I was a Rat or the Scarlet Slippers by Philip Pullman

I was a Rat or the Scarlet Slippers is a classic book. I was sure I had talked about it previously here. It is a book I regularly recommended as a class read aloud for Grade 4 or 5. 

Publisher blurb: Standing in the moonlight was a little boy in a page's uniform . . . 'Bless my soul'! said Bob. 'Who are you?' When a small boy turns up on the doorstep of old Bob the cobbler and Joan the washerwoman, all he can tell them is 'I was a rat!'. But who is he really, and where has he come from? A wonderful, funny, surprising and sharply-observed re-telling of Cinderella.

I first read this book back when it was published in 1999. I am happy to report it is still in print and in paperback and available for a reasonable price too. Oddly there was so much of the plot I had forgotten. Some of the scenes are actually quite confronting.

Here are a few text quotes to give you an idea of this book:

"Standing in the moonlight was a little boy in a page's uniform. It had once been smart, but it was sorely torn and stained, and the boy's face was scratched and grubby."

"Joan came to the table with a bowl of warm bread and milk. She put it in front of the boy and without a second's pause he put his face right down into the bowl and began to guzzle it up directly, his dirty little hands gripping the edge of the table."

"The poor little boy was an orphan, and grief had turned his mind, and he'd wandered away from the orphanage he must have been living in."

"As soon as he saw the pencils, he fell in love with them. His whole heart longed for them. So while the lady and Bob and Joan leant across the desk talking, Roger's hand crept off his lap and slowly, carefully, over to the jar. ... (eventually) they all turned to Roger. He looked up, pleased to be noticed, but a little guilty too. The stump of the pencil was just sticking out of his mouth, and he quickly sucked it inside and pressed his lips together; but the lead had marked his mouth, and there were little flecks of red paint all round it too."

Bob and Joan take the little boy, now named Roger, to the council, to the orphanage, to the police, and to the hospital but no one seems able to help and no one has reported a missing boy. The hospital advise sending the little boy to school but that is a disaster. Roger has no pencil so the teacher makes him stand in the corner. Then when she threatens to strike him he bites her hand. Roger is taken to the headmaster.

"No one had ever heard a scream like that. When a boy went to be caned, he tried as hard as he could to make no noise at all, and some of the toughest ones managed to stop themselves from even whimpering ... But not even the most babyish victim would have screamed as long and as wildly as Roger was screaming."

Roger is so frightened he runs away. Luckily the police catch him after he knocks into a stall at the market, and he is taken back to Bob and Joan. Rumours about this strange boy begin to circulate and he comes to the attention of the Philosopher Royal. He tells Bob and Joan Jones that he will take the boy to the palace so he can study him further. This pompous man bamboozles the cobbler and his wife so they agree to let Roger go just for the day with the promise he will return in the evening but once again Roger is terrified this time by a cat and so he escapes back into the city. 

At this point the story becomes quite sinister. Roger is taken by a man who displays curiosities. Usually his exhibits are fakes but Roger keeps insisting he was a rat and so the man named Mr Tapscrew sets up a horrible cage and puts Roger into a dirty rat costume and then puts him on display. 

"We still need a bit more filth and squalor. It looks almost respectable in there. We need mud and rotten vegetables. We need dung, really, but there's a limit to what the public will stand, more's the pity ... We'll have a feeding time, every hour on the hour."

(Language warning) "Oh, shut up, you sanctimonious little mumper! Just remember - snarl and snatch and threaten. Else I'll pull your bloody nose off. Now the next lot of punters'll be in any minute, and I want 'em horrified and disgusted. ... He kicked Roger for good measure, and went out."

Then Roger comes to the attention of a thief rather like Fagan from Oliver Twist. He takes Roger away from the fair and puts him to work with his gang of house thieves. Of course all of this is very confusing for Roger and things go badly wrong with the burglary when Roger is left in the kitchen with all of the food - dried spaghetti, figs, cream crackers, dried beans, and lastly some chillies. The water has been turned off and Roger's throat is on fire so he plunges his head into a large barrel. It is water but when the water meets dried food it is another disaster.

"Something strange was happening inside him. He staggered slightly on the ground and listened to his stomach. All kinds of bubblings and gurglings and swooshings and bubblings were taking place, as the cascade of water met the dried beans and the rice and sloshed about among the bits of spaghetti."

The police arrive to catch the thieves, Roger bites the police man and fees again. This time into the sewers underneath the market place. Then the really serious and dangerous rumours begin about a dangerous rat boy - half human half rat. A reward is offered for his capture and Roger find himself in jail - naked and afraid. 

How can this story have a happy ending? Why does Roger keep saying 'I was a rat?'  There are clues along the way in the form of newspaper articles about a ball and a girl and a prince and slippers and midnight - perhaps you can put this puzzle together.

You migth like to look for the audio book of I was a Rat read by the terrific actor Robert Glenister. This book was first published in 1999 but it is still available in paperback for a good price. Philip Pullman is a famous UK Author - read more on his web site.