The Deptford Mice 3: The Final Reckoning by Robin Jarvis

indeed,’ she announced. ‘I have come from Greenwich to have an audience with the bats who live in the attic here. They will be able to tell me all I need to know and together we may come up with a solution.’ She paused. Everyone was groaning with despair. The Starwife pounded her stick impatiently, ‘What is wrong?’ she demanded.
    ‘The bats have gone,’ Gwen replied. ‘They abandoned us two nights ago! I do not think there is a single one left in Deptford.’
    The Starwife stared at her as though she were mad, ‘Then we are lost,’ she murmured, ‘without their aid all shall perish.’ Her last hope was crushed and she bowed her head in defeat.
    The Raddle sisters began to weep and several others joined them. Audrey wondered what would happen. Jupiter would surely seek her out and get his revenge. To her astonishment she did not feel afraid and she found herself scowling rather than crying. It was a strange mood which she did not understand. She felt that her fate was bound up with that of Jupiter and curiously enough with that of the Starwife also. She looked at the squirrel seated before her and felt very sorry for her. Whatever hatred she once had for the creature was swept away by a need to ease her cares.
    Audrey knelt down and took hold of the Starwife’s paws. ‘Don’tworry,’ she said, ‘something will happen. Trust in the Green Mouse – that’s what my father always used to say.’
    The Starwife looked at her with those milky eyes and stroked her hair. ‘Child,’ she said, ‘it is winter and the Green Mouse sleeps. Only when spring comes will he awake,’ she shook her head sorrowfully, ‘and I do not think spring will ever come again.’
    ‘You don’t know that,’ Audrey insisted, ‘only the bats know now what will happen. If only we could get a message to them, I’m sure they’d help.’
    At her words the squirrel’s ears quivered and she sat bolt upright on the stool. ‘Of course,’ she cried clapping her paws together excitedly, ‘you excellent child. Where were my wits? I am too old for this, my time is truly over if I cannot remember squirrel history. Triton, help me to my feet at once. There is little time.’
    ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Audrey.
    ‘I shall summon the bats,’ declared the Starwife exultantly. ‘I am forgetting much. A beacon fire was used to call them very long ago when our colony at Greenwich was in its direst need. The bats came then – let us pray it works a second time.’ She glared round at all the confused mice and barked out her orders. ‘You over there, stop standing like a dummy and fetch some wood – you, go find some rope – you, just get out of my sight I don’t like your face.’
    The rest of the morning was spent constructing the beacon fire. This was not as easy as it sounded because the Starwife ordered that it should be built on the roof. Arthur and Thomas Triton climbed up inside the wall cavity and hopped along the rafters to where Arthur had once spoken with Orfeo and Eldritch – the place seemed empty without them. The two mice clambered up the fallen beams and crawled out of the hole in the roof. It was terribly cold and windy up there but somehow they managed to build a small platform out of broken slates and blocks of wood.
    They lowered a rope down the wall cavity to where Algy Coltfoot was waiting with bundles of collected twigs. He tied them to the end and gave it two sharp tugs, the rope and the twigs jerked upwards and disappeared into the darkness. When several of these bundles had been hauled up, Thomas and Arthur sat with their backs against the chimneys puffing and rubbing their chaffed paws.
    From out of the cavity hole the face of Master Oldnose appeared. He cleared his throat and told them that the Starwife was getting impatient in the Hall and wanted to come up. Thomas was amused. There was no way the old squirrel could climb up to the attic and he thought Master Oldnose was pulling his leg until a