Kids' book...
Mar. 21st, 2003 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doylePassage from Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, proving that I see Buffy (and particularly Spike and redemption) everywhere. The book's about a cat who's made intelligent via magic and joins up with a group of rats to scam humans. The cat, Maurice, starts out as a bastard who's using the rats, but begins to develop a conscience. About halfway through he admits he ate one of the rats' friends...
"All right! I ate him, OK? All of him! Except for the tail and the green wobbly bit and that nasty purple lump, no-one knows what it is! I was just a cat! I hadn't learned to think yet! I didn't know! I was hungry! Cats eat rats, that how it goes! It wasn't my fault! And he'd been eating the magic stuff and I ate him so then I got Changed too! Know how that feels, seeing the green wobbly bit like that? It doesn't feel good! Sometimes on dark nights I think I can hear him talking down there! All right? Satisfied? I didn't know he was anyone! I didn't know I was anyone! I ate him! I admit it! I ate him! It wasn't my faauulltt!"
And then there was silence. After a while Peaches said, "Yes, but that was a long time ago, wasn't it?"
"What? You mean have I eaten anyone lately? No!"
"Are you sorry for what you did?"
"Sorry? What do you think? Sometimes I have nightmares where I burp and he..."
"Then that's probably all right," said the little rat.
"All right?" said Maurice. "How can it be all right? And you know the worst part? I'm a cat! Cats don't go round feeling sorry! Or guilty! We never regret anything! Do you know what it feels like?"
Yes, I am officially insane.
"All right! I ate him, OK? All of him! Except for the tail and the green wobbly bit and that nasty purple lump, no-one knows what it is! I was just a cat! I hadn't learned to think yet! I didn't know! I was hungry! Cats eat rats, that how it goes! It wasn't my fault! And he'd been eating the magic stuff and I ate him so then I got Changed too! Know how that feels, seeing the green wobbly bit like that? It doesn't feel good! Sometimes on dark nights I think I can hear him talking down there! All right? Satisfied? I didn't know he was anyone! I didn't know I was anyone! I ate him! I admit it! I ate him! It wasn't my faauulltt!"
And then there was silence. After a while Peaches said, "Yes, but that was a long time ago, wasn't it?"
"What? You mean have I eaten anyone lately? No!"
"Are you sorry for what you did?"
"Sorry? What do you think? Sometimes I have nightmares where I burp and he..."
"Then that's probably all right," said the little rat.
"All right?" said Maurice. "How can it be all right? And you know the worst part? I'm a cat! Cats don't go round feeling sorry! Or guilty! We never regret anything! Do you know what it feels like?"
Yes, I am officially insane.
