Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls (6 page)

Emmy shrugged, tucked a peanut-butter cup into Sissy's satchel, and went over the message with Cecilia until the rat had it word-perfect. With a quick salute, the small gray body slipped over the windowsill and down the latticed vines.

Emmy's smile faded. She yanked the window down tight and pulled the shade. Sissy was a nice little rat, but Emmy had had enough of rodents. Besides, she had to go warn the professor. He could help her figure out how to stop Miss Barmy and Cheswick—whatever they might be planning.

E
MMY WAS CUTTING ACROSS
the schoolyard when she heard the jackhammer, a spurting percussion that rose above the cheers from the soccer field. She glanced across the playground to the shops that lined Main Street on the other side, and saw yellow tape and orange cones amid a cloud of dust in front of the art gallery.

She paused for a single heartbeat and then began to run.

“Emmy! Wait up!”

A small stocky boy was jogging toward her. Emmy slowed to a walk, but she couldn't bear to stop entirely—she had to find out what was happening to Rodent City. She thought anxiously of Mrs. Bunjee's cozy loft being broken up by the deafening violence of a jackhammer, and her pace quickened.

“Captain, sir!” Puffing, Thomas tugged at her elbow. “Permission to report?”

“Permission granted,” said Emmy, her eyes on the
art-gallery steps. The workman wasn't as close to the steps as she had thought—but he was near enough. The noise and vibration must be scaring all the residents of Rodent City to death.

“I couldn't get the pirate into the city,” said Thomas, panting at her side. “The crack in the steps was all blocked off.”

“The—pirate?”

“Ratty.”

“Oh, right.” Emmy stopped at the street and looked across. The yellow tape went to the art-gallery steps, but the workman was breaking up the sidewalk in front of the jewelry shop next door. She relaxed. “So where did you take him, then?”

“My house.” Thomas spoke directly into her ear, cupping his hands around his mouth. “My parents are at Joe's game, so it's safe.”

“Let's get away from here.” Emmy grabbed his hand, and they ran across the street and through the alley, past jackhammer dust and garbage cans smelling of sour milk and rotting fruit, until they emerged into light again. They were in the quiet backstreets, with a grassy triangle in the center and interesting shops on all three sides.

“Hey, cool!” Thomas said. “My ears are still ringing!”

Emmy glanced past the bakery, the tattoo parlor, the candy store, to the grand blue house on the corner and its sign: “Peter Peebles, Attorney at Law.” She winced, wishing she could forget her humiliating plunge off his boat.

But it was the narrow building next door to the Peebles place that worried her most. Weeks ago, Emmy had discovered that the odd people who lived above the ground-floor shoe shop were actually Miss Barmy's parents. And though Mr. Peebles had said the “Home for Troubled Girls” sign was a joke, it was toward this building that Miss Barmy and Cheswick had run when they had been turned into rats.

Emmy shuddered lightly and turned away, steering Thomas toward a shop of vine-covered brick with a painted sign swinging over the doorway. “So Raston is at your house—alone?”

Thomas looked up at the sign. “The Ant—” he began, sounding out the tall spidery letters beneath the painted gray rat.

“The Antique Rat,” Emmy finished, impatient. “So what did you do with Ratty?”

Thomas looked at her calmly. “I made him chocolate milk—I'm not allowed to use the stove for hot cocoa—and turned on the TV. Then I came to meet you for my next mission.” He paused, waiting.

“Emmy!” cried a big, jovial, white-bearded man, throwing open the door with a jangling of bells. “And you've brought a friend—what a very pleasant surprise!”

 

Professor Capybara leaned back in his swivel chair, placed his fingertips together, and smiled kindly over his glasses. “But, my dear Emmy, I don't think any of this needs to worry you. After all, how much harm can Miss Barmy do now? She's only a rat.”

“Well, yes,” said Emmy. “But she's a very
mean
rat.”

“Still, I can't see that there's anything to be done. You've heard no real plans, I take it? Just some rambling talk of revenge.” The professor's face took on an austere expression. “Cheswick Vole was never very reliable, not even when he was my laboratory assistant back in Schenectady.”

“But—”

“What do you want me to do? I have my research—I can't just run about after rodents, trying
to catch them doing something wrong. It's beneath
anyone's
dignity.”

Emmy gazed around the room, wishing she could put her feelings into words. The afternoon sun streamed in through polished windows, highlighting the tables and chairs, each with its carved or painted decoration of rats, which gave the store its name. “But don't you think,” she said slowly, “that if someone says she wants to harm you, you should pay attention?”

“Certainly, certainly.” The professor's glance strayed to the other end of the shop, where the antiques had been moved to one side to make room for a laboratory. “But just now, I'd like to check on an experiment, if you don't mind. I'm still trying to find a cure for the Snoozer virus.” He pushed back his chair. “If only I hadn't taken that trip to Palm Desert! The Bushy-Tailed Snoozer Rats were everywhere, and I didn't take proper precautions …”

Emmy sighed inwardly, and wandered after him to the cluttered counter where a bubbling retort competed for space with rows of vials, trays of glass slides, and innumerable pieces of paper covered with calculations and handwritten notes.

Over to one side was an odd-looking microscope that Emmy had used before. It was Professor Capybara's own invention, and although it was no good at showing ordinary things like red blood cells and bacteria, it was surprisingly good at showing other things.

“Brian!” called the professor as he hunched over a petri dish. “He was supposed to check on this regularly,” he muttered. “Where did the boy go?”

“Here, Professor!” A tall, slightly stooped teenage boy emerged from the back room with Thomas in tow. “I was just showing Thomas the little apartments you fixed up for the rodents that wanted to stay.”

“But you were supposed to check this every fifteen minutes,” said the professor irritably.

“I am. The next check is due in”—Brian checked his watch—“two minutes seven seconds. Try not to get upset, Professor—you know it puts you right to sleep. The Snoozer virus, you know.”

“Yes, yes, my boy.” Professor Capybara pulled at his white beard. “I'm sorry I snapped at you. I'm just a little nervous about something …”

Emmy stopped listening as Thomas appeared at her elbow.

“What's that?” Thomas pointed at the odd pewter-and-brass microscope with its multitude of knobs and small jointed arms, and tipped his head, trying to look at the lens from underneath.

“It's called a charascope.”

“What does it do?”

“You can see for yourself.” Emmy pulled out a slide labeled “Barmy,” and slid it under the charascope. It was old, and the blood had dried; instead of a moving, living sample, with the tumble of changing bright and dark shapes that Emmy remembered, this was like a snapshot. But Emmy could still see the dark-green ball made of massed wormlike shapes that had so appalled her before.

“What's that?” Thomas looked through the eyepiece. “It looks nasty.”

“That's a drop of Miss Barmy's blood, from about a month ago. What you're seeing is probably hatred, with some fear mixed in.”

“Hatred?” Thomas raised round blue eyes to Emmy's. “You can't see hatred through a microscope.”

“You can through a charascope. Here, I'll show you. Give me your finger.”

Thomas held out his finger trustingly. Emmy dipped it in rubbing alcohol and poked the fleshy pad of his forefinger with a lancet, squeezing out one bright-red drop.

“You're pretty brave for six and a half.” She smeared the blood on a glass slide, replaced Miss Barmy's sample with Thomas's, and looked through the eyepiece. Yes, it was just like before—small glowing shapes of every color, swimming and twirling in a kind of bright liquid dance. She moved aside so Thomas could see.

“Wow!” he breathed. “This doesn't look like the other one at all!”

“I doubt you have much hatred in your blood. The shapes you see are probably more like— Here, just a minute.” Emmy took up a colored chart lying nearby and read down the list. “Love, happiness, curiosity, wonder, courage, hope—”

“Hey! One just split into two!”

“Yes, they multiply if you let them—”

“And two different ones just stuck together, and now there's a whole new shape! How come?”

“It's got something to do with character,” said Emmy. “I don't know how it works; ask the
professor.” But Professor Capybara, deep in conversation, seemed to have worries of his own.

“I'm not nervous about making a speech,” he said. “I'm used to that. But there's a dance afterward, and I'm supposed to lead with Mrs. Bunjee …” He looked at Brian helplessly.

Brian grinned. “What's so bad about dancing with chipmunks? They're pretty light on their feet.” He arranged a petri dish, an eyedropper, and a small box of colored paper on the counter.

The professor looked at him sideways. “Just because you don't have to go—”

“Someone has to mind the experiments,” said Brian cheerfully, picking up the eyedropper.

Emmy's shoulders slumped. She'd forgotten all about the party tonight. What did it matter if she shut her window or stopped up holes to keep out rodents? She was going to have to go underground tonight with hundreds of them. She would be forced to listen to the Swinging Gerbils, too, which didn't exactly help.

“What's wrong?” asked the professor, glancing at her. “Don't you want to go?”

“That's not it,” Emmy said quickly. The party was
in the professor's honor, after all. “But I have to give some excuse to my parents, or they'll wonder where I am.”

“Not a problem—not a problem at all!” The professor was beaming. “I'll just tell your parents that you're invited to a supper party, and that Brian will pick you up in the truck and bring you back again …” He trailed off, looking at Thomas. “Are you coming to Rodent City, too?” he asked kindly.

“Um—he wasn't invited to the party,” Emmy said hesitantly. “I don't think Mrs. Bunjee knows him.”

“That's all right,” said Brian. “He can stay here with me; I could use a helper. Do you like pizza, Thomas?”

 

Professor Capybara walked back to the soccer fields with Emmy and Thomas to ask Mr. and Mrs. Benson's permission. On the way, they stopped to look at the sidewalk, where the workman was taking a break. Behind him, the sign in the jewelry store window read “Closed During Construction,” and the window blinds were shuttered.

“What's going in under the sidewalk?” asked the professor genially.

The workman looked up from his sandwich, took off his ear protectors, and pulled a small foam plug from his left ear. “Eh?”

“Why are you breaking up the sidewalk?”

“They're replacing the old pipe with new. Musta had a leak somewhere.”

“Are you putting in the new pipe today?” Thomas asked. “Can I watch you put it through the wall?”

“I'm just breaking up the sidewalk and pulling out the old pipe, sonny. New pipe'll be laid by somebody else, come Monday afternoon. Or maybe Tuesday, I dunno. Plumbers, they kind of take their time.”

The workman screwed in his earplug and went back to his sandwich, clearly finished with the conversation.

“But—” said Thomas as Emmy dragged him off.

“You can go back on Monday,” said Professor Capybara, “and get all your questions answered.”

Thomas was silent. As they neared the soccer fields, he began to lag behind.

There was a sound of wild cheering. Joe's team was celebrating with high fives, and Mr. and Mrs. Benson were grinning widely as they received congratulations from the spectators. Apparently Joe had scored another goal.

Emmy patted Mrs. Benson's sleeve.

“Why, Emmy!” Mrs. Benson turned around. “How nice that you could make it!”

“Looks like we play for the championship tomorrow,” said Mr. Benson, exultant. “Our son is a powerhouse! Whoops,” he added as his cell phone rang. He walked away from the crowd to take the call.

“Actually, Mrs. Benson,” said the professor in his courteous way, “I was wondering if both your boys would like to join Emmy and Brian and myself tonight for a supper party.”

“That's very kind of you, Professor,” said Mrs. Benson. “Are you sure they won't be in the way? I know you're busy with your research.”

“Not at all, my dear Mrs. Benson; the children are very good with the rodents, after all. Shall I have Brian drive them home a little after nine?”

Emmy wandered back to where Thomas was poking at something on the ground. “Hey, Thomas.” She looked down at his smooth blond head.

He lifted the caterpillar onto his finger. “Look—it's so nice and fat and green!”

“And with yellow spots,” Emmy added politely.

Two sharp whistle blasts sounded behind them, and the game was over. Emmy turned to see the
teams shaking hands, and Professor Capybara walking back to the Antique Rat.

“Did my mom say I could go?” Thomas asked.

Emmy nodded. “You'd better make sure Ratty's hidden before they get home, though.”

Thomas tipped his finger, inducing the caterpillar to walk up and onto his other hand, and shrugged. “Dad always talks to the coach after a game. He talks, and then the coach talks, and then Mom tries to keep them from getting mad. It takes a long time.”

But Joe's father was still speaking into his cell phone when Joe left his teammates and wandered over, sweaty, grass-stained, and happy.

“Good game!” said Emmy.

Joe grinned. “You faker. Did you even see any of it?”

“Not really,” Emmy admitted. “But I
heard
it was a good game. Listen, though. Cheswick Vole and Miss Barmy are planning some kind of revenge.”