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All was quiet outside the Antique Rat as two rodents emerged from a hole in the crumbling foundation, sniffed deeply, and scuttled across the street.
    One of the rodents was dragging a plastic bag. It glinted briefly in the light from a silver moon, but when the moon slipped behind a cloud, the rats moved across the central patch of grass unseen, the bag bumping behind.
    They glanced at a police car that was parked outside a tall, narrow house, and slipped inside the building through a gnawed rathole. They paused at a small poster that had been affixed to the tunnel wall with a thumbtack.
    â€œIt doesn’t look a bit like us,” said the piebald rat, shredding the carefully drawn poster with her claws.
    They ran across a wooden floor, scampered up a long flight of stairs, and wiggled around the edge of the heavy door to her parents’ spare bedroom.
    â€œJane, dear,” said the black rat, panting, “maybe you shouldn’t try this just yet. The police are waiting to catch Miss Barmy—I mean, catch the full-size human that was a nanny to those little girls, and if you grow, you’ll be in danger!”
    â€œWe’ll figure all that out later, Cheswick,” said the piebald rat, ripping open the plastic bag with her claws. “I’m not going to wait one more minute to use these patches.”
    Jane Barmy (the short, furry version) stood on her hind feet, faced the full-length mirror, and took a deep breath. The stolen Sissy-patches were laid out on a terry-cloth towel before her.
    â€œAre you going to use them all at once?” Cheswick asked. “How many are there?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Miss Barmy through her teeth. “Not as many as there should be. Didn’t you see the professor give two patches to that disgusting Emmaline?”
    â€œTwo isn’t enough to worry about,” said Cheswick. He studied the patches. “Roll fast,” he advised. “Pull the towel right around you, and that will keep the patches next to your skin.”
    The piebald rat nodded, her whiskers quivering. Then, in one fluid motion, she leaped onto the Sissy-patches and rolled herself up in them like a burrito.
    â€œJane! Oh, Jane, dearest, you’re making such terrible noises! Are you in pain, my little sugar-bunny? Speak to me, Jane!”
    But Jane Barmy could not speak. Her mouth was twisted in agony, and a high-pitched squeal filled the room. And then she did begin to change—and grow—but not evenly, not first to human and then to full size, but in splotches of human and rat mixed, skin and piebald fur and whiskers and soft dark hair, pink cheeks and lovely eyes and sharp rodent teeth.
    Cheswick shuddered as he watched, and he wrung his paws until the fur began to fray, but there was no stopping the transformation that was convulsing his darling. And then, all at once, it was done.
    She stood before him, tall and beautiful and entirely human, the woman he adored, fetchingly wrapped in the terry-cloth towel that had grown with her. He had become a rat for love of her, and suddenly he was conscious of the fact that he was still a rat. Cheswick bit his claws in sudden despair. Would she think he was too small for her? Too furry, perhaps? Would he have to hide his tail?
    Jane Barmy gazed into the mirror as if she could never get enough of her own reflection. She smiled, a slow, lovely smile, her teeth like perfect white chisels—no, like sharp, pointy chisels—no, like ratty chisels in a pointed, whiskered face—no! “No! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
    The howl that echoed between the walls of the spare room was at first full-voiced, the sound of a grown woman screaming in horror. But it dwindled, it shrank, until it was only a high-pitched squeak, and in front of the mirror was a small, splotchy rodent, brown and tan and white, sobbing bitter tears.
    â€œOh, my precious fuzzbundle, oh, Barmsie !” cried Cheswick, rushing to take her in