[SPEAKER_00]: The Rat King by Patty Larson.
[SPEAKER_00]: This story contains scary scenes and may not be appropriate for all ages.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan is back in the second book in the adventures of Susan and Tucker called the Rack King.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is at her house and wondering where Tucker is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan is having trouble sleeping and certainly cannot tell her parents why she is having bad dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: She can only sleep well when Tucker is there, but he has not been around very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: the Rat King chapter one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The darkness echoes with faint squeaking that grows louder and louder.
[SPEAKER_00]: The distant red pinpoint glow of lights appearing next.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the sound builds, so does the brightness, until she's surrounded by wriggling, chattering bodies that push against her.
[SPEAKER_00]: rushing her with their wiery tails and rough fur.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their long nose is wet, as they press to her skin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their shining eyes on blinking, while they squeeze her tighter and tighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: One voice breaks through, lisping over the S sound and crackling with anger.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think they've beaten us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, as the squeaking grows louder in response, scuffling and scuttling giving her goosebumps.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've only just begun to fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their arrogance will be their downfall.
[SPEAKER_00]: The calls of the rats rise until Susan cries out in pain, clutching at her ears to try to drown them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no matter what she does, the sound makes it through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dulling all her senses until she simply can't take it without screaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kat's city will be ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: She can't stay on her feet any longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wailing out loud over the voices of the many who crush her with their endless motion.
[SPEAKER_00]: The weight of the rats pulls her to the ground, where they swarm over her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny pinprix of claws jabbing her skin, her cry of fear drowned out in their constant squeals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan sat upright in bed, her heart pounding very hard, quick breaths coming sharp and fast as she pressed both hands over her mouth to keep from letting out her own scream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or another, since she knew she'd had such trouble in the past,
[SPEAKER_00]: She waited a long time in the semi-darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The nightlight mom installed next to her door, casting just as many shadows as it banished, back to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost making the black pools left behind worse, not better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes her bad dreams brought mom or dad running, or both on really bad nights.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had she screamed out loud this time as she had many times before?
[SPEAKER_00]: When the sound of their door opening and footfalls didn't come, Susan sighed deeply in relief.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either she had and they'd missed her bad dream, or she'd only cried out in her dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Greatful, she hadn't woken her parents, even as she wished for their comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: She finally sank back into her pillow and burrowed deeply under the heavy comforter until even her dark hair was tucked under the patchwork quilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't help her anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how many times they asked, she simply couldn't tell them why she was having bad dreams because she had promised she never would.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Susan knew if she started to explain everything would come rushing out.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was sure of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took a long time for her heart to settle, for her gasping breaths to quiet down to normal, while her skin tingled with the memory of the bad dream haunted by rats.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd never had any kind of trouble with such things before moving to the big house in the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her friend Paula in her old school, grand-point elementary even had two white rats that she'd let Susan play with a few times.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd always found them silly and funny and rather interesting with their expressive faces and the way they washed their whiskers with their human like hands, so clever and kind of sweet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while their red eyes gave her the creeps the first time she met them, she'd learned they were simply that shade because they were all binos, lacking in color, rather than anything to do with being evil or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If only the rats she dreamed about had been as friendly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan knew better, shivering as she lay there, trying not to think about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of her wished she could just explain to Mom and Dad why she was having nightly visits from the horrible creatures.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd started a week ago, seemingly out of the blue, at least according to her parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: While there was nothing out of the blue about it, they had no way of knowing where Susan had been, what she'd been doing, who she'd been saving a magic city under their new house with.
[SPEAKER_00]: She exhale, they long sigh under the blankets, heating the air until she had to pull them back so she could get a fresh, cool breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking about Kat City and her adventure there, made her restless.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd had the chance to stay, but came home to be with Mom and Dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: She knew it was the right choice, but it was so hard not to wish she could go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Return to the amazing city in the valley underground.
[SPEAKER_00]: To feel the magic that had been awoken inside her during her time there.
[SPEAKER_00]: To talk to the cats who understood what she'd gone through, what they'd all gone through.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were times that cat-city felt like a dream, as though she had made it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan shifted under the covers, staring at the ceiling and the leaves from the tree outside, who shadows danced across the surface.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first night, Tucker had been with her, and she'd slept peacefully with him at her side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe her cat friend, once thought an ordinary butterscotch tabby, and gatekeeper of the magical city below, had kept the bad dreams away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps, it had been the weiriness of recovering from stopping the traders, Kai and Julian, from turning cat city over to the evil rats that had helped her rest so peacefully that first night.
[SPEAKER_00]: But trouble started the very next day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan woke to find Tucker gone and no amount of searching turned him up again.
[SPEAKER_00]: She knew he had responsibilities in the city and didn't worry so much, not until he failed to appear that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Panic had been a natural response, she believed, even if her parents had no idea why she was so anxious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had something gone wrong again?
[SPEAKER_00]: She had tossed and turned for hours the second night, worried the rats had found a way through the gate and into the city after all, and that her cat friends were in danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: She finally fell asleep, of course, not that she got any rest at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mom and dad had both come running when Susan woke up screaming about the rats.
[SPEAKER_00]: The third night, still without Tucker to comfort her, and despite Susan's efforts to hide her fearful dreams, mom sat with her for over an hour, waiting for her to go back to sleep, and had installed the nightlight the next morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no matter what mom and dad tried, Susan simply couldn't shake the terrible things that haunted her.
[SPEAKER_00]: If only she could tell them why,
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was only one other soul she could confide in, and not only was he missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't talk to her the way she would have liked, even if he was the best listener ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan smoothed the surface of the blankets, tensing when she heard something moving near her door.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was just the floor creaking, the old house stretching dad would say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not any approaching rats to worry about.
[SPEAKER_00]: She slowly pulled the covers up until only her nose and eyes were exposed, fighting the thickening in her throat and the burning in her eyes that was so familiar to her now.
[SPEAKER_00]: She almost crawled out of bed to go wake mom, but it wasn't her mom she really wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: She needed Tucker, but he wasn't here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while she knew she was being silly, assuming something was wrong, instead of trusting he was doing his part to keep the city safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing it didn't help much when at times like these, she wanted to weep in frustration.
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd helped defeat the rats, the traders to the city, and had calm home again, bowing to protect the cats in their secrets.
[SPEAKER_00]: She shouldn't have to suffer like this when she was doing the right thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It simply wasn't fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan's door creaked and she tensed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the house that time, but some...thing approaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was mom checking on her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would have heard her parents door open.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it wasn't mom or dad that pushed open the door a crack and made it complain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please let it just be her imagination.
[SPEAKER_00]: She hated being afraid, fought against it, arguing with herself as she clutched the top of the blankets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just look silly, she thought to herself, even as something heavy landed on the foot of the bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the end of this part.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good night, sleep tight.