Read Emmy and the Rats in the Belfry for Free Online Page B

his furry embrace. And Miss Barmy sank weakly against him, crying on his shoulder, in a way that, so far, had only happened to him in dreams.
    â€œIs everything all right?” Jane Barmy’s father, a mild, chubby old man in rumpled pajamas, peered sleepily into the room. “I heard someone scream …” He gazed at the piebald rat. Though she had recently turned small and hairy, she was still his daughter, and he noticed with concern the wet tracks of tears along her fuzzy cheeks.
    â€œI’m fine, Father. It was just an experiment. Go to bed.”
    â€œBut the police might have heard! What will I tell them?”
    â€œTell them anything. Tell them Mother had a nightmare. Go on, Father! We’re busy!”
    The white-haired man shuffled obediently out of the room, his down-at-heel slippers scuffing along the hall.
    Miss Barmy wiped her eyes and spoke crisply. “Get a pencil and paper, Cheswick, and stop patting me already. We need a plan of action.”
    Cheswick, who had been mentally diagramming the layout of a nice little burrow in the riverbank—they would need a nursery for the litters to come—came out of his reverie with a start. “A-a plan, Jane?” Surely she understood now that she had to stay a rat. Perhaps she wanted to plan the wedding?
    â€œWe have a goal, Cheswick, and therefore we must have a strategy. First, the goal.”
    Cheswick gripped his pencil and wrote “Marry Jane Barmy.” He leaned his whiskered cheek on his paw and gazed at the words, sucking dreamily on the end of his pencil.
    â€œAnd the goal is,” the piebald rat went on, “to turn me back into a full-size human—permanently.”
    Cheswick gave her a pleading look. “But, Jane! Surely you aren’t going to keep trying to grow?”
    â€œNaturally I’m going to keep trying. Write it, Cheswick.”
    The black rat gripped the pencil stub and wrote “Grow the beautiful Jane” and set aside his dream of a cozy burrow with a long, heartfelt sigh. “I guess we’ll need more Sissy-patches.”
    â€œYes, Cheswick, but not just the patches alone. We need that kissy rat herself.”
    Cheswick shook his head. “She’ll never do it.”
    Miss Barmy gave him a wilting glare. “Do you think I’m planning to ask her permission? We’re going to kidnap her, of course. Or—would that be ratnap?”
    â€œEither way,” said Cheswick faintly.
    â€œWell, that’s the first thing we have to do, then. And next, we have to find a place that isn’t watched by the police, where we can keep the kissy rat locked up and keep making the patches until we get it right. Father can mail us the supplies that we need. Ideally, we want a place set up like a lab, where we can—oh! Cheswick!”
    â€œWha?” Cheswick snapped to attention.
    â€œAre you thinking what I’m thinking?”
    â€œI want to be thinking what you’re thinking, Jane, dearest,” said Cheswick cautiously. “What are you thinking?”
    â€œIs that old lab of the professor’s still in Schenectady?”
    â€œWhy, yes, of course. I had it boarded up, but I still paid the taxes on it every year. I thought maybe someday I would go back and make a name for myself in rodentology, just like the profess—” Cheswick cut himself off and left his mouth hanging open. “Jane! You want to go to Schenectady with me?”
    â€œYou may be slow, Cheswick, but you always get it eventually. Yes, I’m going to Schenectady with you, and we’ll hole up in that old laboratory with the kissy rat until I’m my old self again or we all die, whichever comes first.”
    Cheswick felt all soft and saggy with love. Alone with Jane … in Schenectady! What could possibly be more romantic?
    A thought intruded. They wouldn’t be quite alone. “How are we going to get Sissy Rat there? How are we going to get there