Strange Highways

she put her hand on one of the door handles.
     "Well, of course I am. I have to see how it got in, if maybe it's chewed a hole in the cabinet backing."
     "But what if it's still in there?" the boy asked.
     "It's not, honey. Anyway, it's disgusting and filthy, but it's not dangerous. Nothing's more cowardly than a rat."
     She thumped the cabinet with one fist to be sure she scared off the foul thing if in fact it was in there. She opened the middle doors, saw everything was in order, got on her hands and knees, and opened the lower doors. A few cans were knocked over. A new box of Saltines was chewed open, the contents plundered.
     Doofus whimpered.
     She reached into the lower cupboard and pushed some of the canned goods aside. She removed several boxes of macaroni and put them on the floor beside her, trying to get a look at the back wall of the cabinet. Just enough light from the kitchen seeped into that secluded space to reveal a rigged-edged hole in the plywood backing, where the rat had chewed through from the wall behind. A vague, cool draft was flowing out of the hole.
     She got up, dusting her hands together. "Yep, it's definitely not Mickey Mouse stopping by for a visit. This is a genuine capital R, capital A, capital T. Better get the traps."
     As Meg stepped to the cellar door, Tommy said, "You're not leaving me alone?"
     "Just till I get the traps, honey."
     "But ... but what if the rat comes around while you're gone?"
     "It won't. They like to stay where it's dark."
     The boy was blushing, embarrassed by his fear. "It's just ... with this leg ... I couldn't get away if it came after me."
     Sympathetic but aware that coddling him would encourage his irrational fear, she said, "It won't come after you, skipper. It's more scared of us than we are of it."
     She switched on the cellar lights and went down the stairs, leaving him with Doofus. The shadowy basement was lighted by two bulbs dimmed by dust. She found six heavy-duty traps on the utility shelves, rat breakers with steel hammers, not flimsy mousetraps - and a box of warfarin-poisoned food pellets - and she took them upstairs without seeing or hearing the unwelcome houseguest.
     Tommy sighed with relief when she returned. "There's something weird about these rats."
     "There's probably only one," she said as she put the traps down on the counter by the sink. "What do you mean - weird?"
     "They've got Doofus jumpy, like he was when we came home, so it must've been rats that spooked him then too. He doesn't spook easy, so what is it about these rats that have him so nervous?"
     "Not rats, plural," Meg corrected. "There's probably just the one. And I don't know what's gotten under that pooch's skin. He's just being silly. Remember how he used to be scared witless by the vacuum cleaner?"
     "He was just a puppy then."
     "No, he was scared of it until he was almost three," she said as she took from the refrigerator a packet of Buddig dried beef, with which she intended to bait the traps.
     Sitting on the floor beside his young master's chair, the dog rolled his eyes at Meg and whined softly.
     In truth she was as unnerved by the Labrador's behavior as Tommy was, but by saying so she would only feed the boy's anxiety.
     After filling two dishes with the poisoned pellets, she put one in the cupboard under the sink and the other in the cabinet with the Saltines. She left the ravaged crackers as they were, hoping the rat would return for more and take the warfarin instead.
     She baited four traps with beef. She put one in the cabinet under the sink. The second went in the cabinet with the Saltines and the dish of warfarin, but on a different shelf from the poison. She placed the third trap in the walk-in pantry and the fourth in the basement.
     When she returned to the kitchen, she said, "Let me finish washing the dishes, then we'll move into the living room. We might nail it tonight, but certainly by tomorrow morning."
     Ten minutes later, on leaving the kitchen, Meg turned off the lights behind them, hoping that the darkness would lure the rat out of hiding and into a trap before she retired for the night. She and Tommy would sleep better knowing that the thing was dead.
     While Meg built a fire in the living-room fireplace, Doofus settled in front