Tunnel Rat

Tweedle and Ringtail wandered into the mess hall whistling and looking innocent which immediately put Master Bleusnout on alert. They were dressed in the normal work clothes of mushroom hunters and he saw no knives or other sneaky gear on them. He pointed with a large wooden spoon at them from where he was mixing up Puffball Pancakes. The two immediately stopped moving and the whistling slowly died away.

"And just what are you two up to now?

"Us? Or do you mean those two people there by the window?"

"Must be them, we've done nothing..."

"...this time."

"He means 'all the time'. "

"We heard about the pancakes!"

"Yummy, Yummy!"

The spoon didn't waver, causing the two not-sneaky-guys to be worried. That spoon could do amazing things at distances that always surprised them. Bleusnout let them sweat for a bit, and then lowered the spoon. "If you are here just to eat, then I suppose I'll let do that. But no sneaky stuff, and no playing surprise. You two riled Larry up enough as it is. He's outside now, starving from all that extra exercise he got."

"He is? Oh my"

"We feel terrible about that."

"Can we help? Only fair that if we caused a problem..."

"...That we help solve it."

"That's us being responsible."

"Like it says in the book about Villages and Cheese and stuff."

"We'll take him his food."

"Tallsqueak told us he likes that."

"And we need to hear the rest of the stories..."

"The ones where he doesn't chase us."

"That was scary...."

"So very scary! Made us reconsider our life paths."

"How lucky we are to see a new path opening up....

"...a path with Puffcakes and our new best friend Larry."

Both of the twins shuffled their feet as they bowed their heads, clasped their hands and tried to make their sad eyes as big as possible.

The Master of Cheese eyed them, then said, "Well, stranger things have happened than you two getting scared into behaving. We'll give it a try. I can always chop you up for mushroom compost if you are up to something no good." He made up three plates, one of which had a quadruple helping of puffcakes and extra syrup. Tweedle grabbed the large plate and his brother managed the other two. They carefully walked to the other door, smiling at everyone as they went by.

Larry saw them coming, but didn't understand. That was Larry's plate and Larry's food because only Larry got such a big plate. But the people bringing it weren't Tallsqueak or Bleusnout. They were sneaky guys! Larry could smell them!

As Tweedle and Ringtail started out the door, Larry growled, deep in his throat. The sound echoed through the Hollow. Everyone in the mess hall heard it, and went very still. "Sneaky guys can't fool Larry! Larry's nose knows who you are." This wasn't something either Tweedle or Ringtail had expected. Luckily, they rarely made complex plans and went through life improvising.

"You have a good nose Larry!"

"A very smart nose."

"So smart, that we gave up being sneaky."

"Too much work."

"Tallsqueak always catches us!"

"Bleusnout always catches us!"

"Larry's nose always catches us!"

"And we don't hear the end of the stories."

"End of story is the best part."

"We are so sad to not hear all of the stories Larry tells."

"We just want to sit with Larry,

"And eat Puffcakes,

"And hear stories!

Larry looked at the two of them with suspicious eyes, and sniffed. Larry smelled puffcakes with syrup, cookies, and something else that was fruity-sweet. He was curious what that was. "What do not-sneaky guys have in their pockets?"

"Pockets? Yes, Pockets. Good stuff."

"How about we set down your food..."

"...and you can eat, and we show you pocket stuff!"

Larry's stomach was very growly. Larry reached for his big plate and took a bite. Bleusnout had told him they were having Puffcakes today. Larry had never had them before.

"Puffcakes are so good. Bleusnout says Larry's friend Tallsqueak found special mushrooms to make them."

Tweedle and Ringtail looked at each other.

"Tallsqueak wants us to help him with some chores."

"Special chores."

"Grandfather said we might even find more Puffy Mushrooms to make Puffcakes."

"This is a thing good guys do."

"Helping friends. We are very helpful."

Tweedle and Ringtail pulled all the items out of their pockets. Sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, shortbread, and jelly beans. The jelly beans had been particularly troublesome to get and Aunt Agatha was going to be cross and probably blame cousin Petey because he always stole her sweets. And Petey would come play 'surprise' with them, the version where he twisted their legs into new shapes. Petey always blamed them when he got in trouble for stuff he didn't do. And usually, he was right. But that was tomorrow's problem. Today, they had a bag of jelly beans to share.

"Grandfather and Tallsqueak said you liked cookies."

"And everyone likes jelly beans."

"Especially heroes."

"Because jelly beans are good hero food."

Larry tried a jelly bean and his eyes got wide. "Not-sneaky guys are right. Jelly beans are hero food."

Tweedle began to divide the jelly beans up.

"One for Me and one for Larry."

"One for Ringtail and one for Larry."

"One for Larry and one for Larry."

"One for Me and one for Larry."......

Larry liked the new way of sharing. He ate his share, but saved one of each color for his new friends at home, and a red one for Tallsqueak.

Larry looked over at Ringtail. "It is good that you are not sneaky guys anymore. Larry almost caught you today. Larry got more blue boxes from dancing. Larry will catch you tomorrow if you are sneaky. You should promise to not be sneaky guys."

Ringtail was more nervous than he had been a moment ago. "Oh, really? That's good, right? What did the Blue Boxes say, Larry?"

"Blue Boxes told Larry that he is now Rank 11 in Dancing. And Blue Boxes said Larry had learned new skill: Chase Prey. Larry is getting faster. Weasel slippers help and dancing helps. Agility 10 helps."

Tweedle wished he had agility 10! Even with several skills using agility, he was only at 8. Sheer terror at the realization that he and his brother had been chased by a Tier 3 cheese fiend warred with wanting agility 10. "Can you teach us to dance Larry? Dancing sounds like fun."

Larry considered the question. Tweedle and Ringtail didn't have Weasel Slippers to help them dance, but neither did Tallsqueak, and Tallsqueak was a good dancer. Not as good as Larry, but still good. Maybe Larry could teach them too!

"Larry will try. Hamster Hopping is fun, but it can make your feet go all twisty and you fall a lot. When you fall, you get back up."

Bleusnout came out a few minutes later to retrieve his plates and see if Larry had eaten the two idiots. He was astonished to see Larry patiently teaching the tricky parts of the Happy Hamster Hop. He went back inside and set aside a large stack of Puffcakes to save for the three new friends dancing outside the mess hall.