5 The Piper

5. THE PIPER A crowd had gathered outside the Town Hall, spilling from its doors to witness the Pirate Piper deliver on his promise. At its center was Captain Horatio Rattus, pipe in hand. He held the instrument to his lips, waiting a few moments to add to the drama and suspense.

The crowd was silent, barely breathing, as he began to play. The soft notes that left the pipe floated on the morning breeze, spreading through the town. Almost immediately came the scratching and squeaking of a thousand rats, scurrying through alleyways and sewers, over rooftops and gardens, bursting from drains and bins and shops and houses. They swarmed toward the Pirate Piper. The crowd gasped and held on to one another as the rats ran toward them, but the Piper skipped across the town square and disappeared from view with the rats

thronging behind him, as thousands more joined the furry congregation. The crowd remained silent, listening to the pipe in the distance as it traveled street by street through Dull-on-Sea. They heard it travel up the hill, along the cliff tops on the edge of town, and down the other side of the hill, where they caught a glimpse of the piper, encircled by thousands of dancing rats, before he disappeared from sight once again. Then the music grew louder again as the Pirate Piper returned to the center of town. He led the rats along the main street and down to the waterfront, where the wharves and docks were awash with fur and the pattering of claws.

An hour earlier, Captain Horatio Rattus had arrived unnoticed while almost every resident of Dull-on-Sea was at the emergency meeting. His hulking ship, the Black Death, with its patched sails, frayed lines, and flaking paint, looked down- at-the-heels when moored beside the sparkling yachts and fishing boats in the harbor. It cast dark shadows across their varnished decks. Now the Pirate Piper skipped along the rail of his ship, merrily dancing and playing his pipe, while the rats watched and listened, mesmerized. Three gangplanks creaked as thousands

of rats scurried aboard, following wooden walkways into three enormous crates, which were waiting on the deck. When the last of the rats had entered the crates to join the writhing, wriggling mass of fur and tails, the Pirate Piper unsheathed a knife from his belt and severed a rope. Block and tackle rattled and squealed as ropes spun, pulling the hatches on each crate closed before hoisting them high into the air. The rats were trapped, suspended in the Black Death's rigging.

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