For Your Paws Only (13 page)

His two aides, who had been scuffling over the remains of a cheeseburger, looked up. Scurvy's snout was covered in ketchup.

“Look at the TV!” ordered Dupont. “Do those kids look familiar to you?”

Scurvy shrugged his narrow shoulders. Gnaw sucked the cheese off his whiskers and peered closer.

“I'm very happy to have won,” said Oz, prodding nervously at his glasses. “It's quite an honor.” Beside him, D. B. nodded politely.

“I swear I recognize that voice,” mused Dupont.

“Aren't those the two we chased at Halloween?” asked Gnaw. “The ones who caught you in the net?”

Dupont stiffened. “I thought I told you never to mention the
H
word again.”

Gnaw's lone ear trembled as Dupont advanced menacingly toward him. “But Boss, it's them!” he whined, cowering. “You wanted to know.”

Dupont glared at him, then whirled around and stared at the TV once again.

“So there you have it, folks,” concluded the reporter. “The lucky winners! Stay tuned for our coverage tomorrow morning, when they'll be featured atop Mayflower Flour's fabulous float in our fabulous city's fabulous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!”

“Fabulous,” growled Dupont. “Just fabulous.” A speculative glint appeared in his repulsive red eyes, and he waddled over to his aides. “What do you say, boys? I think tomorrow's forecast calls for cloudy with a chance of rats, don't you?”

Scurvy and Gnaw gaped at their boss. He smiled slyly.

“Yes indeed,” continued Dupont, “that's one parade that's gonna get rained on for sure.” He leaned toward his aides, who shrank away from his rancid breath. “It's payback time.”

DAY TWO • WEDNESDAY • 2200 HOURS

High atop Rockefeller Plaza,
underneath the famous Rainbow Room, the dance floor of BANANAS! was rocking and rolling.

“Call me, Sugarpaws, call me!” B-Nut sang. Behind him, Lip and Romeo kept up a loud electric wail, while Nutmeg forged a driving beat on the drums.

Glory, anxiously awaiting her turn, watched from the stage wings. The female mice, as usual, were swooning over her handsome rocker-pilot brother. Judging by their response, “Call Me, Sugarpaws,” composed just a few short hours ago, was most definitely a hit. It was also the lead-in to the Acorns' number-one tune, “Born to Shake My Tail”—and her debut as Cherry Jubilee.

“Good luck out there tonight, Cherry.”

Glory swung around. Like the Cheshire cat, all that was visible of Bananas Foster in the darkness backstage
was his smile. That and the diamond
B
slung around his neck.

“Thanks, Bananas,” Glory replied, trying not to sound nervous.

“No, my dear Cherry, thank
you,
” replied the nightclub owner. “You and the Acorns really packed the place.” He looked out at the dance floor and rubbed his paws together. “Look at them! They're going bananas!” He chuckled. “Get it? Going
bananas
?”

“I get it,” said Glory wearily. Bananas Foster was a pest.

“So, Cherry, are you busy after the show?”

You could say that,
thought Glory. If you called willingly allowing yourself to be captured by the world's meanest, ugliest, scariest rat being busy. Aloud she replied, “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

Disappointed, the nightclub owner bent over her paw and gave it a long smooch. Glory resisted the urge to pull it away.
You are Cherry Jubilee, rock star,
she told herself sternly.
You are used to having male fans make fools of themselves over you.

“Until we meet again, then,” said Bananas, his smile gleaming in the darkness once more.

“I'll be counting the minutes,” Glory purred in her best mouse-fatale voice. No point arousing his suspicions this late in the game.

As B-Nut swung into the final refrain (“Whether it's night or whether it's day, if you gotta work or if you
wanna play, just call me, Sugarpaws—call me!”), Bunsen materialized, his white coat shining like a full moon in the backstage gloom.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Glory said anxiously, as her colleague adjusted the beaded collar that encircled her elegant neck.

“Trust me, it will work,” Bunsen replied, tugging at a decorative cluster of cherries—made from red sequins foraged from a sweater left in the Rainbow Room's lost and found—to make sure it was secure. “The speaker is hidden inside the center cherry. Just give me the signal when you're ready to sing.”

Glory looked out at the crowd again. No doubt about it, she had a full-blown case of stage fright. As if she didn't have enough on her paws already, what with the looming run-in with Roquefort Dupont. She took a few deep breaths and tried to quell her rising panic.

“The note is taped to the inside of your collar,” Bunsen continued. “Dupont can't miss it. It's not in code, and I wrote the words in really big letters. Even he'll be able to read them.”

Glory's plan had been given an enormous boost by Oz and D. B. winning the Bake-Off. In fact, that had been the clincher for Julius, who had been reluctant at first to agree. “Too dangerous,” he'd said. “I don't want to risk my best agents.” Once Oz sent news via pigeon post of his victory, however, Glory had e-mailed Julius again, and this time he'd said yes.

“You're right, the parade is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” the Spy Mice Agency director had written back, giving the mission his seal of approval. “But be careful.”

Her plan was completely foolproof, Glory was sure of it. She reviewed it mentally one more time, just to make sure she hadn't overlooked any loopholes. Any minute now, Dupont would raid the nightclub and take her captive. He'd find the note under her collar with the false information—information that would lead him to believe the mice were planning to rendezvous with Oz and D. B. aboard the Mayflower Flour float at the end of tomorrow's parade. Confronting the mice there for a showdown would be irresistible to Dupont. The float was nearly as big as his ego, after all. When he showed up in Herald Square, however, the mice would already be aboard with Oz and D. B., waiting for him. They'd have the upper paw, and victory was inevitable. Yes, it was the perfect rat-trap. Nothing could go wrong.
Then why am I so afraid?
Glory wondered.

“Bunsen, I'm scared!” she blurted, clutching her colleague's paw.

“Of what?”

“Dupont,” said Glory. “And the rest of the rats.” She swallowed hard, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I keep remembering the looks on Bubble's and Squeak's faces when they were tied to Stilton's tail and thought they were going to die. It's the same way I felt when I
was trapped in Dupont's lair, before you and B-Nut came to rescue me.”

“I told you this was a completely insane idea!” Bunsen cried. He patted her paw anxiously. “Don't worry, it's not too late to call it off. I've got a smoke bomb in the equipment bag backstage—we'll fake a fire. Clear out the club in nothing flat. We'll all be gone before the rats even get here.”

Glory shook her head. “No. We can't back out now.”

“Then send Hotspur instead.” Bunsen brightened at this prospect.

Glory stiffened. “I am
not
sending Hotspur,” she said stubbornly. “He doesn't know Dupont like I do.”

“Are you sure that isn't just the famous Goldenleaf pride talking?” said Bunsen, a bit sharply. “If you don't want to send Hotspur, you could send me or B-Nut. We've both had firstpaw experience with Dupont before too.”

Glory dropped her gaze. “It's not just pride, Bunsen,” she protested, though if she really admitted the truth to herself, there was a bit of that involved. This was her first Silver Skateboard mission, after all: her chance to prove herself to Julius and the agency. Glory had no intention of letting Hotspur steal the credit—which he would gladly do, given half a chance, she was sure of it. Hotspur was poised to pounce at the first sign of weakness from her, she could tell. Glory squared her shoulders. “I'll be fine.”

Bunsen didn't look convinced. “I still think this is a bad idea,” he told her.

His words were nearly drowned out in the roar of applause from the nightclub as the Steel Acorns finished their new tune. Bananas Foster sprang up onto the stage and took the microphone. “You heard it here first, mouselings!” he announced. “Another Steel Acorns hit in the making! And now I have the pleasure of introducing a rising star. Here in the Big Apple for one night only, the very talented, the very lovely Miss Cherry Jubilee!”

Bunsen poked Glory in the back. “You're on,” he whispered. “Knock 'em dead. Bananas is right, by the way. You look beautiful.”

Glory smiled at him. “Thanks, Bunsen. You're true-blue.” Blinking at the bright spotlights, she shuffled reluctantly onstage and peered out at the dance floor. Hotspur and Squeak were there posing as a couple, while Bubble unobtrusively patrolled the crowd with a squad of the elite Mouse Guard. Undercover backup had been Julius's sole condition for the mission. “We can't risk civilian casualties,” he had said.

Stiffen your whiskers,
Glory told herself sharply, pushing thoughts of the coming raid out of her mind.
Focus on the job at hand.

Bunsen gave her an enthusiastic paws-up from the wings as the crowd started to applaud in anticipation. Nutmeg launched into the energetic percussion lead-in, and Glory began tapping her tail to the beat. As the
familiar rhythm flowed through her, Glory relaxed slightly. She took a deep breath and looked over to where Bunsen was waiting in the stage wings. She nodded. The lab mouse signalled the Acorns, and Lip and Romeo struck the opening chords of “Born to Shake My Tail.” The dance floor went wild.

Here goes nothing, thought Glory, closing her eyes and opening her mouth. She hoped fervently that whatever came out wouldn't spell disaster for the mission. A bullfrog with laryngitis would definitely blow their cover.

“Born to dance, born to wail,” sang a voice. A gorgeous soprano voice. Glory's eyes flew open. She almost forgot to keep mouthing the words. “Born to shake my tail!” sang Oz's mother, as Glory lip-synced the lyrics. The explosive guitar riffs and driving beat brought every mouse in the club to his or her hind paws, and in a whisker the whole nightclub was rocking along to the hit song.

Onstage, Glory, too, began to wiggle to the beat as she continued to lip-sync the words. “I'm a hard-rockin' mouse, and I bring down the house every time I twitch my tail!” Out on the dance floor, Hotspur and Squeak Savoy started a conga line. Squeak waved at her, and Glory waved back. “I feel the beat with my paws, and hit the dance floor because—the music starts me groovin' without fail!”

The song continued to flow without a hitch, and Glory was totally into her role by the time she reached
the refrain. “Born to dance! Born to wail! Born to shake my tail!” As she finished, the crowd erupted in cheers.

“Cher-ry! Cher-ry! Cher-ry!” they chanted, begging for more. Glory looked over at Bunsen, aghast. They hadn't rehearsed an encore! Oz's mother hadn't recorded an encore! What was she supposed to do?

She never got a chance to find out.

The doors to the nightclub burst open, and Roquefort Dupont charged in. Stilton Piccadilly, Muenster the Monster, and Mozzarella Canal were right behind him.

“RATS!” someone screamed. “It's a raid!”

In a whisker, all was pandemonium. The packed dance floor emptied as the panicked mice scattered, pushing and shoving each other in a frantic attempt to flee the advancing rats. Bubble and the Mouse Guard herded as many of the nightclub's patrons as they could to safety backstage, and Glory saw Bananas Foster scramble for cover too. Her last glimpse of him was a flash from the diamond
B
around his neck as he dove behind one of the giant plastic bananas that flanked the stage.

“There she is!” screamed Dupont, spotting her. “She's the one I want!”

It's showtime, thought Glory. She scampered across the stage and pretended to trip on the microphone cord.

“Good luck, Sis,” called B-Nut as he ran past, followed by the Acorns. Hotspur and Squeak were right behind them.

For one wild moment, Glory wondered whether
Bunsen was right about this being a completely insane idea. She could see the lab mouse out of the corner of her eye, his white fur gleaming in the spotlight as he hesitated by the stage curtain.

“GO!” she shouted, waving him frantically away. The mission couldn't risk Bunsen falling into rat paws. His technological expertise was the heart and soul of their operation. Glory saw her colleague turn reluctantly to leave, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

It was short-lived. Dupont leaped onstage and advanced toward her with a malevolent grin. Glory leaped to her hind paws and backed away, eyes wide in what was supposed to be mock fear. Only there was nothing “mock” about what she was feeling. She'd forgotten how big Dupont was. And how ugly and fierce and evil. His red eyes glowed like fiery embers, and when he opened his mouth to speak, the stench of his breath nearly curled her whiskers.

“Well, if it isn't little Glory Goldenleaf!” said Roquefort Dupont. “Or should I say Cherry Jubilee?”

He lunged at her, and Glory dove toward the stage wings, all pretense gone. The only thing she could think of now was getting away from Dupont and the other rats crowding onto the stage behind him.

Her paws scrabbled frantically on the stage floor's smooth wooden surface as Dupont caught her by the tail and reeled her in like a fish. Glory struggled mightily, but it was useless. In a trice, he had her in his powerful
grip. He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and shook her violently. The red sequin cherries popped off her collar one by one and rolled into the shadows.