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Ratlight: A Story of Forbidden Love, Now With 100 More Rats!

It was springtime and Lastnest Day had finally come. I got up early and went into the food-chamber, where my mother was waiting for me.

'Good morning, Ruby!' she beamed. 'I've made cheese pancakes – your favourite.'

I moped over to the table and sat on my haunches. 'I'm not hungry.'

Her happy, cheerful expression slumped into a disappointed frown. 'But I made your favourite…'

'Yeah, whatever.' I got up and went back to my room where I spent the next hour staring at the wall. I thought I heard my mother sobbing, but that wasn't important so I didn't do anything about it.

Lastnest day was the day when young rats left the nest at last and went to the Learning Mound – a special garbage dump where we would learn the important life-skills of picking out the best food and avoiding predators.

I didn't want to go. I already knew the other young rats wouldn't like me. I had pink eyes without white fur to excuse it, and my tail was too long and my claws weren't sharp enough. Having pink eyes meant I had really bad eyesight and fell down a lot. It was totally unfair!

The dreaded hour came. I got up and left my room. My mum was still in the food-chamber, doing something with a piece of rope.

''bye,' I mumbled, and left the nest.

I already knew the way to the Learning Mound, but I didn't have to know because there were dozens of other young rats already going that way. All I had to do was follow.

There's so many of them I could jump from back to back to get there, I thought. Which was a very witty thing to think. What a shame no-one else knew about it. Not that any of them would care; no-one in Fricks had a sense of humour.

I trudged along the tunnel after the excited crowd, trying not to listen to the excited chatter, which rose excitedly up to the roof and was full of excitement.

'I'm totally going to find a hot buck there!' one female yelled at her friend.

'Yeah, and he'll already be biting my neck!' her friend yelled back and laughed.

Cheeses, what a bunch of unsophisticated losers. I flicked my tail and ignored them.

Unfortunately, they noticed me. 'Hello!' one said. 'I'm Amber!'

'I'm Rosie!' said her beige-furred friend. 'What's your name?'

I sized them up. They weren't too greasy, so I smiled at them. 'Ruby Riddle.'

'Wow, your eyes are gorgeous!' Amber gushed.

'You're so pale,' Rosie added.

'I'm half-albino.'

'Wow you're amazing!' said Amber. 'C'mon, you're totally our new best friend!'

I shrugged grudgingly and carried on, trying to ignore them tagging along with me like a couple of pups.

Up ahead the tunnel opened up and I could see twilight. We were nearly at the Mound; I could smell the fresh garbage already.

The teachers were waiting for us; big, tough rats with lots of experience. Most of them had scars and torn ears and things, and they stank like old cheese.

'Ew, we're not going to learn from them are we?' I said.

'I love you!' said Rosie.

'Whatever. Which one do we go with?'

'You're so pretty you should be a pet!' said Amber.

'Yeah, yeah. Which one is ours?'

'He is, silly!' said Rosie, pointing at a huge brown-grey rat with a scar on his haunch.

I walked up to him, tripping over my own paws. 'Er, hi…'

The huge rat leant down to look at me. 'Come closer, little one, my eyesight isn't so good.' He had a deep, slow, gravelly voice.

Cheeses, he totally hates me, I think. This is so embarrassing! 'I'm Ruby Riddle.'

The huge rat straightened up. 'What lovely eyes you have. Call me Bran. I'll be your teacher.' He smiled. 'Not that you'll need much teaching; you're the smartest student I've ever had.'

'Er, how do you know that?' Amber broke in. 'You haven't even started teaching her yet!'

Bran glanced at her. 'Who are you?'

'Amber, and this is Rosie.'

'Uh-huh. Well, we'll just wait until everyone else has joined us and then we can begin.'

We stood around until we'd been joined by at least ten more young rats. All of them stared at me and nudged each other. My ears turned red – so embarrassing!

'Wow, she's gorgeous,' someone whispered.

Cheeses, they all hate me. This is so unfair. I wish they'd stop staring.

'I'm gonna ask her out,' one young buck said.

'No, I am!'

'Damn you, she's mine!' a third buck yelled.

I sat down and moped while they started fighting each other and Rosie and Amber looked super jealous.

Bran stepped in to break it up, and afterward one of them came toward me. He looked very nervous and timid, and he shuffled his paws before he spoke. 'Uh… Ruby?'

I looked up at him. He had oily black fur and his teeth were yellow. Like, ew. 'What do you want?'

The black buck coughed. 'I was wondering if…'

'What?'

'I was wondering if you'd like to come over here and mate with me. I mean, I know I'm not very big and I'm young and everything,' he added in a rush, 'But I won the fight and I think you're the best female there is here and if we had, you know, a litter together I'd…'

I rolled my eyes. 'Are you crazy?'

The black rat started as if I'd bitten him. 'I'm sorry-,'

'You can't mate with me!' I said. 'Because Rosie over there is totally going into heat over you.'

The black rat perked up. 'Her? Really?'

'Oh yeah, I can smell the oestrogen from here. You should go and talk to her!'

The black rat gave me a terrified look and darted off. I smiled smugly as he started talking to Rosie and she sniffed him and then started doing the mating hop to get him interested. What a tease.

Later on we all sat down while Bran started his lesson. It was something about the dangers of cats; I wasn't really listening. When the class was over I got up and went to get some food with everyone else. I found a nice squashy tomato and munched away on it; for some reason nearly everyone else who was there came up while I was eating to introduce themselves and say weird things like 'wow, you're so pretty!' and 'you're so much cleverer than me, it's embarrassing, heehee!'. I ignored them – maybe if I pretended they weren't there they'd go away.

It was so annoying though.

'You're special!'

'Can I be your friend? Please?'

'Look, I made a statue of you out of popsicle sticks!'

'I brought you some chocolate! See? It's all for you! I had to fight ten other bucks to get it.'

'Where do you get your fur done? I have to know!'

'-I'll never see out of one eye again, but I won this chocolate, just for you. Please, will you just look at me…?'

'Ruby!'

I looked up crabbily. 'Can't you see I'm trying to eat? What do you want? It had better not be more flowers.'

The small rat who'd run up was panting and looked distressed. 'Something awful's happened?'

I sighed and put down my lunch. 'Awful enough to come up and yell at me while I'm trying to eat?'

'Your mother's dead!'

'Huh? What the-?'

'I'm so sorry, Ruby.'

I looked past him. 'Oh Cheeses…'

'She hanged herself,' said the messenger. 'There was a note, something about how she couldn't stand feeling like she didn't exist and wasn't sure if you'd even notice she was dead.'

'I don't believe it,' I breathed.

'I never thought she'd do something like that. I mean, we all knew about the drinking, but…'

I stood up. 'Who is that?'

The messenger started. 'What?'

'That, damn it!' I pointed. 'Aren't you paying attention?'

'Ruby, your mother's-,'

'That is the most gorgeous buck I have ever seen. For Cheeses' sake, what's his name?'

'Your mother-,'

'Oh, screw you,' I snapped, and hurried over to get a closer look.

Sitting on a brick all alone was the hottest buck I've ever seen in my entire life. While all the rats around us were dull colours – brown, black, grey – his fur is was extraordinary silver. It almost looked metallic; it gleamed in the starlight, so beautifully it brought tears to my eyes. His eyes were a deep and lustrous black, like two polished onyx mirrors. His whiskers were long and perfect, like silken threads of moonlight, and he had a magnificent long, powerful tail. His paws were perfect – pink with a coating of fine white hair. His claws looked like tiny crescent-moons – pure white, curved, without a spot of dirt anywhere.

His body was slim but solid, with strong, wide shoulderblades, elegant haunches and a smooth, taut underbelly with pale, soft fur. His scrotal sac hung enticingly at the base of his tail, clearly holding a magnificent, elongated pair of testicles.

My mouth went dry. Those are the biggest balls I have ever seen. Sweet Cheeses, how does he even stand up?

I thought I was going to faint at the mere sight of them. This was the most desirable male in the world. In any world.

This buck was so gorgeous mere words couldn't do him justice. This buck was so amazing and desirable and wonderful and adverb-inducingly fantastic that he merited two freaking paragraphs of minute description.

He was just that good.

I sighed dreamily.

A few moments later the supernaturally handsome buck got up and came over to me. He walked so gracefully it was more like flowing than stepping. Flowers should have sprung up where his paws touched the ground.

'Wait, flowers are springing up out of the – how are you doing that?'

The buck smiled. It was the sort of smile that deserved instant slow-motion replay from five different angles. 'Hello. I noticed you staring.'

I made a noise that sounded like I was having a brain haemorrhage.

'My word,' said the buck. 'I had no idea you were so eloquent.' A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. 'What's your name, may I ask?'

'Rrgutalasdlfknb,' I said.

'Ruby Riddle, eh?' he raised an eyebrow. It was the most beautiful eyebrow in the entire universe and had obviously been sculpted by the hand of Cleos, God of pretentious artworks.

'Er, yeah,' I managed.

'Well,' said the buck, 'My name would be Joker.'

It was the most wonderful amazing name in all nineteen and a half dimensions.

'I love you,' I choked.

'I noticed you watching me,' said Joker. 'I was wondering-,'

'I want to have your babies.'

'-if you'd like to share lunch with me?'

'I'd give you my heart on a silver platter.'

'I have some rather nice cheese,' Joker added.

I gave up. 'Er, er, okay.'

He smiled condescendingly and led me back to his brick, where I sat down next to him and accepted the very expensive cheese he insisted on feeding me piece by piece.

He smelled wonderful, like the scents of all the finest cheeses in the world added together and multiplied several times.

'You know, you really do have a most wonderful smell,' he murmured.

I grinned like a moron.

'Well,' he said briskly once the cheese was all gone. 'We're getting on rather well, aren't we?'

'Um, yes?'

'Good, then maybe you'd like to come see my nest?'

I paused to consider. Well, if Mum had gone and died then she wouldn't be around to make dinner, and I was damned if I was making my own. 'Sure, I'd love to.'

We left the Learning Mound paw-in-paw, and I lifted my chin when I saw the envious looks we were getting from everyone else – bucks and does alike.

Joker's nest was a long way away, in a part of Fricks I'd never visited before. But it was huge inside – I'd never been in one so big.

'What d'you think?' he asked.

I sniffed the air. 'It kinda smells like… dead things.'

'I've been meaning to clean out the cellar,' he said solemnly. 'Would you like to see my nest-chamber?'

I tripped over a skull. 'Sure,' I said, getting up while trying to hide my embarrassment.

'Wow, there sure are a lot of bones around,' I remarked as we headed for his nest-chamber.

'I have a taste for macabre decorations,' said Joker. 'You don't mind, do you?'

'What?' I blushed. 'Oh no, I'm fine. Say, that one's kinda big-,'

'We're here now,' he interrupted.

'Hey, that skull almost looks like it came from a r-,'

Joker hustled me into his nest-chamber. 'Feel free to have a look around.'

I wandered around, taking in the nesting material. It didn't look like it'd been used in a long time. 'It's kinda dirty,' I said. 'It smells like dried – hey, what's wrong?'

Joker had moved to stand in the exit. He took a deep breath. 'Ruby, we've known each other a while now, and… well I think it's time I was honest with you.'

I stared blankly at him. 'Huh?'

'I'm not really a rat.'

'Whut?'

'This is just a disguise.'

'Eh?'

'I can change my shape.'

'Huh?'

Joker grinned enigmatically. 'You weren't paying attention in class today, were you?'

'What? Er… I suppose not, but what's that got to do with anything?'

It was dark in the nest. Joker, outlined against the light from the next chamber, almost looked as if he were moving on the spot… changing somehow. 'If only more young rats listened to old Bran, there might be more young rats,' he sighed.

'Oh come on,' I scoffed. 'He's just a stupid old sewer rat. Anyway, why listen to him? I already know everything.'

'You know about cats, then,' said Joker. He looked bigger now, somehow…

'Of course I do, everyone knows about cats. Can we make out now?'

He was huge now, looming over me. 'So you know what a ratcat is, then, do you?'

'Huh?' I giggled. 'You're just making that up.'

'We're a rare breed,' said Joker. 'But easy enough to spot if you know the signs.'

'What signs? What's a ratcat?'

'All predators need a way to get closer to their prey,' said Joker. 'Normally, a cat relies on stealth. But a ratcat goes one step further.' I could see his head now, see the shape of the ears, changing… 'We can change shape,' he boomed. 'Make ourselves look like one of your own. The most desirable of your kind. And when we get close enough, we pounce.'

I quailed. 'Sweet Cheeses, you're a-,'

He came closer. 'Oh, but don't worry,' he said. I could hear him purring. 'I'm not like the others.'

'You aren't?' I brightened up. 'You mean you're a good ratcat?'

'Yes,' he growled. 'I turned my back on the rest of my kind. Now I only prey on certain foods. Mice. Guinea pigs. Hamsters.'

'But not rats?'

He came closer still, his golden eyes glowing. 'Rats? Oh, no. I only eat the very stupidest of those.'

I relaxed. 'Well then-,'

Crunch.