Rat Catchers

Pictures

Chapter Text

The gang held a crisis meeting over two pilfered cigarettes and half a packet of stolen biscuits under their preferred canal bridge.
Rose had relayed all the information she had, which was barely anything and there was some serious wrecking of brains to be done about what to do next.

"You know what," Billy said suddenly. "Your uncle Finn was round the pub the other day, to give my da a picture to show round."

"What picture?" Rose asked.

"Dunno," Billy admitted. "But he'll have it in the drawer under the counter, I'm sure."

"Can you get a hold of it?" James asked excitedly. There was nothing James loved better than a bit of a secret mission.

"I'll try." Billy took a long drag of the cigarette, careful not to cough. "We're getting deliveries the day, he'll be busy then..."

"Could you really?" Rose could have hugged him.

"Def'nite." Billy nodded solemnly. "Might not have anything to do with this but."

"Sure it does," Alice said with absolute authority.

"Did your da not tell you anything else?" Helen asked Rose.

"Nothing."

"How're you supposed to be careful if you don't even know who to be careful of?" Helen shook her head at the general imbecility of grown-ups.

"Right?" Rose took the last drag of the cigarette and chucked it into the water.

"You know what we should do?" James' face lit up with sudden inspiration. "We should arm ourselves."

The rest of the gang cocked their heads at him.

"If we can get...anything really...knives and pokers and broken bottles and we hide them all 'round the place, we'll be ready to defend ourselves if they come after us."

"Come off it..." Rose scoffed.

"I'm serious." James glared at her, clearly annoyed at her lack of enthusiasm. "Think about it, Rosie. If someone comes after you and we've got a stash of weapons on every other street, we'll be able to fend them off maybe. They won't expect it. Element of surprise, right?"

"That's either brilliant or really fucking daft," said Alice.

"Can't hurt either way," James insisted. "If we never need it, fine, but at least we'll be doing something."

He had a point, Rose had to concede. Anything would be better than sitting round doing nothing.

"Right then," she said.

"Right." James looked like he might punch the air in victory. "Meet back here in one hour with anything at all that we can use."

"I'll be longer," Billy said. "Deliveries."

"Grand, of course," James said generously.

Rose, Helen and Alice rolled their eyes a little, but set off to start gathering weaponry.

#

Rose opened the door quietly and listened out for any signs of life in the house. The coast seemed clear. Frances had finally caved in the face of Charlie's cabin fever and took him for a walk of the neighbourhood each day.
Rose went upstairs and found a bag of soldiers hanging on her brother's bedpost. She dumped them unceremoniously onto the floor and took the bag down into the kitchen.

Upon close examination of the drawer's contents she selected three serrated knives and one medium sized cleaver, a relic of the days when her aunt Polly would decapitate chickens herself. She collected two empty bottles, one gin and one whiskey, as well as two pristine books of matches.