The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online Page B

sharpening the leads, and a grubby piece of paper. All the important things.
    She was also the official carrier of Mr. Bunnsy . “Carrier” wasn’t quite correct; “dragger” would be more accurate. But Dangerous Beans always liked to know where it was and seemed to think better when it was around, and it gave him some comfort, and that was good enough for Peaches.
    She smoothed out the paper on an ancient brick, picked up a piece of lead, and looked down the list.
    The first Thought had been: In the Clan is Strength.
    This had been quite a hard one to translate, but she had made an effort. Most rats couldn’t read Human. It was just too hard to make the lines and squiggles turn into any sense. So Peaches had worked very hard on making a language that rats could read.
    She’d tried to draw a big rat made up of little rats:

    The writing had led to trouble with Hamnpork. New ideas needed a running jump to get into the old rat’s head. Dangerous Beans had explained in his strange calm voice that writing things down would mean that a rat’s knowledge would go on existing even when the rat had died. He said that all the rats could learn the knowledge of Hamnpork. Hamnpork had said: Not likely! It had taken him years to learn some of the tricks he’d learned! Why should he give it all away? That’d mean any young rat would know as much as him!
    Dangerous Beans had said: We cooperate, or we die.

    That had become the next Thought. “Cooperate” had been difficult, but even keekees would sometimes lead a blind or wounded comrade by using a stick to guide them, and that was certainly cooperation. The thick line, where she’d pressed heavily, had to mean “no.” The trap sign could mean “die” or “bad” or “avoid.”
    Peaches had written down a great many Thoughts.
    The last Thought on the paper was: Not to Widdle where you Eat. That one was quite simple.

    She grasped the piece of lead in both paws and carefully drew No Rat Shall Kill Another Rat.

    She sat back. Yes…not bad. “Trap” was a good sign for death, and she’d added the dead rat to make it all more serious .
    â€œBut supposing you have to?” she said, still staring at the drawings.
    â€œThen you have to,” said Dangerous Beans. “But you shouldn’t.”
    Peaches shook her head sadly. She supported Dangerous Beans because there was…well, something about him. He wasn’t big or fast, and he was almost blind and quite weak and sometimes he forgot to eat, because he came up with thoughts that nobody—at least, nobody who was a rat—had thought before. Most of them had annoyed Hamnpork no end, like the time when Dangerous Beans had said, “What is a rat?” and Hamnpork had replied, “Teeth. Claws. Tail. Run. Hide. Eat. That’s what a rat is.”
    Dangerous Beans had said, “But now we can also say ‘What is a rat?’ And that means we’re more than that.”
    â€œWe’re rats ,” Hamnpork had argued. “We run around and squeak and steal and make more rats. That’s what we’re made for!”
    â€œWho by?” Dangerous Beans had asked, and that had led to another argument about the BigRat Deep Under the Ground theory.
    But even Hamnpork followed Dangerous Beans, and so did rats like Darktan and Donut Enter, and they listened when he talked.
    Peaches listened when they talked. “We were given noses,” Darktan had told the platoons. Who had given them noses? The thoughts of Dangerous Beans worked their ways into other people’s heads without their noticing.
    He came up with new ways of thinking. He came up with new words. He came up with ways of understanding the things that were happening to them. Big rats, rats with scars, listened to the little rat because the Change had led them into dark territory, and he seemed to be the only one with an idea of where they were