The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

here, kid. I'll take a look.'
    People did look at Maurice when he stalked into the building, but it seemed that in a town beset by rats a cat was quite popular. A man did try to pick him up, but lost interest when Maurice turned and clawed the back of his hand.
    The queue wound into a big hall and passed in front of a long trestle table. There, each person showed their piece of paper to two women in front of a big tray of bread, and were given some bread. Then they moved on to a man with a vat of sausages, and got considerably less sausage.
    Watching over all this, and occasionally saying something to the food servers, was the mayor. Maurice recognized him instantly because he had a gold chain around his neck. He had run across a lot of mayors since working with the rats. This one was different from the rest. He was smaller, far more worried, and had a bald spot that he'd tried to cover with three strands of hair. He was a lot thinner than other mayors Maurice had seen, too. He didn't look as if he'd been bought by the ton.
    So… food is scarce, Maurice thought. They're having to ration it out. Looks like they'll be, needing a piper any day now. Lucky for us we arrived just in time…
    He walked out again, but this time a bit faster, because he realized that someone was playing a pipe. It was, as he feared, the kid. He'd put his cap on the ground in front of him, and had even accumulated a few coins. The queue had bent round so that people could hear him, and one or two small children were actually dancing.
    Maurice was only an expert on cat singing, which of standing two inches in front of other cats and screaming at them until they give in. Human music always sounded thin and watery to him. But people tapped their feet when they heard the kid play. They smiled for a while.
    Maurice waited until the kid had finished the tune. While the queue was clapping, he sidled up behind the kid, brushed up against him and hissed, 'Well done, fish-for-brains! We're supposed to be inconspicuousl Come on, let's go. Oh, grab the money, too.'
    He led the way across the square until he stopped so suddenly that the kid almost trod on him.
    'Whoops, here comes some more government,' he said. 'And we know what these are, don't we… ?'
    The kid did. They were rat-catchers, two of them. Even here, they wore the long dusty coats and battered black top hats of their profession. They each carried a pole over one shoulder, from which dangled a variety of traps.
    From the other shoulder hung a big bag, the kind you really wouldn't want to look inside. And each man had a terrier on a string. They were skinny, argumentative dogs, and growled at Maurice when they were dragged past.
    The queue cheered as the men approached, and clapped when they both reached into their bags and held up a couple of handfuls of what looked, to Maurice, like black string.
    'Two hundred today!' shouted one of the rat-catchers.
    One of the terriers lunged at Maurice, tugging frantically on its string. The cat didn't move. Probably only the stupid-looking kid heard him say, in a low voice, 'Heel, fleabag! Bad dog!'
    The terrier's face screwed up in the horribly worried expression of a dog trying to have two thoughts at the same time. It knew cats shouldn't talk, and this cat had just talked. It was a terrible problem. It sat down awkwardly and whined.
    Maurice washed himself. It was a deadly insult.
    The rat-catcher, annoyed at such a cowardly performance from his dog, jerked it away.
    And dropped a few of the black strings.
    'Rat tails!' said the kid. 'They really must have a problem here!'
    'A bigger one than you think,' said Maurice, staring at the bunch of tails. 'Just pick those up when no-one's looking, will you?'
    The kid waited until people weren't looking towards them, and reached down. Just as his fingers touched the tangle of tails a large, shiny black boot trod heavily on it.
    'Now, you don't want to go touching them, young sir,' said a voice above him. 'You can get plague, you know, from rats. It makes your legs explode.' It was one of the rat-catchers. He gave the kid a big grin, but it was not a humorous one. It smelled of beer.
    'That's right, young sir, and then your brains come down your nose,' said the other rat-catcher, coming up behind the kid. 'You wouldn't dare use your hanky, young sir, if you got the plague.'
    'My associate has as usual put his finger right on it, young sir,' said the first rat-catcher, breathing more beer into the kid's