There's a scrabbling in the wall, and Eponine shrieks, jerking to her feet. Her mother looks up sharply. "What's the matter with you?" She's grown short-tempered in the past months, but Eponine hardly notices now.
"There are rats," she says with concentrated loathing. "I'm not sleeping here a night."
"Then you can sleep on the street," her father growls.
Mother of God, she's going to die. Even in the very last days at home, when there was no money even for food, let alone soap -- even then, they never had rats. Mice, yes, but Maman took care of them with traps and they didn't live to scurry about in the walls and scare the wits out of her. But now Maman only gives her a dull look, as if to say what can you do?
She kicks the rickety bedstead. "This place is foul. That landlady's a filthy bitch, I knew it when I laid eyes on her."
"Ponine," Maman sighs. "Your language."
"Never mind my language! It's cleaner than my damn bed!"
"That's enough out of you." Papa gives her his mean look, the one she never used to notice. It was always turned on the skivvy and the customers who couldn't pay. Before. She scowls at him sullenly a moment, then turns away.
Azelma huddles on the foot of the bed, big-eyed and miserable. Stupid brat. Eponine hates all of them, her parents and her sister, her toddling brother who lurks behind Maman's skirts, infuriatingly ignorant of the pass they've come to; the old hag downstairs, the flown Lark, everyone in Montfermeil and everyone in Paris and everyone in the world.
Her father throws his bag into the corner. It hits the floor with a thump, and Eponine can hear a faint squeak and the scratch of tiny claws, somewhere below.
She won't stay here a second longer than she has to.