“What’s the problem?” Walt came over, eyes still scanning the hallway. Polo was definitely right, this place gave her the creeps.
Marco leaned on Polo’s butt and tried to look casual. “What was that you were saying about backup plans?”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]
9
[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]
[Êàðòèíêà: img_21]
“SO WE HAVE A NEW plan,” Walt said as she stalked into the room, taking Butterbean and Oscar by surprise. Oscar snapped his beak shut. It was a little irritating, to be honest, all this changing of his plans.
“What was wrong with the old plan?” Butterbean said, watching as Polo and Marco slid off Walt’s back.
Walt shrugged.“The gap under the door is too narrow. It’s not rat-sized. We’d need mice. Or maybe snakes. Anyway, that’s not important. We’ve got a better idea.”
“Okay,” Butterbean agreed. She didn’t even need to know what the better idea was, as long as it didn’t involve snakes. She’d never met one, but she’d heard things about them. Word on the street was that they flicked their tongues.
Oscar looked thoughtful.“Hmm. Yes. I should have measured the gap.” He turned to the rats and bowed his head slightly. “I’m sorry, Marco, Polo. That was a lapse on my part. It was thoughtless of me.” Oscar hated to admit it, but the gap size hadn’t even crossed his mind, not even once. He’d just assumed thatrats were squishy enough that they would have no problem. He didn’t actually know that much about rats, now that he thought about it.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Marco said, touching his waist. “We should probably go a little easier on the sunflower seeds.”
“It was the gap, not you,” Walt said dismissively. “You’re fine. Now for the new plan—I’m thinking vents.”
“What vents?” Butterbean asked.
“Up there,” Walt said, nodding up at the air vents near the ceiling. “If I’m right, those vents connect all the apartments in the building. Most of them are up high like those, but I thought we could just use this one.” Walt walked over to the sofa and pointed behind it. A small vent was in the baseboard underneath the window.
“A behind-the-sofa vent?” Butterbean said, shocked. How could she have never noticed that before? Her ball had gone back there a thousand times at least. “Who would’ve expected that?”
“Exactly. Plus, this one’s a little special.” Walt reached out and swatted at the vent cover. It fell forward with a thump. “I’ve been working on the screws on this baby for months. Never know when you’ll need a good hiding place, you know?”
Oscar whistled in appreciation.“Nice job.” He peered into the vent. “And floor level is much easier for me, with my bad back. So this goes…”
“To the side, and then up. It connects to the ceiling vents. It’s our ticket to the whole building.”
Oscar stood up.“And you didn’t share this earlier because…?”
“A cat likes to have some secrets, Oscar,” Walt sniffed. “I didn’t know it would be necessary.” She reached into the vent and pulled out a small catnip mouse. “I’ll just take this back for now.”
“Well, we can definitely fit in there, right, Polo?” Marco said, marching up to the vent and crawling inside. “Oh yeah, this should be a piece of cake. We can climb like nobody’s business.”
Polo nodded in agreement.“This looks a lot better. So we go how many floors up?”
“Five,” Walt said. “Butterbean, can you explain the building layout?”
“Okay, this is how it is,” Butterbean said, hunkering down on her haunches. “Most floors have four apartments, right? Well, we’re a D apartment, but there are only two on that top floor, and the Coin Man is in B. So I think that means that he’s above us.”
Walt nodded.“That makes sense. So you’ll just have to go straight up. If you’re not sure, just look out of the vent grates into the apartments—that should help you get your bearings.”
“Got it.” Polo smacked her hands together. “Who’s in the apartments on eight? Just in case we get confused about what floor we’re on?”
“Based on the smells, I’d say Apartment A is the Patchouli Family, Apartment B is Biscuit, Apartment C is the weird pretzely apartment, and Apartment D is Axe Body Spray.” Butterbean thumped her tail. “Got it?”
“Wait a minute. I thought Biscuit was on the second floor?” Walt frowned.
“Different Biscuit,” Polo said knowingly.
Butterbean patted Walt’s paw. “This building has a LOT of Biscuits.”
“So we’re all set, right?” Polo said. Hopefully, the apartments would be stinky enough that Butterbean’s descriptions would help.
“Should we go now?” Marco said, bobbing up and down inside the vent. The metal on the bottom was making small booming noises, and it made him feel better. He really wanted to put the whole door episode behind him. His ribs were still a little sore.
“Yes, go. Before the girl comes back to walk Bean,” Walt said. “We’ll try to cover for you if you’re not back in time. But hurry.”
“Consider it done,” Polo said, crawling into the vent after Marco. “This should be a snap. Up, up, and away!”
“WHOOHOOO,” Marco shrieked, his voice echoing as he went.
“Marco! Not the time!” Polo’s voice could be heard disappearing down the vent.
“Do you think this’ll work?” Oscar said, tilting his head toward Walt as the rats’ voices faded away.
“Why not?” Walt shrugged. “They’re rats. Rats love vents. What could go wrong?”
Marco and Polo were lost. They’d started out taking only the up vents, like Butterbean had suggested. But some of the sideways vents looked pretty interesting, so they decided to take one quick detour. And then another one. And now they were staring through a grate at Bob the maintenance guy.
“I think he’s making dinner,” Marco whispered, peering out of the grate.
“Did you know he lived here?” Polo whispered. “I thought he lived someplace else. He lives at his work!”
“It smells spicy. Is that spaghetti sauce?” Marco pressed his eye against the grate opening for a better view.
Bob was wearing an apron and whistling to himself while he stirred a pot on the stove. It did smell spicy. Polo craned her neck down to get a closer look.
“I don’t know. Could be? Maybe it’s soup. It’s hard to see.” She examined it for a second and then straightened up, smacking Marco on the shoulder. “What are we doing? That’s not important! We’ve got to focus.”
“But it’s Bob! In his apartment!” Marco said.
“Exactly!” Polo crossed her arms. “Butterbean didn’t say anything about Bob, so we’re obviously not on the right floor. We might not even be on the right side of the building! We shouldn’t have taken that last turn!”
“But it smelled like corn chips!” Marco wailed. “I just wanted a taste!”
“Well, yes, me too,” Polo admitted. Corn chips were hard to pass up. “But we need to forget Bob, find an up vent, and get back to work.”
“Shhh!” Marco said, putting his hand over Polo’s mouth. They’d kind of forgotten about the whole “being quiet” aspect of surveillance.
“BOB,” he mouthed.
Bob had stopped humming.
The rats peered back down through the grate. Bob hadn’t just stopped humming. He’d stopped stirring. And he was staring up at them. He was looking right into their eyes.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” Polo said.
“Whaa—” Bob yelped, dropping his wooden spoon and spattering sauce everywhere. “RATS!”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_22]
“I was right. It is spaghetti sauce,” Marco smirked.
“Who cares! RUN!” Polo said, grabbing Marco by the shoulder and dashing back down the vent just as Bob’s hand smacked across the grate.
“AAAAAHHHHH,” Marco shrieked, running after Polo.
“Up! Up! Look for an up vent!” Polo yelled, craning her neck to look at the ceiling. She could hear Bob tugging at the grate. She didn’t think he’d be able to reach them, but she didn’t want to take that chance.