For Your Paws Only

  Glory saw the look on his face. She smiled at him. “Come on now, Ozymandias Levinson. You’re an honorary Spy Mice Agency field agent, and you’re part of my team. You are true-blue, and so am I. I won’t let you down. See you at Grand Central!”

  With a final wave, she and Vinnie flew off.

  There was a knock on the bathroom door. Oz opened it a crack.

  “For heaven’s sake, Oz, what’s taking you so long?” his mother asked. “Hurry up now, sweetie! You have a busy day ahead, and you can’t work on an empty stomach. D. B. and her mom are here already. Amelia and I are going to head down to breakfast. We’ll save a spot for you two at the table.” She reached through the crack in the door and tousled her son’s pale blond hair. “I just know you and D. B. are going to win the Bake-Off! I can’t wait to see the two of you up there on that float, riding in triumph!” Lavinia Levinson lifted her caftan-draped arms upward dramatically. As an opera diva, she did a lot of that kind of thing onstage. Offstage, as well.

  “Okay, Mom,” said Oz. “I’ll be right down.”

  He emerged a few minutes later, clean and dressed. “Check this out,” he said, handing D. B. the scrap of paper from Bunsen. “Coded message.”

  D. B. brightened. “Really? Cool.”

  Oz rummaged through the lunch bag for the magnifying glass and cipher disk. “See those two letters?” he said, pointing to the N and A that Bunsen had written in bold across the top of the scrap of paper. “That’s the key to the code,” he explained. “You line those letters up like this.” Oz twisted the cipher disk until the N on the outside ring was lined up with the A on the inside ring. “Read me the rest of the letters and I’ll tell you what they stand for.”

  “S-B-E . . . L-B-H-E . . . C-N-J-F . . . B-A-Y-L,” said D. B.

  As she spoke, Oz found the corresponding letters on the inner ring of the cipher disk and wrote them down. “FOR YOUR PAWS ONLY,” he read aloud.

  “Awesome!” said D. B. “It really works!” She continued to call out the letters, and the decoded message soon emerged: “GLORY IN TROUBLE. CAN’T SING. NEED YOUR HELP. SENDING SHEET MUSIC. HAVE D. B. USE TAPE RECORDER IN EQUIPMENT BAG. NEED TAPE BACK BY 1900 HOURS.”

  “He’s sending music to me?” said D. B., frowning. “Why?”

  Oz rummaged in the lunch bag again and emerged with the miniature tape recorder. “They’ve set up the mission command station in some mouse nightclub called BANANAS!” he explained. “It’s under the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center.”

  “I’ve heard of that place,” D. B. replied. “The Rainbow Room, I mean. It’s a really fancy nightclub, right? A human nightclub, I mean.”

  Oz nodded. “Anyway, Glory’s undercover there with the Steel Acorns. She’s billed as the lead singer. It was B-Nut’s idea. The only problem is, he got her mixed up with their sister Blueberry. Glory says she has a voice like a bullfrog. If she tries to sing tonight, she’ll blow their cover.”

  “Uh-oh,” said D. B., “that’s not good. But I still don’t understand—why would Bunsen send the music to me?”

  Oz prodded his glasses, which had slipped down his nose as usual. “Um,” he replied, “I think he wants you to record the song. He’s probably figured out some way for Glory to lip-sync it.”

  D. B. stood up so fast she nearly knocked Oz over. “Me? No way.”

  “Why not?” said Oz.

  “Glory thinks her voice is bad? I don’t even sing in the shower. I’d probably scare the shampoo. And besides, even if I could sing, I can’t read music.” D. B. folded her arms across her chest. “No way, Oz.”

  “Well I certainly can’t sing for her!” protested Oz. “What are we going to do?”

  He and D. B. stared morosely at the decoded note. Then they looked at each other. “I guess there is somebody else we can try,” said Oz slowly.

  D. B. relaxed her arms. “Oh, yeah,” she said with a relieved smile. “It ain’t over . . . ”

  “ . . . until the fat lady sings,” finished Oz. “We’ll ask my mom.”

  CHAPTER 9

  DAY TWO • WEDNESDAY • 0900 HOURS

  Roquefort Dupont crawled out from underneath the train. “New York, New York!” he crowed, stretching his legs and sniffing the air appreciatively. Donuts, pretzels, pizza, popcorn, bagels—the smells from the train station’s many concession stands were mouthwatering, and Dupont’s eyes glinted greedily. “Now this is my kind of town.”

  Behind him, Scurvy and Gnaw emerged from where they, too, had been clinging to the underside of the train. Limburger Lulu and Limburger Louie, Dupont’s young rats-in-waiting, were right behind them, their eyes wide with astonishment.

  Led by Dupont, the cluster of rats climbed up the side of the platform and cautiously poked their long noses over the edge. A herd of human feet clattered by, and someone trod on Scurvy’s long, droopy whiskers.

  “Hey, watch it, buddy!” he cried.

  “Shut up, you fool!” snarled Dupont in a low tone. “Do you want every human in the place to know we’re here?” He gave his aide a vicious kick, and Scurvy went tumbling back down onto the track. He landed with a thud and clutched his tail, whimpering.

  Dupont turned to his rats-in-waiting. “So, kids, what do you think? Was I right or what? Is Grand Central Station the rat’s pajamas?”

  Limburger Lulu and Limburger Louie nodded enthusiastically in agreement. They always agreed with Dupont. That was their job. This time, however, they really meant it. Limburger Louie’s stomach growled. It had been a long trip, and he was hungry.

  Dupont chuckled. New York always put him in a good mood. “I could use some breakfast too, Louie,” he said. “And we certainly have our choice here. They don’t call it the Big Apple for nothing. But first, we need to rendezvous with the others. We’re meeting under Track Seventy-seven. Easy to remember, because there are seventy-seven of us.”

  Taking one last look around, the rats crept back down and scuttled off into the shadows. Dupont, who as a ratling had spent many a vacation visiting his New York relatives, knew the city like the back of his paw. He led his aides expertly through the tunnels and ductwork and pipes that connected the hallways and tracks, and within a short time they emerged at Track 77.

  “So, where is everyone?” squeaked Lulu, looking around in disappointment.

  “All in good time, my pet, all in good time,” said Dupont. He whipped his tail toward a grate on the far side. “Watch for trains!”

  With that warning, he darted across the track, shoved a sewer grating aside with a thrust of his powerful snout, and disappeared through the hole. Scurvy, Gnaw, and the Limburger twins followed.

  The rats descended into darkness, the twins clutching each other’s tails fearfully as Dupont led them down, down, down into the bowels of the enormous train station. The air soon grew close and warm, filled with the familiar, comforting scent of sewer water. Lulu and Louie breathed a sigh of relief. It was almost like home.

  “Here we are,” announced Dupont, stepping out of the pipe into the large side chamber of a sewer main. Dim light filtered down from somewhere far above, and the steady dripping of water echoed through the dark, dank space. The rats looked around to find that they were no longer alone.

  “Roquefort! You made it! We were getting worried.” A beefy rat stepped forward and slapped Dupont heartily on the back. “Good to see ya!”

  “Uncle Mozzie, you old sewer crawler, you!” growled Dupont, baring his sharp yellow fangs in a smile. “How’s Aunt Parmesan?”

  “Feisty as ever. She sends her love. Says come over for some pasta if you’ve got time. There’s this new restaurant down the street—you should see the stuff they throw out!”

  “For that, I’ll make the time,” replied Dupont. He turned to his aides. “This here’s my Uncle Mozzarella Canal, from right here in the Big Apple. Little Italy, to be exact. Best Dumpster diving in all of Manhattan—if you like Italian food, that is.”

  As Scurvy and Gnaw exchanged greetings with Dupont’s un
cle, another rat stepped forward. A very attractive female rat.

  “Roquefort, mon cher, how delightful eet eez to see you again!” she murmured.

  As Dupont’s aides watched, their beady red eyes popping in amazement, the sleek rat leaned forward and kissed their boss on both cheeks. Was Roquefort Dupont—Lord of the Sewers and supreme leader of Washington’s rat underworld—actually blushing?

  “The pleasure is all mine, Brie,” said Dupont, taking one of her paws in his own and bending over it gallantly to bestow his own kiss in return. He turned to his speechless aides. “May I present Brie de Sorbonne, my cousin from Paris.”

  Brie inclined her head regally at Scurvy and Gnaw, who managed to stutter a greeting. Then she leaned down for a closer look at the twins. “Why, how utterly charmant!” she cried, cradling their furry little faces in her paws. “Roquefort, you never told me zat you were a father!”

  Lulu and Louie’s eyes grew round with astonishment, and Dupont turned a brighter shade of red. “Uh, well, no, I’m not—I mean, I’ve never—they’re not mine, Brie. Just rats-in-waiting.”

  Brie gave him a sly smile. “Aha. So, mon cousin, zee fact is, you are still—how you say—available?”

  By now, Dupont was scarlet from the tip of his ugly snout to the tip of his ugly tail. Before he could speak again, however, a big rat with a powerful set of shoulders thrust himself between him and Brie. “Enough of the pleasantries,” he said rudely. “Time to get down to business.”

  Dupont’s upper lip curled, and he sniffed the air disdainfully. “Stilton Piccadilly,” he snarled. “I thought I smelled you. Since when do you call the shots around here?”

  “Just because you called this meeting doesn’t mean you get to run the show,” Piccadilly retorted. “We’re not your servants. Besides,” he continued, “I didn’t fly all the way from London for chitchat. We’ve got work to do.”

  Turning his back insolently on the British rat, Dupont surveyed the others. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need breakfast first,” he said. “We can hardly be expected to conduct business on an empty stomach. How about it, rodents? Brie, a little petit dejeuner? And you there, Muenster—had anything to eat yet today?”

  Muenster Alexanderplatz, a coal-black rat with a puckered scar alongside his snout, shook his head. “Nein,” he replied, his stomach chiming in with a loud growl.

  A grizzled old rodent with a low-slung belly waddled slowly forward. As he did so, the other rats moved respectfully out of his way.

  “Greetings, Gorgonzola,” said Dupont with a formal bow.

  Gorgonzola inclined his head in response. As the oldest rat in the group, he commanded respect both for his experience and his ferocity—not to mention his legendary appetite. An appetite that included . . . well, things most of his fellow rodents would never consider. Not even Dupont.

  “Sì, Dupont, you are right,” he rumbled, his low, raspy voice brushed with the lilt of his native Italy. “We’ve traveled far. We need food presto before we begin.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the others. Dupont shot Stilton a triumphant look. “Seems you’re overruled,” he said. Holding out a paw to his Parisian cousin, he inclined his head toward the sewer pipe. “Shall we, my dear?”

  As the rats filed back toward the sewer pipe that led up to Track 77, they failed to notice the trio of small figures suspended above them in the shadows.

  “Greedy chaps, aren’t they?” whispered one of them.

  “You can always count on a rat to put his stomach first,” agreed another.

  “Glutton-like they feed, yet never filleth,” replied the third. “To paraphrase the Bard, of course.” He began to climb paw over paw up a long strand of dental floss affixed to the sewer grate far above. “You two stay here and keep a sharp lookout,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’m going to go find the others.”

  CHAPTER 10

  DAY TWO • WEDNESDAY • 0900 HOURS

  “I do not believe I have to wear this,” said D. B., looking down at her apron in disgust. A beaming pilgrim standing on the deck of the Mayflower was plastered across the front, along with the slogan “Your ship always comes in when you bake with Mayflower Flour!” “This is worse than that stupid donkey suit we had to put on for Halloween.”

  She and Oz were standing on a platform in the Waldorf-Astoria’s main ballroom. Behind them was a stove. In front of them was a worktable. Five other identical platforms were placed around the room. On each one stood another team of junior Bake-Off finalists and their assistants, all of them decked out in Mayflower Flour aprons. The adult finalists were in the adjoining ballroom.

  Oz looked over at D. B. “I know what you mean,” he replied. “At least in the costume, nobody could see our faces.”

  “Well they certainly can’t miss our faces now,” snapped D. B. She pointed up at the giant TV screen that hung suspended above their work station. A camera on a tripod at the edge of the platform was trained on them, broadcasting their every movement to the crowd of attendees and judges that thronged the ballroom. Five other cameras and TV screens were positioned around the room to do the same for the other finalists.

  “Is my head really that big?” D. B. complained, squinching up her face and watching as her TV self did the same.

  Amelia Bean glanced over from where she stood talking with Oz’s mother (outfitted today in another flowing caftan, this one black covered in constellations of sequined swirls and loops). She looked up at the screen and frowned, then reached over to adjust one of her daughter’s braids.

  “Mo-om!” protested D. B. “This is a Bake-Off, not a beauty contest!”

  Oz smothered a grin. D. B.’s familiar fussing somehow made him feel better. At least they were in this together. It would be a whole lot worse if he had to face the sharks alone. Still, he wished Glory would hurry up. He glanced over toward the door, wondering when she and the others would arrive.

  The door opened just then, but instead of his tiny colleagues, Jordan and Tank entered the ballroom, reluctantly herded forward by their mothers. They, too, wore matching Mayflower Flour aprons. Jordan looked like he wanted to strangle someone, and Tank’s face was as red as his hair.

  “Shark alert!” Oz whispered, elbowing D. B.

  “Smile for the camera now, Shermie!” said Tank’s mother, prodding him up onto the platform beside Oz. Tank grunted. Pretending to stumble, he stomped on Oz’s foot.

  “Ouch!” said Oz. “What did you do that for?”

  Tank, his back safely to his mother, glared at him. “You’re going to pay for this, Chef Shamu,” he whispered, tugging on his apron. He turned and grimaced at his mother.

  “Good boy,” cooed Mrs. Wilson, snapping a picture. “All of you, now!”

  Jordan stepped up reluctantly beside his classmates. All four mothers whipped out their cameras to record the proud moment.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” came a voice over the loudspeaker. Every head in the room swiveled to see the man in the pilgrim suit standing at a podium in the far corner. “Finalists, are you ready?”

  Oz glanced down at the table. Flour, sugar, eggs, canned pumpkin, chocolate chips. He ticked off the ingredients mentally, then looked up and nodded at a judge who stood in front of them with a clipboard.

  “Let the Twenty-Fifth Annual Mayflower Flour Bake-Off begin!” The man in the pilgrim suit banged a gavel down on the podium. The resulting crack was as loud as a gunshot, and Oz jumped. Loud music began pumping out over the speakers. The camera zoomed in. Oz prodded at his glasses and went to work.

  “Flour!” he called, and D. B. handed him the Mayflower bag. Oz measured out two cups expertly and dumped them into the bowl in front of him. He quickly fell into a comfortable rhythm as one by one he called for the ingredients, and one by one D. B. handed them over. Cooking was as familiar to Oz as his own skin. Not that he’d ever let the sharks know that. They’d use it against him. Sharks always did.

  He glanced over to where J
ordan and Tank were standing, arms folded across their chests. They were scowling. He saw one of the judges shake his head and jot something down on his clipboard. Oz looked around the room. All the other assistants were busy helping. Like it or not, he had to get the sharks involved, or they’d lose the Bake-Off for sure. He turned to Jordan. “I need two eggs,” he said. “But they have to be beaten first. Think you can handle it?”

  “Watch me,” smirked Jordan. He grabbed the egg carton away from D. B., plucked out an egg, and tossed it to Tank. Then he selected another for himself. Setting the carton down, he began to spank his egg. “Bad egg!” he said. The crowd giggled. “Must beat bad egg!” As the giggles turned to ripples of laughter, Tank tossed his egg up and down casually, grinning at Jordan.

  Uh-oh, thought Oz.

  The two boys started tossing their eggs back and forth like miniature footballs. The camera followed their every move. They continued to toss the eggs, higher and farther each time. The delighted crowd cheered at each successful catch. Slowly, inch by inch, Jordan and Tank moved closer to Oz.

  “Such high spirits,” said Mrs. Wilson. She snapped another photo of her son just as the sharks moved in for the kill.

  “Beat this,” sneered Jordan, and pretending to fumble the catch he squashed both eggs against the back of Oz’s head.

  “EEEEEEWWWWW!” cried the crowd.

  “EEEEEEWWWWW!” cried Oz. He recoiled as the broken shells released their warm liquid onto his neck. The egg yolks slid under the collar of his shirt and trickled slowly and disgustingly down his back. Oz squirmed, revolted. The judge frowned, and made another notation on his clipboard.

  “Bake-Off Boy goes down!” cried Jordan, tucking his hands into his armpits and strutting across the platform in a triumphant chicken dance. Tank crowed like a rooster, and the crowd laughed.

  Oz looked over at D. B., who shook her head sadly. The morning was not off to a good start.

  CHAPTER 11

  DAY TWO • WEDNESDAY • 1015 HOURS