The Posh Rat Short Story & Audiobook Series: Episode 10 - Tong-Tied!

Tong-Tied!

Reginald “Posh Rat” Twitch strolled into the study of Twitch Mansion, where I was testing an invention with the help of my mole assistant, Barnaby.

“Ah, Poshy, you’re just in time! We’ve nearly perfected the GrappleDroneTM!” I reported.

Barnaby donned a pair of GrappleDroneTM goggles while I strapped a helmet covered in antennae to Barnaby’s head. Barnaby then lifted his arms, wiggled his hips and twirled.

A drone resembling a large mosquito lifted into the air and zoomed out of an open window.

“Remarkable!” shouted Poshy. “And Barnaby can control it from here, just by dancing?”

I nodded. “Yes, turns out Barnaby is a natural!”

Barnaby blushed. But before he could say anything…

Click-tack, Click-tack

… we heard the tell-tale footsteps of Father Twitch. As he entered the study, he didn’t look happy.

“I’m not happy!” Father Twitch growled as he waved his cane. “I was on the patio, eager to drink my afternoon refresher, when a monstrous machine nearly took my head off!”

“Father,” said Poshy, “I must interrupt. I’ve told you before, those trousers you insist on wearing are too ugly to be worn in public.”

I silently agreed. Father Twitch was wearing bright purple-and-green chequered trousers that hurt your eyes to look at.

“Well, I like them!” said Father Twitch. “And keep your machine away from me while I eat my lunch!”

Barnaby waggled his hips and raised his hands. Father Twitch didn’t realise that Barnaby was summoning the GrappleDroneTM.

“Are you mocking me, sir?!” said Father Twitch, indignantly. “Well then, good day!”

He slammed the door behind him just as the drone came flying through the open window and came to rest at our feet. 

“Father’s always upset about something. Anyway, tell me, Barnes,” said Poshy. “If it’s a ‘GrappleDrone’, shouldn’t it be grappling something?”

“Indeed!” I said. “Next, I’ve hidden a package out in the garden. Watch as the GrappleDroneTM brings it back to us!”

I nodded to Barnaby, who performed a shimmy and a shake, sending the drone out of the window again. A few minutes later, Father Twitch was back in the study, wearing different trousers and shaking his fist. He looked furious.

“I’m furious!” he said. But before he could continue, Poshy gestured in approval.

“Those trousers are much more attractive, Father!”

“I had to change them because I continue to be harassed!” said Father in a huff.

He explained that he was out on the patio, about to tuck into a delicious roast beef sandwich, when the GrappleDroneTM appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the sandwich and took off towards the garden.

“So,” continued Father Twitch, “I chased down that wretched machine and yanked my sandwich out of its clutches, only to wind up with mustard all over my trousers. So, you see, I had to change them!”

“We’re dreadfully sorry!” I said as Father left the room. I promised we wouldn’t bother him again.

But not long afterwards, who should come marching in again but Father Twitch. He looked about ready to burst.

“I’m about to burst!” he said, as I prided myself on my powers of observation. “Someone has stolen the Twitch Family tongs!”

“Tongs?” I said, confused.

“Tongs!” Father Twitch replied, clarifying nothing.

As we all headed towards the patio, Poshy explained that in wealthy rat households, ice cubes are transferred from an ice bucket to a glass with special ice cube tongs. Apparently, a tiny sterling-silver pair of tongs has been in the Twitch family for generations.

“I loved them and now they’ve been stolen!” said Father Twitch.

“Now, now,” said Poshy, in calming tones, “let’s go over what happened.”

Father Twitch pointed out a small table where he has his lunch. While he was waiting for Herman the butler to bring him his sandwich, he was using his beloved tongs to add ice to his Rhubarb Spritz when the GrappleDroneTM buzzed over his head, startling him.

“That’s when you came to complain to us the first time,” said Poshy.

“Yes,” said Father. “When I returned to the table, my roast beef sandwich was ready. But your machine grabbed it. When I returned to the table again, I was in desperate need of another Spritz. And that’s when I discovered the tongs were missing!”

Posh gave the account a moment’s thought before saying, “When the drone flew over your head the first time, you must have been so startled that you dropped the tongs without realising! Surely they’re on the ground by the table.”

We all searched under the table, but found nothing.

“Hmm,” Poshy said, observing Father Twitch’s trousers. “You roll up your trouser cuffs in such a manner that a small object could fall and be caught inside them before hitting the ground.”

I was just about to search the cuffs of his father’s trousers when Poshy added, “Ah! But those aren’t the trousers we need to search!”

He was right. If Poshy’s theory about the missing tongs was correct, they would be lodged in the purple-and-green trousers.

“So where are they?” Poshy asked.

Father Twitch said they were stained with mustard, so he had instructed Herman the butler to throw them out.

“Why not just launder them?!” Poshy asked. Father Twitch shrugged. It was too late now. We  checked the rubbish bin that Herman had put the trousers in, but the bin was empty.

It’s a funny thing. Everything we rats have in the UnderUnderground comes from the rubbish humans leave in the Overground. But we don’t really think about what happens to our rubbish. Out of sight, out of mind.

“I know where it goes, it goes,” piped Barnaby. “To the place I’m from.”

It suddenly occurred to Poshy and me that we had no idea where Barnaby grew up. What Barnaby said next astounded us.

“The UnderUnderUnderground!”

Within an hour, Poshy and I had grabbed torch hats and Barnaby was leading us through a tunnel near the Whiskersmith rat tube station. Poshy was the official Tubemeister. He thought he knew every inch of the tube system. So imagine his surprise when Barnaby felt around the floor in the dark and pulled open a trapdoor! A deep, dark tunnel was revealed. We activated our torch hats and climbed down it. Soon we emerged into a bustling metropolis, looking very similar to the UnderUnderground except it was much darker and the city was filled with moles.

“The UnderUnderUnderground,” we whispered in awe.

We wanted to explore every corner of this remarkable world, but Barnaby yanked our arms.

“We haven’t much time!” he said.

Navigating skillfully in the dim light, Barnaby led us to the Repurposing Station, a vast warehouse where we found rubbish being carried along on enormous conveyor belts. Barnaby opened a giant ledger book, reading the raised dots on the pages with his fingers.

“This book catalogues how all the rubbish collected from the UnderUnderground gets reused,” explained Barnaby. “Ah hah! Come with me!”

He brought us to a side room, where industrious moles were holding up a pair of purple-and-green chequered curtains they had just made.

“Great Gouda!” Poshy exclaimed. “My father’s trousers!”

I had to admit, in the dim light and repurposed as curtains, the trousers looked almost attractive. But what of the tongs? Barnaby directed us to a new tunnel being dug. There, we found a mole in a construction hat wearing an ingenious machine, with two metal arms. By turning a crank on his side, the metal arms clapped back and forth in front of him, digging through buckets-worth of dirt at a rapid clip. It took us a minute to realise they weren’t ordinary metal arms.

“The Twitch Family tongs!” I said, impressed.

Barnaby begged us to keep everything we’d seen a secret.

“Don’t worry,” assured Poshy. “We’ll pretend we haven’t seen anything.”

“But Poshy,” I said, “is that really for the best?”

“Well,” said my handsome friend, “a pair of ugly trousers has found a second life in a land where no one can see them well. And a pair of tongs have been put to much better use. All’s well that ends well! And we have the glitching GrappleDroneTM to thank!”

“Yes,” I added, “and good old Barnaby Raisin!”

Barnaby blushed,then shimmied and waved his hands in the air. Not to summon any drones, but simply because he was happy.

The End