The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

test; rats shouldn't be able to talk like humans, but this rat looked like a rat - and killing rats was OK - but talked like a human - and biting humans got you a serious thrashing. He had to find out for sure. If he got a wallop, this rat was a human.
    Hamnpork rolled, and managed to get upright, but there was a deep tooth wound in his side.
    The other rats were still in a boiling huddle as far away from the dog as possible, every rat trying to be the one at the bottom.
    Hamnpork spat blood. 'All right, then,' he snarled, advancing on the puzzled dog. 'Now you find out how a real rat dies!'
    'Hamnpork!'
    He looked up.
    String uncoiled behind Sardines as he fell through the smoky air towards the frantic circle. He was right above Hamnpork, getting bigger and bigger…
    … and slower and slower…
    He came to a stop between the dog and the rat. For a moment he hung there. He raised his hat, politely, and said, 'Good evening!' Then he wrapped all four legs around Hamnpork.
    And now the rope of elastic bands, stretched to twanging point, finally sprang back. Too late, too late, Jacko snapped at empty air. The rats were accelerated upwards, out of the pit-and stopped, bouncing in mid air, just out of reach.
    The dog was still looking up when Darktan leapt off the other side of the beam. As the crowd stared in astonishment, he plummeted down towards the terrier.
    Jacko's eyes narrowed. Rats disappearing into the air was one thing, but rats dropping right towards his mouth was something else. It was rat on a plate, it was rat on a stick .
    Darktan looked back as he fell. Up above, Nourishing was doing some frantic knotting and biting. Now Darktan was on the other end of Sardines' string. But Sardines had explained things very carefully. Darktan's weight alone wasn't heavy enough to pull the weight of two other rats back up to the beam…
    So, when Darktan saw Sardines and his struggling passenger had disappeared safely into the gloom of the roof-
    -he let go of the big old candle lamp he'd been holding for the extra weight and bit through the rope.
    The lamp landed heavily on Jacko and Darktan landed on the lamp, rolling down onto the floor.
    The crowd was silent. They'd been silent since Hamnpork had been propelled out of the pit. Around the top of the wall which, yes, was far too high for a rat to jump, Darktan saw faces. They were mostly red. The mouths were mostly open. The silence was the silence of red faces drawing breath ready to start shouting at any moment.
    Around Darktan the surviving rats were scrambling aimlessly for a foothold on the wall. Fools, he thought. Four or five of you together could make any dog wish you'd never been born. But you scrabble and panic and you get picked off one at a time…
    The slightly-stunned Jacko blinked and stared down at Darktan, a growl rising in his throat.
    'Right, you kkrrkk ,' said Darktan, loud enough for the watchers to hear. 'Now I'm going to show you how a rat can live .'
    He attacked.
    Jacko was not a bad dog, according to the way of dogs. He was a terrier and liked killing rats in any case, and killing lots of rats in the pit meant that he got well fed and called a good boy and wasn't kicked very often. Some rats did fight back and that wasn't much of a problem, because they were smaller than Jacko and he had a lot more teeth. Jacko wasn't that smart, but he was a lot smarter than a rat and, in any case, his nose and mouth did most of the thinking.
    And he was surprised, therefore, when his jaws snapped shut on this new rat and it wasn't there.
    Darktan didn't run like a rat should. He ducked like a fighter. He nipped Jacko under the chin and vanished. Jacko spun around. The rat still wasn't there. Jacko had spent his show business career biting rats that tried to run away. Rats that stayed really close were unfair!
    There was a roar from the watchers. Someone shouted, 'Ten dollars on the rat!' and someone else punched him in the ear. Another man started to climb into the pit. Someone smashed a beer bottle on that man's head.
    Dancing back and forth under the spinning, yapping Jacko, Darktan waited for his moment…
    … and saw it, and lunged, and bit hard.
    Jacko's eyes crossed. A piece of Jacko that was very private and of interest only to Jacko and any lady dogs he might happen to meet was suddenly a little ball of pain.
    He yelped. He snapped at the air. And then, in the uproar, he tried to climb out of the pit. His claws scraped desperately as he reared up