Free Felix and the Red Rats by James Norcliffe

demanded.
    Myrtle sniffed.
    ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Bella. ‘It’s just a diary.’
    ‘What’s in it?’ asked Felix. He had never asked to look at the diary, and Bella had never offered to show him.
    ‘Nothing much,’ said Bella. ‘Just the usual stuff. It’s more of a notebook, really. Just a few thoughts, jottings. Bits of poetry, and there’s lots of doodles and things.’
    ‘Doesn’t sound much,’ said Felix.
    ‘Not much at all,’ admitted Bella. ‘Not worth getting into this crazy nightmare for, anyway.’
    ‘No smelly secrets?’ grinned Felix, thinking of Spleen’s disgust.
    Moonface snorted.
    Bella flashed him a look of annoyance. ‘Not really. Nothing like that. There’s the odd rebus and magic square. Lists of books and my personal top twenties, but nothing filthy.’
    ‘So you say!’ said Moonface scornfully.
    ‘Shut up, Moony,’ said Felix crossly. ‘You’re an idiot.’ Then he added. ‘What are they? Those rebus things and magic squares?’
    ‘Nothing much,’ said Bella. ‘Word games, really. I rather like them. Rebuses are a kind of code with pictures and magic squares are word puzzles.’
    Moonface Morgan snorted disbelievingly again and Felix turned on him. ‘You really are pathetic sometimes, Moony!’ he exclaimed. ‘And anyway, why the hell did Dusty pinch Bella’s diary in the first place?That’s what’s got us into this mess!’
    Myrtle sniffed again.
    ‘I dunno,’ admitted Moonface. ‘He just said there could be stuff in there we could use.’
    ‘Use?’
    ‘Go figure,’ said Moonface, shrugging his shoulders. And then he added, ‘Oh, and he reckoned it would really, really hack Bella off.’
    ‘Yeah, well, he’s so right there,’ said Bella. ‘It so really did.’
    The sound of approaching footsteps and then of a key in the door silenced any further pleasantries. As they waited for the door to open, the four looked at each other nervously.
     
    It was the fair-haired man back, this time accompanied by three of the waspy look-alike creatures.
    ‘Untie them,’ he ordered. ‘And then get rid of yourselves and the ropes!’
    Swiftly, efficiently, silently, the three quickly untied the ropes then neatly wound them into rolls which they slung over their shoulders so that they looked like tiny mountaineers.
    ‘Go now!’ said the fair-haired man.
    Without a word or any change in expression from their default
sour
, the three left, closing the door behind them.
    ‘Who are they?’ asked Bella, as the man sat himself down, laying his clipboard before him.
    He glanced at her. ‘I have no idea of their names,’ he said. ‘In any case, they’re hard to tell apart.’
    ‘I didn’t mean
who
are they,’ said Bella, ‘I meant
what
are they?’
    The fair-haired man looked surprised. ‘They’re twerps,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what twerps are? You don’t have them?’
    Bella shook her head.
    ‘My father calls me a silly twerp sometimes,’ said Felix, ‘when I’ve done something stupid, but I’ve never seen one. I figured it was just a word.’
    ‘It
is
just a word,’ said the fair-haired man, ‘and it does have a meaning as you’ve just seen.’
    Felix looked at him, ‘But you’re not a twerp. Actually, you’re the only non-twerp we’ve seen so far.’
    The man shook his head. ‘You’re quite correct. I am not a twerp.’
    ‘What are you?’ asked Bella, feeling braver.
    For a fleeting second a rather bleak expression flickered across the man’s face. Then, recovering, he gave Bella a small apologetic smile. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘But I have a strange feeling I’m about to be a very abject object or a very exalted object.’
    ‘Or both?’ asked Bella.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said the man. ‘One or the other, I’d say.’
    ‘What’s abject?’ asked Felix,
    Again the brief bleakness: ‘Very, very, very sorry,’said the man. And then the apologetic smile once more.
    Something about that little smile changed the