Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls (22 page)

“I think you'll find—” Cheswick had begun when Buck's voice interrupted.

“You're looking mighty fine tonight, Miss Barmy!”

Emmy hid her face in her sleeve until she could stop laughing.

“Why—thank you, Buckram,” said Miss Barmy, clearly taken aback. “This is … unexpected.”

“Ma'am, I've been wrong about you, and I've come to apologize. All this that you're doing for Rodent City—well, it just goes to show what a nice rat you really are. And pretty, too!
Dang
pretty!”

Miss Barmy gave a bleating sort of giggle.

“I'd kiss your paw, but I might get chocolate on your dress. Peanut-butter cups don't go with pretty dresses, you know—whoops, there's my signal, I'd better go—”

Buck picked up a padlocked ballot box and carried it to the judges' table. One by one, they pushed their folded pieces of paper into the slot. Buck mounted the platform and set the box on the boards with a thump.

“Now, where did
he
get peanut-butter cups?” Miss Barmy said to herself, tapping her claws together.

Chippy appeared on the far side of the platform. Emmy saw with a pang that he was staring at Miss Barmy in mute adoration.

Buck glanced once at his brother, scowled, and walked off. Chippy trotted on, wheeling several brightly wrapped boxes in a red wagon.

“The prizes!” he announced with a sweeping gesture. “Third place, two tablespoons of slivered almonds!”

No one applauded. They were all too busy chewing.

“Second place,” said Chippy, somewhat surprised, “eleven macadamia nuts. First place, three bottle caps of poppyseeds, and”—he consulted a paper in his hand—“seventeen pecans for the lovely rat who is voted Miss Congeniality by her peers!”

There was a scattered round of polite applause. Miss Barmy, standing next to Emmy, seemed to swell visibly. “The ingrates!” she hissed. “Those are valuable nuts and seeds, terribly rare and expensive!”

Emmy put up a paw to cover a smile as she walked onstage with the five final contestants. Rodents who had just been stuffing themselves with the very same seeds and nuts—not to mention peanut-butter cups, too, courtesy of Buck—weren't likely to be impressed by such cheap prizes. No doubt Buck had made sure to mention just how plentiful they were at the local grocery store.

There was a rustle behind the curtain. Cheswick
Vole came through, nudging before him a tiny, timid-looking mouse in knickers. The Endear Mouse, looking stiff and uncomfortable in blue velveteen, carried a gold satin pillow.

There was an expectant hush. The band played a flourish. Chippy opened the last box, lifting out something that caught the light in a brilliant blaze and shimmer of blue.

There was a collective intake of breath. The crowd, like one huge, eager animal, craned their necks all together. Chippy set the tiara delicately on the golden pillow where it glimmered like bits of the evening sky, sprinkled with stars. He gazed at it proudly.

Emmy, too, was proud. These were the Addison sapphires, bought by Great-Great-Uncle William for his bride. They were a piece of her own family's history, and they were beautiful. None of the assembled rodents needed to be told that here was something truly rare and precious.

“The jewels in this crown were generously, self-lessly donated from the family vault of Miss Jane Barmy,” said Chippy, his voice cracking with emotion. “Jane dear, we don't deserve you.”

Miss Barmy inclined her head with a satisfied smile,
her teeth gleaming like a ferret's, and gazed with half-closed eyes over the assembled rodents as Chippy stepped back to his place beside the Endear Mouse.

A murmuring rustle rose from the back rows and swept forward, but Cheswick held up a paw for silence and unlocked the ballot box. He reached in. He tabulated the ballots, adding the scores as Buck looked over his shoulder, and nodded to the band. The musicians played a continuous chord, with muted drums.

“Second runner-up, Miss Letitia Lemming!”

An earnest-looking brown rodent, furry-tailed and small of ear, stepped from the line amid hearty applause, picked up her prize and a kiss from Cheswick, stepped around the Endear Mouse, and stood to one side.

The band played an ascending progression of chords. The tension mounted. Off in the wings, Raston took a last look at the words of his song, and took a step forward.

“First runner-up, Miss Denilda Dormouse!”

Denilda's large eyes got even larger, and her delicately fluted ears quivered as she acknowledged the honor and clutched a bouquet of flowers to her chest. She wasn't quite as adroit as Letitia, though,
for her box of macadamia nuts swung wide and bumped the Endear Mouse off its feet. Chippy helped the little mouse up and dusted it off.

The rising chord changes quivered and died. The drummer began a slow but steadily accelerating drumroll.

“And the winner is—”

The squirrel to Emmy's right was breathing in short, gasping pants. On the other side, Miss Barmy was clenching and unclenching her paws.

“Miss
Jaaaane
Barmy!”

The drumroll stopped with a flourish. The trumpets blared. The audience of rodents began to clap as Miss Barmy shrieked girlishly, fluttering her paws.

Emmy glanced worriedly at Buck. Should she say something? Would anyone believe her if she grabbed the mike and told them what Miss Barmy was really like?

Cheswick advanced with the crown, a mesmerizing glitter of silver and blue in his glossy black paws. He lifted it up. Miss Barmy's eyes flashed triumphantly around the room. She smiled like a conquistador.

“Stop!”
cried Chippy. “Those jewels are
stolen
!”

C
HESWICK'S ARMS FROZE
in midair.

Chippy looked at Miss Barmy with bleak condemnation. His paw rested on the Endear Mouse's shoulder.

Miss Barmy's lips stretched thinly over her polished teeth. “What an absurd thing to say, Chipster!” Her tinkling laugh sounded like ice crystals falling. “They are Addison family heirlooms. My mother was born an Addison. Therefore, they are
mine
.”

“So why did you make us steal them?” challenged a young voice from the back.

Emmy strained her eyes past the spotlights to the dim figures beyond. Footsteps pattered down the central aisle, and suddenly there they were—five little girls, their faces pale and determined, staring up accusingly at Miss Barmy and Cheswick Vole.

Five
. They were all there, Merry and Ana included. True, Merry looked paler than the rest, and Ana was coughing a little. But they were looking much better,
they were going to be all right, and Emmy's heart gave a skip of joy.

Miss Barmy's eyes darted from face to face. She spoke into the microphone. “Do you feel you have to
lie
to get attention, girls? Haven't I done enough for you, giving you all a home?”

“No,”
said Merry, taking her thumb out of her mouth.

“You see why I call them troubled?” Miss Barmy shrugged prettily and looked out over the crowd. “I have given them food, a home, the clothes on their backs—”

“Handkerchiefs!” interjected Ana.

“Of the finest Egyptian cotton. And now they
lie
about me.” She gave an affecting sob, dabbed at her eyes with the tip of her tail, and bent forward with a smile like a razor's edge. “You're just little
girls
,” she hissed. “Who's going to believe you?”

“I, for one.” Professor Capybara stepped forward into the light, tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat, and beamed at the audience.

Emmy glanced at him, startled, and then at the Rat, who was behind her, waiting to sing. How had the professor shrunk without the Rat to bite him?

“Dear friends,” Professor Capybara said, and his amplified voice echoed in the empty spaces of Rodent City, “I am sorry to tell you that Miss Barmy is not the rodent you think she is. The jewels in this crown
were
stolen, and she forced four of these girls to steal them, while she kept the fifth hostage.”

Miss Barmy sucked in her breath through her teeth. All at once she looked very ratty. “
I
didn't do it! It was Cheswick!” She whirled to point at the stricken black rat. “
He
took them to the jewelry store. I was here the whole time—tell them, Chipster!”

Chippy looked at her stonily.

“Besides, I'm still the winner! I'm Princess Pretty, so
crown
me!” She clutched the sparkling tiara. “Hold up an applause sign!” she hissed to Cheswick. “Tell the band to play the theme song!” She set the flashing blue-and-silver circlet on her head with her own hands, and pasted on a false, brilliant smile.

The Swinging Gerbils stirred uneasily. Gerry raised his trumpet, puffed out his furry cheeks, and blew a great
blaaaatt
. It sounded remarkably rude.

The audience erupted in laughter. Miss Barmy's smile took on the frozen, rigid look of a cramp.

Behind her, Buck lifted the crown from her head with one swift movement. He leaned in to the
microphone. “Actually,” he said with calm authority, “Miss Barmy did
not
win. These are not the ballots that the judges marked.”

The audience gasped. The rejected contestants, sitting off to the side in a mass of brightly colored dresses, rustled indignantly.

Cheswick looked sick, but he managed to sound outraged. “Explain yourself, sir!” He turned to the crowd. “You all watched the ballots being put in the slot. The padlocked box never left the stage. I unlocked it in front of everyone, and Buckram himself watched me add the scores. How
dare
you!”

Buck shrugged. “Look here.” He held up his chocolate-smudged palms to the spotlight. “I cut up peanut-butter cups and passed them out. And I didn't wash my paws before I gave the ballots to the judges. Hold those ballots up, Chippy.”

The paper ballots reflected the light as Chippy held them up, one by one.

“See?” said Buck. “Every one is clean. Now, the ballots
I
handed to the judges each had a chocolate paw print in one corner. I made sure of it.”

Cheswick snarled. “And just where are these mythical ballots?” He opened the ballot box and showed an empty interior to the crowd.

Chippy touched the Endear Mouse again. “Do you know? Did you see him put them in?”

The little mouse looked at Chippy with great concentration. Chippy nodded, reached into the box, and pressed a hidden panel. A false bottom sprang open. A sheaf of paper spilled out.

Chippy held them up. Plainly marked in one corner of each ballot was a chocolate paw print, smudged but obvious even to the back row of chairs.

Miss Barmy, for once, had no retort. Her paws hung. Her mouth twisted sharply.

But the other contestants had a great deal to say.

“You mean this pageant was
rigged
?” A mole rat, dressed in frothy orange, stood up and squinted her tiny eyes accusingly.

“I spent a whole week's seeds to get my fur done,” squeaked a tuco-tuco, tawny and beautifully fluffed. “It's not fair.”

“You had no right!” A flying squirrel flapped her pale-green sleeves as if about to take off.

A gundi, looking like a fierce powder puff, whistled the rodent signal for attack. “Get 'em, girls!”

The rejected contestants rushed the stage in a pack, their silks and satins whipping behind them. They descended upon Miss Barmy and Cheswick in
a frenzy of glitter and sequins and feather boas, squealing and clawing in fury.

Miss Barmy yelped, picked up her skirts, and ran. Cheswick, after a moment's hesitation that cost him dear, scampered after, hanging on to what remained of his shirt. The crowd of enraged would-be beauty queens chased them up the steps to the second level, then the third. Round and round they ran, Miss Barmy and Cheswick in the lead, the rats in Barbie dresses stampeding behind. A last mad dash up to the fourth-level walkway, a frenzied burst of speed, and Miss Barmy and her faithful sidekick tore past the Bunjee loft to the exit tunnel, their shrieks and imprecations fading with distance.

The professor straightened the flower in his buttonhole and dusted glitter off his lapel. “That's the last we'll see of
them
,” he said with deep satisfaction.

Emmy, a little shaken, hoped so with all her heart.

The crowd of rodents on the main floor, craning their necks upward, burst into cheers. The disheveled contestants helped one another straighten sashes and pat ruffled fur into place. Then they filed down the winding staircase, level by level, waving to the audience as if each one wore a tiara.

“Let's see who
really
won!” Buck and Chippy bent
over the chocolate-smeared ballots and began to count. The band, recovering from their astonishment, picked up their instruments again.

There was a second drumroll. Buck straightened. “Ladies and gentlerats,” he announced, “we have a winner. I give you Princess Pretty of Rodent City— Molivia!”

Emmy blinked. This was all happening too fast. Someone led her forward, and someone else put the crown on her head. It felt strangely heavy.

The band swung into a lush, sweeping intro, and Raston stepped up to the microphone, his ears pink from excitement. “Heeere she is, Princess Pretty,” he began. “Here she is, your ideeeel …”

Emmy flushed. She wasn't anyone's ideal. She wasn't even a citizen of Rodent City. And if these rodents knew who she truly was, they'd never let her wear the crown.

Of course, she could just pretend to be Molivia. If she had to stay a rat, it might be better to start with a new identity.

Except that she didn't want to. She didn't want to be a fake like Miss Barmy, pretending that she was someone she wasn't. She wanted to be real.

And if they hated her for who she really was?
Emmy tried not to let that matter. She stepped forward and took the microphone from Ratty's paw. The band fumbled and faltered into silence.

“I'm sorry,” wavered Emmy. “I can't be your Princess Pretty.” She waited a moment, trying to calm the hammering in her rib cage. “I'm not even a rodent. My real name is Emmy Addison, and before I turned into a rat, I was the one who didn't stop my friends from throwing rocks at Sissy.”

She looked out at the audience. She saw shock and horror and revulsion on their faces. She was not surprised.

The microphone was wobbling in her paw. She fit it back in its socket and held on to the stand to keep herself steady. “I did try to stop them, but only after it was too late. I didn't mean to abandon her,” Emmy went on in a rush. “I thought she'd go straight to Rodent City. I didn't realize she would get lost. And then I kept thinking that I should tell someone about her, or go back to check on her, but things kept happening and I just … never did.”

Her voice cracked on the final word. She waited a moment, until she could speak again. “I'm really sorry,” she whispered.

Her words fell like a hesitant rain into a listening,
waiting pond. Soft furry movements in the crowd circled out and out, and then something stirred on its own in the back of the room and came forward. All eyes followed the gray rat in a royal-blue bathrobe as she walked slowly up the center aisle.

It was Sissy.

Emmy found it hard to breathe. A surge of emotion welled up inside her, almost too big to contain. She wanted to leap and shout for joy and relief. She wanted to run and throw herself in Sissy's arms and cry. She wanted to drop to her knees and say a prayer.

She did none of these things. She leaped, and cried, and said thanks in her heart, overwhelmed with gratitude. Now the little troubled girls could grow and be reunited with those who loved them. Now Joe could stop being a rat and turn into his old self once more.

She knew that she would likely remain a rat. The horror and disapproval on the faces in the crowd had convinced her. But she could still be happy for others, and most of all for Sissy, who was mounting the steps to the platform, who was looking at her kindly, who was drawing her into a furry embrace.

“Don't,” said Emmy, pulling back. She stared out at the audience, now a blur to her. “They know I don't deserve it.”

Sissy shook her head. “Does it matter what the crowd thinks? They don't know what's inside of you.”

Emmy shrugged painfully, looking away.

“Listen, Emmy,” Sissy said earnestly. “The crowd thought Miss Barmy was wonderful, but they were wrong. And they thought you were terrible, but the whole time you were taking brave risks and rescuing little girls. It was just a mistake, that you didn't stop those humans from throwing rocks at me. You just froze—it could have happened to anyone—”

Emmy shook her head. “It was more than that,” she said miserably. “It was a
betrayal.
I didn't protect you because I was afraid the other girls would laugh at me.”

“Oh,” said Sissy. She looked at her paws.

“I wasn't a very good friend to you,” said Emmy humbly.

Sissy smiled. “But you're my friend
now
.” She threw her short arms around Emmy, and squeezed. “I forgive you,” she whispered in Emmy's ear, and then somehow her nose bumped into Emmy's cheek,
and her whiskers tickled Emmy under the chin, and Emmy started to laugh. The last grim vestiges of the frozen, tight-fisted, stone-hard thing inside her softened, and melted, and ran dribbling away. She blinked away the blurriness, and lifted a hand to wipe her eyes.

A hand.

And her cheek was smooth. Emmy stretched out her arm—her human arm—and wiggled her five fingers.

Sissy was beaming. “Kisses go with hugs,” she said, and then there was a roar of cheering, and a batting sound of paws clapping, and suddenly the crowd surged forward and the ballot box spilled and everyone was hugging, Buck and Chippy and the professor and the little girls and Sissy and Mrs. Bunjee, and then all at once Joe was there, too, telling Emmy that he was the one who had brought the girls and Sissy to the pageant.

“As soon as I saw that Sissy was awake, and Ana and Merry were doing better, I got the professor to let them come,” Joe explained, his pale fur rumpled every which way.

“I wouldn't allow it at first,” said the professor.

“But I said, what if he went with them? He was their doctor, after all—”

“And then I remembered that I had a little of Raston's saliva left in a vial,” finished the professor. “So I poked myself with a needle and shrank, and Brian brought us to the front door. That boy is a treasure, I must say.”

Flushed and happy, Emmy remembered to ask Joe about the others. “Where are Meg and Thomas? Did they stay with Brian?”

“Meg had to go home, and Thomas is covering for me with Peter Peebles. But he can't do it for long—my parents are coming back tomorrow.”

“We still have to choose a Princess Pretty,” Emmy said. She caught sight of Mrs. Bunjee in the crowd, and waved, her silk sleeves falling back to her shoulders. The dress was a terrible fit, now that she was no longer a rat.

Buck and Joe and Ratty—the Underminers—crowded around. “But
you're
Princess Pretty,” said Buck.

“I can't be Princess Pretty. I'm not a rodent.” Emmy took off the tiara and tilted it back and forth, watching the sparkles reflecting on the surrounding
faces. “Chippy can put the jewels back tomorrow. But we still have a crown for tonight.”

“Well, then, who can we pick? The ballots are all torn and mixed up on the floor.”