Before.’ Sam looked at her shoes.

  ‘Then perhaps Nate harassing you had something to do with Spencer harassing him? Perhaps Nate wanted to compensate as he felt uncomfortable about his own sexuality?’

  ‘No,’ Sam said, tugging at a strand of her hair, her face as white as a sheet. ‘Of course he wasn’t gay. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  They watched as Sam walked back along the path.

  Jacob sighed. ‘That girl is still hiding things from us.’

  ‘Yes, I think you’re right.’ Emily pulled one of her rats out of her pocket and stroked his soft fur. She hated being suspicious of her friend, but something didn’t add up here.

  * * *

  Paddy

  It had been a trying morning so far. The five of us were huddled behind our boxes, while an almost constant stream of paper clips and pencils came down on our heads. One of the pencils had hit me in the shoulder with the pointy end, and it was now somewhat stiff and painful to move.

  About halfway through the morning Victor’s reinforcements had arrived and so far they had performed a number of attacks. Luckily, we had managed to fend them off, but only by the skin of our teeth.

  ‘What are they trying to do with this bombardment of paper clips?’ Vinnie said. He pushed his back into one of the boxes and kicked a paper clip out of the way. ‘Making us stark raving mad?’

  ‘Well, if they do, it’s working,’ I said. ‘I’m getting heartily sick of it.’ I watched as Gus and Daisy kept on going with their counter attack, shooting paper clip after paper clip in the direction of the Bambini’s box. They had found the perfect way to load a paper clip and shoot it in one smooth motion, making Daisy’s catapult our most formidable weapon.

  ‘Take that one, you flea-ridden fur balls,’ Gus yelled, shooting another paper clip.

  ‘It would be handy if we had another catapult,’ Leo said, chucking a pencil at the Bambini’s entrenchment with all his might.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, sticking my nose around the box and pulling it back when a paper clip came whizzing by. ‘But it’s too dangerous to build one now. What we actually need is reinforcements ourselves.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gus yelled. ‘Where is that Rat Squad?’

  ‘Did somebody say our name?’ a deep voice came from behind us. I turned around to see a whole bunch of very burly rats make their way into the front room.

  ‘Charlie!’ Daisy yelled and she ran up to the lead rat, touching her nose to his. ‘We’re so glad you’re here. Come meet the others.’

  Daisy led the large rat in our direction. He was huge, even bigger than Vinnie, and his muscles rippled under his fur. He had a permanent bald spot on his right shoulder, but that didn’t make him look any less impressive.

  ‘Paddy, Vinnie, this is my brother Charlie,’ Daisy said.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, as more paper clips rained down on us. ‘We’re so glad you guys could make it.’

  Charlie looked at the paper clips and pencils. ‘You’ve got a bit of a situation here, I see.’

  ‘We do indeed.’

  Another burly rat joined us.

  ‘This is Roger,’ Charlie said. ‘My right-hand rat. How much more ammunition do the Mob have?’

  ‘Well, I think we just keep exchanging stuff,’ I said. ‘Everything they bombard us with, we shoot back at them again.’

  ‘Hmm… Sounds like they don’t really have a plan either, so we will have to come up with a good one.’

  Charlie’s words stung me a bit as it wasn’t as if we hadn’t tried, but I could see his point. We needed a seriously good plan and a lot more rats.

  ‘How many rats do they have?’ Roger said.

  I shrugged. ‘We’re not entirely sure. They started off with just the three of them, but they probably got about ten to fifteen extra rats overnight.’

  ‘There’s twelve of us in the Rat Squad,’ Charlie said. ‘So with you guys, we�
�re seventeen in total. Looks like we’re pretty even numbered.’ He plucked at the fur on his chest. ‘What about just trying a surprise attack and overrunning them by force?’

  Roger nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan, boss.’ He looked at Vinnie and me. ‘You guys up for that?’

  ‘Anything is better than this constant barrage of paper clips,’ Vinnie said, as another one hit him on the head. ‘I’m itching to get my paws on those mangy fleabags.’

  ‘Right,’ Charlie said. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. You guys keep chucking everything you’ve got at the Mob to distract them. The Rat Squad will split up and attack the enemy from two sides and hopefully surprise them.’ He made a pincer movement with his arms. ‘Then after we’ve overrun them, you guys can join us to finish them off. Good idea?’

  ‘Sounds great to me,’ I said, secretly glad that I wasn’t in the group that surprised the Mob. Let’s face it, strong and healthy as Vinnie and I still were, we were middle-aged rats. Compared to us most of the Rat Squad had only just left the safety of their mother’s digs. Only Gus was closer to our age.

  Before we knew it, Charlie had updated the rest of his squad and with a quick nod of his head, let us know they were going in.

  As Leo, Gus and Daisy kept up the barrage of paper clips, Vinnie and I split up to keep an eye on the proceedings from the sides of our defences. We both had a large stack of ammunition at our disposal in case something went wrong.

  I watched as Roger led his group of squaddies down the wall, below the windows, sneaking up on the Mob. They were halfway down when suddenly a group of Mafiosi, led by Dino, appeared from nowhere and pounced on them. In an instant there was nothing but a writhing mass of fur, claws and teeth. I stared at it, hoping to find out who was winning.

  Then from the corner of my eye, I saw Sal and his Mafiosi attacking Charlie and his rats, who on the other side of the room, attempted to sneak past the kitchen to get behind the Bambini defences.

  A panic rose up inside me, making my scalp prickle. What if the Mafiosi were too strong for Roger and Charlie? I guess they could overrun us all, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. Reaching behind me, I grabbed any ammo I could find. Erasers, pencils, paper clips, I chucked it all at the Mafiosi under the windows, hoping it distracted them enough for the Rat Squad to get the upper hand.

  Charlie in the meantime changed his tactics and led a charge diagonally across the no man’s land between the two defences. Undeterred by a barrage of paper clips being chucked at them from behind enemy lines, Charlie and the Rat Squad reached Victor’s box.

  Seeing this, both Dino and Sal shouted for a retreat to help their brother, but Victor himself put a stop to that.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ he yelled. ‘And get those runty cousins of mine!’

  Before I knew what was happening, the Mafiosi near the kitchen wall stopped chasing Charlie and ran straight at Gus, Daisy and Vinnie, who also had upped their game and were not only shooting paper clips, but also chucking all available ammunition at the Mob.

  ‘Watch out!’ I yelled, but knew it was too late.

  Despite Vinnie being overrun by the Mafiosi and lying on his back, he kept valiantly chucking erasers at them. Gus and Daisy had no other choice but to abandon their catapult. Being chased behind our defences they still managed to keep ahead of the teeth and claws of the Mob.

  The Mafiosi that had remained behind Victor’s box now appeared and attacked Charlie and his rats in no man’s land.

  Meanwhile under the windows, Roger and his rats were still in a serious battle with Dino and the Mafiosi. It seemed that Leo and I were the only ones not being attacked, but that didn’t last long.

  Leo, behind our defences, had kept himself busy gathering up the ammunition that the Mafiosi had thrown at us, and now came running from behind our boxes, in hot pursuit by Sal and two of his Mafiosi. One of them nipped Leo in the heels and he screeched.

  Then I realised they were coming right at me!

  ‘Get out of here, Paddy,’ Leo yelled and I started running. With Leo close behind me, we crossed no man’s land, then ducked behind our boxes again, where mayhem had ensued as Vinnie, Gus and Daisy were now surrounded by Mafiosi.

  They tried defending a small patch of ground, but the Mafiosi kept encroaching on them. Dino manoeuvred himself closer to Daisy, trying to get hold of her arm. She bit him in the paw and then poked him in the stomach with the sharp end of a pencil.

  Still being chased by the Mafiosi, Leo ducked into the back room to escape and I followed him in. Before we knew it we were out of the old building and into the car park with the Mob hot on our tails. What were we to do now?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  With large steps Jacob rounded the corner of the Curling Iron hair salon. He was later than he’d hoped and decided he’d better take the shortcut through the car park to get back to school.

  After getting back from the funeral, Emily and he had spent a little time speculating about what Sam had told them, but now it was high time he set up the experiment he wanted to show the kids. Only one class left and then it would be the weekend. He could do with a little break, even though he hadn’t felt like going back to his Robbie project yet.

  A scream in the car park pierced the quiet afternoon air, stopping Jacob in his tracks. What was that?

  Another scream rang out behind him. Jacob whirled around to find the source of the screams and saw a woman standing on one leg, pulling her skirt tightly around her. What on earth was happening?

  Two large rats shot between his legs, closely followed by three other rats. They raced around the corner, out of sight.

  ‘Did you see that?’ a woman asked him. She was sitting on the hood of her car, holding on to the bottom of her trouser legs, her eyes huge. ‘The car park is infested by rats!’

  On the other end of the car park, a girl on a bicycle screamed. She dropped her bike and in a blind panic climbed on top of the recycled paper bin that together with some recycled glass containers stood in the far corner.

  ‘Rats!’ she screamed. ‘Rats!’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Jacob muttered to himself. He’d never seen any rats here, even though it wouldn’t be strange if there were some, considering that people willy-nilly chucked half-eaten fast food on the ground instead of in the bins. Perhaps Dave should start his anti-litter campaign again.

  ‘What happened?’ Jacob said to the woman on the car.

  ‘They came from over there.’ She pointed towards the back of the car park, where it went behind the shops on Woolaston Road. ‘There must have been thirty or forty!’

  Jacob looked where she was pointing. Thirty or forty? Nonsense.

  A movement near the Curling Iron attracted Jacob’s gaze. The white wall of the salon clearly silhouetted the five dark shapes that ran past it at great speed.

  ‘There they are!’ the woman screamed and she grabbed Jacob by the arm. ‘Do something!’

  Jacob wrenched his arm loose and walked towards the car under which the rats had disappeared.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ a voice said behind him.

  Jacob looked up to see Dave staring at him. ‘There’s a bunch of rats running around on the car park freaking people out.’

  ‘Rats?’ Dave looked about him. ‘Where?’

  A car that had been driving around looking for a space to park suddenly came to a screeching halt. Two rats jumped on to the bonnet of the car, scrambled up the windscreen and over the roof before jumping off again. Three rats closely followed them and took the same route, before chasing them back under another car.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Dave said. He scratched the back of his neck. ‘Don’t know what to do about it though.’

  ‘I guess they will stop chasing each other sooner or later.’

  ‘I’m going to help that woman down from her car,’ Dave said. He grinned at his friend. ‘You better keep an eye on your rats.’

  Jacob shook his head. ‘They’re not my rats!’

&n
bsp; ‘Are you sure?’ Dave started walking away from him. ‘Maybe it’s the same ones you’ve been studying on Milbury Hill,’ he said over his shoulder.

  Jacob glared at Dave.

  A scream now came from Woolaston Road.

  ‘Rats, rats!’ somebody yelled. Darn it. It seemed they’d made their way around the corner.

  As fast as he could, Jacob ran to the shopping street, just in time to see a number of people leaving Hoofs Haven charity shop in great haste.

  Entering the shop, he saw two rats running over the counter and jumping on to a shelf with knick-knacks, spilling bracelets on to the floor and toppling over a porcelain kitten.

  The woman behind the counter had climbed on top of a bar stool. She stared at Jacob wide-eyed, opening and closing her mouth as if wanting to say something.

  The clothes on a rack behind Jacob started moving, swinging from side to side. He watched as five large rats climbed out of the collars of the shirts and started chasing each other, jumping from one clothes rack to another. Was he mistaken or was one of the rats wearing paper clips around his neck? Jacob blinked, but before he could check again, the rats jumped out of sight and raced across the shop floor.

  ‘Are they still here?’ the woman behind the counter whispered.

  A scream came from one of the changing rooms in the back of the shop. The curtain opened and a woman flung herself out, dressed in nothing but a skirt and a bra. It took Jacob a second to recognise Fifi Peacock, Spencer’s wife.

  ‘I’m never coming here again,’ she yelled at the woman, before running on to Woolaston Road. The gathered crowd stared as she walked by.

  Jacob hid a smile, then jumped aside as the five rats raced past him and out of the door. The crowd outside recoiled in a panic, trying to make way for the rats, who were now crossing Woolaston Road at great speed. A passing car braked, narrowly missing the last rat.

  Jacob ran across the street and followed the rats inside Keep Reading, the bookshop next door to Posh Nosh. Screams came from behind some bookcases. A woman came out of the children’s section, pulling a screaming toddler along with her.