After a hardship childhood growing up in a pet shop in London’s East End, a pet rat is determined to change the world. She enters the human world when she is bought by a girl and finds a mentor rat who teaches her about an underground syndicate run by wild rats. She meets other pet rats and as she wants to stay friends with them, organises a secret organisation that allows them to meet regularly without humans having a clue. Her mentor and she fall apart when she finds reason to doubt her mentor’s teachings. She runs away and meets a wild rat boy, who she falls in love with. Through him she meets the rattie mafia. Learning her mentor’s beliefs were true all along, she returns to find her mentor has died in the meantime. She swears to show her late mentor proof of the rat’s secret syndicate by building a rat memorial that can be seen from the moon, as the rattie’s belief is that all passed away rats go to the moon which is made out of cheese. She manages to combine the wild rat’s network and the resources of pet rats, which have access to human intelligence, to reach world domination. However, just before her project is finished, she dies of a heart attack in a plane that reached too high altitude for her heart to bear the pressure. 

Will there be a worthy successor who will accomplish her goal? The answer can be found in a sequel, where another pet rat takes on the lead to make the rats, not the humans, the true rulers of the world.

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Watch a rattie share his thoughts: http://youtu.be/x6XQhKqo1VM :-)

White cloths. Her chest heaving, her heart pounding, fear flared up in her eyes for a split second, then she had herself under control again. She could feel it herself: She would not leave this bed alive.

Her devoted assistant looked at her with a mixture of pity and disgust. This was the leader he had always admired and now she lay here so weak and vulnerable. He didn’t want to see her like that. Didn’t want to remember her this way. 

She shivered and suddenly opened her eyes wide. “I need to see my daughter!” She bellowed. 

Involuntarily her assistant straightened as if standing to attention: “Your daughter? But she is missing. We don’t know where she is!”

“Find her! Now!” she roared. 

Her assistant stood as if glued to the spot and didn’t know where to begin. But she spared him a decision right there and then. 

“I need to tell her…” she mumbled, strength escaping her like air out of a pierced balloon. “… tell her everything.”

There it was again, this pinch of doubt about her that overcame him like nausea. What if she didn’t know what she was doing? ‘Tell her everything’, what could she mean with that? All those secrets… if they were to leak, the empire would be in danger. He could not let that happen. 

“Well. It would take weeks, if not months to find your daughter…”

“Then you better hurry!” she had found back her sturdiness she was so well-known for. 

Normally he would follow her orders blindly, not daring to question anything his big boss told him. But now he wasn’t so sure anymore. 

She realised he was still standing there doing nothing: “What are you waiting for!”

He had to be quick now and come up with a good excuse or he would be her assistant for not much longer: “I will arrange everything for your daughter to be found. But as I said, this can take a long time. Maybe you want to tell me everything first.”

“You? Pah!” she spurted at him disdainfully. 

He saw how she was about to call the head of security, but his thoughts were rushing into his heated head quickly: “I mean, I take notes. For your daughter. To be sure. If anything might… happen.”

She raised an eye and stared at him. He could feel his skin prickle as she was assessing him from head to tail. He tried to stand up to her gaze, but started to tremble and had to look down. 

“Good.” She concluded. “You’ll record what I have to say. I’ve got to say it. All. From the beginning.” She sank back into her bed. “She is the first born after all.”

Chapter 1 - Childhood memories

She had a tough childhood. Growing up in the ghetto, having to fight over food with her siblings. There were nine of them and she was the smallest. Her mother being so busy with all her children, there was simply no time to care about the individual needs of each single one of them. The father was nowhere to be seen.

No wonder this hard upbringing made her the fighter she was today:

“When it was about food, my sisters and brothers knew no mercy. It was before long clear, who was the strongest; and it was all too apparent that I was the weakest. The first born was so much ahead: He was the biggest of all of us, plus he had received full affection and care from our mum, when he had been her only child. She just didn’t have a clue what was awaiting her with nine kids. With each one of us fighting for our mum’s attention, it was easy that some things could slip her attention. Like for example that the eldest had once again stolen food from the smallest. It was up to me to push my way through to get my serving of food. Most of the times I lost against my elder siblings, which did not help me gain more weight and strength. I was so fed up with the looser status, I swore I would never give up fighting for victory. One day I would be big and strong and that would be my time to be the big cheese!”

“In the meantime I trained hard for achieving my goal: I would challenge my sisters and especially my brothers for a combat. I just didn’t want to accept that I was the smallest. It is all in your mind anyway. I might have looked small, but that did not stop me from wanting to achieve big. Over and over again I would come up to my older brothers and cause trouble. All I got in return was smirks and laughter and the usual ‘Stop it! I don’t wanna hurt you, you’re too small!’ But I would jump onto one of them from behind or stand up in front of him and reach out for a smack. I would tease and provoke and did not let go until I got some sort of battle out of it. I tried out new styles – being small means being light so I could be dipping, bobbing, and weaving swiftly to escape any attacks. I was also quick with my right-left combination and surprised my rival at the speed of light. However, having a massive muscle advantage he could get rid of me easily with a friendly kick or slap. Throwing me off, I flew into the corner like a pinball. But I never had enough. So I often ended up with bruises and swellings that my body was aching for the next couple of days. Then I would retreat but not without an evil threat that one day, one day, I would manage to kick ass!”

At that point she smiled as if she saw herself standing there, scrawny and angry, ready to fight the world, even though no-one took particular interest in her.

Her assistant looked up as he had finished the last sentence. ‘Kick ass’ she had done. Plenty.

She looked at him and he almost flushed, as he suddenly thought she might have read his mind. “Clearly there must also have been good times”, he spewed out in order to divert attention away from him.

“Yes!” She answered dreamily. “Yes, there were many good times, of course.”

“When it was not about struggling and battling for food, my sisters and brothers would all change: When it was time for a nap, we would sit close together, lie down in our big soft comforting cushions and caress each other. That was the best time of my life! So many warm bodies around you, time would fly in a state of half awake, half asleep cosiness. For hours we could just stay like that, all cuddled up together, interrupted only by someone needing to stretch their legs, which would stick out like chicken thighs on a buffet platter. The ones that couldn’t sleep were giving off their everlasting energy by grooming others. The tired ones were snuggling up, dwelling in body warmth and sink into a sweet redeeming dream about green grass and secret caves.”

“Was it green where you grew up?” her assistant blurted out without thinking.

She glanced at him. Interrupted in her thoughts, she normally would have roared at him to establish her position. How dare him to speak to her without having been asked. But now she was just felt so tired. Too tired. “No. Not at all. At that point I had actually never seen the outdoors.”

“I only knew about it from my mum. She had experienced it. Once she had been out there. When she broke free. Took the one decisive leap into the unknown. Her one big adventure. Out in the streets, hiding in the underground, running through hidden catacombs. Scary creatures she had met down there, accompanied by a whiff of filthy foul sewage. Finally she got to the woods and farmland. That was where she had vaulted through the fresh zingy grass. I could smell the fresh cold air in her coat when she described us the feeling of freedom.”

“However, that was where she had been captured and taken in.”

“Before she knew it she was pregnant. Living only in a small bungalow, she gave birth to 10 children. Still so young! But she was a good mother. She did all the best she could, being thrown into motherhood so early and totally unprepared. She was a brave fine character, always keeping our spirits up, giving us hope that we shall have it better than herself. We would make it, she reassured us, one day, we would break free and taste the freshness of freedom. The way she told us, I imagined that feeling of the first leap in liberty so intensely it was exploding in my head and blowing my mind away. I couldn’t wait.”