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organized, sir?”
    Hamnpork stared at her. He looked at the waiting rats, with their packs and bundles, and then around at the ancient cellar, and then backto the still-crouching Peaches.
    â€œJust…get organized,” he muttered. “Don’t bother me with details! I am the leader.”
    And he stalked off into the shadows.
    When he’d gone, Peaches and Dangerous Beans looked around the cellar, which was filled with trembling shadows created by the candlelight. A trickle of water ran down one crusted wall. Here and there stones had fallen out, leaving inviting holes. Earth covered the floor, and there were no human footprints in it.
    â€œAn ideal base,” said Dangerous Beans. “It smells secret and safe. A perfect place for rats.”
    â€œRight,” said a voice. “And you know what’s worrying me about that?”
    The rat called Darktan stepped into the candlelight and hitched up one of his belts of tools. A lot of the watching rats suddenly paid attention. People listened to Hamnpork because he was the leader, but they listened to Darktan because he was often telling you things that you really, really needed to know if you wanted to go on living. He was big, and lean, and tough, and spent most of his time taking traps apart to see how they worked.
    â€œWhat is worrying you, Darktan?” asked Dangerous Beans.
    â€œThere aren’t any rats here. Except us. Rat tunnels, yes. But we’ve seen no rats. No rats at all. A town like this should be full of them.”
    â€œOh, they’re probably scared of us,” said Peaches.
    Darktan tapped the side of his scarred muzzle. “Maybe,” he said. “But things don’t smell right. Thinking is a great invention, but we were given noses, and it pays to listen to them. Be extra careful.” He turned to the assembled rats and raised his voice.
    â€œOkay, troops! You know the drill!” he shouted. “Plague rats, in front of me, in your platoons, now !”
    It didn’t take long for the rats to form three groups. They’d had plenty of practice.
    â€œVery nice,” said Darktan, as the last few shuffled into position. “Right! This is tricky territory, people, so we’re going to be careful….”
    Darktan was unusual among the rats because he wore things.
    When the rats had discovered books—and the whole idea of books was still a difficult one for most of the older rats—they found, in the bookshop they invaded every night, the Book. Up until they were Changed, books had only been useful for eating the glue off the bindings andmaking nests out of the pages.
    They’d never looked at one before.
    This book was amazing.
    Even before Peaches and Donut Enter had learned how to read human words, they’d been amazed by the pictures.
    There were animals in there wearing clothes . There was a rabbit who walked on its hind legs and wore a blue suit. There was a rat in a hat, and he wore a sword and a big red vest, complete with a watch on a chain. Even the snake had a collar and tie. And all of them talked, and none of them ate any of the others, and—and this was the unbelievable part— they all talked to humans , who treated them like, well, smaller humans. There were no traps, no poisons. Admittedly (according to Peaches, who was painstakingly working her way through the book, and sometimes read out parts) Olly the snake was a bit of a rascal, but nothing truly bad happened. Even when the rabbit got lost in the Dark Wood, he just had a bit of a scare.
    Yes, Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure was the cause of much discussion amongst the Changelings. What was it for? Was it, as Dangerous Beans believed, a vision of some bright future? Had it been made by humans? The shop had been forhumans, true, but surely even humans wouldn’t make a book about Ratty Rupert the Rat, who wore a hat, and poison rats under the floorboards at the same time. Would they? How mad