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Chapter One

One day, when he was naughty, Mr. Bunnsy looked over the hedge into Farmer Fred's field and saw it was full of fresh green lettuces. Mr. Bunnsy however, was not full of lettuces. This did not seem fair.

-- From Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure

Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats, and --

But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats.

But Malicia Grim said it was a story about stories.

It began -- part of it began -- on the mail coach that came over the mountains from the distant cities of the plain.

This was the part of the journey that the driver didn't like. The road wound through forests and around mountains on crumbling roads. There were deep shadows between the trees. Sometimes he thought things were following the coach, keeping just out of sight. It gave him the willies.

And on this journey the really big willy was that he could hear voices. He was sure of it. They were coming from behind him, from the top of the coach, and there was nothing there but the big oilcloth mail sacks and the boy's luggage. There was certainly nothing big enough for a person to hide inside. But occasionally he was sure he heard squeaky voices, whispering.

There was only one passenger at this point. He was a fair-haired young man, sitting all by himself inside the rocking coach and reading a book. He was reading slowly, and aloud, and moving his finger over the words.

"Ubberwald," he read out.

"That's'Uberwald,'" said a small, squeaky, but very clear voice. "The dots make it a sort of long 'ooo' sound. But you're doing well."

"Ooooooberwald?"

"There's such a thing as too much pronunciation, kid," said another voice, which sounded half asleep. "But you know the best thing about Uberwald? It's a long, long way from Sto Lat. It's a long way from Pseudopolis. It's a long way from anywhere where the head of the Watch says he'll have us boiled alive if he ever catches us. And it's not very modern. Bad roads. Lots of mountains in the way. People don't move about much up here. So news doesn't travel very fast, see? And they probably don't have policemen. Kid, we can make a fortune here!"

"Maurice?" said the boy carefully.

"Yes, kid?"

"You don't think what we're doing is, you know...dishonest, do you?"

There was a pause before the voice said, "How do you mean, dishonest?"

"Well...we take their money, Maurice." The coach bounced over a pothole.

"All right," said the unseen Maurice. "But what you've got to ask yourself is: Who do we take the money from, actually?"

"Well...it's generally the mayor or the city council or someone like that."

"Right! And that means it's...what? I've told you this bit before."

"Er..."

"It is gov-ern-ment money, kid," said Maurice patiently. "Say it. Gov-ern-ment money."

"Gov-er-ment money," said the boy obediently.

"Right! And what do governments do with money?"

"Er, they..."

"They pay soldiers," said Maurice. "They have wars. In fact we've prob'ly stopped a lot of wars, by taking the money and putting it where it can't do any harm. They'd put up stachoos to us, if they thought about it."

"Some of those towns looked pretty poor, Maurice," said, the kid doubtfully.

"Hey, just the kind of places that don't need wars, then."

"Dangerous Beans says it's . . ." the boy concentrated, and his lips moved before he said the word, as if he was trying out the pro-nunciation to himself. "It's un-eth-ickle."

"That's right, Maurice," said the squeaky voice. "Dangerous Beans says we shouldn't live by trickery."

"Listen, Peaches, trickery is what humans are all about," said the voice of Maurice. "They're so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them. We give them value for money. They get a horrible plague of rats, they pay a rat piper, the rats all follow the kid out of town, hoppity-skip, end of plague, everyone's happy that no one's widdling in the flour anymore, the government gets reelected by a grateful population, general celebration all around. Money well spent, in my opinion."

"But there's only a plague because we make them think there is," said the voice of Peaches.

"Well, my dear, another thing all those little governments spend their money on is rat catchers, see? I don't know why I bother with the lot of you, I really don't."

"Yes, but we -- "

They realized that the coach had stopped. Outside, in the rain, there was the Jingle of harness. Then the coach rocked a little, and there was the sound of running feet.

A voice from out of the darkness said, "Are there any wizards in there?"

The occupants looked at one another in puzzlement.

"No?" said the kid, the kind of "No" that means "Why are you asking?"

"How about any witches?" said the voice.

"No, no witches," said the kid.

"Right. Are there any heavily armed trolls employed by the mail coach company in there?"

"I doubt it," said Maurice.

There was a moment's pause, filled with the sound of the rain.

"Okay, how about werewolves?" said the voice eventually. The speaker sounded as though he was working through a list.

"What do they look like?" said the kid.

"Ali, well, they look perfectly normal right up to the point where they grow all, like, hair and teeth and giant paws and leap through the window at you," said the voice...