The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

4
    The important thing about adventures, thought Mr Bunnsy, was that they shouldn't be so long as to make you miss mealtimes.
    - From Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure
    The kid and the girl and Maurice were in a large kitchen. The kid could tell it was a kitchen because of the huge black iron range in the chimney breast and the pans hanging on the walls and the long scarred table. What it didn't seem to have was what a kitchen traditionally had, which was food.
    The girl went to a metal box in the corner and fumbled round her neck for a string which, it turned out, held a large key. 'You can't trust anybody,' she said. 'And the rats steal a hundred times what they eat, the devils.'
    'I don't think they do,' said the kid. 'Ten times, at most.'
    'You know all about rats all of a sudden?' said the girl, unlocking the metal case.
    'Not all of a sudden, I learned it when-Ow! That really hurt !'
    'Sorry about that,' said Maurice. 'I accidentally scratched you, did I?' He tried to make a face which said Don't be a complete twerp, OK? which is quite hard to do with a cat's head.
    The girl gave him a suspicious look, and then turned back to the metal box. 'There's some milk that's not gone hard yet and a couple of fish-heads,' she said, peering inside.
    'Sounds good to me,' said Maurice.
    'What about your human?'
    'Him? He'll eat any old scraps.'
    'There's bread and sausage,' said the girl, taking a can from the metal cupboard. 'We're all very suspicious about the sausages. There's a tiny bit of cheese, too, but it's rather ancestral.'
    'I don't think we should eat your food if it's so short,' said the kid. 'We have got money.'
    'Oh, my father says it'd reflect very badly on the town if we weren't hospitable. He's the mayor, you know.'
    'He's the government?' said the kid.
    The girl stared at him. 'I suppose so,' she said. 'Funny way of putting it. The town council makes the laws, really. He just runs the place and argues with everyone. And he says we shouldn't have any more rations than other people, to show solidarity in these difficult times. It was bad enough that tourists stopped visiting our hot baths, but the rats have made it a lot worse.' She took a couple of saucers from the big kitchen dresser. 'My father says that if we're all sensible there will be enough to go around,' she went on. 'Which I think is very commendable. I entirely agree. But I think that once you've shown solidarity, you should be allowed just a little extra. In fact, I think we get a bit less than everyone else. Can you imagine? Anyway… so you really are a magical cat, then?' she finished, pouring the milk into a saucer. It oozed rather than gushed, but Maurice was a street cat and would drink milk so rotten that it would try to crawl away.
    'Oh, yes, that's right, magical,' he said, with a yellow-white ring around his mouth. For two fish-heads he'd be anything for anybody.
    'Probably belonged to a witch, I expect, with a name like Griselda or one of those names,' said the girl, putting the fish-heads on another saucer.
    'Yeah, right, Griselda, right,' said Maurice, not raising his head.
    'Who lived in a gingerbread cottage in the forest, probably.'
    'Yeah, right,' said Maurice. And then, because he wouldn't be Maurice if he couldn't be a bit inventive, he added: 'Only it was a crispbread cottage, 'cos she was slimming. Very healthy witch, Griselda.'
    The girl looked puzzled for a moment. 'That's not how it should go,' she said.
    'Sorry, I tell a lie, it was gingerbread really,' said Maurice quickly. Someone giving you food was always correct.
    'And she had big warts, I'm sure.'
    'Miss,' said Maurice, trying to look sincere,'some of those warts had so much personality they used to have friends of their own. Er… what's your name, miss?'
    'Promise not to laugh?'
    'All right.' After all, there might be more fish-heads.
    'It's… Malicia.'
    'Oh.'
    'Are you laughing?' she said, in a threatening voice.
    'No,' said Maurice, mystified. 'Why should I?'
    'You don't think it's a funny name?'
    Maurice thought about the names he knew-Hamnpork, Dangerous Beans, Darktan, Sardines… 'Sounds like an ordinary kind of name to me,' he said.
    Malicia gave him another suspicious look, but turned her attention to the kid, who was sitting with the usual happy, faraway smile he wore when he didn't have anything else to do. 'And have you got a name?' she said. 'You're not the third and youngest son of a king, are you? If your name starts "Prince" that's a definite