literature

Abigail and the Rats of NIMH - Chapter 15

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Coming in for work was extremely difficult for Penny the next day, but, she managed to pull herself together again that morning, clean up the shards from the broken mirror and put her makeup on in the bathroom instead. With her dyed blond hair in a bun, thick framed glasses and white lab coat on, she felt much more confident. Her insecure inner-child was masked by a strong, logical, down-to-Earth scientist. Though her resolution remained the same; if her childhood delusions turned out to be real, she’d need to look for another job. Even though she’d worked hard to get this one. Her degree could get her into other fields, she knew. Already this job involved crossing more moral boundaries than she was comfortable with. The animal testing aspect had never been what attracted her to the study of behavioral psychology in the first place. It was more the desire to help children who were as lost as she used to be.

She stepped out of her car and walked from the parking lot into NIMH, swiping a key card through doors until reaching the lab itself.

“Hey Penny,” Dr. Clark greeted her casually, sitting at an examination table and watching as an unfortunate woodmouse navigated a tiny maze. Dead ends emitted a small shock, but the mouse had learned to avoid these through trial and error.

“Good morning,” Penny replied, “Any new findings?”

“Well we’ve found that our badger specimen is literate, as we’d suspected,” he said, holding up a small paper, “Though he’d refused, we finally got this out of him through a little persuasion, as it were.”

Upon closer examination, Penny could make out the words ‘Let Us Out You Monsters’. Somehow the words struck her to the core, like a punch to the gut. But her face betrayed no emotion.

“Well, being intelligent doesn’t automatically make you literate,” Dr. Stacy remarked, giving the small piece of paper back to Dr. Clark, “Someone had to have taught him.”

“That’s why we think someone must have been behind this. Someone must have somehow genetically altered these animals, and not only that, but taught them afterward.”

“But then what of Nimnul’s specimens?” Dr. Stacy asked.

“Personally, and Dr. Strauss probably agrees, I think Nimnul must have had something to do with creating those. He’s so crazy maybe he doesn’t even remember.”

“He’s legally sane now,” she rolled her eyes, “But they didn’t turn up positive for the hormone, so…”

“So we don’t know what’s going on. Could have been genetic altering by a scientist, could have been mutations, could even be simple evolution.”

The woodmouse, an adult male by the look of it, finally reached the center of the maze, retrieving a block of cheese and eating it hungrily. He was rather anthropomorphic, walking along on two legs. It was something they’d never seen previously. Poor little guy must be starving, Penny thought.

“Less than five minutes,” Dr. Clark said, marking notes on a clipboard, “This stuff is too easy for them.”

“So, anything that needs to be done?” Dr. Stacy asked.

Dr. Clark looked up at the clock, “It’s about time to medicate some of the animals. Why don’t you do that while I enter this into the database. And put the mouse back in its cage while you’re at it.”

Dr. Stacy did not like this idea. Being left in the room with their prisoners. The guilt was already too much. Just one more day, she thought. That is unless she didn’t find anything. Didn’t they offer tours at the UN building? She thought so. But, for now she needed to go through the motions.

“Certainly,” she replied finally, swallowing her guilt and focusing on the task at hand.

Dr. Clark got up from his seat, carrying the clipboard out through the door, leaving Penny alone in the room with their captives. She stared down at the mouse as he finished his cheese, and then looked up at her with caution. Penny switched the power off on the maze.

“Mazes are too simple for you, hm?” she mused, grabbing a latex glove from the counter and snapping it on, “Well you don’t look worse for the wear.”

She reached down and picked the mouse up, taking it to one of the open cages. She held the mouse a bit more gently than she would have before. Placing it in the cage, she shut the door and locked it. Penny then walked back to the counter again, opening up a cabinet and taking out some bottles of experimental drugs. Most were used to treat various mental deficiencies and disorders, some of which were induced on the rodents first, via lobotomies and such.

“Let’s see…” she put the bottles on the table and picked up a clipboard which listed which specimens were to receive which drug, “Ah, alright.”

She began going down the list, in order of specimen number. Some of the pills could be added into their water bottle where they’d dissolve and be drunk later, others needed to be added into their food. And if any of the specimens refused to take their pills they’d be manually forced to by a scientist later. Penny hoped that wasn’t going to be her job.

“Hm, and some experimental arthritis drugs…” she noted, going for a pill bottle, “That’s somewhat unusual.”

She walked to the cage of the specimen. It was the badger. The one who could evidently read and write. She unlocked the door. The haggard old badger squinted in the light. She remembered when they captured this one; workers cutting down the tree it had fled into, and being shocked to find a little library inside. He’d been wearing clothes too, and little glasses. A human had to have been involved at some point. How else could it be possible?

She placed a pill in his bowl of food pellets.

“There you are, Mr. Badger,” she said, wondering if it could understand her.

She watched as he slowly got up, making his way to the dish, rubbing his back. He gave her a curious, but embittered look.

“It’s supposed to help you, you know,” she said, “Has it been working?”

The badger stopped, and studied her face. No other scientist had tried talking to him directly, on such an equal level.

“Not much, no,” said Cornelius.

Penny froze. Did she hear right? She glanced around, making sure no other scientist was watching.

“Did you just…speak?”

“I believe so,” Cornelius answered, “And you understood me, did you?”

“Yes…”

“Why can’t the other humans understand me then?”

“I…I guess it’s just something I’m able to do…something I was always able to do…”

“I never dreamed I’d actually be speaking to a human…” said Cornelius cautiously, “But, you and your friends, you are hardly a credit to your species.”

“I-I know…” Penny looked down with guilt.

“You do? Why, I was beginning to wonder if your species experienced shame.”

Was she finally going mad? This had to be some part of a nervous breakdown, one that was triggered the night before. Maybe she was regressing to the same childish behavior that made her believe her teddy bear spoke to her when she was young.

“The tests we do are supposed to help humans who are sick. I know that to you it’s probably not a good excuse but…”

Cornelius came closer, frowning, “I will tell you this much, because despite the cruelty you and your fellow humans are inflicting upon us I can see that there is some higher, good purpose for it. The bark of the willow tree in Dapplewood worked much better than this medicine at treating my rheumatism.”

“Willow tree…” Penny repeated, awestruck, “You even know the correct term for your condition. T-tell me, please, how did you become so smart?”

“Why, I was taught by someone when I was young of course, and learned from conducting my own experiments as well, though mine involved inflicting significantly less suffering than yours.”

“How is it that you can speak? That you can read and write?”

“I could always speak, and I said, my teacher taught me when I was young, after I was orphaned by the likes of you.”

“Then where did your teacher learn it?”

“He wasn’t from the forest,” Cornelius said, “He came from someplace far away. No one really knows where he learned it.”

“So then that teacher must have contacted humans.”

“Possible, I suppose. That he lived to tell the tale is more impressive.”

“Hey, you, Dr. Stacy,” came the high-pitched voice of a chipmunk from the cage up above, “Why not let us go, and I’ll tell you what I know. I’m from the city.”

“One of Nimnul’s…” Penny was surprised when the chipmunk spoke, “I…I would like to let you all go but…but I could get into so much trouble…”

“Oi, ya gotta listen to ‘im lass,” came the voice of a mouse with an Australian accent a few cages down, "If ya have a heart at all, ya gotta let us go."

The voices of dozens of rodents then called out from their cages, pleading to be allowed out, some yelling angrily at her and throwing insults. Penny shut Cornelius’ cage and stepped back, bringing her hands to her head and grasping her hair.

“I’m going mad…I’m going insane…”

“Shh, you guys!” yelled Chip, “We’re not gonna win her over like this!”

“Dr. Stacy?” came the voice of Dr. Clark at the door, “What’s upset the animals? I heard squeaks and screeches.”

“You…you can’t hear what they’re saying?” she asked frantically.

“Saying?” Dr. Clark raised his eyebrows.

He couldn’t understand them, she realized.

She shook her head and rubbed her forehead, “F-forget it. I‘ve just not been getting enough sleep lately.”

“Well Dr. Strauss wanted to see you in his office. He said it was important.”

“Dr. Strauss? Well, alright.” Penny answered.

Great, what did he want? She moved through the door, eager to escape the lab. If Dr. Clark couldn’t understand the animals, then she must have imagined the whole thing. She tried her best to collect herself as she walked toward the office of NIMH’s director. For some reason though, she got a sense of foreboding upon being summoned there. She felt like a child who’d just been sent to the principal’s office.

She knocked on the office door, which read “Dr. Heinrich Strauss - Director” in big letters, when she finally reached the end of the long hallway.

“Yes, come in,” said Dr. Strauss.

She entered his office. He sat behind a desk, with Dr. Norton Nimnul seated in a chair in front of it. There was a television with a VCR set up opposite of them. She didn’t like the fact that Nimnul was there. Something told her that wasn’t a good sign.

“Just the person I wanted to see,” said Dr. Strauss, “Prompt as usual.”

“Yes doctor,” Penny said with a nod and a fake smile, “What was it you wanted?”

“I wanted to ask you some questions,” Dr. Strauss said, “You see, in diligently searching for new information on the whereabouts of intelligent rodents, Dr. Nimnul made some…surprising discoveries.”

“Oh?” Penny wondered what that had to do with her. She figured she was about to find out.

“Indeed,” said Nimnul, “In fact, they’re probably more surprising to us than to you, hehe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dr. Nimnul uncovered some archived footage from a news station this morning after reading something on the Internet last night. We were wondering what you could tell us about it.”

“Well, okay…”

“Please, be seated,” Dr. Strauss said, motioning to a chair, “Nimnul, play the video tape.”

Penny pulled up a chair, as Nimnul pressed play. The footage was old and grainy. But…she recognized it immediately.

The news reporter sat at a desk with a piece of paper.

“Because of a courageous little girl named Penny, the world’s largest diamond, the Devil’s Eye, is now in the Smithsonian Institute. But what’s even more important, folks, this little orphan’s dream has come true. Today, she’s being adopted.”

Penny looked on at the TV screen, still in shock. How on Earth did Nimnul dig this up? And just overnight too. She watched as on the screen her foster parents held the younger version of herself in their arms in front of Morningside Orphanage, her fellow orphans cheering her on. The scene cut to a reporter, interviewing her.

“Penny you were a brave little girl to do what you did all by yourself.”

Little Penny picked up Rufus the cat, the poor old cat looking dreadfully uncomfortable, “Oh I didn’t do it all by myself. Two little mice, from the Rescue Aid Society, helped me.”

“Mice? Rescue Aid Society?” the reporter was obviously humoring her.

“Yes, they rescued me!” Penny had said, before whispering into the microphone, “Can I say hello to them?”

The reporter looked dumbfounded as she shouted,  “Hello Bianca! Hi Bernard!”

“You can…talk to these little mice?”

“All the time,” Penny had said with nonchalant confidence, “Mice can talk just like anybody. Didn‘t you know that?”

“Well, I didn’t know that, but I know now, Penny.”


The report concluded with a few facts about the Devil’s Eye diamond, and that Medusa and Mr. Snoops were going to jail for assault on a minor, kidnapping and child endangerment. Nimnul looked over at Penny with a sly smirk, rubbing his hands together. Dr. Strauss stopped the tape.

“Does this stir up any memories for you, Penny?” Dr Strauss asked.

Penny gulped a little, realizing she’d broken out in a cold sweat upon seeing this footage for the first time in sixteen years.

“Yes, that was the day I was adopted, Dr. Strauss.”

“I remember the news reports, come to think of it, but I never put two and two together, I never guessed you were the same girl,” said Dr. Strauss, “A most interesting find indeed.”

Norton Nimnul chuckled deviously, “Seems like she has something to hide, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m not required to recount every little event of my childhood for the sake of this job, now am I?” Penny replied, trying to regain her confidence.

“No, I wouldn‘t expect that,” said Dr. Strauss, “Still, it was…quite brave for such a young girl to foil those criminals and escape all by herself, now wasn’t it?”

“I was a headstrong young girl,” she said matter-of-factly, though she was trembling inside, “I narrowly escaped having my head blown off with a shotgun at one point during the ordeal.”

Nimnul interjected, “Ah, but back then you denied having done it all alone, didn’t you?”

Penny bit her lip.

“I’ll ask the questions around here, Dr. Nimnul thank you very much,” said Dr. Strauss, “ Now then, Dr. Stacy, what can you tell me about this ‘Rescue Aid Society’? Who were Bianca and Bernard?”

“J-just imaginary friends, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes,” Penny said, rehearsing what she’d been forced to believe during her therapy sessions, “I invented them to help me cope through my kidnapping ordeal, out of the desperate need for companionship. They were projections, one adult male and one adult female, representing the idealized parental figures that I lacked.”

“But they were mice?”

Penny nodded, “Yes well, I did have a connection with animals when I was young. They had to be mice because they needed to be small enough to hide from my kidnappers. You see my imagination was very vivid. My mind created what I thought I needed at that time.”

“And this ‘Rescue Aid Society’?”

“Another invention. Look, I don’t know what this has to do with anything. It was all in my imagination, there were no intelligent rodents. And this is all rather personal and private if I do say so myself.”

Dr. Strauss folded his hands and leaned over the desk on his elbows, staring at her from behind his round, shiny spectacles, “Hm. Very well, Dr. Stacy. I apologize for prying into something so personal. We are just looking for any possible lead, you see.”

“But what about the years of therapy she had afterward?” Nimnul interrupted angrily, “She clearly believed in these rodents for a long time, long after she’d already been adopted and had no more need to make up imaginary parental figures!”

Penny glared, “I told you everything.”

Nimnul continued to argue, “But don’t you find it odd that the rodents I found are also self-proclaimed ‘rescuers’, even a little?”

“Coincidences, Dr. Nimnul, now if you please, I’ve told you everything,” Penny said angrily.

“You may go,” said Dr. Strauss, “Thank you for your time, Dr, Stacy.”

Penny got up for her seat, continuing to glare at Nimnul, before turning around and briskly leaving the office in a huff, closing the door hard.

“She’s lying to us,” Nimnul insisted, “She must be trying to protect them!”

“I was hoping that she would come clean when asked upfront,” said Dr. Strauss, standing up and adjusting his spectacles, “We have no solid evidence that Dr. Stacy knows more than she’s letting on besides this tape, but, perhaps keeping her under surveillance while she’s here will turn up something.”

“Hm, we’ll see,” said Nimnul, “I’ll review the surveillance tapes myself if I have to. We’ll see what she’s up to when left alone in the lab with those animals…”
Things aren't looking good for Penny. What will happen when Nimnul reviews the surveillance footage and sees what happened in the lab? Of course, she's still not fully convinced that her ability to talk to animals is real. We do get a cameo from Abigail's father in this chapter by the way (the woodmouse in the maze), I'll drop that little secret here. Can any amount of begging convince Penny to let them go?

Next chapter, we'll see what the furlings are up to.
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sonicfighter's avatar
Uh oh. Their on to Penny.