Now it was Prue and Curtis’s chance to be confused. “What?” they asked simultaneously.
“I’m getting beer. For the bar.” When this didn’t seem to satisfy his interrogators, he tried another angle. “Listen, I’m new. Started, like, a week ago. So if you guys are, like, messing with me …” Something seemed to occur to him; a bright recognition had descended over his face. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Were you kids on one of those, like, Shanghai Tunnel tours? Did you guys get separated?”
Curtis was still aghast; Prue made quick sense of their predicament. “Yeah,” she responded. “Sorry. Just a little confused. Did you see where the rest of the group went?” There was a tunnel system that ran under the oldest part of Portland; everyone called it the Shanghai Tunnels. Prue had gone on a tour of these tunnels with her parents last year; they’d taken the ghost-themed tour, and the guide, a curly-haired, mustachioed guy, had really laid it on thick about the spirits that haunted these subterranean passageways. Supposedly, the tunnels had been used to abduct drunken sailors, who would wake up from their drugged unconsciousness far out to sea on a clipper bound for the West Indies. That was the tale, anyway. In retrospect, that tour guide, with all his stories of trapdoors and revenge-seeking poltergeists, didn’t know the half of it.
“Man, I don’t know. I just got here. You can head up topside with me if you’d like. Though you’re gonna be too young to be in the bar.” Seeing Septimus, he added, “And we have a pretty strict no-pets rule.”
“I’m not a pet,” said Septimus.
The man blanched. “What?” he asked, very confused.
Curtis gave his shoulder a jerk in an attempt to admonish the rat. He then responded to the man’s question, saying, “I said, I’ll bet. As in: I’ll bet we won’t be let in.”
The man seemed unsatisfied with the explanation, but he evidently preferred it to having witnessed a talking rat. “I think we could find you another way out, if you’d like,” he said.
Prue glanced down at the architect’s green electrical cable on the floor; it stretched out into the distance, through another tunnel opening just beyond where the young man stood. “Nah,” she said. “We’ll find them down here somewhere.”
“Cool,” said the man. He looked over at Curtis. “Nice jacket, by the way. Where’d you get it?”
Curtis looked down; covered in a solid layer of dust and dirt was his military uniform, all brocaded cuffs and gold epaulets. He couldn’t really think of another answer: “From some bandits,” he replied.
The young man didn’t seem to bat an eyelash. “Oh,” he said. “Cool.” And then he was gone, his whistling resuming as he plodded his way up the rickety stairs to the above-ground.
“Septimus,” said Curtis when they were alone again. “You can’t do that.”
“What?” asked the rat.
“Talk. While we’re in the Outside. It’s just too … complicated.”
The rat harrumphed. “What am I supposed to say?”
Curtis thought about it for a second. “I don’t know. Squeak or something.”
“Squeak?” repeated the rat. “I’m not a squeaker.”
Prue put in, “Then keep your mouth shut. Whatever. We can’t be raising suspicions here.”
“Got it,” said the rat. “Squeak.”
Curtis put his hand against one of the brick walls of the tunnel, feeling the chill of the rough surface. “So I’m guessing we’re in Old Town, huh? Weird.”
“I know,” responded Prue. “Culture shock.”
“And these tunnels that we’ve been following—they connect with the Shanghai Tunnels?”
“It would appear that way.”
“I thought those tunnels were a hoax. Like, a touristy thing.”
Prue shrugged. “I thought so too. Maybe they still are. Obviously, people don’t know where they really lead. I guess folks just never thought to explore the tunnels farther.”
“I wonder if the Periphery…”
“I was wondering the same thing. If it protects the tunnels, too.”
“It’d be a shame if people figured it out.”
“Yeah,” said Prue. “Let’s keep this one a secret, how about that?”