The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
Chapters - Terry Pratchett
Chapter 1: The Plague Scam
[Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice), a talking cat, rides the mail coach through Uberwald with [Keith](characters/NEW_keith), a quiet young musician, and a group of intelligent talking rats including [Peaches](characters/NEW_peaches), who acts as scribe and moral compass. Maurice has been running a profitable scam: the rats fake a plague in a town, Keith plays his pipe to lead them out, and the town pays handsomely. The scheme works because governments always pay to get rid of rats.
The group encounters a highwayman who tries to rob them, but the rats climb up his trouser legs and subdue him. Maurice reflects on how he became intelligent - he lived near the same magical rubbish dump behind the wizards' university where the rats ate spell-contaminated food and gained sentience. [Dangerous Beans](characters/NEW_dangerous-beans), a small albino rat philosopher, and Peaches argue that the scam is unethical, while [Hamnpork](characters/NEW_hamnpork), the old-fashioned clan leader, grumbles about too much thinking. The rats want to save enough money to buy a boat and find an island where they can build their own rat civilisation. After Peaches reveals that Maurice has been swindling them over which coins are gold and which are silver, the group agrees this will be their last job. They ride the stolen horse to a valley town called Bad Blintz.
POV: Maurice·On page: Keith, Peaches, Dangerous Beans, Hamnpork, Donut Enter·Mentioned: Big Savings, Darktan
Chapter 2: Arriving in Bad Blintz
[Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice) and [Keith](characters/NEW_keith) enter Bad Blintz and find a town in distress. The market has almost nothing to sell, and the buildings look rich while the people look poor. A sign offers fifty pence per rat tail - an unheard-of bounty. The Rathaus is distributing rationed bread to citizens who must queue and show papers, overseen by a thin, worried mayor.
Keith begins busking with his pipe, drawing a crowd, before Maurice hurries him away. They encounter two [rat-catchers](characters/NEW_rat-catchers) who carry poles hung with traps and bags of what appear to be rat tails. The rat-catchers are menacing and warn Keith to keep quiet. Maurice notices something suspicious: the rat-catchers have unusually clean boots, and some of the tails they dropped look strange. A man tries to buy Maurice for five dollars, then offers four loaves of bread - a sign of how scarce food has become. A red-haired girl in a black dress watches them from across the square, then marches over and begins interrogating Keith. When Maurice accidentally speaks aloud, she tricks him into revealing himself as a talking cat and demands they come with her or she will scream.
POV: Maurice·On page: Keith, The Rat-Catchers, Malicia Grim·Mentioned: Sardines, Dangerous Beans, Hamnpork
Chapter 3: A Candle in the Dark
Beneath Bad Blintz, the rats establish a base in an abandoned cellar. [Dangerous Beans](characters/NEW_dangerous-beans) lights a candle and speaks about the importance of fire as a symbol of their difference from ordinary rats, while [Hamnpork](characters/NEW_hamnpork) grumbles that darkness was good enough for their ancestors. [Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan), the tough and practical leader of the Trap Disposal Squad, arrives and reports something troubling: the tunnels are full of rat runs and traps, but there are no living rats anywhere in the town.
[Peaches](characters/NEW_peaches) organises the squads. Darktan equips himself with tool belts inspired by a picture book called Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure, which the rats found in a bookshop and which deeply influenced their view of how animals might live alongside humans. He deploys three platoons: widdlers to mark territory, older rats for cheeky food-stealing operations led by [Sardines](characters/NEW_sardines) the irrepressible tap-dancer, and the Trap Disposal Squad itself. [Nourishing](characters/NEW_nourishing), a young rat transferred from the widdlers, joins the trap squad. After the squads depart, Peaches records Dangerous Beans' latest Thought on a scrap of paper in the rats' own pictographic language: No Rat to Kill Another Rat. Meanwhile, Hamnpork shows signs of age and weakness, hiding his trembling from the others.
POV: Dangerous Beans·On page: Peaches, Hamnpork, Darktan, Sardines, Nourishing·Mentioned: Donut Enter
Chapter 4: Malicia's Kitchen
[Keith](characters/NEW_keith), [Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice), and the red-haired girl settle in her father's kitchen. She is [Malicia Grim](characters/NEW_malicia), the mayor's daughter and granddaughter of the famous Sisters Grim who wrote real fairy tales full of blood and bones. She feeds them from a locked food safe, explaining how dire the rat plague has made things. Maurice spins a yarn about belonging to a witch called Griselda.
Malicia reveals her name and her belief that she has inherited the storytelling gift. While she talks about her supposed hardships, [Sardines](characters/NEW_sardines) sneaks in from the ceiling to scout the kitchen. He dodges a thrown pan but runs behind the dresser and triggers a massive trap. Keith desperately pulls down the entire dresser to free him, and Sardines survives thanks to wedging his walking-stick in the trap's jaws. Malicia rapidly deduces the entire scam: talking rats fake a plague, Keith pipes them out, and they split the money. But Sardines raises a disturbing question: there are no other rats in the town at all. Maurice points out that some of the rat tails the rat-catchers display are actually old bootlaces with aglets on the end. Malicia sends Keith and Maurice to hide in the hayloft over the stables.
POV: Maurice·On page: Keith, Malicia Grim, Sardines·Mentioned: Dangerous Beans
Chapter 5: Darktan Disarms the Traps
[Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan) works deep in the tunnels, dangling above a steel trap on a harness to disarm it. He teaches [Nourishing](characters/NEW_nourishing) a harsh lesson about overconfidence: the second mouse gets the cheese, because the first mouse gets the trap. The squad finds alarming amounts of poison throughout the tunnels, including the deadly grey No. 2 that has killed all the ordinary rats. Dead rats litter the passages, but no living ones can be found.
Above ground, [Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice) catches and eats a mouse in the hayloft after confirming it cannot talk. [Malicia](characters/NEW_malicia) arrives with a secret knock and announces her father has sent for the rat-catchers because Sardines' antics have caused complaints. She proposes breaking into the rat-catchers' shed to investigate the fake tails. Meanwhile, underground, a member of the widdling squad reports finding a new type of trap - one that has killed a rat called Fresh by crushing him flat. Darktan arrives to find the widdlers debating what happens to the invisible part of you after death, and whether the Big Rat Deep Under The Ground truly exists. The squad also discovers a live keekee rat caught in a humane trap, emaciated and terrified.
POV: Darktan·On page: Nourishing, Maurice, Keith, Malicia Grim, Inbrine·Mentioned: Dangerous Beans
Chapter 6: The Rat-Catchers' Shed
[Malicia](characters/NEW_malicia) picks the padlock on the rat-catchers' shed with a hairpin, delighting in the adventure. Inside they find a mundane workspace with benches, traps, poisons, and rat skins. Malicia searches fruitlessly for a secret passage while [Keith](characters/NEW_keith) quietly notices something odd: wire netting and a rat hole in a building that should repel rats. He finds a lever inside the hole, triggering a trapdoor that drops him into a cellar below.
Meanwhile, underground, [Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan) leads a cautious exploration towards the source of the captured rat's scent, using a clockwork toy called Mr Clicky to trigger hidden traps ahead of the squad. [Hamnpork](characters/NEW_hamnpork) insists on joining the expedition despite his age, and tensions between him and Darktan simmer as the younger rat diplomatically avoids a direct challenge for leadership. [Dangerous Beans](characters/NEW_dangerous-beans) examines the rescued keekee rat and senses something deeply wrong - the rat is terrified not of humans, dogs, or cats, but of something new and unknown. [Big Savings](characters/NEW_big-savings), the formidable old head female, takes the keekee under her protection.
POV: Maurice·On page: Malicia Grim, Keith, Darktan, Hamnpork, Dangerous Beans, Peaches, Big Savings, Sardines
Chapter 7: The Stolen Hoard
[Malicia](characters/NEW_malicia) and [Keith](characters/NEW_keith) descend into the cellar beneath the rat-catchers' shed and discover a massive hoard of stolen food - grain, sausages, smoked meat, and vegetables. In a connected room they find something far worse: wall-to-wall cages crammed with rats, thousands of them, packed so tightly they are eating one another. The smell and the psychic pressure of their terror fills the air.
[Hamnpork](characters/NEW_hamnpork), who has reached the same room from underground with [Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan)'s squad, is shaking with fury. He screams at the humans to open the cages, then attacks Malicia, swarming up her dress before Keith pulls him off. Hamnpork bites Keith's finger in his rage. The [rat-catchers](characters/NEW_rat-catchers) arrive and catch them. Rat-catcher 1 punches Malicia unconscious and breaks Keith's pipe. Hamnpork is thrown into a cage with two savage rats but kills them both. The rat-catchers plan to use him in the rat pit tonight and discuss disposing of the children. A strange disembodied voice begins giving the rat-catchers orders, telling them to use the arriving piper. [Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice) hides in a drain and watches, unable to help, as Keith and Malicia are dragged away and tied up.
POV: Maurice·On page: Malicia Grim, Keith, Hamnpork, Darktan, The Rat-Catchers, Sardines, Spider·Mentioned: Peaches
Chapter 8: Spider in the Drains
[Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice) crawls through drains and cellars trying to find a way out, but encounters a sinister telepathic voice that calls itself [Spider](characters/NEW_spider). The voice tries to control his movements and see through his eyes. Maurice discovers that closing his eyes blocks Spider's surveillance, and that his coating of foul mud masks his scent from Spider's rat servants - large, fierce rats that hunt for him in the dark.
Maurice finds [Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan) and [Peaches](characters/NEW_peaches) regrouped in a larger drain. The Clan is in crisis: the telepathic voice caused mass panic, making many rats forget how to talk and flee mindlessly. Even Toxie, the literate assistant, ran off gibbering. [Dangerous Beans](characters/NEW_dangerous-beans) is devastated, feeling that underneath their intelligence the rats are just rats after all. Maurice reluctantly confesses a guilty secret: he once ate a Changeling rat called Additives, which may be why he gained intelligence. [Sardines](characters/NEW_sardines) reports that the rat-catchers have taken [Hamnpork](characters/NEW_hamnpork) to a rat pit at stables on the edge of town. Darktan declares they must rescue Hamnpork and sets out with Sardines and [Nourishing](characters/NEW_nourishing).
POV: Maurice·On page: Peaches, Darktan, Dangerous Beans, Sardines, Nourishing, Spider·Mentioned: Hamnpork, Keith
Chapter 9: Peaches Slips Away
Keith and [Malicia](characters/NEW_malicia) are freed from their bonds by rats with a knife. Malicia picks the lock on their cellar door, but her dismissive comments about Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure - calling it stupid, cosy nonsense - devastate [Peaches](characters/NEW_peaches) and [Dangerous Beans](characters/NEW_dangerous-beans), who slip away heartbroken. [Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice) confesses to the rats that he ate Additives, a Changeling, and that this may be how he became intelligent. His conscience forces the admission out of him.
The voice of [Spider](characters/NEW_spider) grows stronger in Maurice's head, taunting him and threatening the others. [Keith](characters/NEW_keith) devises a plan: he puts rat poison into the rat-catchers' sugar, and when they return from a disastrous evening at the rat pit (where [Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan) and [Sardines](characters/NEW_sardines) rescued [Hamnpork](characters/NEW_hamnpork)), Maurice confronts them from the rafters. The rat-catchers drink poisoned tea and are terrified into confessing everything: they have been stealing food, breeding rats for the rat pit, and - most importantly - one of them made a rat king to join the Guild. They are locked in the cellar with a supposed antidote while Keith and Malicia keep the key.
POV: Keith·On page: Malicia Grim, Maurice, Peaches, Dangerous Beans, The Rat-Catchers, Spider·Mentioned: Darktan, Sardines, Hamnpork
Chapter 10: Darktan and the Big Rat
[Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan) is caught in an ancient Breakback trap. As consciousness fades, he sees a tunnel of purple light and a white figure approaching - the Big Rat. But [Nourishing](characters/NEW_nourishing) gnaws through the rusted spring and drags him back to life. Transformed by the experience, Darktan refrains from setting fire to the rat pit building even though he could burn all the humans inside.
Returning to the Clan's base, [Hamnpork](characters/NEW_hamnpork) dies quietly in the darkness, asking that the light be put out so he can die like a proper rat. Darktan buries him with a sign and a ceremonial widdling. [Sardines](characters/NEW_sardines) counsels Darktan to embrace his new role as leader, using his near-death experience as a source of authority. Maurice follows a trail of blood and finds [Peaches](characters/NEW_peaches)' sodden notes and the waterlogged remains of Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure in a gutter. [Spider](characters/NEW_spider)'s voice taunts him, claiming to have found [Dangerous Beans](characters/NEW_dangerous-beans) and Peaches. Darktan rallies the remaining rats with a blood-mark ceremony, touching each rat's forehead with blood from his wound, and leads them into the tunnels to find and destroy whatever evil lurks there.
POV: Darktan·On page: Nourishing, Hamnpork, Sardines, Maurice, Peaches, Dangerous Beans, Spider, Inbrine
Chapter 11: Facing the Rat King
[Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice) is herded by [Spider](characters/NEW_spider)'s rats into a cellar where [Dangerous Beans](characters/NEW_dangerous-beans) and [Peaches](characters/NEW_peaches) face the rat king - eight rats with their tails knotted together, each blind, sharing one powerful mind. Spider reveals its plan: it has been breeding the strongest, most savage rats from the rat pit, and when the piper leads them out, they will swim free and spread to other towns, carrying Spider's controlling intelligence with them. Spider offers Dangerous Beans an alliance, and the little rat appears to consider it.
But Dangerous Beans rejects Spider, declaring he will not join something built on cruelty. Spider unleashes a psychic blast that strips Maurice's intelligence away, reducing him to pure feral cat instinct. The cat that remains attacks the rat king in a savage frenzy, tearing apart the knot of tails and destroying Spider. A dropped match sets the straw on fire. Maurice carries the unconscious Dangerous Beans through the flames and collapses. In a vision, Maurice meets Death and his associate the Bone Rat, and bargains two of his remaining lives to save Dangerous Beans. He wakes, battered and burned, as [Keith](characters/NEW_keith) and [Malicia](characters/NEW_malicia) put out the fire. [Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan) rallies the Clan to sweep the tunnels clean of Spider's remaining feral rats.
POV: Maurice·On page: Dangerous Beans, Peaches, Spider, Darktan, Keith, Malicia Grim, Sardines, Nourishing, Inbrine
Chapter 12: The Piping Contest
The Rat Piper arrives at dawn - an arrogant man in black and white who demands one thousand dollars and treats the town with contempt. [Keith](characters/NEW_keith) publicly challenges him to a piping contest, with [Malicia](characters/NEW_malicia) backing him up by invoking the story logic of mysterious orphans. Keith plays a borrowed trombone and not a single rat emerges, because the Clan have kept the keekees caged and refuse to follow the piper's music. The piper fails spectacularly and Keith wins his magical pipe.
[Maurice](characters/NEW_maurice) then takes centre stage in the Rathaus, acting as negotiator between the town council and the senior rats. He proposes a revolutionary arrangement: the rats will serve as vermin controllers, craftspeople, and tourist attractions in exchange for food, rights, and legal protection. [Darktan](characters/NEW_darktan) and the mayor share a private conversation in which both leaders admit how exhausting and complicated leadership truly is. A contract is drawn up with hundreds of clauses covering everything from compulsory bells on cats to rat officers in the Watch. The rat-catchers are arrested. In the epilogue, the town of Bad Blintz prospers as a tourist destination famous for its talking rats, its rat clock, and its young Rat Piper. Keith stays as the official piper and befriends Malicia. Maurice, true to form, moves on downstream to find a new stupid-looking kid and start a fresh adventure.
POV: Maurice·On page: Keith, Malicia Grim, Darktan, Sardines, Peaches, Dangerous Beans, Nourishing, The Rat-Catchers