Garth Nix - One Beastly Beast - Two aliens, three inventors, four fantastic tales

“But video pirates just copy stuff,” said Peter frowning. “They don’t steal them! We’ll have to pay a fine if you steal our DVDs.”

“Don’t tell us how to do our piratin’,” said the rat menacingly. “We’re taking these here DVDs and that’s that!”

Quickly, the rats passed the DVDs down into the drain, while the one with the eyepatch kept his pistols trained on Peter. After the others had climbed back down, this last rat hesitated, then raised his pistols.

“Don’t try and follow us!” he ordered. “And don’t go blabbing to the navy, neither.”

With that said, he carefully uncocked the pistols and thrust them through his belt, before diving after his gang. Judging from the rat’s caution with the guns, Peter got the impression that he’d probably once had a nasty accident with them.

He was just bending over to look down the drain when the pirate rat suddenly popped back up, teeth shining evilly in the sun.

“Don’t even think about following us!” he snarled, before disappearing again.

Peter stood absolutely still for a minute and listened carefully. He could hear distant echoes coming from the drain, as if the rats were singing as they marched away. Away with his DVDs. Peter felt half angry and half petrified, but mostly he thought, What can I say to Mum? Four pirate rats stole the DVDs and I didn’t do anything?

He took a step forward, and then another. His foot was in the air for the third and final step when the mean-looking rat popped out again.

“I said—” he started to say, then his eyes bulged, his whiskers sprang out absolutely straight and he ducked back down into the drain.

Chapter Three

“Halt in the name of the king!” shouted a voice behind Peter. Before he could turn round to look, more rats raced past him. They were the same size as the pirates, but these were wearing blue-and-white-striped shirts and red cloth caps, and they all had pistols as well as cutlasses. They quickly surrounded the drainhole, ignoring Peter, except for the rat who was obviously their leader.

“Ruffians!” exclaimed this important-looking rat, and marched over to Peter. Peter looked down at him, taking in the blue uniform with gold buttons and braid, and the shiny black arched hat.

“I guess you’re the navy,” said Peter slowly. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Well done, sir,” exclaimed the rat. “Captain Erasmus Rattus at your service, of His Majesty’s Royal Ratship Tumblewheel . Currently on an anti-piracy cruise.”

“They took my DVDs,” said Peter. “Four horrible pirates! One had an eyepatch.”

“The scurvy knaves!” exclaimed Captain Rattus angrily. “If coming up Topside ain’t bad enough, it’s pirating videos as well. What’s your name, lad?”

“Peter,” said Peter.

“A goodly name,” said the captain. “Like the Blue Peter flag we fly when we’re leaving port. That’s a name for adventure, that is. I expect you’ll be wanting to come with us to recover your cargo?”

“Cargo?” asked Peter. “What cargo?”

“The DVDs!” cried Captain Rattus. “Why, if we don’t catch those pirates soon, they’ll be turning those DVDs into Frisbees and earrings and coasters and trading them for gold and ivory. They’re probably almost back to their ship by now. Are you coming with us?”

He pointed at the open drain and the sailor rats started to jump down, one after the other. Soon there was only the captain and Peter left. Peter looked at the hole and thought of the lost DVDs.

“I’m too big to get down there,” he said finally. He didn’t know if he wanted to go or not. He did like the sound of an adventure, but he wasn’t sure about all these rats.

“Too big?” muttered Captain Rattus. “We’ll soon fix that. Where’s the doctor!”

“Here, sir!” piped up a rat Peter hadn’t even noticed. An unobtrusive rat in a scruffy brown coat, who was lurking way back near another drain. He hurried over, pulled out a monocle, stuck it in his eye and peered up at Peter.

“Doctor Abednego Norvegicus at your service,” he said. “I take it that this is a matter of shrinkage, captain?”

“Shrinking!” corrected the captain. “Peter here wants to sign on for the duration.”

“Oh, I’m not sure if that’s exactly—” said Peter anxiously. “The duration” sounded like a very long time. “Well, as long as it takes to recover his cargo or when he gets sick of it then,” said the captain. “So if you could please shrink him down immediately, doctor, that would be most agreeable.”

“Hmmm,” said the doctor, looking up at Peter and making estimating motions with his arms. “How old are you, Peter?”

“Nine,” said Peter. “In July.”

“Very well,” said the doctor. “Since I haven’t a potion or the necessary lotion in the quantities you would require, it will have to be a spell.”

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