CHAPTER 1 WALKING THE PLANK

 

  It was a dark and stormy day.

  Really, it was! The sky outside was a grayish green. Thunder crashed, and a howling wind rattled the windows of our pizza parlor home.

  RAT FACT: We rats don’t mind the rain too much. But this storm was on a whole different level!

  The rain poured down in buckets. And speaking of buckets, we were using one to catch the rainwater leaking from the roof.

  PLOP PLOP PLOP PLOP PLOP!

    When the storm began, Cookie the raccoon told my siblings and me that we needed to stay inside.

  We listened, of course. But now we were all getting a little bit bored.

  My brother Pepperoni put his paws into the bucket. Then he shook them out near my sister Anchovy and sprayed her with water droplets.

  “Hey!” Anchovy squealed.

    My other sister, Marg, climbed all the way into the bucket.

  First, she floated on her back with her paws folded under her head. Then she stood up and let the rain fall down on her like a shower.

       “Scrub a dub dub,” she sang as she pretended to scrub her armpits.

  We all fell over laughing!

  Marg climbed out of the bucket. Now it was my turn to try to make my siblings laugh.

  “Watch this!” I said.

  I took a running start, somersaulted through the air, and dove headfirst into the bucket.

  “Wow!” My siblings hooted and cheered.

       “I rate that dive a ten out of ten!” Anchovy called.

  But my younger brother, Veggie, shook his head.

  “I can do better than that,” he said. “Watch! I call this… Pirate Walking the Plank!”

    Veggie marched along the rim of the bucket with stiff, straight legs. Then, with a yelp, he stepped off the edge and dropped inside the bucket beside me.

  Splash!

  Veggie cannonballed so hard that he knocked over the entire bucket.

  We both tumbled out onto the floor. The water from the bucket sloshed all over the room.

    All my brothers and sisters groaned. We knew what this meant.

  “Enough playing around,” Cookie said as she propped up the bucket again. “Mop up the water, and then off to bed with you all.”

  “Ratnip and Veggie spilled the water,” Pepperoni whined. “So they should clean it up.”

    I scowled. It wasn’t fair. Veggie had spilled the water. Not me!

  But Veggie had already gotten down low on his tummy and paws.

  “Yar, Ratnip! Let’s swab this pirate ship deck clean!” he said.

  I sighed. Then I replied, “Aye, aye, Veggie.”

  So we mopped up the water as fast as we could.

  How, you ask? By running around the room and slurping it up like thirsty vacuum cleaners!

       But we weren’t fast enough to stop the water from seeping into my sock bed.

  It takes a lot to gross out a rat. But a wet bed?

  Yuck.