Rat City: The Rat Chronicles, #1

One

‘HI. YOU’RE SHANNON, right?’

‘Who wants to know?’ I stared at the girl in front of me. She was a new face, to me anyway. But this was a big school. You could get through to final exams and still only have met half the kids in your year.

She looked at me, brushing her long fringe away from her eyes. She had the bluest eyes, the kind of blue that made you wonder if she was wearing coloured contact lenses.

‘Umm, I hope you don’t mind me coming up to you like this, but...’

‘But what?’ I folded my arms across my chest.

She stepped back, twisting a thick strand of her dark hair around her middle fingers.

‘Look,’ she began again, ‘I don’t want to bother you—’

‘Then don’t,’ I said.

‘Pardon?’

‘Don’t bother me.’ I turned and walked back towards the shed.

I’d thought that no one at this huge school would know or care about what happened to my former best friend. But Morgan’s story had become an urban myth, passed around from kid to kid, from school to school, as common as the one about the madman banging a head on the roof of a car in the dark of night. It wouldn’t matter what school I went to. Morgan’s story would always follow me.

Sometimes kids came right up to me and asked me if I’d done it, if I’d killed Morgan. I’d punched a couple of them out, but I had to stop doing that. The school threatened to expel me and although Macpherson High was bad, at least I knew who my friends were. I stuck to them and avoided everyone else.

‘Hey.’

That girl again. She was harder to get rid of than dog turd stuck in sneaker soles.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘all I wanted to say before was—’

‘What?’ I snapped. ‘You want to know if I killed him?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You want to know if it was an accident?’ Anger squeezed my chest. ‘You want to know if the shark stories are true?’

The girl backed away, staring at me as if I was an alien life form.

‘I was just going to ask you if you could give something to my brother Felix,’ she said. ‘He’s in your science class.’

‘Who?’ I didn’t know all the kids in my year, but I thought I knew everyone in my classes and I didn’t know any Felix.

‘He’s been away sick for ages. Just started back today. I can’t find him around and some girls said you were in the same class as him. I was going to ask you if you’d give him this,’ she pointed to the thick text book she was holding, ‘but don’t worry about it.’

Good one Shannon. Now she thinks you’re the school psycho.

‘Sorry.’ I tugged at my burning red ear.

‘Never mind. He can do without it today.’ She turned and walked away so fast she almost tripped over her Docs.

At least my reputation as a ladies man was intact: still able to scare off the chicks faster than a face-full of acne.

‘Hang on.’ I ran after her. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that... I get hassled a lot by kids asking me dumb questions. You’ve probably heard stupid stories about me.’

The girl looked at me and laughed. ‘Do you think you’re the school stud or something?’

‘No.’ I held out my hands. ‘Here, I’ll take the book for you. I’m Shannon.’

‘Ally.’ The book she handed me weighed a ton. ‘Thanks. You’ll be able to tell who Felix is. He’s small with cropped brown hair. He’ll be sitting in a corner alone somewhere, chewing on his nails.’

‘Is he a circus freak or something,’ I joked.

Ally glared at me. ‘Moron.’ She walked away as the bell rang for the next period.

There was no point in apologising. I kept my mouth shut and walked to class.

ALLY WAS RIGHT ABOUT Felix being easy to spot. There he was, in a corner of the room, chewing on what was left of his fingernails, which were nothing more than disgusting stubs with skin peeling off the tops of his fingers. He’d even peeled the top layer of nail off some of them. I walked over to him and held out the book.

‘Your sister asked me to give you this,’ I said.

Felix squinted up at me, as if he’d just gone from a dark room out into bright sunlight. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He took the book and put it on his desk.

‘I’m Shannon.’ I tried smiling a welcoming smile to let him know I wasn’t about to punch him out. Seeing I’d stuffed up with his sister so badly, I wanted to do the right thing by Felix.

Okay, do the right thing for myself. Maybe if I could be mates with him, his hot sister might give me another chance. I temporarily forgot about my policy of not fraternising with freaks, which, as it turned out, was a bad thing. Maybe, if I’d handed the book over and walked away, things would have taken a different path.

Felix turned his back to me and opened the book. He began folding a corner of a page over and over again until the whole thing was folded like a warped chatterbox. He flattened it out and then started the process again. I shook my head and turned to walk back across the room, but at that moment the teacher came in and told us to sit down where we were. So, instead of sitting with my mates Hab and Nate, I got stuck sitting next to Felix, the paper folder.

‘Good afternoon, class,’ said Ms Norton. ‘Today I have great pleasure in introducing you to Dr Russell Killian. Dr Killian is an expert in the field of bio ethics and genetic research. Thanks to Macpherson High’s close links with Holt University, he has kindly agreed to be our scientist in residence for the next eight weeks. So let’s give him a warm Year 10 welcome.’ Ms Norton clapped, nodding her head at our class.

Killian looked more businessman than scientist. Grey suit, grey hair, pale shirt, dark tie, he could have been one of those guys who appear in ads driving fast cars and wearing expensive watches. When he looked around the room and stretched his tightrope-thin lips across his face he reminded me of an actor who’d taken one trip too many to the cosmetic surgeon’s office. But I could see Ms Norton was impressed. She flustered around him like an obsessed fan at a Comic Con.

‘Thank you, Ms Norton.’ Killian addressed us in his deep announcer’s voice. ‘Who thinks rats can draw?’ He put what looked like an oversized cooler-bag on the front desk. ‘Anybody?’

Jessie raised her hand. ‘Only the two-legged ex-boyfriend variety, sir.’ She turned and glared at Nate. The front row of girls giggled.

Killian forced a chuckle. ‘Yes, well apart from those. No?’ He unzipped the bag and took out a white rat, holding it in the palm of his hand.

Killian ignored the squeals that came from around the classroom and walked in between the rows of desks while the rat ran up his arm and rested on his shoulder.

‘It’s actually been many years since scientists first created a robot that used the neural impulses of rat brain cells to draw pictures. Now, I’m not saying I could give this little fella a white board marker and let him loose but—’ an image of a page filled with coloured scribbles showed on the presentation screen ‘—we are living in an age where ideas that were once the stuff of science fiction are reality.’

Killian’s smooth-suit style didn’t impress me but the guy was clever. He knew how to win the class over. The girls up the front were hanging on every word he spoke and the nerds in the corner looked so excited I swear they were about to wet themselves. But when he passed by my desk, and those pink rat’s eyes glared at me, a shiver shuddered down my spine.

‘As you look through the images on the screen,’ Killian continued, ‘you can see examples of some of the incredible research being done here and overseas. But this type of research also raises some interesting questions regarding ethics.’

I glanced across at Felix. He was working away at folding that same page in his book, hunched over his desk as if he was trying to scrunch himself into a tiny ball.

On the opposite side of the room, Hab and Nate both had that sleepy post-lunch look, all drooping eyes and nodding heads, as Killian talked on. I picked up a pencil eraser in my hand, my mind drifting, too, until I decided we all needed a wake up. I pegged the eraser, aiming it at Hab’s head. It missed. Instead it hit Killian’s rat. The rat scrambled up on top of Killian’s head, standing on its hind legs and squeaking, its front paws clawing at the air.

‘Who did that?’ Killian pulled the rat from his head and held it to his chest. He scanned the classroom. ‘Who did that? Stand up immediately.’

I slunk down in my chair, trying to make myself as invisible as possible. Felix looked at me sideways through squinted eyes.

‘You idiot,’ Felix hissed.

Ms Norton glared at him. ‘Felix. Was it you?’

‘No Miss.’ Felix pointed at me. ‘It was him.’

‘Shannon Dane,’ said Ms Norton. ‘Apologise to Dr Killian.’

‘Sorry.’ I rolled my eyes.

Killian walked over in front of my desk. ‘Stand up when you apologise.’

I stood and folded my arms. ‘Sorry I hit the small furry creature,’ I paused and met his glare. ‘I meant to hit the rat.’

The muscles at the corners of Killian’s mouth quivered with anger. The light in his eyes shut down.

Goose-bumps prickled across the back of my neck.

‘Shannon!’ Ms Norton pointed to the door. ‘Get to the RTC. Now.’

‘The Responsible Thinking Classroom?’ Killian turned towards Ms Norton, and in an instant he changed from attacker to charmer. ‘I’m sure Shannon meant no real harm. Just a silly prank, isn’t that right?’ It would be a shame for him to miss this lesson.’ His mouth spread in a fatherly smile.

The RTC was the place students got sent to when they mucked around in class. But at that moment, I wasn’t sure what was worse—clock-staring in the RTC or sitting through another forty minutes of Killian’s fake good-guy act.

‘I’m sorry, Dr Killian, but Shannon is a serial offender.’ She glared at me and pointed at the door again. ‘Out.’

I didn’t mean to bump into Felix when I pushed back my chair to grab my stuff. Honestly. But when all his junk clattered to the floor and his desk fell over Ms Norton lost it.

‘Right. You too, Felix. Off to the RTC with Shannon. He can show you the way.’

‘But Miss—’

‘But nothing. Get out of here now, both of you.’

I moved towards the door with Felix trailing behind me, chewing furiously on his nails. I was almost out the door when Killian’s voice boomed behind us.

‘You two,’ he said.

When I turned around he was standing right in front of me, his grey eyes flickering under the harsh fluorescent light.

‘I will need to see you both after school to give you some important information about this term’s major project. Meet me in the science department office at 3pm.’

‘I can’t. I’ve got—’

‘I know it was an accident.’ He petted the rat in his hand, and the creature opened its mouth, baring long yellow teeth. ‘Come to the office at three and we’ll see what we can work out.’ Killian put his hand on my shoulder. He smiled with his mouth but his eyes were as dead as set concrete.

I ignored the chill that ran through my belly and pushed his hand off my shoulder. ‘Sure, no problem.’ I walked out of the classroom with Felix close behind me.

As soon as we were out of Killian’s earshot I spun around.

‘Thanks, dickhead,’ I hissed. ‘You could have kept your mouth shut.’

Felix didn’t say anything. Tears dribbled down his thin cheeks.

My guts twisted but I shook my head. I had enough of my own problems to deal with so whatever was up with him, I didn’t want to know about it.

‘This way,’ I grunted.

He trailed me across the quadrangle and down to the RTC for forty minutes of solid clock staring.

THE TEACHER IN CHARGE sat at the front of the room, absorbed in a book, while I looked at the dumb questions. How do you plan to change your behaviour to suit classroom learning?

There’d been a lot of questions about my behaviour during the year. Just about everyone—Mum, Dad, teachers, even the footy coach—were concerned about my behaviour. They could stick it, the lot of them.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the slow tick of the clock’s second hand. Felix was sitting in front of me, hunched over his desk scribbling away. I bet he hadn’t been questioned about his behaviour before. He was a typical geek: short and skinny with a pointy nose and those non-existent fingernails. I wondered what was with the crying? You had to be pretty freaked out to cry in public in high school, especially if you were a boy. Maybe he had some sort of psychological problem.

My mum and dad tried to send me to a psychologist, after Morgan had gone. They said it might help me to cope. But the guy they sent me to was