Milo had to roll his eyes with a grin, she sounded so motherly already, a hyperactive one, but a mother nonetheless. Odd? Boy did he know that about people. And geeze, there was that feeling again, a feeling of familiarity, but not quite. Shrugging it off mentally Milo nodded to his guardians. “ok back quick.� And ran off down the nearest alley. She should be around here somewhere.
After going down a few more alleyways and asking the odd rat if they’ve seen her about he arrived at her nest, well sort of, it was in the building but the entrance/exit led to this alleyway so she should hear him.
“Screech! Screech! Where you?� He hissed crouching low to the ground and rummaged in the bins for her with no luck.
�Streeeeetz!� A shrill voice squeaked quite literally as a rodent form darted at top speed from the building and climbed up his trouser leg to sit on his right shoulder kissing his face affectionately before the boy could react. Laughing, he stroked her chin with his finger, which was grabbed by the rat’s little hands and licked enthusiastically.
Why Streeetz here? Streeetz not here light-sky. Streeetz here dark-sky. Why Streeetz here light-sky? The agouti rat chirped in supersonic rat-speak stopping the finger bath she gave the boy then tickled his ear with her whiskers by stuffing her head in his hat, ran to his other shoulder and back then diving down his top, her tail smacking Milo in the face before she turned around and climbed back out and perched herself on his left shoulder again cleaning her own face with her little hands.
“Been adopted.� Milo replied leaning against the wall, folding his arms with a small smile, not sure if she had understood he added in rat. “Going away. Got family.�
Screech hopped to his folded arms and looked up at him with her big black eyes that seem to well with tears.
Streeetz gone? Not here with Screeech? Screeech alone? Her voice was filled with emotion, her ears fell with despair. The bright-eyed, hyper rodent was sitting still, her little hands leaning on his chin, her black eyes gazing into his. Man, she can really make a guy feel guilty.
“No! Screech coming. Screech family too. Does Screech wanna come with Streetz?� Before the sentence of squeaks had finished Screech had leapt for joy, kissed his cheek and dived down his body, head first, to her hole to probably tell her pack that she was leaving and in a second had ran back and was now happily perched back on his shoulder, making joyful chirping noises in supersonic sound.
Family have home where? She asked curiously.
“Don’t know-, travelling uh, gypsy family.� He roughly translated, slipping back into rat, she understood some ‘human’ words and gypsy in rat really meant travelling. Sometimes she remembered that the ‘human’ word travelling meant that in rat, but she had a short attention span and it needed to be repeated several times before she would remember it or get bored.
Screeech gypsy rat! She squealed excitedly, which was an easy task to accomplish, and bounced about making Milo stand up and laugh.
“Screech hafta hide.� He said firmly in ‘human’. Milo had made sure she knew her name spoken in ‘human’ and the word hide, making it easier in crowds to tell her if it’s safe to come out. Squeaking wasn’t really an option at times.
A disappointed ‘awww’ was given to the command, but she complied and climbed into a large pocket without too much of a fuss, the only problem being was that normal humans couldn’t hear supersonic sounds so Screech allowed herself to chatter away to Milo as he walked back to his guardians.
“Back.� He said finding them, his hand in the pocket the rat was in to prevent her from peeking out as she would likely do out of curiosity and risk being seen, for that he received a few curse words that he would’ve be nipped for using in her presence.
Typical.
