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TWO

Spew

A paw grabbed BellaDonna's paw and she was hoisted out of the swamp. Opening her eyes, she was gazing at a rat somewhat
larger than her with darker fur. She had never seen another rat
before – aside from some vague and distant memory of the warm embrace of a cozy rat smiling at her when
she was very young. The rat grinned slightly at BellaDonna as he
hauled her onto a ridge of the metal tube. She was completely covered in a disgusting sludge that had soaked into her fur.

'The idea is to eat from it, not let it eat you,' the rat said.

BellaDonna was in shock and gasping for air. Then she convulsed and vomited up some vile substance she had swallowed.

'Eat from that?' BellaDonna gasped.

'Fruit and veg only if you really must. But you'll always find some
good meat and cheese here.'

It was only then that she noticed that this rat was munching from some kind of yellow green meat or cheese he held in his other paw.

BellaDonna slumped down, but even as her head was starting to clear her first thoughts were of getting back up that tube and home.

'I'm Spew, by the way. No need to thank me for saving your life.'

BellaDonna hardly even heard him.

'A human kicked me out of my home. Why would she do that?'

Spew laughed.

'What world do you come from?'

'Up there. Where my home is,' BellaDonna replied. 'Where I'm going back to.'

'Good luck with that one. Once they've seen a rat they'll lay down poison or get in a rat killer. There's plenty of other opportunities in the big city.'

'Emma is there. My best friend in the world.'

'Who fed you and kept you safe and warm. Right?

'Yes.'

'Let me tell you. I love this city and I like to get around a lot. So
I meet a lot of rats and learn their stories. You remind me of this
rat I knew – Fred. He'd found himself this cushy life in grocery
store. Not out back in the alley behind it somewhere safe, but
actually right in the store. When I met him I warned him to get out while he was ahead, but he wouldn't listen. Next time I passed his way, Fred was gone and there were rat traps everywhere.'

'I don't know who the woman was, but I do know Emma wants me back home.' BellaDonna looked up, a determined expression on her sludge-covered face. 'So that's where I'm going.'

With that, BellaDonna started to climb. She tried to ignore the
horror of the fact that the only grip in the metal tube was for her
to dig her claws into the caked garbage lining it. Spew sat back,
chewing on a bit of week-old chicken, and could do no more than smile.

'Bon Voyage. See you soon,' he said.

Taking it easy, with something to chew

Never do nothin' unless there's something to do

Keeping it simple, and saying it true

It's what I do

Just call me Spew.

Don't be alarmed if you should see me some night.

I'm only searching for my latest delight.

Pizza and wings are all that I want to bite.

I'm passing through.

Just call me Spew.

I like to go with the flow

And try not to show my face in the day.

This rat's got no one to meet

And just wants to eat what you throw away.

Taking it easy, with something to chew, not say

There's plenty around for me and also for you

Climb in a bin and enjoy all you view

It's what I do

Just call me Spew.

It did not help that BellaDonna was not very fit. As she clawed her way up the crust on the metal chute, she needed to pause to catch her breath. Which was a bad idea.

'No! No no no!' BellaDonna was starting to slide back down again.
Despite all her scrambling and scratching, she was soon back down at the rim. Gasping, she tried to ignore Spew's comment.

'Welcome back.'

BellaDonna moved away to a fresh stretch of caked horror on the metal and began her climb again. The shaft headed off into the dark distance above, but she pictured being back home with Emma and that kept her resolve. She would not make the mistake of pausing this time, no matter how drained she felt.

But she hit a new challenge. A point came when the shaft was no longer lined with the caked unthinkable stuff and it was sheer metal.
BellaDonna reached up past the line to the smooth surface, and there was no grip. She pushed with her rear paws to hoist herself forward, but instead felt she was about to tumble back. If she were to lose her grip this time, she would not slide down to the rim but instead tumble once more into the swamp of garbage bags and all other disgusting things and – worst of all – the churn that could start up again at any time and drag her into its hidden jaws below.

This sparked a completely unexpected instinct. BellaDonna slammedwith her two front teeth into the metal. They locked in hard. She had teeth stronger than this metal? Pondering this new power did not, however, help her situation. Okay, she was not sliding down. But having her teeth firmly locked into the metal was not going to take her any higher.

Resigned to her situation, she carefully clung with her paws and
released her teeth grip. And began her slow descent along the metal and its caked sludge. Finally arriving at the rim where Spew remained. They looked at each other. BellaDonna was now even more covered in filth. Spew threw away the remains of some other piece of meat-like trash he had been munching. Spew's eyes were tired of seeing the world. He believed he had seen it all. Until he met this rat. How dumb could she be? Actually wanting to make contact with humans?

'Listen,' he said, 'this has been really entertaining, but I can't
hang around. I'm full, and that's always my sign to move on. But
before I go let me tell you one simple thing: you have zero chance of climbing up this tube. Move on, kiddo. That's your only choice.'

With that, Spew turned his back on her and started walking away.

Finally, it hit BellaDonna. There was no way back up the metal chute.
She had no way home. Struck by this horrible realization, her heart sank to its depths and BellaDonna burst into tears.

Spew froze.

'What... what are you doing?'

BellaDonna's sobbing grew louder.

'Stop doing that!'

The sobbing grew from deeper in her heart.

Spew did not know how to console. He wanted to – if even only to make this pain he was witnessing go away and stop burning into his tough heart.

'Look... I'm sorry. I really am,' he mumbled. 'This must be hard for
you.'

BellaDonna kept on sobbing.

'What's your name, kiddo?'

'BellaDonna,' she managed to say between gasps and sobs.

'Nice name,' Spew said, genuinely. 'Listen to me, BellaDonna.
Whatever the life was you had up there, it's over.'

'It's not over!' BellaDonna yelled. But her anger was drowned by the roar and crash of another trash bag hitting the swamp below.

'I can get you out of here,' Spew said softly. 'But no one can get
you back up there.'

BellaDonna paused for a while, then decided.

'I'm staying here. I'll find a way.'

Spew sighed. So BellaDonna would be another Fred. Some rats just don't know how to move on, he thought.

BellaDonna slumped down, her head sunk, and whimpered. Spew had never seen a rat so hurt. Except for those he had seen along the way who were on their last gasps after poisoning or were caught in a trap he could not help them out of.

'I'll... umm... come back later.'

'No need.'

'It's part of my food round.'

Spew started walking away. He could hear BellaDonna start quietly sobbing again.

He halted.

'Damn,' he muttered to himself. And turned around.

He went back to BellaDonna and sat beside her.

'You know what?' he said. 'I'm feeling pretty dozy after all that
food and it's still light outside. I think I'll take a nap right
here.'

BellaDonna looked at him. He was brutish, with none of her elegance. Spew looked at her. She was covered in caked filth and stank to high heaven.

Spew did indeed fall asleep – and woke up to find BellaDonna in a deep sleep using his tummy as a pillow. She was still whimpering and shedding tears, probably dreaming of the lost life she had in the apartment way up there in the unknown human world. Not wanting to disturb her, he lay there and thought about her and what would become of her. How could he help? In the end, there was only one conclusion he could come to: this rat knew nothing about life in the big city and he would not leave her at its mercy. BellaDonna finally stirred and sat up. She then realized she had been sleeping on Spew.

'Oh. I'm sorry.'

'No problem, I...' Spew halted. 'What's that?'

'What?'

'You have something under your eye.'

BellaDonna touched below her left eye. Some of the white streak in her fur had been revealed through the caked trash by her tears.

'I was born with that.'

'I've never seen a rat with something like that,' Spew admitted.

BellaDonna had woken with a heavy heart, but with the understanding that there was no way back up the metal chute.

'Can you help me get out of here?'

'Gladly.'

'And could you bring me to a place I could wash?'

'Even more gladly. Follow me.'

BellaDonna followed Spew around the rim and at a certain point he halted.

'Okay. This is where we go up.'

'So there is a way up? Why didn't you tell me?'

'Not to the top. Just a short way up, then down.'

'But we're already down.'

Spew looked at the filth-baked and innocent BellaDonna.

'Kid. We are already underground. And this is the top floor of a
rat's world.'

BellaDonna and Spew took the easy climb up to a ridge that revealed a grated wide hatch.

'An overflow hatch,' BellaDonna observed. 'In case of a blockage down below. Emma's father designs the insides of buildings and she loves to study the diagrams. And we also have our maze games. So I have a thing for plans and diagrams.'

'Fascinating,' Spew said with a shrug, absolutely not interested. 'We go through here.'

'Through where?'

'Pick a gap,' Spew said as he popped his head through one of the gaps of the hatch grid. In a moment he was through to the other side, waiting for BellaDonna to join him. BellaDonna had watched in amazement as Spew's body seemed to have turned to jelly as he passed through the grid.

'I'll never fit!' She protested.

'You're not that fat,' Spew said. Then realized he was lucky to be on the other side of the grid. 'Look, if your head fits through then the rest of you will most likely fit through.'

Not believing him, but with no other choice, BellaDonna put her head through a gap in the grid. She found, to her surprise, that indeed she could push herself through to the other side – as if her ribs had become elastic But then came her hips. And they were not so elastic. She scrambled and wriggled, but was getting nowhere. She pushed hard with her front paws at the grid, but nothing was happening. Spew came up to her face and stared at her.

'Is there a problem?'

BellaDonna exhaled, relaxed every muscle and thought small. She tried again. Again to no avail.

'Okay,' Spew said, and was gone from her line of sight. Suddenly Spew was behind her, on her side of the hatch. He started pushing her ass.

'What are you doing!!!' she shrieked.

'Giving a helping paw.'

BellaDonna's fury, and determination to get Spew's hands off her ass, finally propelled her through to the other side of the drainage hatch. Spew followed.

He looked at her with a smile, then looked to the downward slope of the pipe ahead of them.

'Here we go.'

THREE

Pong

'Night time. This is our time,' Spew said with a smile.

BellaDonna had followed Spew down the piping, across another stretch of mud and filth and finally up out of a grate. They were in an alleyway with a small stretch of busy footpath and street in view at the end. Looking around, BellaDonna's senses were flooded. She had only ever known the city by the view from Emma's window, but now she was down in its reality. And overwhelmed. For the first time in her life: her paws on the cold, wet ground; the raw noises of people, music, angry cars honking as they passed the mouth of the alley; the lights of the dazzling billboards reflected from shop windows and office blocks. But then, one sense above all else hit her like a tsunami. It was...

'YYYUUUCCCKKK!!!' BellaDonna gave a throaty yell.

'What? What?'

'What is that smell???' She tried not to breathe.
Spew sniffed the air.

'Which smell?'

'THAT smell!

'There's a lot going on in the big city,' Spew replied. 'You're going
to have to be more specific.'

'I just get this one, big awful stench!' she said, trying to hold her
breath while speaking.

Again Spew sniffed the air. Then he smiled.

'That's the richness of life, kiddo,' he said with a fond smile for
it all. 'You better get used to it.'

This rush to her senses was terrifying. But as she was reluctantly forced to breathe again the experience of all this burst of input stirred up something deep inside her. Hypnotized, BellaDonna rushed toward the busy pavement at the end of the alley.

'Stop!' Spew yelled. 'What are you doing?'

'I want to see more!'

'You have to be seen less!'

'If I'm here I can at least see where I am.'

'So what's your plan?'

'To take a walk.'

Spew looked at her and his shoulders fell.

'Okay,' he sighed. 'I suppose they call this learning by doing.'

He stood and watched BellaDonna eagerly head off to the end of the alleyway and reach the corner of the main footpath. He closed his eyes and started counting to ten. Within moments he heard the inevitable and nodded.

'A RAT!!!'

Followed by the next inevitable: a scream.

Followed by BellaDonna's furious return.

Spew opened his eyes.

'What is wrong with these people,' BellaDonna fumed.

Before Spew could even begin to answer, he heard a voice he did not want to hear.

'Hey! I'm eating here!' A head poked out of a black rubbish bag. The face of a scrawny rat with crooked teeth that limited his food access, his sense of smell and, indeed, his chances of ever mating.

'Hey! Spew!' The rat wriggled out of the bag, trailing some trash on his tail as he rushed over to his pal. 'Buddy!'

Spew tried to avoid the hug he was receiving, but once contact was made the stink was on his coat whether he liked it or not.

Then the rat turned to the filth-caked BellaDonna.

'So who have we got here? Or should I say what.' He laughed a lot at his own joke.

'BellaDonna, meet Pong. Pong, meet BellaDonna.'

'Pleased to meet you I'm sure,' Pong said, offering his paw. Despite her filthy state, BellaDonna made reluctant and minimal contact.

'What you guys doin'?'

'It's a long story.'

Just then, BellaDonna heard the sound she most wanted to hear: water splashing down to the ground. She looked to Spew.

'That's why we're here. It's a broken pipe and soapy water comes down from a bathroom up there somewhere. Get it while it's hot.'

BellaDonna immediately rushed to get under the flow.

'Weird kid,' Pong mumbled. 'I hate water.'

'We all know that,' Spew replied.

BellaDonna luxuriated under the flow of the warm water, freeing
herself of the filth and starting to feel even a glimmer of being her old self again. The filth was washing out of her fur and her coat began to shine again as it was meant to do. That's why Emma had put special oils in her diet and would sometimes massage a little oil into her coat. Back then. Back in her real life, and not this nightmare she was going through.

Meanwhile, Spew and Pong approached her.

Pong's eyes opened wider than he ever thought they could as he watched BellaDonna step out from under the drainpipe's flow of water and shake herself off from head to tail in what turned into, for him, some magical slow motion. In that moment, he lived up to one of the reasons for his reputation as a few dark brown pellets dropped from beneath his tail. Pong had never been so in love before. Such perfect beauty. Such a divine vision: a diamond!

'I never seen nothin' like it,' Pong said, drool already starting to
flow from the side of his mouth.

'So you have seen something like this before?' BellaDonna asked. 'Where?'

'No,' Pong replied, confused. 'I ain't never seen nothin' like it.'

BellaDonna rolled her eyes.

'That's a double negative, silly.'

Spew was also now seeing the small diamond on the gold chain around BellaDonna's neck for the first time, now that it had been revealed from under the cake of dirt.

'What's that?' he asked, baffled.

'This? It's my love chain from Emma.'

'Who's this Emma,' Pong asked, for his own particular reason of
immediately wanting to get to know a human who lavished gifts on rats.

'My soulmate. The human I shared an apartment with.'

'This Emma she... umm.... she give a lot of these out?'

'I am the only rat in her life,' BellaDonna replied, indignant.

'But there's nothin' stoppin' her from havin' multiple rats, right?'

I could be loved. I really could.

It may not look that way, but it should.

Don't judge this book by its cover

I could be a son or a brother

Or a friend and you would...

Love me! I know that maybe I smell bad but

Love me!

I could be cute. You never knew it.

I could be sweet. Could you believe it.

I could be anything you want!

But me....

I want to be loved!

Love me.

Please.

'Okay, okay,' Spew butted in. 'Listen, Pong, we've got things to do
so we'll be on our way. We're going to Roma's. They'll be throwing
out their bags soon and I'm starving.'

'But there's lots of good food here.'

'Enjoy. See you around,' Spew said flatly and walked away, followed by BellaDonna.

'Okay, okay,' Pong said. 'I get it.'

Spew smiled to himself. For once, Pong was reading between the lines.

'I'll come with.'

No. Pong was not reading between the lines. He was coming with.

BellaDonna learned about rat runs. Following Spew, and happy that Pong and his plume of odor were trailing behind and not running ahead of her, she quickly understood how to stay out of sight of humans. Always stick to the gutters and shadows. Stay close to the walls. She struggled to keep apace with Spew, not least because she wanted to soak in the sights and sounds and smells. But their run felt natural to her: just like the maze game.

They finally reached a dim alleyway – just as the rear door of a building opened and a man came out carrying two heavy black plastic bags. He brought them to a large garbage container that was already full to the brim and simply threw the bags beside the bin.

'Perfect,' Spew said, as the man returned to the building. Closing
the door, he returned the alleyway to its haunting dim light.

Spew turned to BellaDonna and smiled.

'Supper's ready,' he said, and headed for the garbage, followed by Pong.

'It is?' BellaDonna said. 'Where?'

She watched as Spew expertly sliced an opening in a bag with one quick rip of his teeth, then disappeared inside it. Pong immediately followed. BellaDonna walked slowly toward the bag. Spew and Pong inside it were forming two moving lumps, as if the very garbage bag were somehow alive. The smells were so wonderful that BellaDonna had to remind herself that everything inside that bag was refuse. But the smell...

A head suddenly popped out of the upper part of the bag: Spew. He looked down at her.

'Come on in! It's delicious!'

Another head popped out: Pong.

'Get it while the going's good, Princess. When the smell gets around we won't be on our own here no more.' And then he was gone. Spew, however, was still looking down at BellaDonna.

'What's the problem?'

'That's... That's garbage. I can't eat that.'

In a way, Spew could understand.

'Look,' he said, softly. 'In this world, you don't get your food
served on a plate. You track it down. That's life in the big city.
Get used to it.'

'I will never get used to it.'

Spew shook his head and disappeared inside the bag. BellaDonna just stood there, staring at the rubbish bag and caught between the delight of its many aromas and the repulsion of knowing these were leftovers thrown away by humans. Not even her growing hunger could bring her to eat any of this.

Suddenly, a new hole appeared in the bag, right in front of her.
Spew emerged with something gripped in his jaws. He cast it to her.

'Chicken wing. Complete and untouched. No human bite marks. Nada. The freshest thing in here.'

And then he was gone back inside and BellaDonna was alone in the alleyway. Just her and that pristine, irresistible chicken wing. Her first meal on the streets of Manhattan.

FOUR

Spark

'Time to get safe and warm,' Spew said as the three crawled along the side of the alleyway with their bellies stuffed.

Spew and Pong stopped in their tracks and sniffed the air. They
looked to each other and nodded.

'Here we go,' Spew said.

'Go what?' BellaDonna asked.

'You don't smell that?'

'I smell streets. And rubbish.' BellaDonna sniffed the air again, but that was all she got. Then she heard a strange scuffling sound that grew ever louder and louder.

'What's that?'

'Rush hour,' Spew said.

'We beat them to it! Suckers!'

'This is one of those times when you don't stay in against the wall,' Spew said to BellaDonna.

'Why is that?'

Spew let her find out for herself. Spew and Pong stepped a few feet away from the wall while BellaDonna simply stood there looking at them. Until a wave of rats passed around and over her in a swarm that left her tumbled, tossed and totally dazed.

'You've got to start trusting me,' Spew said, and returned to the
wall to carry on. BellaDonna hesitated to look at the swarm of rats now all over the black rubbish bags, tearing them apart in a frenzy. When she thought to follow Spew she realized she had made a horrible mistake. She was now third in line behind Pong.

They came to a stretch of metal grid on the footpath.

'Okay. Down we go,' Spew said.

'What? I want to go up, why do we go down?' BellaDonna stood
defiantly on the grid.

'And why do you have to keep asking 'why' all the time?' Spew
retorted.

'Mommy and Daddy are fighting,' Pong whispered to himself.

'Well I want to get home and I'm not sure you're the right person for getting me there if all you....' BellaDonna's words were drowned by a roar from below and an upward rush of hot air through the grid. Spew and Pong recoiled from it, but BellaDonna was suddenly cast back in her memory to being with Emma. Back to when Emma would wash her and then dry her with her hairdryer. BellaDonna stood on the grid, eyes
closed, her fur raised and wafting in this refreshing draft, and she thought of Emma and home. When the subway train below passed by, her fur settled down. She looked at Spew and Pong, who were staring at her in some mixture of confusion and alarm, and had already forgotten whatever she had been saying.

'We need heat for the night, so we go down,' Spew said, expecting the argument to continue.

'Fine,' BellaDonna said, and followed them down through a gap in the grid.

Soon they were scampering along one of the many
pipes above a stretch of darkness and something below that had a cold gleam that BellaDonna could not quite make out. As they continued – with now BellaDonna carefully placed behind Spew and ahead of Pong – they were heading toward light. Reaching this stretch, BellaDonna had to pause and look down. Below her there were many humans standing on a gray platform, the humans looking as miserable as the platform on which they stood.

'Why are they all just standing there?'

'You'll see,' Spew replied and halted so that BellaDonna could have another small lesson in human behavior.

Soon, there was a crackling noise and some sparks coming from what she now saw was the darkness at the other end of this platform. There was a gust of hot wind so dry she had to squint. And then a massive machine came bursting out of the tunnel at the other end. It screeched as it slowed down and eventually halted with its nose just beneath her. Then the doors opened all along its many container units and humans poured out, while other humans poured in. It reminded BellaDonna of those rats she had just seen swarming at the rubbish bags.

The doors shut with a determined thud. One human raced onto the platform and just managed to grab at a door before it was fully closed. There was a brief battle until the door relented and let him in. Then the machine monster started up and, with another flurry of sparks, was gone again. Silence. Until there were some footsteps and a few more humans started arriving for the next performance.

'It's how humans get around the city,' Pong explained. 'I got on one once to see what it was like but all the humans started yelling and screaming and trying to hit me with newspapers so I got off as soon as the doors opened again. I haven't been home since.'

'Oh. I'm sorry.'

'By choice I haven't been home,' he said.

But Pong brightened at this thought.

'Hey! You and me are like brothers and sisters, right? Two lost souls tryin' to find our way home. Am I right?' And another thought brightened him up even more. 'And you're a Princess, so I'm a Prince!'

He beamed a smile with his crooked, yellow teeth. BellaDonna looked to Spew.

'And are we going to your home now?'

'I don't have a home. I have a few layovers.' The way he spoke the words revealed more than the words themselves.

'Spew doesn't have a nest,' Pong explained.

'Why not?' BellaDonna asked. There was a flash of something between sadness and anger across Spew's face.

'It's a long story. Let's move on.'

Spew continued along the pipe. BellaDonna looked to Pong, who
shrugged. It was clear she would be getting no more information about Spew.

They carried on behind him. They crossed into the darkness at the other end of the station and as they continued BellaDonna started to hear classical music playing. Spew halted and stood up. He smiled.

'Spark!' Spew rushed ahead.

They reached a small alcove with a slate gray fuse box and on it,
curled up, lay a large gray sleeping rat.

Looking untypically happy, Spew started humming along with the music. BellaDonna watched as this rat slowly began to stir. It stretched, but remained asleep as it turned over and BellaDonna was stunned to see: there was a short metal stud sticking out of the top of each side of his head like horns!

The rat slowly opened his eyes as Spew continued to serenade him. Then his eyes popped wide open and he jumped up, rushing to embrace Spew.

'Spew! Buddy!' They hugged and laughed and patted each other on the back.

'Long time no see, man!' Spew said.

'This city's too big,' the rat replied. Then he shook his head a
little and the music halted abruptly. 'Who have you got here?'

'Pong you know.'

'Yes. I've smelt about him. But this young lady?' His smile was
somewhere between charming and seductive. The gray hair of his coat did not dim the glint in his eyes.

'This is BellaDonna.'

'Beautiful name for a beautiful rat.' He offered his paw.

'BellaDonna, meet Spark.'

When she offered her paw, Spark kissed it on the back. As he bowed to do so, BellaDonna had the chance to quickly study those metal studs. But as he raised his head Spark could tell, in that moment, that she had noticed them.

'They don't bite,' Spark said softly. 'I was born and raised in a
metal cage with other rats in other cages and humans in white coats studying us. With a group of us, they inserted these when we were babies. They'd clip cables onto us and take measurements when they got us to do things. But in the middle of one night some other humans came and opened the cages. They were putting us into boxes and I figured they were going to take us somewhere else to do more things to us, so I managed to escape. I've stayed in the subways ever since. Humans completely freak out when they see me.'

Where was I?

What do you want from me? It was a blast

Always to make the grade, doing the task

Do I do this or do I do that?

What?

Plug me in, plug me out

Turn me around

Slice me and dice me and

What have you found?

Who could I be?

Could I be me?

Then I was free

Was I ever free?

I just hear the voices in me.

That's me

Spark is free.

What do they want from me?

They plug me in, what do they see?

How do I find out who I really am?

What I am.

That's me.

I am me!

Pong decided, for no good reason, to lighten the mood.

'But you've got music wherever you go!' He said cheerily. Spark was not so enthused.

'True. I can pick up radio stations. But unfortunately also cab
driver communication and police calls.'

BellaDonna immediately brightened.

'You can?' She was elated. 'Could you check if there have been any calls about a missing rat?'

There was a silent pause. Then Spew, Pong and Spark burst into
laughter. BellaDonna stood there blank-faced and indignant.

'I like her. I like her a lot!' Spark managed to say through his
tears and laughter. 'Nothing better than a rat with a sense of
humor!'

The four had curled up together in a small, dusty brick nook below the subway line but not away from its noise. It was BellaDonna's first night away from Emma, and the only thing that brought her to sleep was her absolute exhaustion. She lay against Spark who, being the biggest of the rats, shielded her from Pong's pongs on the other side of him. But before long she was awake. She could almost feel that by now it was daylight in the real world above her. Perhaps by now Emma was on her way to school, maybe searching the streets and alleys as she went along, desperately trying to find BellaDonna.

Not wanting to wake the others, BellaDonna moved away and sat at the edge of the alcove. She wished there were a star to look up at. But no. There was just some dim glow from an emergency sign. Hard as she fought against them, the tears came back. She was lost and lonely and there was no sign of hope.

Suddenly, she heard a soft voice.

'Your first night out here. That's tough.' It was Spark. He came and sat down close to her and put an arm around her.

'I don't want to be down here. I want to be up there,' BellaDonna
sighed. 'That's where I belong. I don't know why Spew keeps me in the dark and below ground.'

'For your safety.' Spark rolled his eyes and twitched his head and
soft music, like a lullaby, started playing. 'I remember when I was
free at first. All my life the food and water was there. But we were in cages. We weren't free. And every now and then some rat I had become friends with would be taken away by the humans and I'd never see him again. We were treated well, BellaDonna, but the humans owned us and used us for their work. I wasn't supposed to have these things in my head. They were put in my head.'

'But Emma was always kind to me,' BellaDonna insisted.

'I know. Life is a lot easier when you're being taken care of. But in the time since I escaped, all the shelter I found was my own way and all the food I ate was by my effort. I like it better that way.'

BellaDonna heard Spark's words but was not listening to him. Her heart was with Emma. Her true home was with her.

'All right, child,' he said softly. 'You will find your own way. Just
as I found mine. Just as we all must do. Now go back to sleep, and in a while it will be time to start moving on to look for food.'

BellaDonna found herself settling into Spark's warm coat. At least she felt safe with him and the other two. Spew had saved her life, after all. But as she closed her eyes she saw: Emma, in her bedroom, curled up and sobbing. BellaDonna stood up, determined.

'I'm going back up,' she declared.

'You are? Where to?'

'Home!'

Spark looked at her and smiled.

'Very well. And where is that?'

BellaDonna hesitated. The truth was, she had absolutely no idea. With all this movement from drainage pipes to alleyways to subway, she had lost all sense of direction.

Spark stood up, towering over her, and nodded.

'Very well,' he said. 'You want to go home, and to go home you need to go up. And I know one rat who is by far the best climber in Manhattan. And I will bring you to meet her.'

'Her?'

'Yes. Sal.'

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• Update #1 - Sketch artwork from John Chambers Sept. 23, 2026

  My friend the award-winning writer and animation screenwriter John Chambers has kindly allowed me to present here some of his basic sketches for his take …

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