literature

Abigail and the Rats of NIMH - Chapter 32

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A car pulled over at the side of a road near a stop sign, the area at the side of the road covered by foliage. It was around 9 in the morning, the sun low in the sky. A couple exited the car, and Penny peered through the bushes.

“Mom! Dad!” she called out, with Bernard and Bianca sitting on her shoulders.

“Penny?” her mother, Darla, searched and then saw her, running to hug her adoptive daughter. However, she gasped and drew back upon seeing the mice she had on her shoulders.

“What do you think you’re doing?” her father, a tall man in a coat and fedora hat named Ted Stacy, demanded, “You’re supposed to be at the institution!”

“I had to leave,” Penny said, “Look, I’m going to need to you to trust me on this. I know it’s going to sound crazy. I need a ride to Bethesda.”

“What you need is help! What’s with those mice?”

“Maybe we should listen,” said Darla.

“These mice helped me escape,” Penny explained, “They undid my straight jacket. They’re names are Bernard and Bianca, and they’re the same mice who rescued me from Madame Medusa.”

“You’re a sick woman, Penny,” said Ted, “You need help. I thought we’d agreed those mice were in your imagination. Even if there were mice they’d have died years ago.”

“Please, listen to your daughter Mr. Stacy!” Bianca pleaded.

Penny studied her parent’s faces. But all her parents heard were small squeaks. She sighed a little, and picked Bernard and Bianca up in her hands.

“Look, Mom and Dad. They’re standing on two legs. They’re wearing clothes.”

“You must have dressed them up,” Darla said, looking closely at the two mice.

“Where would I have gotten doll-sized clothes? I’ve been hiding in bushes for the past five hours.”

“I’ll try writing something,” said Bernard.

“Hold on, do you two have a pen in your car? I’ll show you,” said Penny, taking a receipt out of her pocket which she’d found on the ground near the gas station where she had used a pay phone to call her parents.

“A pen? What’s the meaning of this?” Mr. Stacy demanded.

“There might be one in the glove box,” suggested Darla.

Penny opened the car door and rummaged through the glove box, finding a pen and then placing Bernard and Bianca on the hood of the car with the receipt. Bernard grabbed the pen, which was rather large for him and put it to the paper as Penny’s parents watched.

“What in blazes is it doing?” asked Penny’s father.

Bernard held the paper up. It read ‘Penny is telling the truth.’ Penny’s parents simply stared, mouths agape.

____________________________________________________________________


“I think we’ve all gone crazy, all three of us,” Ted Stacy muttered as they rode down the freeway in the car, Penny and Bernard and Bianca riding in back as Wilbur hitched a ride on the roof of the car, “Why do you want to go back to Bethesda anyway? What do these rats want from you?”

“Let’s just say there are reasons I’m not allowed to talk about everything that goes on at work,” said Penny, “We’ve been finding more and more intelligent rodents, not all of them created by our scientific meddling either, and of course, this brought back memories from my childhood. Ones I’d tried to bury.”

“I guess we should have believed her back then…” said Darla Stacy, still in disbelief.

“I’m not sure I would have believed me either,” said Penny, “But…things are terrible at NIMH. Knowing that these rodents are sentient, just like you and me, I can’t let the experiments go on.”

“You’re not going to do anything that’ll get you arrested, are you?” asked Penny’s father.

“I’m not going to lie, it might. But…all I need you to do is take me back to my apartment. I won’t hold you responsible for anything else.”

“Do you really want to throw everything you’ve worked and gone to school for away for this?” her dad asked.

“I have a promise to keep,” said Penny, “I’ve been hurting these smart rodents for a long time. Now I know what I’ve done wrong, and I need to save them. Even if it means I get in trouble for it. Besides, if I got caught they’d probably just send me back to the psychiatric ward if worse came to worse. Which is just where I’d be right now anyway if not for Bernard and Bianca.”

“I don’t like this,” said Darla, “You’ll be breaking the law.”

“I’m doing what I feel is right, law or no law,” said Penny, “I have my keycard at my apartment somewhere. I’ll go in at night and free all the mice, and that will be that.”

“Then what?” asked Ted.

“Then…maybe I’ll flee the state. I don’t know. But Bernard and Bianca will be looking out for me no matter what happens.”

“What can a bunch of rats do?” asked Ted.

“You’d be surprised. They rescued me before, didn’t they? I’ll be alright…I know I will, in the end.”

Penny’s parents didn’t like it, but were too bewildered by the entire thing to say no. So they followed the highway to Bethesda, unaware that there were more mice looking to join their mission to liberate NIMH.

_________________________________________________________________


The woods gradually gave way to a suburb as Gadget piloted the Ranger Wingamathing and followed the road. This time the furlings had a better idea of what they were looking at; cars, houses, telephone poles. It may in fact have been the exact same suburb they’d seen upon leaving Dapplewood for the first time. Yet now they had an idea of where to go, following the green signs on the freeway. Brutus shuddered at seeing human civilization for the first time since escaping NIMH.

“Look at them down there, like little ants. Thinking they’re so powerful. Thinking we’re nothing but vermin to be trounced upon. We’ll show them what we’re really made of.”

“That’s the spirit, Brutus,” said Abigail, thinking it would be best to try and be friendly with the rat who was supposed to be her bodyguard now.

“I don’t think we should stop at rescuing your friends,” said Brutus, “We need to send them a message that they can’t do this anymore.”

“Not sure how that’s gonna work,” said Gadget, “Our priority should be rescue first and foremost.”

“I’ll let you peons be in charge of that,” Brutus said, “We have all the power we need in that stone.”

“I’m not sure the stone is meant to be used to cause destruction,” said Abigail, “Didn’t Mrs. Brisby just use it to save her family? It’s meant to be used in emergencies.”

“We’ll see about that. The stone will do what it needs to protect its wearer.”

They continued on for some time, until finally reaching the city of Bethesda. It wasn’t a huge city, but then, just about every city was huge to the furlings. Gadget surveyed the landscape until finding what looked to be a library, and she landed the Ranger Wingamathing on the roof.

“You guys stay put,” said Gadget, “Zipper, Dale and I will go in and find a phone book in here or something.”

“Me?” Dale asked.

“As you wish,” said Brutus, unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing out of the plane, stretching, “I’ll make sure these imbecilic brats stay safe.”

Hey!” Michelle said angrily.

Brutus drew his spear and began practicing with it, jabbing and slashing imaginary enemies, as Gadget found an air vent for them to enter. It would be around a two hour wait before the Rescue Rangers had any success in locating a phone book, and then succeeding in locating Penny’s apartment. Edgar and Russell moved to the front and took to fiddling with the radio and listening to different stations; they weren’t sure if Gadget would object to this, but reasoned now that they were in civilization again, it was safer to use the batteries.

“How did you get so good at that?” Abigail asked after watching Brutus practice for a good while.

“Lots of practice,” he answered, “You could do with learning some self defense yourself. The way you bested me you might be a natural for it.”

“I’ve never used a weapon on anyone,” Abigail said, twirling her hair meekly. It was true, she’d never been in a real fight beside the one with Brutus, though she did know how to throw a mean punch as Willy could attest to.

“This thing’s probably too heavy for you. You strike me as someone who’d be good with a dagger, or maybe even a one-handed sword if you got good enough.”

Brutus unstrapped the dagger from his hip and tossed it at Abigail, who made a clumsy grab for it in the air, being caught off guard.

“Woah,” Willy said, staring at the sheathed blade, “Is he giving that to you?”

Abigail inspected it for a moment, before sliding the dagger out of it’s sheath. It’s blade shone in the sun, and tapered to a razor sharp point.

“We forge our own blades at Thorn Valley,” Brutus explained, “Using melted down materials from human scrap metal. That thing probably wouldn’t do much to a human though, unless you stab them in the right place. But who knows what else we might go up against.”

“I don’t know much about fighting with these,” Abigail confessed.

“Before that scientist woman comes back maybe I can teach you a little,” Brutus offered, “Come on out here.”

Abigail climbed out of the plane, and the rest of the furlings watched. Abigail held onto the dagger with two hands, pointing it at Brutus.

“Oh please, is that what you think of as a fighting stance? Here,” Brutus took one of Abigail’s hands off the hilt, shoving one of her ankles back with his foot so that she had one foot forward, making her wince and stumble a little, “There, now chamber your fist, but keep it open  a little so you can grab.”

Abigail did as she was told, and looked up to Brutus for further instruction.

“Good good, now when I grab the strap of your overalls like so, what do you do?”

He grabbed the left strap of her overalls and nearly picked her up by it. She tried to struggle for a moment but he wouldn’t let go. Finally she grabbed onto his bicep with her left hand and pretended to slash his arm with her dagger.

“Not bad,” Brutus said, going down to one knee and clutching his arm, “So you’ve got me down, paying more attention to my arm than you. What now?”

“I run?” she asked.

“You could do that. But you have a dagger. Why not finish me?”

“You’d no longer be a threat.” she answered.

“No longer be-- what is it with you??” Brutus shook his head, “Well if you actually wanted to eliminate the threat, you could jab the dagger into the throat, sidekick them in the jaw, or anything you wanted to. But you‘d have to use that one instant where they‘re distracted. And you have to be ready for the ones who ignore the pain and keep going after you. Unless you stab them good there are some who won‘t stop.”

At this time, Gadget climbed up from the air vent, pulling Dale up with Zipper flying out himself. Edgar shut the radio off quickly and they moved to the back seats again, hoping Gadget wouldn’t notice.

“We’ll practice more later perhaps, hm?” Brutus said, climbing back into the plane.

“Golly, what are you doing with that?” Gadget asked Abigail.

“Brutus gave it to me,” she said, sheathing the dagger and trying to get the belt around her waist, having never worn a belt before.

“The girl needs to learn to defend herself,” said Brutus.

“There are ways of defending yourself without killing,” Gadget said, getting into the driver’s seat, “I prefer using plunger weapons, for instance.”

“Are all you mice like that?” Brutus scoffed, “No wonder you’re having so much trouble.”

“What did you guys find out?” asked Edgar.

“I think we found her,” Gadget replied, pulling her goggles down over her eyes, “She lives really close to NIMH. We were gonna head over now, you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Abigail replied.

“I still think this is a stupid idea,” Brutus grunted.

“We better not end up in a rat trap or worse,” Dale sighed.

Gadget disregarded the nay-saying and started the engine. The plane took off following the streets, Gadget paying attention to the street names and consulting a small map drawn on a piece of paper she’d made herself. But then they finally came upon the humble apartment complex they were looking for, none of them bore notice to the black van parked along the sidewalk outside. They flew on, searching for the correct building number, and hoping that whoever was inside would help them.
With no further delay, here is the chapter. Seems all of our protagonists are headed for the same place. But...has someone already headed them off there? Find out in the next chapter.

Despite the higher chapter count the story hasn't surpassed Olivia Goes West in page or word count yet. Stay tuned though, give it a few chapters.
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sonicfighter's avatar
Great work on this chapter buddy.