Chapter Two: Inhabiting The New Old
In less than a day, they arrived at what Timo could have sworn was once his homeland. But it had changed vastly. He recognized the old school house, but it had been remodeled. In fact, many buildings had been added, as well as streets and sidewalks! Timo stood in disbelief, staring at this strange metropolis. He stopped playing his ocarina at the sight, and pocketed it.
Quickly, Timo turned around to face the rats. "I don't understand what this is," he tried to explain. "There only used to be the schoolhouse, none of these extra buildings and streets. Yet I know this is where I came from, I can feel it. The schoolhouse is over there, near that queer light post."
Once again, the rats awkwardly looked at each other, although now it looked like an endless gray bumpy pasture there were so many. Most of the rats at the back of the patch stood on their hind legs to get a better view, and in seconds, all of their tiny pink noses began sniffing at the hair, their damaged whiskers twitching. They were obviously famished, even more so from the daylong travel. Their feet were sore, their mouths dry, their stomachs empty, and their eyes wide.
Timo continued walking forward, playing the ocarina as quietly as possible so that none of the townspeople could hear it. The rats followed him slowly, until Timo felt his feet step upon something noisy and tin sounding. He looked down to discover an odd manhole of some kind. Just then, he began to hear voices from a few blocks away. They were familiar to him.
As soon as he heard the distant voices, adrenaline hit him like a bullet and he dropped to the ground, hastily opening the manhole. Without bothering to think about what he was doing, he climbed inside, finding himself walking down a slimy metal ladder that brought him into the darkness below. With one hand, he started playing the ocarina once again as he fled and slipped down. The rats ran down obediently, most running completely over him on the way down. He wasn't sure of what he was trying to do or why he was hiding from the unseen people of this town, or even how far down the ladder would take him, but he was willing to take a very random and possibly risky chance; a rush to an unknown destination.
It took a few full minutes, but his feet finally found solid ground. The stone area was as cold as ice. Timo looked up as the last of the rats climbed down the manhole opening, which was glowing brilliantly with sunlight. But he knew the sun would be setting in a matter of short hours.
Down here, he thought long and hard with the rats. He was more famished than he'd ever been in his life, along with the rats. Yet this place was supposedly his homeland, and he didn't want to disturb them by bringing millions of rats swarming across the streets. He decided he'd only take a few rats, and they could bring back food from any stores that may have been set up in the town. He wanted clothes too – The clothes he was wearing were much too small for him now, dirty and torn in any place imaginable.
With this idea, Timo played a special tune on his flute, which he had titled "Selective Course" months before. This tune was meant only to summon around 50 or so rats at a time, and it took him and the rats a lot of practice out in the field to get it right. Upon playing this tune and heading back up the ladder, a few of the millions of rats scurried up there with him, eager to see what this newly sought town had to be discovered.
Once out of the dark sewers and before Timo even took the time to adjust to the blinding light, he dodged over to the nearest large building. Timo could easily identify a strong aroma coming from a large window placed right at the bottom of the wall. The rats looked up at Timo with hungry eyes, as if asking him for permission to sneak through the slightly opened window.
Window already cracked ajar, Timo carefully opened the rest of it up with his bare foot, allowing the rats to get inside. They scurried in like a bumpy fur rug, and he eagerly followed them out of curiosity. He found himself on the dark wooden floor of a seemingly empty room. The rats waited a moment for Timo to pick himself up before they began exploring. There was a long counter in front of them, with the oddest-looking things on top. Over the odd things was a concealed glass shield, clearly made so that nobody could touch these items.
Yet Timo, as well as the rats, craved these materials. Their scent told their instincts that this was food. Over a year without eating real food could drive anybody mad, and Timo willingly gave the rats permission to do what they could to open up the sliding glass doors before them quietly. But with these glass doors, apparently the only appropriate way to get the food concealed behind the glass had keyholes on them. At this point, the rats were much too eager to waste their time looking for the keys, so they gnawed at the locks.
Meanwhile, Timo observed an entryway on the other side of the room. This lead to a front room, where the people were meant to enter. There didn't seem to be a soul in sight, however, so Timo eagerly went back to observing the rat's progress in getting at the food. To his surprise, the rats had somehow punctured a large hole in the glass, perhaps by gnawing at it, and were now on the other side of the glass shield. All at once, they grabbed every sample of food and jumped back out of the hole, continuing to walk to the window on the floor.
They worked like oversized ants, lifting the food up high over their heads as they scurried out the window. The sight looked almost like a mini- parade, the food being the gigantic floats. Quickly they made their way out the open window and into the streets, heading back to the open manhole. Timo thought of closing the window after he got out, but realized that was pointless. Whoever owned this market would know for sure that it had been raided; there was no point in trying to hide that.
The rats made a run for the open manhole, Timo on their tails. He watched as the parade of rats scrambled into the manhole and as the last one jumped in, he began to get in as well. But a voice was calling out, and it distracted him.
"Hey, where do you think you're going!?" the voice cried out as Timo turned around in surprise. It was Michael, one of the children he recalled from the schoolhouse long ago. Timo almost didn't recognize him because he had grown a mustache as well as a lot of unneeded fat. Still, Michael continued to cry out, "Why aren't you indoors? It's going to rain soon! Who are you?"
Without a reply or a second glance, Timo darted back down the sewer, covering it up with the manhole. He slid eagerly down the cold ladder in hopes that Michael wouldn't follow him. After reaching the bottom, his feet now numb from the cold, he ran left as far as he could. He saw that his rats had already finished their food in a matter of seconds and were now swarming the sewers, claiming their own lands. Some rats were in the corners and crevices of what appeared to be this underground tunnel. Others were perched on slimy pipes high above. The rat's eyes glowed a brilliant yellow in the dark, which Timo envied. He almost didn't recognize the rats when they were blocked from sunlight, and this is what triggered him to stop and think for a moment about what he was going to do next.
"Now that we've reached a decent homeland, it's clearly my job to take care of all of you," Timo spoke to his rats. "You need food, and this town clearly has plenty to share, from the condition of Michael's body. This enclosed underground is much more suitable than our last location. At least now we can keep dry in the rain and cool in the heat; we don't have to worry about hail or thunderstorms."
The rats jumped out of their marked areas and gradually made their way closer to Timo, to hear his words. Timo let everything he had experienced within the last hour sink in before he spoke again. "But I know this town will not accept me, let alone any of you. They didn't accept me before and they won't accept me again. Look at me! I barely have clothing anymore; these are too small for me now and so ripped up they don't look like clothes. There's no way I can face this town anyway. I can't let anybody know who I am."
Suddenly, there was a rapping at the manhole entrance. It was Michael, no doubt. "Who's down there?" Michael called. "You can't hide forever down there! How long have you been living down here!?"
"Hide," Timo muttered to the rats, his heart still beating rapidly from being startled by the sudden disturbance. "Maybe I can make my first agreement with him. Just wait until he leaves."
With those words, the rats vanquished, burying themselves into the crevices of the walls and inside the pipes. The vast majority even dove under the sickeningly green water that ran as a small stream down the tunnel of the underground. After they were all clearly out of sight, none making a word and no glittering yellow eye to be seen, Timo stood up. He was now shivering from head to foot, feeling only half-dressed in his tattered clothing. "Come on down."
With that, the manhole could be heard opening and a light beamed down from far off. Timo walked his way towards the light, and made it just as Michael finished climbing down the stairs, feeling completely disgusted. The smell of the sewers was very repulsive compared to the outdoors.
There was a long silence. Timo's extremely tall and skinny body looked down upon Michael's shorter and much wider body. Michael began to sweat in nervousness as he removed the small blue hat he was wearing in respect, clutching his chest with it and looking back up at Timo. "May I ask who you are, Sir? And why have you come to our small town of Hamelin?"
"Hamelin," Timo repeated. "Is that what you call this town? Why Hamelin, of all ridiculous names?"
Surprisingly, Michael didn't scoff or show any sign of hatred or disrespect towards Timo after his rude remark. Instead, he placed his hat back upon his head and replied, "It is the last name of our town's mayor, Sir. This town is brand new; it was just made official last week. The mayor was the designer of this town in the first place. He's a very extraordinary man."
"Extraordinary, you say," Timo responded. Timo noticed his own voice was much darker and deadlier-sounding than the fat Michael's scared and unaware one. "Well then, you must all be proud. Are your lives not grand? Have you all wives and children and jobs? Money?"
Michael let out a dry laugh, but then quickly covered it up with a cough. "Actually, sir, we are much smaller than the town itself. There are but eight of us. Soon to be nine."
On the inside, Timo was more than just surprised, but he didn't let Michael know it. He thought quickly of all who were there when he left the schoolhouse over one year ago. There was Michael, the slightly porky child with brown hair, which had now been cut into a buzz cut. But there was also Holger, Timo's ultimate hatred. There was the teacher, what was her name? Ms. Weigand. Ah, and then the twins with the blue eyes and blonde hair. Their names were Frans and Stefan. Oh, and then there was Johann, the smartest of anyone in the schoolhouse. Last came Dieter, the biggest of all the children. That was seven, and with the mayor, it was eight. But who was this final person?
"List your residents," Timo stated clearly, crossing his arms and hoping he could get this small puzzle solved.
"Well, there's me," Michael spoke obviously. "I own the clothing shop. Then there's Johann; he owns the bookstore. He knows the answer to any question you might have as well, he's very smart. Oh, and then Frans and Stefan own the food shops, they're actually twin brothers. Dieter is the house builder, he built every building above us. He's quite strong. Then, of course, there is our mayor, Holger Hamelin, along with his secretary and wife, Petra Hamelin. Her maiden name is Petra Weigand. Anyway, they have a child named Sophia. Petra is pregnant yet again, and we'll be expecting the next child in about six months."
Timo was in shock. Ms. Weigand and Holger married? Holger, who seemed so dimwitted before, was actually able to manage a town and become the mayor of it? And a child as well, with another on the way? Didn't anyone from Hamelin ever run into Ute, Timo's long lost love?
"Interesting," Timo answered, pretending to sound bored with Michael's talk. Just before he could get another word in, a panicking shriek cried from above, and in less than a second, a starved rat was in Timo's cupped hands. Michael jumped a few feet back, gasping in shock.
"A rat!"
"Calm yourself," Timo grinned. "This is a pet of mine, he travels with me. Now listen, I'm not in the mood for more chatter." Timo realized that with the rat in hand and the look of distress in Michael's eyes, he felt powerful and much more confident in his words. "I am here to stay in this town, at least for a little while. I don't want to be seen or heard from any of Hamelin's citizens besides yourself. Don't offer me a place to stay, this sewer will do. All I ask is for clothing and food. My rat and I are starving and we haven't had any real food to digest in months."
Michael showed his first sign of disapproval by scowling. "Clearly you have no money. You can't expect me to grace your needs for free! The mayor would never approve of your barging into our-"
"Silence," Timo interrupted, again in a dark and calm voice. "With me, I hold a weapon. This weapon will rid of your town's mayor, his wife, and his two children. Then I will become the new mayor, and anyone who opposes me with be struck with this sharp and deadly weapon as well. Do you wish for this to happen?"
Immediately, Michael froze. He shook his head, now shaking with eyes watering. "I'll do as you ask, as long as you promise not to hurt me or any other citizens of Hamelin, Sir," Michael managed to gulp. "Allow me to get you some food right away for you and your rat. But please, may I have your name?"
Timo thought as quickly as he could. "You may call me The Pied Piper."
In less than a day, they arrived at what Timo could have sworn was once his homeland. But it had changed vastly. He recognized the old school house, but it had been remodeled. In fact, many buildings had been added, as well as streets and sidewalks! Timo stood in disbelief, staring at this strange metropolis. He stopped playing his ocarina at the sight, and pocketed it.
Quickly, Timo turned around to face the rats. "I don't understand what this is," he tried to explain. "There only used to be the schoolhouse, none of these extra buildings and streets. Yet I know this is where I came from, I can feel it. The schoolhouse is over there, near that queer light post."
Once again, the rats awkwardly looked at each other, although now it looked like an endless gray bumpy pasture there were so many. Most of the rats at the back of the patch stood on their hind legs to get a better view, and in seconds, all of their tiny pink noses began sniffing at the hair, their damaged whiskers twitching. They were obviously famished, even more so from the daylong travel. Their feet were sore, their mouths dry, their stomachs empty, and their eyes wide.
Timo continued walking forward, playing the ocarina as quietly as possible so that none of the townspeople could hear it. The rats followed him slowly, until Timo felt his feet step upon something noisy and tin sounding. He looked down to discover an odd manhole of some kind. Just then, he began to hear voices from a few blocks away. They were familiar to him.
As soon as he heard the distant voices, adrenaline hit him like a bullet and he dropped to the ground, hastily opening the manhole. Without bothering to think about what he was doing, he climbed inside, finding himself walking down a slimy metal ladder that brought him into the darkness below. With one hand, he started playing the ocarina once again as he fled and slipped down. The rats ran down obediently, most running completely over him on the way down. He wasn't sure of what he was trying to do or why he was hiding from the unseen people of this town, or even how far down the ladder would take him, but he was willing to take a very random and possibly risky chance; a rush to an unknown destination.
It took a few full minutes, but his feet finally found solid ground. The stone area was as cold as ice. Timo looked up as the last of the rats climbed down the manhole opening, which was glowing brilliantly with sunlight. But he knew the sun would be setting in a matter of short hours.
Down here, he thought long and hard with the rats. He was more famished than he'd ever been in his life, along with the rats. Yet this place was supposedly his homeland, and he didn't want to disturb them by bringing millions of rats swarming across the streets. He decided he'd only take a few rats, and they could bring back food from any stores that may have been set up in the town. He wanted clothes too – The clothes he was wearing were much too small for him now, dirty and torn in any place imaginable.
With this idea, Timo played a special tune on his flute, which he had titled "Selective Course" months before. This tune was meant only to summon around 50 or so rats at a time, and it took him and the rats a lot of practice out in the field to get it right. Upon playing this tune and heading back up the ladder, a few of the millions of rats scurried up there with him, eager to see what this newly sought town had to be discovered.
Once out of the dark sewers and before Timo even took the time to adjust to the blinding light, he dodged over to the nearest large building. Timo could easily identify a strong aroma coming from a large window placed right at the bottom of the wall. The rats looked up at Timo with hungry eyes, as if asking him for permission to sneak through the slightly opened window.
Window already cracked ajar, Timo carefully opened the rest of it up with his bare foot, allowing the rats to get inside. They scurried in like a bumpy fur rug, and he eagerly followed them out of curiosity. He found himself on the dark wooden floor of a seemingly empty room. The rats waited a moment for Timo to pick himself up before they began exploring. There was a long counter in front of them, with the oddest-looking things on top. Over the odd things was a concealed glass shield, clearly made so that nobody could touch these items.
Yet Timo, as well as the rats, craved these materials. Their scent told their instincts that this was food. Over a year without eating real food could drive anybody mad, and Timo willingly gave the rats permission to do what they could to open up the sliding glass doors before them quietly. But with these glass doors, apparently the only appropriate way to get the food concealed behind the glass had keyholes on them. At this point, the rats were much too eager to waste their time looking for the keys, so they gnawed at the locks.
Meanwhile, Timo observed an entryway on the other side of the room. This lead to a front room, where the people were meant to enter. There didn't seem to be a soul in sight, however, so Timo eagerly went back to observing the rat's progress in getting at the food. To his surprise, the rats had somehow punctured a large hole in the glass, perhaps by gnawing at it, and were now on the other side of the glass shield. All at once, they grabbed every sample of food and jumped back out of the hole, continuing to walk to the window on the floor.
They worked like oversized ants, lifting the food up high over their heads as they scurried out the window. The sight looked almost like a mini- parade, the food being the gigantic floats. Quickly they made their way out the open window and into the streets, heading back to the open manhole. Timo thought of closing the window after he got out, but realized that was pointless. Whoever owned this market would know for sure that it had been raided; there was no point in trying to hide that.
The rats made a run for the open manhole, Timo on their tails. He watched as the parade of rats scrambled into the manhole and as the last one jumped in, he began to get in as well. But a voice was calling out, and it distracted him.
"Hey, where do you think you're going!?" the voice cried out as Timo turned around in surprise. It was Michael, one of the children he recalled from the schoolhouse long ago. Timo almost didn't recognize him because he had grown a mustache as well as a lot of unneeded fat. Still, Michael continued to cry out, "Why aren't you indoors? It's going to rain soon! Who are you?"
Without a reply or a second glance, Timo darted back down the sewer, covering it up with the manhole. He slid eagerly down the cold ladder in hopes that Michael wouldn't follow him. After reaching the bottom, his feet now numb from the cold, he ran left as far as he could. He saw that his rats had already finished their food in a matter of seconds and were now swarming the sewers, claiming their own lands. Some rats were in the corners and crevices of what appeared to be this underground tunnel. Others were perched on slimy pipes high above. The rat's eyes glowed a brilliant yellow in the dark, which Timo envied. He almost didn't recognize the rats when they were blocked from sunlight, and this is what triggered him to stop and think for a moment about what he was going to do next.
"Now that we've reached a decent homeland, it's clearly my job to take care of all of you," Timo spoke to his rats. "You need food, and this town clearly has plenty to share, from the condition of Michael's body. This enclosed underground is much more suitable than our last location. At least now we can keep dry in the rain and cool in the heat; we don't have to worry about hail or thunderstorms."
The rats jumped out of their marked areas and gradually made their way closer to Timo, to hear his words. Timo let everything he had experienced within the last hour sink in before he spoke again. "But I know this town will not accept me, let alone any of you. They didn't accept me before and they won't accept me again. Look at me! I barely have clothing anymore; these are too small for me now and so ripped up they don't look like clothes. There's no way I can face this town anyway. I can't let anybody know who I am."
Suddenly, there was a rapping at the manhole entrance. It was Michael, no doubt. "Who's down there?" Michael called. "You can't hide forever down there! How long have you been living down here!?"
"Hide," Timo muttered to the rats, his heart still beating rapidly from being startled by the sudden disturbance. "Maybe I can make my first agreement with him. Just wait until he leaves."
With those words, the rats vanquished, burying themselves into the crevices of the walls and inside the pipes. The vast majority even dove under the sickeningly green water that ran as a small stream down the tunnel of the underground. After they were all clearly out of sight, none making a word and no glittering yellow eye to be seen, Timo stood up. He was now shivering from head to foot, feeling only half-dressed in his tattered clothing. "Come on down."
With that, the manhole could be heard opening and a light beamed down from far off. Timo walked his way towards the light, and made it just as Michael finished climbing down the stairs, feeling completely disgusted. The smell of the sewers was very repulsive compared to the outdoors.
There was a long silence. Timo's extremely tall and skinny body looked down upon Michael's shorter and much wider body. Michael began to sweat in nervousness as he removed the small blue hat he was wearing in respect, clutching his chest with it and looking back up at Timo. "May I ask who you are, Sir? And why have you come to our small town of Hamelin?"
"Hamelin," Timo repeated. "Is that what you call this town? Why Hamelin, of all ridiculous names?"
Surprisingly, Michael didn't scoff or show any sign of hatred or disrespect towards Timo after his rude remark. Instead, he placed his hat back upon his head and replied, "It is the last name of our town's mayor, Sir. This town is brand new; it was just made official last week. The mayor was the designer of this town in the first place. He's a very extraordinary man."
"Extraordinary, you say," Timo responded. Timo noticed his own voice was much darker and deadlier-sounding than the fat Michael's scared and unaware one. "Well then, you must all be proud. Are your lives not grand? Have you all wives and children and jobs? Money?"
Michael let out a dry laugh, but then quickly covered it up with a cough. "Actually, sir, we are much smaller than the town itself. There are but eight of us. Soon to be nine."
On the inside, Timo was more than just surprised, but he didn't let Michael know it. He thought quickly of all who were there when he left the schoolhouse over one year ago. There was Michael, the slightly porky child with brown hair, which had now been cut into a buzz cut. But there was also Holger, Timo's ultimate hatred. There was the teacher, what was her name? Ms. Weigand. Ah, and then the twins with the blue eyes and blonde hair. Their names were Frans and Stefan. Oh, and then there was Johann, the smartest of anyone in the schoolhouse. Last came Dieter, the biggest of all the children. That was seven, and with the mayor, it was eight. But who was this final person?
"List your residents," Timo stated clearly, crossing his arms and hoping he could get this small puzzle solved.
"Well, there's me," Michael spoke obviously. "I own the clothing shop. Then there's Johann; he owns the bookstore. He knows the answer to any question you might have as well, he's very smart. Oh, and then Frans and Stefan own the food shops, they're actually twin brothers. Dieter is the house builder, he built every building above us. He's quite strong. Then, of course, there is our mayor, Holger Hamelin, along with his secretary and wife, Petra Hamelin. Her maiden name is Petra Weigand. Anyway, they have a child named Sophia. Petra is pregnant yet again, and we'll be expecting the next child in about six months."
Timo was in shock. Ms. Weigand and Holger married? Holger, who seemed so dimwitted before, was actually able to manage a town and become the mayor of it? And a child as well, with another on the way? Didn't anyone from Hamelin ever run into Ute, Timo's long lost love?
"Interesting," Timo answered, pretending to sound bored with Michael's talk. Just before he could get another word in, a panicking shriek cried from above, and in less than a second, a starved rat was in Timo's cupped hands. Michael jumped a few feet back, gasping in shock.
"A rat!"
"Calm yourself," Timo grinned. "This is a pet of mine, he travels with me. Now listen, I'm not in the mood for more chatter." Timo realized that with the rat in hand and the look of distress in Michael's eyes, he felt powerful and much more confident in his words. "I am here to stay in this town, at least for a little while. I don't want to be seen or heard from any of Hamelin's citizens besides yourself. Don't offer me a place to stay, this sewer will do. All I ask is for clothing and food. My rat and I are starving and we haven't had any real food to digest in months."
Michael showed his first sign of disapproval by scowling. "Clearly you have no money. You can't expect me to grace your needs for free! The mayor would never approve of your barging into our-"
"Silence," Timo interrupted, again in a dark and calm voice. "With me, I hold a weapon. This weapon will rid of your town's mayor, his wife, and his two children. Then I will become the new mayor, and anyone who opposes me with be struck with this sharp and deadly weapon as well. Do you wish for this to happen?"
Immediately, Michael froze. He shook his head, now shaking with eyes watering. "I'll do as you ask, as long as you promise not to hurt me or any other citizens of Hamelin, Sir," Michael managed to gulp. "Allow me to get you some food right away for you and your rat. But please, may I have your name?"
Timo thought as quickly as he could. "You may call me The Pied Piper."