SEVENTEEN

Tailpiece

And so they did.

Jim the Rat gave up ratcatching. He offered his clients a variety of reasons for his retirement. ‘Getting near the pension anyway’ – which was true, ‘The old van’s on its last legs’ – which was true, or ‘Just fancy staying at home all day’ – which was also true. He gave no one the real reason, which was that he simply could not keep the King Mouse and his parents as pets, no, more than pets, as friends, and at the same time spend his life slaughtering their brothers and sisters and cousins.

Roland took up marriage. Jim just happened to come across such a pretty doe rabbit one market-day – such a long soft coat she had, as blue as woodsmoke among the trees – and so the uncle of many nephews and nieces soon became the proud father of many sons and daughters; some were blue and some were white, some had prick-ears and some had lop-ears; all grew up happily with their dad’s great friends, the giant mouse and his parents.

Madeleine and Marcus Aurelius lived a life of luxury. Jim built them a beautiful new house, a cage it was really but they never thought of it like that since they were always free to go out if they wished. (Strangely enough, Jim’s three cats never again came into the kitchen.) Once in a while, for old times’ sake or if it was specially cold, they would spend a night with old Uncle Roland, warm under their velvety bedspreads. Fortunately, Jim gave them newspaper as nesting material so that Marcus always had plenty of interesting reading matter. Madeleine, relieved of the ceaseless search for food and the constant threat of danger that had been her lot, grew comfortably stout. Magnus, surprisingly, did not grow any more. Maybe it was that bang on the head or maybe he would have stopped anyway, but he became no bigger.

What he did become – and this must have been the bang – was extremely wordy. The newfound art of conversation became a great joy to him, and he and Marcus Aurelius would chatter away till all hours, putting the world to rights. Sometimes they would have an evening at Uncle Roland’s house and his deep voice would be heard, trying to get a word in edgeways.

And there was a time when Madeleine, sitting and listening to the ceaseless flow of talk, felt just a little bit left out; maybe because, as usual, she did not understand half of what they were saying; maybe because she was chewing on a pale-coloured Smartie which suddenly reminded her of a Pennyfeather’s Patent Porker Pill and those long-ago days when Magnus was a baby and helpless and could not string two words together.

And suddenly Magnus knew exactly what she was feeling, and left the others, and came over to her, and gently touched her little nose with his big one.

‘Nice Mummy!’ said Magnus Powermouse softly.

‘Oh, my baby!’ said Madeleine. ‘There won’t never be another like you.’