A Plague of Rats

The rats did not descend on Hamelin all at once. They started small and multiplied over a period of decades. At last, they famously ate everything that didn't move and most things that did. Larders were ravaged, crops were savaged, and every imaginable food source was subjected to something that rhymed with "avage." After a particularly rough eight years, the people of Hamelin had had enough. They turned loose the cats.

The cats had been champing at their bits to get at the rats, and there were two odd things about that. The first is that most people reserved bits for horses. That Hamelin put bits on cats is perhaps a clue to the second odd thing: the people were ambivalent about the rats. Some of them thought the rats were an excellent clean-up crew and hated to lose that service, even at the cost of losing everything else instead. Some of them didn't trust the cats and thought they needed the rats to keep the cats in check. Some of them were so much like rats themselves, that they hated to harm the creatures. A good third of the people thought that the sole source of sunshine was rats' anuses.

Eventually, however, the cats were unbitted and freed to go after the rats. They soon reduced the rat population to manageable levels, although they were not, of course, able to magic all the rats away into the river. Where did that idea come from, anyway?

The people were ecstatic. They danced around singing things like "Ding, dong the rats are dead" and "Yes, we can" and so on. And cats were very popular until, after about a month's time, someone noticed something.

"Hey," said the someone. "We still don't have any food."

A small snout emerged from a secure hole. "It's the cats' fault," said the snout.

"Damn cats!" cried someone else. "Where's the food they promised us?"

"Well, actually," said another townsperson, "we have to do some re-planting and re-stocking and stuff like that. It's going to take years to recover from the Rat Plague. Food doesn't grow on trees, you know. Ok, bad choice of sayings."

But no one was listening to "it's going to take years" talk. Humans never do.

"Right! Out with the bits!" cried the citizens of Hamelin.

"Beg pardon?" inquired the cats. "What's going on here? Hey, those aren't for us, are they?"

But they were.

"What did we do wrong?" protested the cats. "If you do that, you're just going to get more rats mmmfff, mmmfff."

"The cats are right, you know," said the one sane human.

"We got a bit for you, too, if you don't shut up," explained his brethren kindly. "The cats didn't fix everything. Our only choice is to invite the rats back."