Chapter 1: How to Deal with Rats 1 How to Deal with Rats Sunrises were not my favorite part of the day. They had a nasty habit of shedding light on my life''s problems, both old and new. This morning''s new problem involved holes in a wall and rats. Oh yes, and a ransacked bag of magically enhanced chicken feed. Also a whole bunch of eggs. Really big eggs. Even before Matron Tratte woke and surveyed the damage in the stone wall surrounding the Tinderbox Tavern, I had a sneaking suspicion that I''d get the blame. I was right.
Twelve hours later, with aching arms and a rusty spade, I was still paying the price. I blended what I sincerely hoped was my last bucketful of sand, dirt, clay, and water, hearing echoes of the matron''s furious words in my mind. If you had wiped the stone with wizard spray like I told you, they would never have gotten in! she''d bellowed. You''ll patch the whole thing--every crack and cranny! I could have told her that the wizard-spray spell had worn out several days before, but I hadn''t wanted to ask her for the coin to buy more. And I could have told her that filling the holes was completely unnecessary; depending on how much of the feed had been eaten, by tonight the intruders would be far too big to squeeze back through, at least for a week or so. But there were plenty of other vermin in Trapper''s Cove, and, besides, the matron was not someone you "told things" to. Instead I kept my hand stirring as I peered through another gap in the wall, having the sudden wish that there was a bag of shrinking-feed handy so that I could make myself small enough to slip through and escape as well. The Tinderbox was the very last tavern on a street that sloped upward from the harbor.
A high place with a view of a low place. Like a royal castle, Matron Tratte liked to say, which was laughable in too many ways to count. Below, I could see the market tents, the crowded docks, the moored trading vessels, and the bobbing fisherboats. Beyond it all, the glint of sunset flashed upon open water. It was getting late. I jammed a full spade into the hole, squelching the messy mixture into place and sealing off the view. I stood and stretched. Behind the sharp-toothed peaks surrounding Trapper''s Cove, streaks of gold and crimson spread across the sky with a sleepy, yawning glow.
The lucky day was already tucking itself in. As for me, I was far from sleep. No doubt the matron would soon be screaming for me to help serve the evening crowd of traders and travelers. As though hearing my thoughts, the back door of the Tinderbox slammed open. I flinched but didn''t need to look up to see who it was. Matron Tratte''s arms were thick and strong enough to throw troublemakers from the tavern when necessary. The flimsy door was no match for her frustration. "Stub!" she yelled in her high-pitched, grating tone while glaring around the animal yard.
"Stub-the-Nuisance!" I stiffened. Whenever she used my full name, it meant she was feeling twitchy about something. A twitchy matron was a dangerous one. "I''m over here," I said, careful to keep my words clear but soft. She didn''t like the sound of my voice much. The feeling was mutual. Eumelia Tratte was not as mean-looking as her voice suggested. Her eyes were a friendly blend of green and brown.
Her skin was clear of blemishes. Her hair was long and dark and shiny from daily applications of horn-nut oil. And, unlike many in the trading village of Trapper''s Cove, all of her teeth and facial features were present and accounted for. Today she wore her very best outfit: a long-sleeved red tunic trimmed with frills over matching embroidered trousers. But while the owner of the Tinderbox looked very much like a delightful ripe piece of fruit, I knew very well that her insides held a rotten pit. BOOM! This time it was the matron who was startled. She stumbled down the steps, cursing at the blast of a fireburst rising over the harbor. The brilliant blue lights rained down over the cove, playing lively music and changing colors until they met the sea.
It was still a week until Maradon''s annual Peace Day, but as it was the hundredth anniversary, the traders had been at it for a month, showing off wizard-made celebration goods. One fireburst had been set off every day at sunset in order to lure people to buy more. From what I''d seen at the market, it was working. Fizzy sparking sticks, blue smoke smackers, and the more expensive firebursts were all the rage. For some reason, celebrating a lack of war made everyone want to set things on fire. I watched the last remnants of light fade while the matron regained her balance. "Stub, I swear, if you''re not done with that wall in the next five minutes, I''m going to swing you over it, right into the harbor!" She turned and stomped back into the tavern. She was bluffing.
Matron Tratte knew I couldn''t swim. And I knew she didn''t have anyone else who would work for free. Still, I quickened my pace. As I finished filling smaller holes along the wall, a familiar growl echoed against the stone. Though my arms ached from patching high holes and my legs ached from squatting to fill low cracks, it was my stomach that ached most of all. "I''d rebuild this whole wall for a bowl of beans, wouldn''t you, Peck?" I turned to grin at my feathery companion, who''d been quietly dust-bathing near the wall just minutes before. The dirt was disturbed, but my best and only friend was nowhere to be seen. A quick survey of the yard revealed several chickens of varying sizes, six wizard-enhanced sheep the size of horses, and a good deal of extra-large animal droppings.
I saw no scrawny, red-feathered, sharp-beaked best friend until a violent ruckus of ba-GAWK s echoed from inside the chicken coop. A few copper feathers flew out the coop door, and then a scraggly, raggedy, squawking chicken flashed across the yard in a frenzy of panic. A rowdy horde of large birds ran after her. I threw the spade aside, glancing once again at the tavern''s back door. Everyone in Trapper''s Cove knew that calling any sort of attention to oneself was usually a good way of starting trouble. But when my best and only friend was being threatened, I could never seem to remember that. "Don''t worry, Peck!" I called, dashing after her. "I''m coming!" Two of the chickens turned my way when I ran through the feathery throng, as though they sensed that I''d been the one responsible for the loss of their food.
I tried to dodge their oversized beaks but winced at a sudden pain near my knee. I shoved the bully bird aside while Peck ducked under the door flap of my shelter in the corner of the yard. I followed her inside. My home was the old chicken shed--a rickety structure that was most definitely built for nesting boxes, not people. When the matron had expanded the backyard flock and built a larger coop, she''d decided that it was time for me to be stripped of my sleeping spot near the kitchen hearth. I was six years old at the time, scared and cold and very much alone, until a runty baby chick wandered in one evening, trembling. She was even more scared and cold than I was. And that was when the alone part ended for us both.
Over the next six years, we''d grown so close that I almost didn''t mind where we slept each night. Still, the space was growing tighter by the year. The flap door, made of heavy sailcloth, was low and just wide enough to for me to crawl through. "It''s only me, Peck," I said quietly. "You''re safe here." I wiped away a thin line of blood near my knee. The damage had been done by Spiker, the biggest and meanest of the matron''s flock. She was a real stinker when she was hungry, and that was especially true when she''d been temporarily enhanced to five times her natural size.
With the flap closed, it was pitch-black inside. A shuffling noise came from somewhere opposite me. By feel, I dug through a layer of dirt until I felt the smooth lid of a discarded cigar box from the marketplace. It housed my special collection, which included a way to light the darkness. I hadn''t noticed the stones'' magic right away. I''d been sent to gather clams by the sea caves. It was a place where treasures from old shipwrecks sometimes showed up. Every now and then I found things I could trade at the market for food.
When a weathered sack of rocks washed up, I almost left them behind. I don''t know why I brought them back, other than the fact that I didn''t think anyone would want them. I could relate to that. But as I spent more time with them, their magic was revealed. One rock grew icy cold for several minutes if you squeezed it tight. Two stayed hot long after being placed near a fire. One was a sleek and shiny black stone, scattered with a few minerals that sparkled--if tapped in the right place, it whispered mysterious nothings that sounded like a soft morning wind gently sweeping up traces of moonlight. Another came back to me, no matter where or how hard I threw it.
And two were glow rocks that lit up for an hour when shaken. I searched for one of those. I grasped each rock in turn until I found one shaped roughly like a crab claw. I shook it hard until the shelter began to glow. Peck crouched within reach. With an unusually long neck, a sunken breast, and dusty-rose-colored wings too large for her scrawny body, Peck looked more like a starved dragon baby than a full-grown fowl. A patch of raw skin on her neck had joined a number of older patches where the other birds had attacked h.